Part 10

Being imaginative, a follower of any of the Arts sees miles ahead of the less endowed crowd. Besides being a useful person in that respect, it is good for his temperament to be called away from a groove wherein, if he allows himself to remain, he becomes a machine, and his art suffers. The strongest faculty for creation cannot be used for many hours daily, it cannot keep up the tension of creation as a machine. A mind demands repose by change of work, which can be obtained in serving upon councils where special aptitudes of foresight and imagination are useful. Thus, coming into contact with other minds, the individual is broadened. He is not an ascetic except in his study; outside of that he is a man of the world and capable of dealing with what are called “plain men,” which does not always mean wise ones. It is related of an Italian philosopher that he spent his days with the peasants on his little estate, the evenings in his study. Not a bad division of the day Socrates would have told us. In the Agora of Athens, wise men found both folly and wisdom: folly to refute, wisdom to encourage. Plato’s Republic is an effort to show that a democracy, under restraint, is the fairest form of government. First, the conception of the scheme founded upon the greatest good for the greatest number, to be followed by activity in its promotion. Experience is gained as activity proceeds, discussion follows experience. The bud is before the blossom. The fruit is selected; what is rotten is thrown away. It is futile to discuss a question, and tear it into rags before it has been set in motion. There is a point in progress when not to start the top spinning is folly. The top, when once started, must be whipped continually. It stops spinning as soon as the strokes of the whip subside. The great fault of the late administration was the policy of “Wait and see.” A blind man may wait; doing so will not help him to see! To imagine that committees, based only on theories, have settled all the pros and cons, is to put the cart before the horse. Committees can do no more than propose such and such starting points for action. The rest must be left to the executive. Too often, no action follows the sittings of an elaborate scheme.

§ 29

To delay action is as ineffectual as to hurry it. The great war taught that the complete preparation of Germany failed of success because the moral element at the bottom of extreme diligence and multifarious ingenuity was _rotten_. The Allies were unprepared, England most so of all (notwithstanding some historians). England was not prepared for the great struggle, but she and her Allies had justice on their side, hence they won. After the war reconstruction should have started at once, which means that abuses which the war has brought into prominence should have been stopped or England would suffer permanently. It appears that politicians narrow and personal in their ambition were unable to effect the change. They delayed action even at moments of serious danger, lest their party should suffer defeat. Now, no one cares twopence about “Party,” the question before Democracy is, What is to be done in spite of Party Government? A democracy, to be enduring, must govern itself. No party must be in the ascendant, except the one which is in combination with all parties, _e.g._, the unity not the equality, of classes. The Agora was a place in disorder, where every man’s hand was against his neighbour. The crowd was led by unwise agitators. Ignorance and unwisdom are nearly related. We were tired to death of theories, of Government promises, of its failure to keep them, of leaders who were broken reeds, who, under pretence of giving Freedom exercised Tyranny. So we listened to wiser men than they, we resolved no longer to be ignorant, and becoming convinced that, as ignorant, we are not fitted to take part in Government, we would pull ourselves together and once more be men and work as good citizens.

These latter words and the statements which precede them formed the substance of a lecture delivered in the Town Hall by a factory worker this very evening. And what a contrast in tone it exhibits to that truculent one which disfigured whatever hidden justice there might have been in similar and dissimilar orations emanating from the same source. This one was as wise as the other was foolish. Like Socrates, we may now go to the Agora and find wisdom.

“Plato’s Republic aimed at completeness in Theory and discipline in Action. The New Democracy aims at making itself aristocratic in practice. It aims to promote activity in every corner and enterprise of life. We do not pretend that our class is the only one necessary to welfare. It was ignorance that in past times made us think that; bad guidance as well. We recognise ourselves to be branches of the great Tree of Life, whose roots are embedded in the soil of Truth. We recognise ourselves to be as waves in a great stream progressing, meandering, ever moving on from its source to the sea. We recognise the sea to be as a deep scheme which nature has provided, subject to storm, stress, and calm; we bring to its salt waters invigorating drops of freshness from the hills and collected in the plains. We are not at work alone, now, whatever our work be. We are brothers in a great family, not jealous egoists. Time was when we thought of little else than money. We thought that the educated, the refined and learned class was made up of enemies who would make us slaves. We see we were wrong. They are our real friends. Our enemies they are who we thought were our friends, we see that now. Our friends will give us _a real democracy_, in which we may have a voice if we please. The others would give us a sham one, and rule not only our theories but our actions and with a tyranny as ruthless and obstructive to progress as any autocracy.”

