Letter XVI of _Time and Tide_.[88] His schools were to be in the fresh
air of the country, and with large playing fields securely their own.
“The Laws of Health and exercises enjoined by them” are the first
feature of the curriculum; and riding, running, all the honest personal
exercises of offence and defence, and music, are to be included under
this head. Then come “the mental graces of reverence and compassion,
which are to be developed by deliberate and constant exercise,"--which
means, doubtless, that there is to be no girding at passers-by in the
streets, and no rat-catching for amusement. Then, as the bond and
guardian of reverence and compassion, comes “the truth of spirit and
word, of thought and sight--truth earnest and compassionate, sought for
like a treasure, and kept like a crown.” This is to be taught chiefly
“by pressing for close accuracy of statement, as a principle of honour
and as an accomplishment of language.” There is much sound advice about
this in Letter XVI. Then, for the actual curriculum, there come, first,
history; and then natural science and mathematics. But there are to be
three alternative curricula, one for city children, one for country
children, and one for seafaring children. The city children are to study
mathematics and the arts, country children, natural history and
agriculture, and the future sailors, astronomy, geography, and marine
natural history. A beginning of variety of just this kind now exists in
the elementary schools, as noted in the last chapter.
After this, all children are to be taught the calling whereby they are
to live.
The curious whimsical paradox that reading and writing are to be
optional subjects, does not, after such a curriculum, amount to much. It
is part of a petulant reaction against merely inferior literary
exercise, by a chief craftsman in it; as a professor of music is the
first to tell you that it is no use teaching music to those who will do
no good with it. Ruskin says that the teaching of the three R’s is of no
use to people who will only read rubbish and write falsehood, and, put
that way, one is bound to agree.
No school of St. George has ever been begun, though there are schools
which have kindred aims. Such schools are away in the country with farm
and garden, with little pressure of outside examinations, a varied
curriculum, great attention to athletic exercise, to natural science and
history, with classics and the study of grammar practically shelved, and
the prime concern of the school management the inculcation of reverence
and truthfulness and gentleness. The Natural History, the Arts and
Handicrafts, the reading aloud and the committing scripture and poetry
to memory would be after his own heart.
We recognize in this luminous and suggestive treatment of education that
the right note is struck--the basal idea is that “you have not educated
a boy when you have taught him to know what he did not know, but to be
what he had not been, and to behave as he had not behaved.” And, with
the present stiff system and starved appliances, human and material,
with which we educate the citizens of the future, what a glorious vision
Ruskin’s is, of what that education might so easily be. His protest
against the three R’s is merely a humorous outcry against their
insufficiency, their mechanical character, and their commercial end. How
that much, and that much only, of mental outfit has worked, is printed
large in the circulation of _Illustrated Bits, Scraps_, all sensational
evening papers and the Bottomley, Harmsworth and Hulton presses. But
clerks and pupil teachers are cheap.
Ruskin’s actual work as a University Professor was notable; and many are
the men, now old or gone, whom he influenced at Oxford. To be one of the
influences at Oxford or Cambridge is a worthy use of gifts of the
highest kind. The present Drawing Schools at Oxford are a monument of
his labour and his liberality.
It is easy indeed for the Philistine to laugh at the pageantry of the
vision of the England of St. George. There were to be “Marshals” with
great districts subject to them, “Landlords,” men of fortune devoting
their gifts to the service of the Guild, and owing their lordship to the
fact that “they could work as much better than their labourers, as a
good knight than his soldiers.” These were all to be called _Comites
Ministrantes_; under them the _Comites Militantes_ were the rank and
file of the workers on the Company’s lands. Finally the _Comites
Consilii_, the only class who have materialized, were the companions
contributing, but not residing on St. George’s lands.[89]
To sum up, then, the present public duty of a good Ruskinian:
He will support the labour colonies of the Salvation Army and Small
Holdings Associations. He will invest in the stock of Garden City or
other Garden Suburbs; he will work for the Minority Report on the Poor
Law, and for all plans for strengthening and humanizing Education, for
Town Planning and Smoke Abatement. He will labour to extend among the
laity the duties of the clergy, and among the clergy the spirit of the
layman, he will help all Peace Societies, and labour to promote good
understanding with other countries through the League of Nations. He
will clip the wings of capital seeking to use the British Flag as a
business asset, and he will do this by a capital levy, the super-tax and
the Death Duties. He will be a mild and reasonable Socialist, so far as
to extend the scope of municipal action as it may be found practicable.
