labour, and capital. Since, therefore, land, labour, and capital
are essential to the production of wealth, it is natural to suppose
that the wealth which is produced ought to be possessed by those
who own the land, labour, and capital which have respectively
contributed to its production. The share of wealth which is thus
allotted to the possessor of the land is termed rent; the portion
allotted to the labourer is termed wages, and the remuneration
of the capitalist is termed profit.
You observe that in this very meritoriously clear sentence both the
possessor of the land and the possessor of the capital are assumed
to be absolutely idle persons. If they contributed any labour to the
business, and so confused themselves with the labourer, the problem of
triple division would become complicated directly;--in point of fact,
they do occasionally employ themselves somewhat, and become deserving,
therefore, of a share, not of rent only, nor of profit only, but of
wages also. And every now and then, as I noted in my last letter,
there is an outburst of admiration in some one of the ninety-two
newspapers, at the amount of "work" done by persons of the superior
classes; respecting which, however, you remember that I also advised
you that a great deal of it was only a form of competitive play. In
the main, therefore, the statement of the Cambridge Professor may be
admitted to be correct as to the existing facts; the Holders of land
and capital being virtually in a state of Dignified Repose, as the
Labourer is in a state of--(at least, I hear it always so announced
in the ninety-two newspapers)--Dignified Labour.
But Professor Fawcett's sentence, though, as I have just said, in
comparison with most writings on the subject, meritoriously clear,
yet is not as clear as it might be,--still less as scientific as it
might be. It is, indeed, gracefully ornamental, in the use, in its last
clause, of the three words, "share," "portion," and "remuneration," for
the same thing; but this is not the clearest imaginable language. The
sentence, strictly put, should run thus:--"The portion of wealth
which is thus allotted to the possessor of the land is termed rent;
the portion allotted to the labourer is termed wages; and the portion
allotted to the capitalist is termed profit."
And you may at once see the advantage of reducing the sentence to these
more simple terms; for Professor Fawcett's ornamental language has this
danger in it, that "Remuneration," being so much grander a word than
"Portion," in the very roll of it seems to imply rather a thousand
pounds a day than three-and-sixpence. And until there be scientific
reason shown for anticipating the portions to be thus disproportioned,
we have no right to suggest their being so, by ornamental variety
of language.
Again, Professor Fawcett's sentence is, I said, not entirely
scientific. He founds the entire principle of allotment on the
phrase "it is natural to suppose." But I never heard of any other
science founded on what it was natural to suppose. Do the Cambridge
mathematicians, then, in these advanced days, tell their pupils that
it is natural to suppose the three angles of a triangle are equal
to two right ones? Nay, in the present case, I regret to say it has
sometimes been thought wholly unnatural to suppose any such thing; and
so exceedingly unnatural, that to receive either a "remuneration,"
or a "portion," or a "share," for the loan of anything, without
personally working, was held by Dante and other such simple persons
in the middle ages to be one of the worst of the sins that could be
committed against nature: and the receivers of such interest were
put in the same circle of Hell with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And it is greatly to be apprehended that if ever our workmen, under
the influences of Mr. Scott and Mr. Street, come indeed to admire the
Abbot's Chapel at Furness more than the railroad station, they may
become possessed of a taste for Gothic opinions as well as Gothic
arches, and think it "natural to suppose" that a workman's tools
should be his own property.
Which I, myself, having been always given to Gothic opinions, do
indeed suppose, very strongly; and intend to try with all my might
to bring about that arrangement wherever I have any influence;--the
arrangement itself being feasible enough, if we can only begin by
not leaving our pickaxes behind us after taking Sabbatical refreshment.
But let me again, and yet again, warn you, that only by beginning
so,--that is to say, by doing what is in your own power to achieve of
plain right,--can you ever bring about any of your wishes; or, indeed,
can you, to any practical purpose, begin to wish. Only by quiet and
decent exaltation of your own habits can you qualify yourselves to
discern what is just, or to define even what is possible. I hear you
are, at last, beginning to draw up your wishes in a definite manner; (I
challenged you to do so, in 'Time and Tide,' four years ago, in vain),
and you mean to have them at last "represented in Parliament;" but
I hear of small question yet among you, whether they be just wishes,
and can be represented to the power of everlasting Justice, as things
not only natural to be supposed, but necessary to be done. For she
accepts no representation of things in beautiful language, but takes
her own view of them, with her own eyes.