From the Agora wise words come now, from which all can learn. The people were _becoming_ corrupted, they have been too wise to _become_ corrupt. I think that most of us who have given ourselves the trouble to think knew that good leadership was what was wanted. First convincing, then leading, not looking back, but going to the root of things which were discordant and pruning them away, that is what was wanted.

They, of the past, wanted an “Ideal,” but they did not know it. Indeed, they scorned the idea of something that was like religious sectarian dogma. It was to them something hopeless and abstract, and quite outside “Life,” with which it had no touch. They thought high wages, wealth, indeed Mammon in any form, was the god they needed, and to that they made their way, growing more and more discontented, cynical, envious and suspicious. That was the matter with the people who had once been patterns to all Europe as honest workmen. England once simple, happy, industrious (_not industrial_) had become complicated, discontented, IDLE.

§ 30

In my peregrinations, which became more and more absorbing as my spirit grew more bold, I listened eagerly, not as an eavesdropper, but as one keen to learn. One evening, it was winter--I heard a discourse on “Happiness” by a craftsman, one of those living in the new houses I have visited. He was an old man who had lived in the dark, narrow dogs’ kennels of the dark, dirty city which is no more--the city of discontent, of bad government, of callousness. He spoke earnestly, but not with rhapsody. What he said was convincing from the cool sincerity of his diction and manner. “Happiness,” he said, “is rooted in the soil of LABOUR; in _doing_, not theorising. In being so occupied as to leave no time for a morbid outlook. The old saying, which I did not, and few seemed to understand, ‘Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do with thy might.’ We were taught not to do that. We were taught to work as little as possible, to receive much, and give almost nothing. Good workmen were under a ban. If some of us wished to do our utmost we were bullied and suspected. The industrious of us were pushed aside by the idle. Bad, dishonest workmen were applauded, they lived on the labour of their fellows. We were taught to make other nations labour for us--to sell bad goods for large prices.

“The standard of work was lowered. Cheap German goods were encouraged in the markets. A balance of our wages (a large one) went to support trades unions. The good workman grew poor, the bad grew rich. It was a state of things which took all the strength of an honest man to combat. Honest men grew rare and more rare. Dishonesty flourished. Leaders became fanatics. They were of our class. Ignorant of cause and effect we were, but they were noisy, they spoke platitudes, their arguments (if arguments they could be called) were founded upon catch words which sounded wise, but were foolish. They pretended to work for the great cause of Liberty and Equality. They _did_ nothing of the kind. They feathered their nests from our labour and grew rich. They were well paid for the cause they preached. Liberty was dragged more and more into the far distance. We thought we had been slaves; we found we had been free. We found we were being mastered by unscrupulous men. We grew more and more suspicious, more and more hostile. We thought revolution would put things straight. Taught, that the Government was weak (which was not far wrong), that anarchy would give us what we wanted, that if we defied the Government, if we used German methods of might against right, we must win. To starve our country into submission was a method preached to us which, in our hearts, we were unwilling to believe. If we did not obey we were threatened. Those of us who would not stood the chance of starvation. The great railway strike of 1919, wicked as it was, because it very nearly approached attempted murder of innocent people, failed. That strike it was that opened our eyes. Surely we were being led on the wrong road! Faith in our leaders left us. They _began to hedge_. We saw that. Then we knew they were false and untrustworthy and we broke loose from them, which, having done, we began to find who were our friends. We came to the conclusion that we must get to work again and be honest once more. We did so, and on every side found helping hands. Hence the city of Liberty and Peace in which we live now. We know we were ignorant, we resolved to learn. We knew we had been idle and greedy. We knew the life we had led could not make good citizens or happy ones. We resolved to labour, to give up coarse excitements in leisure time.

“We tried it. We formed our own Union, which had for its motto, ‘All Labour is dignified,’ but it depends upon the labourer to make it so. ‘Help yourselves and you will be helped,’ is such a truism it seems needless to quote, but there are many truisms of which we need to be often reminded. We know now that reform must come from the bottom. If the foundations are rotten the veriest palace will fall. We know that in us lies the foundation of the State. Before the State is reformed we must reform ourselves, and this we are doing. When it is accomplished we shall be fit to take part in the rule of our country, and we are on the road to do it, in the meantime we are learning the difficult task of SELF RULE, and in that, even if it be labour to do it, it is lightened by the vision it provides, and the happy conscience it engenders. Now, we are children of Liberty, before we were cripples and chained to doctrinaires and wind-bags.”

The tone of this discourse, of which is given only an epitome is, as it were, the text of all that is working its way, and the means employed in its success my dream will go on to relate.

