Part 5

If there is one lesson pre-eminently prominent taught by the experience of the Great War it is the absolute necessity for a _revival of agriculture in the British Isles_. And more than that, viz., that the growth of grain, fruit and vegetables should no longer be permitted to be crushed by an increase of industrialism. Further, that forests should be planted wherever possible, that we may in a large measure derive our wood from our own land. Our people need work, they need to be encouraged to hand labour, to an outdoor, healthy life. Every machine made to hasten results, while it provides work for mechanics, takes away from agricultural labourers. One man employed to drive a corn-reaping machine is enough to reap three or four acres in a day. How many does this mean thrown out of work? Thirty or forty and more. It is true the machine does the job quicker, but is rapidity of execution overwhelmingly important? There is a boot-making machine we hear of which can turn out dozens of finished boots in a day. If this is used what is to become of the bootmakers? They must either starve or take to another trade!

And so, instance after instance might be quoted to prove the narrowing effect produced by industrialism upon labour when carried to such an extent as to absorb the majority of the energies and activities of a people. Although the author has visited many industrial towns where he must confess to have been received with kindness, and from a section of their inhabitants sympathy, he wished to improve his acquaintance and go to one which shall be nameless to have a good look round. Before he relates the story of his impressions and paints a picture of them he wishes to preface it with a few words. In his opinion, which has been formed upon experience, there are undoubtedly great efforts made to render industrial life possible. There is in all industrial cities a small coterie of enlightened men who, as manufacturers, are powerful, and who are making an effort to achieve better conditions of life. There are art galleries, there are museums, there are mechanics’ institutes, schools, and many appliances for a better education. But as far as the author has seen, the people who should be influenced are not reached, they remain outside; they remain a _class apart_, not perhaps ungrateful for their chances, but indifferent to them; they are suspicious. Civilising influences rarely reach them; if they do, they are disregarded.

In point of fact, the Demos of “labour” is distinct from the Demos of intellectual culture. Intellectual culture and Labour are out of touch. Labour seems to belong to another world, to live another life, to have no _need_ for what is put for them to take. That is surely because classes are too abruptly divided, they do not mix enough; hence each class mistrusts the other! Labour mistrusts the Capitalist, and the Capitalist mistrusts Labour. Each is apt to regard the other as of a different species of humanity and one that is inevitably in antagonism, forgetting that no labour means no capital and the reverse. It is unfortunate that there is a gulf between the classes where there should be neutral ground on which they could meet. _Coercion_ will never create that meeting ground, neither will continued suspicion and unrest. High wages even will not tend to reconstruction as long as there is no intellectual basis of sympathy and desire. The working class (I dislike the term) must make an effort to rise, it must desire _acquisitiveness_, and I believe many of it do desire it. It is very little use to place advantages before people who do not want to use them. They must be _taught_ or guided to want them, and by degrees to use them. The middleman is an atrocious invention. The agitator is a middleman. He keeps up friction. He is neither the “boss” nor the workman; he fiddles for his own dancing. It is not impossible that he is responsible for the absence of touch between employed and employer. Trades Unions widen the differences.

The middleman thrives on labour of all kinds. He is represented in the arts by the dealer, who, in most instances, secures a larger share of profit than the producer. The musical middleman (or agent) takes a large profit from the composer; the singer and executant are alike sufferers. This constitutes a difficulty by no means easy to get out of. As long as “advertisement” holds such a sway as it does now, the wrong men make the chief profit, which is an entirely unnatural state of things, demonstrating something wrong in the relations existing between the public and the producer. “The State” has not the power, inclination, or capacity to deal with what is, after all, _authorised_ blackmail. It is only by force of public opinion that a change in economics is likely to come about! By public opinion we do not mean unenlightened, unskilled, ill-disciplined agitation, but one arrived at by a better tone generated by ethical as well as practical education, and a closer touch between teachers and taught. Justice is not likely to be delivered by a class which holds that its own interests are paramount; and that undoubtedly is the present attitude of the class called Labour, which is apt to forget that we are all, or ought to be, labourers, from the King to the humblest peasant. Now let us move our ground. I ask my readers to accompany me on a journey and share with me my observation while reading the thoughts it has given rise to, and afterwards to the Dream consequent, I suppose, upon those thoughts.

§ 30

I travelled in a not too clean third-class carriage from London, which I left in a not uncommon black drizzle. Although it was morning and a summer day, according to the calendar, the station was partly lit by electric light which only seemed to accentuate the smoky gloom within and without. It was depressing, passengers looked depressed, porters were irritable, everybody seemed to be in everybodies’ way. There was the impression of Pandemonium in this specimen of civilization. I wondered at all the pains that had been taken over the strange medley of squalor, convenience and inconvenience. It presented one vast, ugly muddle. This, then, is the chief railway station in the, supposed to be, most civilized city in the world. I looked forward to getting out of the noise, the smoke, and the mud, away from the mad hurry of a people with no time to think, so bent are they in pushing their fellows out of the way. I knew I was going from bad to worse. Curiosity was taking me to a manufacturing town in the north. I should have said City, for it possesses a Lord Mayor, Corporation, and Cathedral, and other conventional essentials.