I did, indeed, cut out a slip from the 'Birmingham Morning News,' last
September, (12th,) containing a letter written by a gentleman signing
himself "Justice" in person, and professing himself an engineer,
who talked very grandly about the "individual and social laws of our
nature:" but he had arrived at the inconvenient conclusions that "no
individual has a natural right to hold property in land," and that
"all land sooner or later must become public property." I call this
an inconvenient conclusion, because I really think you would find
yourselves greatly inconvenienced if your wives couldn't go into
the garden to cut a cabbage, without getting leave from the Lord
Mayor and Corporation; and if the same principle is to be carried
out as regards tools, I beg to state to Mr. Justice-in-Person,
that if anybody and everybody is to use my own particular palette
and brushes, I resign my office of Professor of Fine Art. Perhaps,
when we become really acquainted with the true Justice in Person, not
professing herself an engineer, she may suggest to us, as a Natural
Supposition,--"That land should be given to those who can use it,
and tools to those who can use them;" and I have a notion you will
find this a very tenable supposition also.
I have given you, this month, the last of the pictures I want you
to see from Padua;--Giotto's Image of Justice--which, you observe,
differs somewhat from the Image of Justice we used to set up in
England, above insurance offices, and the like. Bandaged close about
the eyes, our English Justice was wont to be, with a pair of grocers'
scales in her hand, wherewith, doubtless, she was accustomed to weigh
out accurately their shares to the landlords, and portions to the
labourers, and remunerations to the capitalists. But Giotto's Justice
has no bandage about her eyes, (Albert Durer's has them round open,
and flames flashing from them,) and weighs, not with scales, but with
her own hands; and weighs not merely the shares, or remunerations
of men, but the worth of them; and finding them worth this or that,
gives them what they deserve--death, or honour. Those are her forms of
"Remuneration."
Are you sure that you are ready to accept the decrees of this true
goddess, and to be chastised or rewarded by her, as is your due,
being seen through and through to your hearts' core? Or will you
still abide by the level balance of the blind Justice of old time;
or rather, by the oblique balance of the squinting Justice of our
modern geological Mud-Period?--the mud, at present, becoming also more
slippery under the feet--I beg pardon, the belly--of squinting Justice,
than was once expected; becoming, indeed, (as it is announced, even
by Mr. W. P. Price, M.P., chairman at the last half-yearly meeting
of the Midland Railway Company,) quite "delicate ground."
The said chairman, you will find, by referring to the 'Pall Mall
Gazette' of August 17th, 1871, having received a letter from Mr. Bass
on the subject of the length of time that the servants of the company
were engaged in labour, and their inadequate remuneration, made the
following remarks:--"He (Mr. Bass) is treading on very delicate
ground. The remuneration of labour, the value of which, like the
value of gold itself, depends altogether on the one great universal
law of supply and demand, is a question on which there is very little
room for sentiment. He, as a very successful tradesman, knows very
well how much the success of commercial operations depends on the
observance of that law; and we, sitting here as your representatives,
cannot altogether close our eyes to it."
Now it is quite worth your while to hunt out that number of the
'Pall Mall Gazette' in any of your free libraries, because a quaint
chance in the placing of the type has produced a lateral comment on
these remarks of Mr. W. P. Price, M.P.
Take your carpenter's rule, apply it level under the words,
"Great Universal Law of Supply and Demand," and read the line it
marks off in the other column of the same page. It marks off this,
"In Khorassan one-third of the whole population has perished from
starvation, and at Ispahan no less than 27,000 souls."
Of course you will think it no business of yours if people are
starved in Persia. But the Great "Universal" Law of Supply and Demand
may some day operate in the same manner over here; and even in the
Mud-and-Flat-fish period, John Bull may not like to have his belly
flattened for him to that extent.