He would support the principle of a minimum wage, co-operative
partnerships, and collective bargaining; and he would probably give
cautiously some power to segregate the feeble-minded. He would provide
Art Galleries and Museums housed in noble buildings, and would
religiously preserve the surviving beauty of the country side. Two
possible changes may be treated at greater length.
I. The higher professional activities may be still further removed from
competition and put under salaried service. There will be competition
for posts; that is right; but if medical men and lawyers did not depend
upon fees, we should be rid of many abuses; and the work would gain in
dignity. I believe clergymen, professors and public schoolmasters do as
good work as those who follow callings more directly dependent on the
casual payments and goodwill of customers. With regard to education,
there would be danger of loss as well as of gain, if private schools and
private tutors were abolished. They should remain available for those
who desire them. There will always be people who demand a special
religious atmosphere or who wish to make experiments. And there will be
pupils who from bad health, or neglect of early training, could not
properly benefit from the schools of the State. It is not necessary that
the public body in control should be either the State or the
Municipality. In my view, neither the universities nor the public
schools would benefit by such a change. Nevertheless, it is becoming
increasingly agreed that the nation should shoulder a larger part of the
expense, and guarantee the quality of the teaching, more widely and
liberally than it does at present. In this connection it is all the more
necessary that the State should clear itself of militarism. For if
military training were to become compulsory in schools, as is seriously
threatened, the nation would be once more as acutely divided about it,
as it has been, so long and so disastrously, over denominational
schools. We should have conscientious objectors in permanence.
Nor can we proscribe the private practitioner, for the wealthy, if there
were any, or for the medically heterodox. Yet, how much bad pretentious
work, how much humbug and servility, would be spared to their profession
if most of them became public officials, only doctors know.
I am not qualified to say whether the legal profession should be
nationalized, nor how much. But things could hardly be in worse case
than they are at present, when the worthy members of a necessary
profession are regarded by many as little better than birds of prey.
It may be said that modest State salaries would not attract able men
into the professions so organized. But if the profits of trade were
socialized as proposed, or divided among guild members, there would not
be that golden alternative lure.
II. In those matters which are left to the adjustment of free
competition, it is necessary that everyone should be in a fair position
to bargain, so that there may be no compulsion due to sheer starvation.
This requires to be done so carefully that an actual maintenance at a
tolerable standard, and permanently available without work, should not
be offered to the able-bodied. Two suggestions have been made which are
well worth considering.
Alfred Russel Wallace proposes that a daily dole of bread, enough to
sustain life, should be easily available to the indigent or the out of
work. Tickets should be accessible at all Post Offices, Police Stations,
and from magistrates, clergymen and others, on making out a claim of
need. Thus actual starvation would be warded off.[90]
A more elaborate proposal is that to whose advocacy my friend Mr. Dennis
Milner and his wife are devoting their lives. He proposes that everyone,
rich and poor, from birth to death, should be the recipient of a certain
pension, to be provided by a four shillings in the pound Income Tax, on
all incomes great and small, to be deducted at the source. Thus,
one-fifth of everyone’s income would be redistributed on a flat rate, as
a capitation grant. It would provide on pre-war incomes about four
shillings and threepence per week per head. So that a family of five,
receiving twenty-one shillings and threepence a week, or £55 a year,
would also pay £55 Income Tax, if their other income was £220. They
would neither lose nor gain. Every family of that size receiving a
smaller income would gain by the scheme; everyone above that limit would
lose. It would thus encourage marriage and the raising of families, by
constituting a tax on the unmarried. The man of a thousand a year, with
a wife and three children, would pay £200 and receive £55--reducing his
income to £855. One great advantage to the poor would be that it would
save them from most or all of the insurance premiums they pay, of all
sorts. The scheme is attractively expounded in pamphlets.[91]
Clearly its greatest difficulty is due to the fact that we are likely to
have so great an Income Tax to pay for war, that to pay also for welfare
may be beyond the willingness of the public.