§ 31

An important neglected industry is revived. I noticed many men with deeply stained arms and hands; they were the dyers. It did not much matter that coal-tar dyes slipped through English fingers and were developed in Germany, because the colours they made were vulgar and discordant, far more in harmony with Teutonic taste than English. Many years ago the author of these pages was in Algiers and heard of local dyers there, some Arabs, but mostly Moors they were. A black Soudanese servant of his told him of them. At once he took advantage of this and put into their hands fine muslin strips, which they converted into colour as exquisite as possible. Now rags, the remnants retain their freshness. A yellow like crocus, a pink rose, a lustrous black shot with copper, a green like fresh ivy leaves, an iris purple, and a blue like the sea at Malta. He tried to get the colour copied--there were no dyers with the skill to do it. Since those days (50 years ago), and quite recently, I hear that enterprising people from the New City have learnt many a secret from Eastern dyers. In this instance, instead of spoiling oriental taste for colour, alas! a habit of the commercial English, they are learning from them. India is helping England out of her bad taste. More beautiful tints I never saw than those in my dream. The sight of them made my spirit think how much we might learn from the East of value instead of pushing our tasteless goods where for centuries beauty has prevailed. The eye is pleased now in the New City, instead of displeased. Beautiful colour seems to grow naturally, the streets and gardens are full of it.

Every garment gives a lively note which is the key to interchanges of harmonies of colour only to be compared with exquisite music. The trade of the dyer has become an Art which creates pictures at every turn of the road and field.

§ 32

Why is the New City so orderly and yet so free? How is it that life seems to run so smoothly, and yet without monotony? Trades are located as they were in Ancient Greece and Rome, in a measure also in Europe and England in better times than ours were a while ago. Chaos is no more. The hundred headed hydra, personified in “the middle-man,” that robber of the earnings of labour, is becoming extinct, owing in large measure to the more extended use of the market, where as we have seen practically any article can be purchased at a reasonable price which leaves a reasonable profit for the producer. This has led to a diminution of shops, which are no longer heterogeneously planted in residential quarters. Every tradesman has to take out a licence for which he pays, the money going to the Commune. There is the Butchers’ Quarter, a blessing indeed. No longer are wayfarers offended by the barbarous sights of bleeding corpses, of blood sprinkling the footways. If such horrors must be, they are hidden. No butcher is permitted to make a public display of his bloody trade. Meat, when not sold in the Market, is found in a district set apart for a necessary, if disgusting, trade, but its products are not before the public eye. The shop is not _on the street_, it is located behind it. The same law applies to poulterers, indeed, to all trades which, of necessity, contain objectionable matter. A large, but not universal, part of the fish trade is carried on by the weekly market; but, owing to the swift destruction of freshness, and fish being a health-giving food (besides being cheap) there is a considerable demand for fresh as well as salt water fish, therefore shops for its sale are a necessity. Fishmongers alike with butchers have their locality.

Those trades which are disconnected with unpleasant associations are not excluded from public gaze. Only those of them which produce _litter_ are restricted in residential quarters. Silversmiths, and all shops associated with handicrafts, are permitted on the public streets, of which they are ornaments, but these also take out a licence, but the tax is smaller than for objectionable trades. The order thus established is in no sense inconvenient. Electric tramways (only one line is permitted) run in the broad streets. They are not allowed in the narrow. The lovely city of Florence has been well nigh spoiled by liberty to run trams in streets not more than 25 feet wide. The English Communes took note of that. When facilities for quick locomotion are not regulated, they constitute a nuisance, are destructive of peace, and become a tyranny. “Companies” pretended to study the convenience of citizens, in reality studied their own financial success, and let other considerations take their chance.

All foreign goods of whatever kind, save those provided by British Colonies, are taxed. Free trade is only permitted to the colonials. Since this has been a law of all the Communes, British trade has increased, British output is larger, and greater activity of production has proved the wisdom of a law which encourages local enterprises. Every householder is bound to keep clean the footway immediately touching his habitation, but the cleanliness of the roadway is under the direction of the Commune. Wandering over every portion of the city in my dream I have seen no squalor. Poverty there is and always must be, but squalor, the result of want of self respect and bad early training, no! The people have risen above it. Where industry is (not industrialism) squalor can find no place. A man who keeps the tools of his trade in good order, who is proud of the work of which they are the implements, and who respects his home, is particular about “appearances.” So is a good wife, so are good sons and daughters.