You have heard it said occasionally that I am not a practical
person. It may be satisfactory to you to know, on the contrary, that
this whole plan of mine is founded on the very practical notion of
making you round persons instead of flat. Round and merry, instead
of flat and sulky. And my beau-ideal is not taken from "a mechanical
point of view," but is one already realized. I saw last summer, in
the flesh, as round and merry a person as I ever desire to see. He
was tidily dressed--not in brown rags, but in green velveteen; he
wore a jaunty hat, with a feather in it, a little on one side; he
was not drunk, but the effervescence of his shrewd good-humour filled
the room all about him; and he could sing like a robin. You may say
"like a nightingale," if you like, but I think robin's singing the
best, myself; only I hardly ever hear it now, for the young ladies of
England have had nearly all the robins shot, to wear in their hats,
and the bird-stuffers are exporting the few remaining to America.
This merry round person was a Tyrolese peasant; and I hold it an
entirely practical proceeding, since I find my idea of felicity
actually produced in the Tyrol, to set about the production of it,
here, on Tyrolese principles; which, you will find, on inquiry,
have not hitherto implied the employment of steam, nor submission
to the great Universal Law of Supply and Demand, nor even Demand for
the local Supply of a "Liberal" government. But they do imply labour
of all hands on pure earth and in fresh air. They do imply obedience
to government which endeavours to be just, and faith in a religion
which endeavours to be moral. And they result in strength of limbs,
clearness of throats, roundness of waists, and pretty jackets, and
still prettier corsets to fit them.
I must pass, disjointedly, to matters which, in a written letter, would
have been put in a postscript; but I do not care, in a printed one,
to leave a useless gap in the type. First, the reference in page 11 of
last number to the works of Mr. Zion Ward, is incorrect. The passage I
quoted is not in the "Letter to a Friend," price twopence, but in the
"Origin of Evil Discovered," price fourpence. (John Bolton, Steel House
Lane, Birmingham.) And, by the way, I wish that booksellers would save
themselves, and me, some (now steadily enlarging) trouble, by noting
that the price of these Letters to friends of mine, as supplied by
me, the original inditer, to all and sundry, through my only shopman,
Mr. Allen, is sevenpence per epistle, and not fivepence half-penny;
and that the trade profit on the sale of them is intended to be, and
must eventually be, as I intend, a quite honestly confessed profit,
charged to the customer, not compressed out of the author; which
object may be easily achieved by the retail bookseller, if he will
resolvedly charge the symmetrical sum of Tenpence per epistle over his
counter, as it is my purpose he should. But to return to Mr. Ward;
the correction of my reference was sent me by one of his disciples,
in a very earnest and courteous letter, written chiefly to complain
that my quotation totally misrepresented Mr. Ward's opinions. I
regret that it should have done so, but gave the quotation neither
to represent nor misrepresent Mr. Ward's opinions; but to show, which
the sentence, though brief, quite sufficiently shows, that he had no
right to have any.
I have before noted to you, indeed, that, in a broad sense, nobody has
a right to have opinions; but only knowledges: and, in a practical
and large sense, nobody has a right even to make experiments, but
only to act in a way which they certainly know will be productive of
good. And this I ask you to observe again, because I begin now to
receive some earnest inquiries respecting the plan I have in hand,
the inquiries very naturally assuming it to be an "experiment," which
may possibly be successful, and much more possibly may fail. But it
is not an experiment at all. It will be merely the carrying out of
what has been done already in some places, to the best of my narrow
power, in other places: and so far as it can be carried, it must be
productive of some kind of good.