_CHAPTER VII_
_USURY_
Ruskin’s attack upon the taking of interest for capital is the part of
his doctrine which goes deepest into our business system. It has in
consequence weakened his influence, and has not, even by himself, been
put into practice in this country. But he spent much of his strength
upon it in his later years. In _Munera Pulveris_, written in 1862, we
find him stating[92] that Usury is “merely taking an exorbitant sum for
the use of anything"--“the essence of the usury being that it is
obtained by advantage of opportunity or necessity, and not as due reward
for labour,” and he therefore includes high profits for middlemen under
the term: but in later editions he adds a footnote to say that Mr. W. C.
Sillar[93] has since shown him that the payment of any interest at all
is unjustifiable, and is real usury.
It is well to distinguish carefully between Interest and Profits. The
business man who exploits foreign concessions, and who stimulates wars,
may or may not be a capitalist. He may be using other people’s capital.
He makes his profit as reward for his work, his luck, his enterprise,
and an often risky responsibility. The capitalist, properly so called,
is, on the other hand, an investor who simply takes his interest. Often,
doubtless, one man fills both parts, but in general theoretical
discussion they should be kept separate.
Interest, even if unavoidable, tends to increase the inequalities of
distribution, and beyond a certain point it becomes a social danger, and
may even become a disease in the body politic. It is one of the least
desirable consequences of the system of private property; but it is, I
fear, an inherent part of it--to be got rid of only under a communal
system where private property does not exist.
His new convictions did not take an absorbing hold on Ruskin’s mind for
some years. In September, 1872, he writes in _Fors_, Letter XXI, §§ 18,
19, in reply to a remonstrance from Mr. Sillar: “I am very careless
about such minor matters as the present conditions of ... banking. I
hold bank stock simply because I suppose it to be safer than any other
stock, and I take the interest of it because, though taking interest is,
in the abstract, as wrong as war, the entire fabric of society is at
present so connected with both usury and war, that it is not possible
violently to withdraw, nor wisely to set example of withdrawing, from
either evil.”
“Denunciations of interest are much beside the mark unless they are
accompanied with some explanation of the manner in which borrowing and
lending, when necessary, can be carried on without it.” There is a
passage to the same effect in the notes to _Fors_, Letter XLIII, written
in July, 1874.
It is easy to show why interest is both just and unavoidable, if we
accept the justice of private property in general. By advancing capital
we enable the borrower to carry on profitable operations which will pay
him after he has given us somewhat for the advance. It pays him to
borrow. He obtains an immediate order upon labour from the lender who
postpones using it for his own pleasure. It is this element of Time
which constitutes the whole reason for interest. Ready money, that is an
immediate order upon labour for which nothing has yet been given, has a
price depending upon the action of those who have it and those who want
it, under the same law of Supply and Demand as governs the price of
other commodities. The current rate of interest, after taking off the
varying payment for risk, represents both the reward for which the
capitalists will save the last portion of fluid capital which is saved,
and the “final” utility of the last dose of money available to
borrowers. The capitalist needs an investment as much as the borrower
needs capital. The advantage is not all on one side. Bankers desire
eagerly to grant overdrafts to safe people. The whole process is
essential to production on a large scale, and to public activity, and
there is not necessarily any oppression in it, in our present state of
society, though it is, like everything else, liable to abuse.
But to a man who has enough already “abstinence” is no hardship. Time is
his friend. Hence a measure of government interference to stop great
fortunes is just and necessary, whether by a heavy income tax or a
capital levy, or by death duties, all steeply graduated. Another drastic
extension of these duties would be found in the limitation of the right
of bequest, fixing a maximum amount which a man may receive, or may
leave, by inheritance or bequest. Bequest is not a natural, it is a
strictly legal, right; and the law may regulate it.[94] This would check
the worst of the evil of vast fortunes, which are a curse to their
owners, and the other side of the poverty shield. They are rarely made
in one generation. Bacon says: “Usury bringeth the treasure of a realm
into few hands; for the usurer trading on a certainty, and other men on
uncertainties, at the end of the game all the money will be in the box.”