§ 33

Home life is but a little picture of the extended scene outside. Disorder in smaller matters leads to disorder in greater. While the Commune is responsible for order on a large scale, every citizen is responsible on a smaller scale. The half is greater than the whole! Order must be a first principle of the home, as it must be of the Commune, which is but an extended home. The new city being small compared to the monstrous, heterogeneous places of muddle in the past, and leisure greater, there is less call for swift locomotion. The new people walk more, and are, consequently, more healthy. So the streets are not congested by traffic, and people are not all in the muddle-minding strain of “hurry.” Where order is, leisure is certain. Busy, or rather, industrious people always find time, it is only an ill-regulated day that produces “hurry-scurry.” Outside my dream, I never knew an industrious man complain of want of time. William Morris, as industrious a man as ever breathed, never complained of interrupters. After a visit from a friend, and none took greater pleasure than he in giving him welcome, Morris was at his work again in a “twinkling.” The man who orders his day wisely is alert, ready at any moment to concentrate his energy. The idle, not the industrious, grumble about want of time. The real question, and one that is serious, is the use to which leisure is subjected. The so-called working class (by the way, every man worth his salt is a working man) is coming to know that, and that ill-used leisure is a sin against order, and here in the new life he has set his mind against it. From what has been recounted of my dream the reader already knows that, but as it proceeds, my dream will show how order, punctuality, and reverence for the uses which leisure should breed is permeating the entire community and becoming a habit, hence idle folk are in the minority, indeed, they are despised.

§ 34

It has been read from my dream, so far, that, while material welfare of the people is one object, and a prominent one, the Commune, as the guiding spirit of the new life, is fully conscious of the wise saying of Jesus Christ, “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the Spirit of God.” We had eyes and saw not, ears and heard not; noble intuitions we repulsed, aspirations we neglected, and we were taught elaborate creeds out of touch with realities. Blind, too often, to the beauties of nature and its sisters “The Arts,” we had grown deaf to the songs of birds, to music of the winds moaning, or joyfully singing, among forest trees. We had ceased to sing as we worked. Indeed, the natural joys granted us to receive have ceased to please, ceased to be a part of life. To the arts, which seek to crystallise visions inspired by God’s gift of exquisite nature, we had become blind and deaf. They had ceased to move us, ceased to inspire us, ceased to raise us from the mire of money grabbing. So eager we were for wealth that we pursued it blindly as the only object of our energies. We had lost touch with half, and the better half, of life, and the soul of England was becoming hardened, insensitive, and ANIMAL. Good, in some ways the hard Puritan was dead to the beauty of God’s work. He thought he was spiritual. He did not know that there is soul in all matter. In this respect he was more _un_christian than a pagan, who, at least, saw the gods and recognised them in the movement of the stars, in the dawn, in the shining midday, and the splendour of sunset time. The old pagan found God in all nature, as he found him in great art. He saw into the very heart of the marble from which Phidias carved Olympian Zeus. He saw the spirit of Pallas Athene under the ivory and golden statue in the Parthenon.

The Puritan cut himself off from _All Beauty_. Instead of seeing good in God’s greatest works and in man’s most inspired creations, he saw evil. His mind was distorted, a cripple; and little did he dream that his spiritual nature was really a material one. To his narrow and crooked creed much of the apathy of the modern mind is to be traced. “As it was wicked to see beauty, to worship it as God made it, let us make ourselves rich.” What a Creed?

With the neglect of _agriculture_ came the Tyranny of _industrialism_. With an apathy towards Art, towards its great mission to display the beauty of the soul in the array of material presentation, the soul of England was growing degenerate. It was becoming GERMAN, and what lower place than that can be found for a country so great as England has been! We have to remake England, and we mean to do it. We mean to learn from the Pagans, to reinstate much of their teaching. We mean to cultivate the teaching of Jesus Christ, who drew a lesson from the “lilies of the field,” the death of a sparrow, His generosity to the mistake of a troubled woman. Who, from the Cross blessed a thief, who, dying in agony, forgave his enemies, who taught the gospel of _thou_ more than I, who would give to Cæsar as well as to God, and, above all, whose noble life was pressed on by human as well as Divine love. Jesus Christ was a poet and artist as well as a prophet and reformer. The life of the soul was everything to Him. Wealth for wealth’s sake is a phantom, a chimera. We mean to go back to find a fairer road to happiness than the modern world would give us. While we accept facilities for greater comfort, we mean to use them wisely, not to overwhelm us, but to help us. We wish to help the people to see beauty, and in their lives to live up to the vision. To live, not as a preparation for another and happier life, to reward in a future state, but to live and see with clear eyes the one which is now ours to make or mar it. Every man and woman who labours is praising God, so long as the labour is not from _greed_, but from a fixed principle to enrich the soul of the people by first enriching our own.

§ 35

These words and a great many more I heard said, not in a church, but in the Town Hall by a great artist, and they led me to search. In my dream I had seen how the principles he dwelt upon were already at work in the homes of the people in municipal government, which was seeking Justice and Fraternity. So I extended my travels and observations.