For example; I have round me here at Denmark Hill seven acres of
leasehold ground. I pay £50 a year ground-rent, and £250 a year
in wages to my gardeners; besides expenses in fuel for hothouses,
and the like. And for this sum of three hundred odd pounds a year
I have some pease and strawberries in summer; some camellias and
azaleas in winter; and good cream, and a quiet place to walk in,
all the year round. Of the strawberries, cream, and pease, I eat
more than is good for me; sometimes, of course, obliging my friends
with a superfluous pottle or pint. The camellias and azaleas stand
in the anteroom of my library; and everybody says, when they come in,
"How pretty!" and my young lady friends have leave to gather what they
like to put in their hair, when they are going to balls. Meantime,
outside of my fenced seven acres--owing to the operation of the great
universal law of supply and demand--numbers of people are starving;
many more, dying of too much gin; and many of their children dying
of too little milk; and, as I told you in my first Letter, for my
own part, I won't stand this sort of thing any longer.
Now it is evidently open to me to say to my gardeners, "I want no
more azaleas or camellias; and no more strawberries and pease than are
good for me. Make these seven acres everywhere as productive of good
corn, vegetables, or milk, as you can; I will have no steam used upon
them, for nobody on my ground shall be blown to pieces; nor any fuel
wasted in making plants blossom in winter, for I believe we shall,
without such unseasonable blossoms, enjoy the spring twice as much
as now; but, in any part of the ground that is not good for eatable
vegetables, you are to sow such wild flowers as it seems to like,
and you are to keep all trim and orderly. The produce of the land,
after I have had my limited and salutary portion of pease, shall be
your own; but if you sell any of it, part of the price you get for
it shall be deducted from your wages."
Now observe, there would be no experiment whatever in any one feature
of this proceeding. My gardeners might be stimulated to some extra
exertion by it; but in any event I should retain exactly the same
command over them that I had before. I might save something out of my
£250 of wages, but I should pay no more than I do now, and in return
for the gift of the produce I should certainly be able to exact
compliance from my people with any such capricious fancies of mine
as that they should wear velveteen jackets, or send their children to
learn to sing; and, indeed, I could grind them, generally, under the
iron heel of Despotism, as the ninety-two newspapers would declare,
to an extent unheard of before in this free country. And, assuredly,
some children would get milk, strawberries, and wild flowers who do
not get them now; and my young lady friends would still, I am firm
in my belief, look pretty enough at their balls, even without the
camellias or azaleas.
I am not going to do this with my seven acres here; first, because
they are only leasehold; secondly, because they are too near London
for wild flowers to grow brightly in. But I have bought, instead,
twice as many freehold acres, where wild flowers are growing now, and
shall continue to grow; and there I mean to live: and, with the tenth
part of my available fortune, I will buy other bits of freehold land,
and employ gardeners on them in this above-stated matter. I may as well
tell you at once that my tithe will be, roughly, about seven thousand
pounds altogether, (a little less rather than more). If I get no help,
I can show what I mean, even with this; but if any one cares to help
me with gifts of either money or land, they will find that what they
give is applied honestly, and does a perfectly definite service:
they might, for aught I know, do more good with it in other ways;
but some good in this way--and that is all I assert--they will do,
certainly, and not experimentally. And the longer they take to think
of the matter the better I shall like it, for my work at Oxford is
more than enough for me just now, and I shall not practically bestir
myself in this land-scheme for a year to come, at least; nor then,
except as a rest from my main business: but the money and land will
always be safe in the hands of your trustees for you, and you need not
doubt, though I show no petulant haste about the matter, that I remain
Faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FORS CLAVIGERA.
LETTER XII.
Denmark Hill,
23rd December, 1871.
My Friends,
You will scarcely care to read anything I have to say to you this
evening--having much to think of, wholly pleasant, as I hope; and
prospect of delightful days to come, next week. At least, however, you
will be glad to know that I have really made you the Christmas gift I
promised--£7,000 Consols, in all, clear; a fair tithe of what I had:
and to as much perpetuity as the law will allow me. It will not allow
the dead to have their own way, long, whatever licence it grants the
living in their humours: and this seems to me unkind to those helpless
ones;--very certainly it is inexpedient for the survivors. For the
wisest men are wise to the full in death; and if you would give them,
instead of stately tombs, only so much honour as to do their will,
when they themselves can no more contend for it, you would find it
good memorial of them, such as the best of them would desire, and
full of blessing to all men for all time.