The journey was uneventful, nobody spoke to his neighbour, babies howled, buns and oranges galore, and the floor was well littered with slippery débris; I was not sorry to reach my destination. I had resolved to leave the train at a station some three miles from the City--a dirty little station it was--that I might walk thither. A hot, damp atmosphere, charged with sulphuric acid, greeted me. The land was undulating. What had once been beautiful has been rendered a poisonous desert; the country surrounding the emporium of nastiness, a capital of Industrialism, was a wreck. Occasionally a white circle appeared and disappeared behind clouds of smoke and mist, beaten up into a greasy black soup. It was the sun, but never a shadow did it cast. The atmosphere, rendered solid by dirt, was heated as in a furnace. Oxygen was at a minimum; hydrogen, in plenty, played its part entirely up to date according to modern ideas of civilization.

Leaving the dirty station, I made my way over fields, or apologies for them, not by the road which was ankle-deep in black mud. A few thin cattle were feeding off patches of ill-nourished grass growing unwillingly from cinders, mixed with poor and thin soil. Groups of black sheep hurried from patch to patch of sapless grass to find nourishment. Mostly wool these half-starved sheep were. Four tumble-down stone walls served as boundaries, which they only indicated. Straggling thin hedges there were making mourning black fringes to the desolate fields unpruned and almost leafless. Although it was July scarce a leaf remained on tree or shrub, none green, few even brown, being mostly crinkled up and black, poisoned in their early youth, but making a brave fight for existence in what should have been their prime. A few broken down buildings appeared as apologies for what had once been a considerable farmhouse in better times. A few blackened haystacks only served to deepen the sense of degradation. About these buildings, instead of flowers and shrubs, was heterogeneous rubbish. Broken saucepans, smashed crockery, tin boxes, glass bottles, rags, bits of old garments and soiled scraps of newspapers. I noticed some garments, men’s and women’s, hanging out to dry. I wondered how long it would take to do so, and what the colour of them would be presently. A few dirty hens were scratching among the débris. A pig or two, none too fat, were turning over rubbish with their snouts. There was a kind of farm yard, which stank of rotten wet straw, soaked in microbic poisons. Near by lay a pool, coated with black slime through which a duck or two pushed their way.

A dirty woman came out of a broken down doorway carrying a still dirtier child. She was pale--she looked permanently sad. Set, even resentful, was her countenance, as she glanced a moment at me--a stranger. What windows her hovel once had, now mostly broken, were patched with bits of newspaper. Three or four men languidly worked or lounged about. Every action pointed to ineptitude and indecision--out of their element, evidently they were. Walking on, I came to a knoll crowned with black, dead trees, once, perhaps, a sacred primitive burying place. I could see the City now, grim in wreaths of black smoke, now looming out as a cold metallic half-light, from what was the sun, struck for an instant upon the gloomy pile of factories. It was as a city of the dead from this distance, silent and grim, hideous, forlorn, and even menacing. There seemed to spread over it an awful silence, broken only now and then, as a light wind carried a dull thud of the throbbing pulse of machinery doing its monotonous task. I came nearer, even to the environs of this terrible place of slavery and black life to the thousands of human beings created to breathe the fresh air of God’s creation, now condemned to evil fumes and soul-killing labour--the offspring of a monotonous, poisonous existence. Hoarse voices, using not too choice language, made discordant music, the like of which I do not wish to hear again. It was now 12 o’clock. Hooters brayed, a cracked bell or two told the hour in mournful tones.

I made my way to the heart of the City. Its narrow, dirty streets, winding, serpentlike, among the black buildings. A slowly moving crowd came along. It moved automatically, just mechanically, like the revolving wheels it had just left. The men had no joy before them, they were just going to eat, to grease the wheels of their machine-made bodies, to return in an hour to resume the same soul-killing toil. Their faces were all alike--very pale, very dirty, very _neutral_. I thought to myself, this then is civilization, and these are the slaves to the much vaunted Industrialism which has gone to kill agriculture and stifle natural life wherever it is planted. This is the life the people choose to live with an occasional strike, and who can wonder? whose leisure is spent at football matches, too often in dog-fighting, man-fighting and gambling; and who can wonder!