We will now put Ruskin’s argument, from the one place where he wrote it
out at length. It is the well-known passage on “the position of William”
in the first letter of _Fors_, January, 1871.
The following is there quoted from Mrs. Fawcett’s _Political Economy for
Beginners_. She translated it from the French of Bastiat:
There was once in a village a poor carpenter, who worked hard from
morning to night. One day James thought to himself, “With my
hatchet, saw, and hammer, I can only make coarse furniture, and can
only get the pay for such. If I had a plane, I should please my
customers more, and they would pay me more. Yes, I am resolved, I
will make myself a plane.” At the end of ten days James had in his
possession an admirable plane, which he valued all the more for
having made it himself. Whilst he was reckoning all the profits
which he expected to derive from the use of it, he was interrupted
by William, a carpenter in the neighbouring village. William,
having admired the plane, was struck with the advantages which
might be gained from it. He said to James:
“You must do me a service; lend me the plane for a year.” As might
be expected, James cried out, “How can you think of such a thing,
William? Well, if I do this service, what will you do for me in
return?”
W. “Nothing. Don’t you know that a loan ought to be gratuitous?”
J. “I know nothing of the sort; but I do know that if I were to
lend you my plane for a year, it would be giving it to you. To tell
the truth, that was not what I made it for.”
W. “Very well, then; I ask you to do me a service; what service do
you ask me in return?”
J. “First, then, in a year the plane will be done for. You must
therefore give me another exactly like it.”
W. “That is perfectly just. I submit to these conditions. I think
you must be satisfied with this, and can require nothing further.”
J. “I think otherwise. I made the plane for myself, and not for
you. I expected to gain some advantage from it. I have made the
plane for the purpose of improving my work and my condition; if you
merely return it to me in a year, it is you who will gain the
profit of it during the whole of that time. I am not bound to do
you such a service without receiving anything in return. Therefore,
if you wish for my plane, besides the restoration already bargained
for, you must give me a new plank as a compensation for the
advantages of which I shall be deprived.”
These terms were agreed to; but the singular part of it is that at
the end of the year, when the plane came into James’s possession,
he lent it again; recovered it, and lent it a third and fourth
time. It has passed into the hands of his son, who still lends it.
Let us examine this little story. The plane is the symbol of all
capital, and the plank is the symbol of all interest.
Thus far Bastiat: Ruskin comments:--
“If this be an abridgment, what a graceful piece of highly wrought
literature the original story must be! I take the liberty of abridging
it a little more.
“James makes a plane, lends it to William on 1st January for a year.
William gives him a plank for the loan of it, wears it out, and makes
another for James which he gives him on 31st December. On 1st January he
again borrows the new one; and the arrangement is repeated continuously.
The position of William therefore is, that he makes a plane every 31st
December, lends it to James till the next day, and pays James a plank
annually for the privilege of lending it to him on that evening. This,
in future investigations of capital and interest, we will call, if you
please, ‘the Position of William.’
“You may not at the first glance see where the fallacy lies: (the writer
of the story evidently counts on your not seeing it at all).
“If James did not lend the plane to William, he could only get his gain
of a plank by working with it himself, and wearing it out himself. When
he had worn it out at the end of the year, he would, therefore, have to
make another for himself. William, working with it instead, gets the
advantage instead, which he must, therefore, pay James his plank for;
and return to James what James would, if he had not lent his plane, then
have had--not a new plane, but the worn-out one. James must make a new
one for himself, as he would have had to do if no William had existed;
and if William likes to borrow it again for another plank, all is fair.
“That is to say, clearing the story of its nonsense, that James makes a
plane annually, and sells it to William for its proper price, which, in
kind, is a new plane. But this arrangement has nothing whatever to do
with principal or with interest.”
