Part 4

They deserve _good_ wages, that is to say, wages which enable them to lead decent lives under decent environment. They deserve a better education than they get, and, above all, better guides in their early school days, guides who shall furnish the sensitive period of the first stages of youth with first principles of conduct; taught that they are citizens of no mean country, hence that a grave responsibility is theirs, not only to themselves but to their neighbours. Taught that _thou_ as well as _I_ is an essential pronoun; that civilisation is based upon _Fraternity_, not _Equality_, because there is no such thing and never can be. That one’s neighbour is a bit of oneself is a moral truth beyond question. It is a truth that is in the very foundation of society. It is the root of the tree of all progress, it is as the water that feeds it, and as the sun which ripens its fruit. Duty to God is implied in duty to the neighbour. God made the neighbour, the _thou_ as well as the _I_ is His design; the two are really inseparable. This principle, driven home in the earliest years, will form a guide for life, because the mental impressions then received are never wholly eradicated. “I must take care of myself to take care of you” is a truism. But “I must prop you in failure, stand by you in trouble, and joy in your joy” is surely a higher form of ethics! This simple principle of life is the summing up of Christian teaching, and not only of that, but of the writings of such great pagan philosophers as Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, to name only two of many. To be _able_ to read is one thing, what is read is another. Bad books are more detrimental than no books, as _bad_ education is worse than _none_. To know one book well is better than to have superficially read a hundred. There are essential and not essential as well as _positively destructive_ books; plenty, indeed, of the last named, and they grow like weeds! Only two or three of the best books should be set before children. “Robinson Crusoe,” “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” and carefully selected portions of the Bible would not be a bad selection. Teachers must not be hacks or machines, but wise and sympathetic guides. History is a complicated study, and one which the busy worker, agricultural or craftsman, has not time to master. But the chief events, those which have moulded social life and profoundly led progress, can be tabulated and learned by heart. The young should be taught that presently they will be called to make history, and that in its making absolute _honesty_ is the first condition of success. The agricultural labourer is helping to feed his country, the craftsman is making desirable and durable goods for his own as well as foreign markets, and they must be the best he can turn out to his honour!

§ 23

Ancestors of the craftsman of to-day erected and adorned the monuments we now prize; it is the business of the modern craftsman to make such as will be reverenced and esteemed by-and-bye. Ancient craftsmen loved their work, that we can see at a glance. Are the modern craftsmen taught or encouraged to do so by their leaders? No! They are taught to grab high wages for bad work as good for trade, a lamentable fallacy which could only have been framed by ignorant men, and unprincipled to boot. As the duty to a neighbour should be instilled, as it were, with mother’s milk, so to do good and only good work should be the mainspring of a boy-craftsman guidance. The habit of doing good work must be acquired in youth! It must be begun early and continued as a habit to the end of it. Duty to our neighbour and duty to our employers are synonymous. Pride in turning out good and shame in turning out bad. Do Labour leaders teach that? No! They advocate the reverse. They would have it that while labour is essential it is derogatory to freedom, to insist on good work for good pay is _tyranny_, but to demand high wages for bad work is _justice_. They teach “As little effort as possible to attain the highest level of wages.” Is this wise? No, it is the height of folly.

The true answer to those false leaders is to tell the workmen that all work is honourable when _well done_, dishonourable when _ill done_. When primary education is conducted upon the simple lines above indicated we shall be on the road to supply the best possible education to the greater number. It is worse than useless to cram young minds with facts before the first principle of selection has been instilled. Much, indeed most, of England’s foundation of greatness was laid when the majority could neither read nor write. It was _character_, not education in _facts_, that made England great. Honesty, not grasping, was the watchword which guided the deeds of our great ancestors. Soil must be prepared before it is ready to receive fruitful seed. We do not plant lilies on dustheaps or corn on the ashes of factories’ furnaces. Honourable dealing with the neighbour, honourable _quid pro quo_ are, as it were, the bricks of which a nation is built, and without them as primaries no nation has been or will bequeath a noble heritage. What are we making for the future? To what end is the intelligence of craftsmanship directed with all the facilities at their hands? To get _enormous wages_ with the least possible effort. These are hard words, but they are true. The welfare of the neighbour is not in the calculation, and _honesty of work has taken a back seat_. That is what is the matter with England! It is a malady which affects the commercial attitude of to-day from bottom to top. Under so depressing a social atmosphere is it a matter for wonder that we are creating so little that will be a joy or stimulus to aftercomers? Work in which joy has not taken part will never provide pleasure to the doer or receiver. A creator who slaves as a drudge, is unwilling and discontented, is a neuter; he will neither derive nor breed pleasure.