In this stifling place, this kind of systemised Hell, wages are high, and _rightly_. The loss of the soul of living should be paid for at a high price in money, it pays a high price for suffering. It is some comfort to think that the majority of slaves to Industrialism are unconscious of what they lose in life. But that ought not to be a consolation; it should stimulate desire and determination to change it. I thought of the health and happiness that had been here in one of the most beautiful and fertile districts of England. The contrast seemed terrible. Nothing can compensate for such a change. Health, free agricultural life, invaded, ravished, and slaughtered by the horrors, inevitable (apparently) horrors, which are part and parcel of Industrialism. I thought of the silver streams once merrily flowing, now sluggishly creeping, half-solid with filth and poison, of the rich produce from a land of farms, of happy country festivals, of content, of the prosperity of England; how she fed herself from her own land, and in her craftsmanship was a leader of Europe. I seem to hear a hard voice saying, “That’s all very well, these people don’t know any other life than the one they live in and are used to.”

That may be true, but it only makes their case a sadder one. To lose sensibility, to be ground down to the level of an automatic machine, is an indignity. Man is an outdoor animal, not made to live the Artificial life of huge, unhealthy cities. Nothing can make up for the loss inflicted on man’s soul by depriving him of Light, by forcing him to live in smoke, squalor, and foul air. Habit does go a long way, no doubt; _they do get used to it_, but that does not lessen the evil that the life is doing to the best part of every man and woman who lives it. I hear another voice say, “But they don’t care for the sun, or beautiful landscape, for flowers, for the things _we_ care for,” as if these toilers were of a different race! “They have lost touch with what you call Nature, and of God they know nothing but as a kind of head of a rich firm who is autocratic and hard, if he pays any attention to them.” “It is no use to put sentiment into this class,” said the hard voice in my ear, “it would be dangerous if they cared for all you want for them. They would be discontented and cease work. Perhaps they would want to go back to the land, to _Freedom_; that would not suit us at all. It is only because they are ignorant of any other life that we get work out of them--machines they are, machines they must remain.”

This was _true_ Industrial _talk_, and exactly typified the mind of the Arch-Priests of Industrialism. “Well, you must remember,” spoke the same voice, “they have their own pleasures, fitted for them and their condition, they like their bit of sport--prize-fights, dog-fighting and gambling--they can go to a ‘cinema,’ there are several here, where they can see the things they understand--stories of vice, of murder, a complete list from the Newgate calendar, that’s what they like.”

“But look,” said I, “at the little box outside that dirty window there; it has fading geraniums in it. Do you mean to tell me that the hand that tries to tend them, and the eyes that enjoy their colour, are yet quite paralysed?” “Oh, yes,” was the answer, “they do like a bit of greenery, of course, but it’s mostly the women that are sentimental.” At that moment a rough-looking fellow went by. “Look at that,” said I, “he has a geranium flower in his button-hole.” There was no answer! _I_ thought that geranium was a symbol of the life of that man’s soul, and reflects the Garden of Eden, and an instinctive desire to be there again. “Granted,” I went on to say, “that Industrial life is a necessity, do you think that it need be squalid, that the homes of these people should not be bettered, and their self-respect encouraged thereby?” “They do not want to be interfered with,” was the answer. “If they were given greater comfort, better dwellings, and little gardens, as sentimentalists desire, the dwellings would become squalid and dirty in a week, and the garden would yield nothing; they’ve lost all touch with such matters, they are grown to be of a different race; they like their condition as long as they have plenty of beer, and may do a little amateur prize-fighting and dog-fighting, and spend a good bit of their week’s money in journeys to football matches.”

“Do you think, then, that their life is the best imaginable for them? Is there no Ideal behind it?” “Yes, it _is_ the best for them. As to Ideals, I don’t know what you mean; they’ve got to take life as it is, there is no room in it for fanciful experiments! They are well paid; for the rest, leave them alone in their ‘squalor,’ as you call it; they like it, and would resent being made ‘respectable.’ Besides, if they were, they would get out of hand.” I saw it was no use to argue with the voice that came from a big, fat man, as hard as nails, and as prosperous as a fatted pig! I went to see the “Mechanics’ Institute.” There were a few billiard tables, a strong smell of stale tobacco and beer; a quantity of newspapers littered the tables, dirtily thumbed on the pages relating to sport and “all the winners,” the last prize fight, murder and burglary. Sport and crime appeared the favourites of the moment. Could this be bettered? I thought. Yes, was the answer from my better self, but it will not be if men of the type of him who talked just now lead public opinion.

§ 31

I went to the theatre, the play was not invigorating; it provided rotten food--money jugglery, a low love affair, and success of a villain, were the parts. What was not immoral was vulgar. What was neither, was dull. I venture to imagine whoever was there came away a little more debased than he went. I found my way to the Cathedral, a fine 15th century edifice. The stone (local and hard) was fast being pulverised by acid fumes. Black deposit filled every crevice of what once had been exquisite carving. The loving work of ancient craftsmen was being rapidly destroyed by the “necessities” (?) of Industrialism. An attempt was in progress to reface a portion of the exterior--far better have left the noble old work decay than replace it by commercial carving at so much a foot. It had been a noble building. Standing high, it dominated, by a survival of dignity, the hideous black factories. It was like a still small voice, speaking out of a great past to a people who, if they heard it, could not understand. Its chimes (eight bells) once echoing the hours to the hills, were silent--better so, perhaps. I did not stay long in the interior. It made me sad to think of the enlightened people who had worshipped there, for it was a Benedictine Abbey Church of the monastery hard by where was preserved all the learning of the times, and where men led “creative and industrious lives.”