I fear Ruskin is wrong. He forgets a sinking fund for depreciation. His
error lies in supposing that a plane can be used for a year, and worn
out, for no return but a plank. If planes only last a year and are of
advantage, their value in use is equal to that of the cost of a plane
plus a plank, plus some more. That is, the cost of making a plane is
less by a plank and more than the benefit a workman can get out of it
before it is worn out, after paying for his labour. The benefit in a
year to the user is more than plane plus plank, or William would not go
on. That is the point of the service of all capital, intelligently
used.
William has to pay his tax of a plank per annum because he is not
beforehand with his needs. He gets the advantage of the plane every year
twelve months before he can afford to make it; and the advantage of
being in advance of his needs goes to James. The element of Time is
everything. A plane at the beginning of a year is of more service than a
plane you have to wait for till the end. Ruskin begins his sequence of
time on December 31st of the first year, avoiding the whole point. And
the position of William is therefore not unfair; though it is one to be
avoided.
There is little to be added of the nature of argument; though _Fors_ is
scattered over with allusions to the subject, and discussions with many
correspondents are printed in full.[95]
These, and many other shorter passages,[96] consist largely of intuitive
prophetic assertion of the sinfulness of interest, even the slightest.
Much space is occupied by criticisms of the author’s own practice in
living on the proceeds of Bank Stock, and his very cogent replies
thereto. They amount to an admission that the doctrine does not fit the
present time. There are impressive accounts also of the miseries of
usury-ridden countries like India, and of the folly of borrowed capital.
But there is no light thrown on how business is to be conducted without
it: there is nothing immediately practical.
The array of authority against usance for money is weighty and of
ancient date.
Lev. xxv. 35-37: “And if thy brother be poor and powerless with his
hands at thy side, thou shalt take his part upon thee, to help him, as
thy proselyte and thy neighbour; and thy brother shall live with thee.
Thou shalt take no usury of him, nor anything over and above, and thou
shalt fear thy God. I am the Lord, and thy brother shall live with thee.
Thou shalt not give him thy money for usury; and thou shalt not give him
thy food for increase.” (J. R. translated from LXX.) Exodus xxii. 25 and
Deuteronomy xxiii. 19 are similar in purport. Psalm xv. refers to the
man “who putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against
the innocent”; as being a fit person to abide in the Lord’s tabernacle,
and dwell in His holy hill. Here we have the taking of interest running
parallel with the corruption of the high trust of the judicial bench.
Ezekiel xviii. 8, 13, 17 is contemporary with Leviticus, and is
practically the same voice, representing Jewish opinion on the
resettlement of the State after the Captivity. Here usury is classed
with every abominable wickedness.
In these Jewish passages it was the taking of interest from a brother
Hebrew that was forbidden. This limitation to the profitable use of
capital may have early led the Jew capitalist to the permitted Gentile
outlet; and have caused him, in lending to the outside world, to carry
with the act a spice of uncharitableness and conscious ill-will. These
passages are a testimony to the extraordinary cohesiveness and patriotic
consciousness of the restored nation. Such a proviso of itself is both
cause and consequence; it leads to further isolation from others.
In the parable of the Talents, the king who was made to say, “Thou
knewest that I was an hard man,” is also made to say, “Thou shouldest
have given my money to the bankers that at my coming I should have
received mine own with usury.” But I dare not deduce anything from
this. The Parables never apply all round; they only teach one lesson at
a time. He who taught the duty of prayer by means of the Parable of the
unjust judge, and the duty of using present opportunity by the Parable
of the unjust steward, might easily teach the duty of the use of the
gifts of God, without implying that God was either a “hard man” or a
usurer. All these stories may have been accompanied by some such
addition as this, that if even with unjust and hard men this teaching
holds, will it not be far more worth while to pray to God and to
faithfully use His opportunities and His gifts?
There is, however, one passage, not in the four Gospels, but well based
on tradition:--“Be honourable bankers”; and it certainly does seem
strange, if the whole business of money-dealing were wrong, that that
illustration of the use of spiritual capital should have been selected.
The fact that usury was denounced by the Early Church may have led to
the non-inclusion of this dubious text in the Canon.