§ 24

The war compelled Labour; without it it would have been lost. But are there signs that Labour will work for Peace? What ideal has it? What stimulus is being provided for Labour and by Labour to make England rich in intellect, purer in heart, more fertile of ideas, less materialistic and more spiritual?

§ 25

The spirit giveth life! Matter is like an eggshell. We have gone round in a circle in the later pages, and come back to the point of starting. The soul of a country is what matters; it and it alone can control the matter of it! We have seen a great country break down under the curse of materialism. Explosives, foul gas, and every instrument of destruction have been the gods of the Germans, and they have ruined them. Germany sold her soul to the Devil to attain her lust, the conquest of the world. She failed because she killed the spirit of God in her, setting in His place monsters of iron, steel and poison. If matter divorced from spirit can win, Germany would have won. Is England going to imitate Germany, the country that is fallen from a high estate to an abject condition of failure? Or are we to be influenced by Russian disorder and anarchy? Both are bad, and neither should influence us except to avoid the grievous errors which have led to such disaster. Anarchy, as every plague, is catching. It seems to promise to uneducated and undisciplined minds a panacea. It may offer that, but it grants only additional miseries. Over and over again it has been tried and has invariably failed!

So let us not repeat a blunder, but shape a new course upon ground which has never revealed pitfalls, which is not subject to earthquakes, that is on rock, not sand, that is productive, not sterile, fruitful, not destructive. Let us see that the Great Spirit which inspired England is with us still, but in a wider measure than heretofore--the spirit that gave her Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, Blake, Keats, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning and Morris in poetry; in science, Harvey, Bacon, Locke, the Herschells, Faraday, Darwin, Huxley and Lister, to mention only a few great names in occult and humane science. The spirit which inspired our great artists--Reynolds, Wren, Chambers, Blake, Gainsborough, Turner, Constable, Wilson, Alfred Stephens, Rossetti, Hunt, Millais, Leighton and Watts. For music we cannot claim so many, but in folk song England has been rich, perhaps richer than any other country, while her stately Church music has been quietly developing from Purcell to Sam Wesley, the last of the severe Church composers. Of novelists, Richardson, Fielding, Goldsmith, Thackeray, Dickens, the five kings of that art; while in the second order Meredith, G. Eliot and Charlotte Brontë are eminent. Let us emulate the builders, craftsmen and decorators who made our cathedrals, which we now see denuded of much of their wealth of beauty by wrong-headed Puritans and religious faddists who have worked so much mischief to the country in too many directions.

But, we shall be asked, “Is it possible to work our several faculties simultaneously in opposite directions: those which are seeking utility, facilities for still more rapid translation from place to place, for a restless life which leaves few moments for thought, but which do not conduce to wealth inasmuch as money can give it, but which must, if they are further developed, stultify other faculties which, to reach their highest point of excellence, demand concentration, leisure and peace?” Yes, it is possible; it has been done, but it cannot be done if the point is overstrained, which is to say, if wealth, as applied to money, means that money only matters, if to get rich is the ideal towards which the whole nation strains. Money is only a means to an end. Like labour, it is mischievous when wrongly applied, and it is so wasted upon implements of destruction, gambling and coarse pleasures which poison or atrophy the higher senses and nobler ambitions. It is wasted also when spent upon idle officials, unnecessary committees, the fetish of politicians when they have got themselves into a muddle. Before spending money surely the first question should be: “Is the object of _lasting_ or purely ephemeral importance? Will it return an interest commensurate to the expenditure _pro bono publico_, _i.e._, a national more than individual interest?” Thousands upon thousands of public money were wasted in war time to support political or party schemes for which we pay dearly now. Money is being wasted upon extravagant wages in all directions and at this moment when the nation is deeply in debt. Taxes and rates are at a fabulous premium, raised to pay for experiments, mistakes and reckless extravagance, and have to be met by increased taxation which is impoverishing enterprise of every description, so much so that no surplus is left to meet demands that are necessary for the intellectual progress of the country. Does any one suppose that the Labour leaders are doing their mischief unpaid? They are living (on the contrary) on the fat of the land. Their salaries are large and are taken from their followers, who claim to be in such straits. These mischievous agents of Anarchy are better off _quâ_ money than thousands of their betters, than men whose education has been expensive and who are the intellectual bulwarks of Britain.