A pure unsullied sun had glowed through glorious glass, of which fragments remained, but mostly had been replaced by commercial attempts at _so much a foot_--commercial, indeed, it was. On the very rock where stood the monastery--the place of scholarship, of art, a home for exquisite craftsmanship--is now a huge manufactory, belching out wreaths of black smoke, like serpents encircling shaft and building, writhing in poison even along the cobbled ways deep in black slush. Civilisation, so called? Here, are forged cannon to kill human creatures. A very apotheosis of hideous war, and one of the many homes of its implements. When will men be wise and see that war is not only a hideous crime, a recognised murderer of millions, an authorised waste of money and energy, but a folly as well? What waste, cannon to destroy, and to be destroyed after a few hours of vicious mischief! Oh, the foolishness of such a parody on Ambition, on Statesmen, on the whole world’s Progress!

§ 32

Men, human beings, brothers, as they ought to be, earning their livelihood in making engines of Destruction. “Ypres,” “Louvain,” and “Rheims,” came into my mind, with the devastation of hundreds of square miles of fair agriculture in France and Belgium, and for what? That a materialistic nation, clever and unprincipled, and lost to all moral restraint, audacious and mendacious, might govern the world under the sovereignty of the mad egoist, William II. But Britain had to fight. Her honour would have been stained for ever, had she broken faith with Belgium in her extreme agony. Whether it is desirable to make implements of destruction in the abstract, is a question; during the war they had to be made and with all possible speed, and British factories played an honourable part in saving Britain, as her soldiers did who shed their blood for their country. Is it indeed, Utopia, that place where men may come to regard war as a folly, and where, being taught a better and higher Ideal than quarrelling, is a reality? I like to think the time will come when our greatest minds are concentrated on contributing to all that Peace designs, and our skilled labour and craftsmen are employed on things permanent. They will be things that last into the ages to come, that ennobled the men who designed and made them, and bring a pride for them in the making, and an honour gained in the estimation of them in the future. The abolition of War might depress the purse of Industrialism, but it would endow the country with riches that money cannot purchase. Enormous, scarcely calculable, sums of money now spent on “preparations” to kill our neighbours, would be converted to create things enduring and elevating. Perhaps it may never be, but why not dream of it and work for it as a possibility? There is an _Ideal_ somewhere. Why not reach after it? There is so much that needs doing for Education, for Beauty, provision of healthy work for every one, and healthier lives for every one.

We ought to have no time for war. The late struggle for Freedom has supplied Europe and Britain with the rest. Somehow or other, a change must come. If we are to prosper, aye, to exist, pre-war conditions cannot be renewed. We have to make a new start, to obtain a greater simplicity of life. If you like, more primitive. Many good old customs and systems may well be revived. We were in such a hurry to coin money. We forgot that what we were leaving behind was better than what we were recklessly trying to meet. We thought that money was the “Summum bonum” of existence, to buy transient pleasure, to gratify our lower instincts, to feed ourselves with luxuries, to be victims to Vanity Fair, and slaves to it; to eclipse the sun the giver of physical needs, the symbol of Eternal God, the Giver of Light; hence, Life, has been as great a folly as War. It is, indeed, a kind of war to do so, a war against Nature and her manifold gifts through the Spirit of God, which were visible in the Sun. To live under gloom, being poisonous to the body, is likewise poisonous to the Soul, which, in time, it must injure, if not destroy, for it paralyses Hope; it paralyses everyone of our finer sensibilities and aspirations. It blinds us to Beauty, it hardens the heart, destroys graceful sympathy, engenders selfishness, and, in time, it annihilates Love, because absence of Light is enervating to manhood.

And that is what a _few_ have been doing to the many under promise that they shall be enriched. Enriched with what? Money paid for bad work? And when the money is there, how have they been taught to use it? Palliatives in plenty have been offered them. More excitements for leisure hours, which devitalise, have been sown broadcast; and why? because, pandering to human weakness, it paid to keep the people quiet. We have reaped that which has been sown. The people have become restive, they want more wages, not for the purpose of uplifting their finer sensibilities, but to gamble with first one then another amusement. Instead of providing, for leisure hours of our workmen, stimulus to educate themselves to be provident, to be industrious, we have led them by promises to the silly idea that they are the right class to govern the country!

§ 33