English law needs mending in many respects; in none more than in
this. As it stands, I can only vest my gift in trustees, desiring them,
in the case of my death, immediately to appoint their own successors,
and in such continued succession, to apply the proceeds of the
St. George's Fund to the purchase of land in England and Scotland,
which shall be cultivated to the utmost attainable fruitfulness and
beauty by the labour of man and beast thereon, such men and beasts
receiving at the same time the best education attainable by the
trustees for labouring creatures, according to the terms stated in
this book, Fors Clavigera.
These terms, and the arrangement of the whole matter, will become
clearer to you as you read on with me, and cannot be clear at all,
till you do;--here is the money, at any rate, to help you, one day,
to make merry with, only, if you care to give me any thanks, will you
pause now for a moment from your merrymaking, to tell me,--to whom,
as Fortune has ordered it, no merrymaking is possible at this time,
(nor, indeed, much at any time;)--to me, therefore, standing as it were
astonished in the midst of this gaiety of yours, will you tell--what
it is all about?
Your little children would answer, doubtless, fearlessly, "Because
the Child Christ was born to-day:" but you, wiser than your children,
it may be,--at least, it should be,--are you also sure that He was?
And if He was, what is that to you?
I repeat, are you indeed sure He was? I mean, with real happening
of the strange things you have been told, that the Heavens opened
near Him, showing their hosts, and that one of their stars stood
still over His head? You are sure of that, you say? I am glad; and
wish it were so with me; but I have been so puzzled lately by many
matters that once seemed clear to me, that I seldom now feel sure
of anything. Still seldomer, however, do I feel sure of the contrary
of anything. That people say they saw it, may not prove that it was
visible; but that I never saw it cannot prove that it was invisible:
and this is a story which I more envy the people who believe on the
weakest grounds, than who deny on the strongest. The people whom I
envy not at all are those who imagine they believe it, and do not.
For one of two things this story of the Nativity is certainly, and
without any manner of doubt. It relates either a fact full of power, or
a dream full of meaning. It is, at the least, not a cunningly devised
fable, but the record of an impression made, by some strange spiritual
cause, on the minds of the human race, at the most critical period
of their existence;--an impression which has produced, in past ages,
the greatest effect on mankind ever yet achieved by an intellectual
conception; and which is yet to guide, by the determination of its
truth or falsehood, the absolute destiny of ages to come.
Will you give some little time therefore, to think of it with
me to-day, being, as you tell me, sure of its truth? What, then,
let me ask you, is its truth to you? The Child for whose birth you
are rejoicing was born, you are told, to save His people from their
sins; but I have never noticed that you were particularly conscious
of any sins to be saved from. If I were to tax you with any one in
particular--lying, or thieving, or the like--my belief is you would
say directly I had no business to do anything of the kind.
Nay, but, you may perhaps answer me--"That is because we have been
saved from our sins; and we are making merry, because we are so
perfectly good."
Well; there would be some reason in such an answer. There is much
goodness in you to be thankful for: far more than you know, or have
learned to trust. Still, I don't believe you will tell me seriously
that you eat your pudding and go to your pantomimes only to express
your satisfaction that you are so very good.
What is, or may be, this Nativity, to you, then, I repeat? Shall
we consider, a little, what, at all events, it was to the people of
its time; and so make ourselves more clear as to what it might be to
us? We will read slowly.
"And there were, in that country, shepherds, staying out in the field,
keeping watch over their flocks by night."
Watching night and day, that means; not going home. The staying out
in the field is the translation of a word from which a Greek nymph
has her name Agraulos, "the stayer out in fields," of whom I shall
have something to tell you, soon.
"And behold, the Messenger of the Lord stood above them, and the
glory of the Lord lightened round them, and they feared a great fear."
"Messenger." You must remember that, when this was written, the
word "angel" had only the effect of our word--"messenger"--on men's
minds. Our translators say "angel" when they like, and "messenger"
when they like; but the Bible, messenger only, or angel only, as you
please. For instance, "Was not Rahab the harlot justified by works,
when she had received the angels, and sent them forth another way?"