§ 26

Scholars, every form of research in the arts, science, literature and education are suffering from want of means to do justice to their studies and to keep up the level of intellectual attainment to a point of excellence necessary to the welfare and progress of England. The so-called idle rich (a term of obloquy justifiable to a small section) came out well during the war; they sacrificed their wealth and energies for the public good. How could the huge sums of money have been collected and dispensed without capital? It was capital which came to the rescue in those dark hours. Had capital been less, how could the huge wages have been paid to war workers? Increase of wages necessitates larger not smaller capital. Breaking up capital and distributing it in sections, giving it to a class which has had no experience of its value and uses, would be to commit social suicide! Upon the whole, Labour behaved well in the war. It was not unnatural that the rise in prices of the necessities of life (leaving out luxuries which can easily be dispensed with) raised discontent sometimes, but by no means justifiable. That certain foodstuffs became expensive was inevitable. The war, unprepared for by short-sighted politicians, took the majority by surprise, although a more thoughtful minority had seen it approaching for years. The stores of food were small. Insistence upon the prominent pre-eminence of the Juggernaut of Industrialism had caused agriculture to fall away, or so to decrease as to form a secondary (whereas it should be the first) consideration of an island that should be (as far as possible) self-supporting, save for such luxuries which our climate is unable to produce. But that the prices of food necessary to life--meat, bread, and milk--went up to excess has been the fault of grasping, selfish, unpatriotic tradesmen, who, seeing the opportunity of their neighbours’ distress, the moment to put money in their purses, did so, utterly regardless of the suffering such action must entail. Not all, but the majority of tradesmen, behaved ill while their country was on the road to starvation, so ill as to command a decision that, as a class, tradesmen, unchecked, are not fit for prominent posts in the Government, national or municipal. They proved that they are egoistic and selfish, a character suspected, and not without reason, but perhaps never brought so prominently into the light before.

It would be tedious did we give a list (it would be a long one) of necessary foodstuffs refused to applicants excepting at a price they could ill afford or could not afford to pay at all. It was a system of blackmailing wholly discreditable to a class which, having power, exercised it with a cold-blooded arbitrariness that was, to say the least, unmanly; the worst, cowardly and criminal. To hit a man when he is down and unable to protect himself is the act of a coward; to cause, for selfish reasons, suffering to the neighbour is criminal. We cannot refrain from the hope that the dark side of tradesmen’s morality, so distinctly pronounced during the late war, will result in an abstention in granting them powers, national or municipal, which will offer them chances for extended _jobbery_ in the future. That, having become aware of their disposition, tradesmen will never again be allowed a free hand in any form of Government. That to them is largely due the rise in wages which is straining the capital of England is unquestionable, therefore they belong to a class which needs careful watching in the future. If, instead of striking at the whole nation, trades unions had struck against the prices demanded by tradesmen, they would have had right on their side in that they struck against an initial cause. It has been said just now that money is well spent when dedicated to causes that are permanent, not ephemeral. Wealth is a necessity for a nation, and wealth without capital is out of the question.

§ 27

Athens at her great time was rich; Egypt, when the city of Memphis covered four times the area of London, was rich. Rome was rich, first by her agriculture; she began to decline when she ceased to grow corn, getting it from her colonies. Byzantium was full of gold when she enriched herself still more by the buildings she erected that live among the most treasured possessions of to-day. When Venice was producing her great architects and painters, her consummate builders and craftsmen, her merchants were rich, proud, too, of making their city as we now see it and know it, one of the most beautiful in the world. Florence and Genoa were rich when they took a high place in the arts and intellectual culture of all kinds. France was rich when she built her unsurpassed cathedrals; so was England at her prime when she gave us much more than has survived destruction of the beauty her artists and craftsmen created. Surely wealth was then used as a permanent means for a permanent supply of honour to which we bow now in the beauty that remains of the noble labours of great peoples. The men who acquired the means to do so spent money for national honour with the ambition to make their city or cities as attractive and beautiful as possible. They employed the greatest creators of their generation to leave their mark not only on the present but the future. The labours of the great spirits of the past are a heritage than which nothing can be greater or more valuable. Bad men as many of the Roman Pontiffs were, they used the wealth (not always honestly attained) with distinction, whether for the exaltation of the Church or not does not matter to us; they made Rome as we see it now (deducting the abominations of industrialism which deface the grand old city).

What do we go to Italy for? Not to hear discourses of politicians or to listen to Socialists talking about what they do not understand, or to see tramways blocking up narrow and picturesque streets. We have enough of those restless, fugitive obstacles here. We go to study the immortal works of art of all the centuries from Romulus to the 16th century of our era; a pretty wide field of interest and instruction, so richly provided is that highly endowed country. What do we go to Egypt for? Surely not to see the havoc Western ambitions in commercialism is causing, with very doubtful results upon the prosperity of the fellah; nor only to bask in her glorious sunshine, her pure air, not yet poisoned by the atmosphere of industrialism in promotion there and quite out of keeping with the distinction of that great country and the transcendent interests of its history; but to study, admire and learn from her remote past, that had so much to do with the formation of intellectual energy which gave birth to so much that is no less valuable now than it was in the past.

To us, overtaken by an artificial life, by a destructive force called Utilitarian, indiscriminating and reckless, the past has much to teach. It is all very well to sweep away traditions which the labours of our forefathers provided, under specious excuses, under plausible arguments; but what we destroy is irrevocable, and cannot be replaced. The mad course pursued by Industrialism has had disastrous effects; it has absorbed land that was under cultivation, it has broken up priceless records of the past by destruction of noble buildings, it has turned thousands of acres of valuable land into deserts, filled the air with poisonous fumes, darkened the face of the sun; it has sown squalor where once was order, and, above all, it has hardened our people, who have been on the verge of soul starvation; it has been turning them into machines. Industrialism has not forwarded Liberty, it has retarded it. Its tendency has been to make all men alike, to, as it were, take moulds of their minds, and sell the casts to the highest bidder. It has encouraged avarice on the one hand and extravagance on the other. Industrialism carried to excess is an incentive to war. It bears no relation to the Arts of Peace. It is a tyrant; wherever it goes it leaves a track of destruction as an invading army does. It has created a spirit of unrest, hence it is the enemy of research, of the arts, and of those faculties of a nation which make them intellectually great. By providing machinery it has crippled craftsmanship. While, in a narrow sense, it has provided _occupation_ (and that word is used advisedly), industrialism has damped the spirit of creative labour. By turning out thousands of articles exactly alike its handmade machinery has almost swept the board of creative instincts, of good and discriminating taste, thereby leaving in its tracks little indeed of æsthetic value and rarely, perhaps, any work of craftsmanship in whatever trade that will be an honour to our generation in the judgment of the future. What the craftsman makes with his finely trained hand, inspired by a creative instinct which is his distinction, the machine can only _copy badly_. The man who made it had a soul which he used in his production which fulfilled it, gave it shape, made it interesting always, even if the workmanship were rough and ready; it reflected its producer, and so a work of art is produced and not the product of a dead machine.

To sum up (and they are hard words that are used) Industrialism is the enemy of the soul of a nation _en masse_; in particular of man, by killing his individuality, his productive genius, his observation, his loyalty to himself, his ambition for fame as a craftsman, the civilised progress of his country and last, not least, his liberty. To succeed (and who does not wish it success?) democracy depends upon the Demos. An unenlightened, self-indulgent, ignorant, uninspired, misdirected Demos must ruin the chances of a successful Democracy!

§ 28

What is “of the people” must come “from the people.” If the people represent the roots of a nation they must be pruned, nourished, and kept clear of poisonous weeds; if not, their product will be sterile. If a fruit tree bears ill the fault is to be found in the roots and in the soil that surrounds them. The embryo of its fruit is in the roots of a tree. Labour is numerically superior, and rightly, because no country can exist without it. It is imperative, therefore, that if Labour is finally to rule it must prepare itself to do so, not by making itself a nuisance and a danger by striking work, by shirking effort, by giving the _minimum_ of its energy to do its share of work for the community, but by strenuously following the old maxim: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” To take part in the rule of the community is a more complicated affair than to rule a household; it follows logically that the man who fails in the latter will do so in the former. Unable to rule himself, to be his own conscience guide, how can he be accepted to rule over his fellows? A man, be he who he may, rich or poor, who uses the leisure he has ill, brutally or wastefully, has not yet qualified himself for more. If the ideal of such a one is dog fighting, man fighting, gambling or any other brutalising sport, his is not likely to be an ideal of the use of leisure serviceable to himself and his family, nor is it one which justifies his voice to be heard or his deeds to influence the affairs of his country, for which he has shown neither interest or inclination. Among intelligent and instructed men as colleagues he would find himself quite out of place, and _rightly_. A limited outlook upon life is one of the penalties which untrained, undisciplined minds have to pay. The narrow mind is a selfish one almost always. It is egoistic, it places the social class to which it belongs in a position of importance far above its merits, for whose well being, in a material sense, it would legislate to the disadvantage of every other class.

§ 29