Part 7
The great war provided proof that military discipline, which means obligation of the items of a system to work for the success of the whole, did not unfit men for peaceful labour, but rather the contrary; because a habit of self-control in combination strengthens the fibres of individual physical and mental activity. So far advanced is the system of units in combination under the flag, that at any moment mobilisation can be effected, and in a time of necessity practically the whole male portion of the nation can be under arms. Industrialism provides arms which in time of peace need not be overwhelmingly costly to taxpayers, because in a moment of emergency war material can be produced with almost miraculous rapidity. It is not the intention of those who are organising reconstruction to be caught napping again. The nation, as a whole, being more intelligently equipped than it was, sees ahead, and mistrusting politicians, it follows the lead of good sense and keener intellects than those who are under the spell of party politics possess.
But I am moving too quickly, a habit which the mind has when it is keen and full of ideas. Government is on the basis of Home Rule, with some of the restrictions as well as advantages of the old Saxon Heptarchy. Imperial Parliament holds no sway over the Communes, which are governed by a Mayor selected not on account of his wealth, but his wisdom. He is elected for three years, and by the voice of the Commune. His Council is representative of each necessary trade and profession, hence it is truly democratic. Men of the law are used as referees (but are not except as such) allowed to be active members, the legal mind being held to be limited, and narrow, by its training to delay, and dangerous by its sophistry.
Not more than _one_ representative of each trade is permitted. This wise proviso has been accepted to prevent jobbery, for which the old Borough and Town Councils were renowned. Each representative, while his first duty is to look after the trade he represents, has a vote upon all subjects.
In order that the Council of the Commune shall be in a position to look after the interests of the entire community, what used to be called “country gentlemen” form a feature. All honest tradesmen are respected; dishonest ones and profiteers are held in no respect, but are considered aliens and unworthy of any responsible place in the State.
The House of Commons, as it was called, no longer exists. It was considered a clumsy assembly, and one out of touch with realities. It ceased to exist because the people became weary with too much talk, too many promises, and of muddle at every turn; so they ceased to vote for M.P.’s to sit at Westminster. It died quite a natural death, the country at large being scarcely aware of the moment of its demise which no one regrets. It has come to be borne into the minds of the honest democrat that too many laws framed by lawyers were every year passed, not one of which was sincerely intended to be applied, but were passed as sops to public opinion upon some more or less burning question of the moment. Imperial Parliament, which we have stated is under the presidency of the King, is composed of Privy Councillors selected from the County Communes as the wisest men of the moment, not necessarily rich, but trustworthy, and such as have proved to have no _personal axes to grind_. This implies that the King’s Councillors are men of learning and character, and are not likely to commit banalities in their dealing with foreign affairs, for which reason it is found desirable that they are travelled and not insular men, accustomed to meet foreigners and to speak their language, as well as to be conversant with their habits of thought and institutions.
§ 6
The Aristocracy of Learning takes a high place in the new democracy. We have seen that a party chest no longer exists, so men poor in purse, but rich in wisdom and understanding, if not called “Peers of the Realm,” have become so by their outstanding merits. Hereditary titles are the exception. The ancient titles and families go on, but it is an exception when they are added to. It is agreed that opportunists and place hunters were numerically increased by the facilities provided for the purchase of honours. In the new State no honours can be _purchased_, but they can be _won_! Money may make a prominent man, but not a great one. By making the King President of the Privy Councillors it was thought that the grave responsibility carried with it would strengthen the monarchy, and, holding on to the fine tradition of kingship, the country would benefit more than under repeated elections consequent upon a shifting Republic, meaning that stability is more likely to be reached under a Constitutional Monarch than under a vacillating Republic.
To sum up this portion of my dream. Centralisation is a thing of the past! Each county governs itself; and this plan has been thought to be wise because every county has its own idiosyncracy, its own needs, and its own powers of production, some _Industrial_, some _Agricultural_, but each one must, to be well governed, be represented by the most varied and highly trained minds. So each intellectual class is called upon to administer, which system prevents the commercial element from overriding the intellectual; hence a better balance is maintained than under the old system, which pushed into the background some of the best minds in the community, who, not being commercial, but taking another view, undoubtedly a higher one, were regarded as fanatics, their ideas being received with a shrug of the shoulders as a gesture of contemptuous pity.
But a wider education, hence better manners, has altered all this, and members of a class that held in contempt any intelligence applied other than to commerce have learnt that there are many sides to a nation’s greatness, none of which can be neglected without detriment to the whole. Besides the Mayor each Commune has its Minister of Public Health, who must be a capable authority not an amateur but an expert, who has under him a staff of officers ever on the watch for the good of the people. Next to him is the Minister for Agriculture. In industrial centres a Minister for Industrialism is at work, whose duty it is to see that all factories are sanitary, the workmen neither overcrowded or overworked. There is a protecting Minister of all rivers and lakes, into which no refuse from factories is permitted to drain. This law, if not obeyed, _the factory can be immediately shut up_. All coal smoke is forbidden, whether from factories or private houses. This law at first was resented, and until fines for its non-observance were heavy, was not obeyed. As soon as offenders found there was no way to avoid smoke, they applied science and now the evil never occurs. Electricity is used as energising power as well as for heat giving, all engines are driven by it, hence in the whole of England the scandal of a smoking chimney of any sort or kind is never presented.
“We are wiser now,” said a scientific man. “We know it to be not only folly to waste coal, but wrong to smirch the sky, hide the sun, and poison trees and vegetables with evil fumes--it can be prevented.” As I hovered over a part of England, not long ago blasted and blackened, where not a tree would grow, where the sun rarely penetrated through the evil clouds of unconsumed fuel, I wondered how it was we permitted that miserable state of things to go on. Now the country smiles under the sun; what was a desert is a garden, and what were pale, sad people are now sunburnt, merry and strong folk, as the British race was before the artificial tyrant Industrialism began to bleach them. The climate of the British Isles is not genial, we all know that, but the difference since coal smoke has ceased to darken the sun is so great as to provide another climate. Fogs there are and always will be in our Island, but smoke fogs are no more, hence an outdoor life is led which was impossible under the circumstances of the past. If the Communes had only effected that change they would have benefited the human race quite incalculably. Each Commune has its Minister of Education assisted by a staff of competent superintendents, who visit local schools and issue reports that are laid before a Council elected from chosen men of character and distinction. Each Commune has a Minister of Arts and Crafts, for music and the drama, including dancing, which I notice has become an art and an essential one, in the training of the young in good manners and graceful demeanour.
§ 7
The Mayor or Lord Mayor is elected from any class; preferably he is not a tradesman, but a man of wide learning and experience, hence he is not prejudiced in favour of any trade or profession. Lawyers are not eligible as Mayors, nor is it thought desirable that so dignified an office should be held by auctioneers or house agents. Indeed, the further the chief officer of the Commune is removed from temptations of class jobbery, the better is the service he renders to the community at large.
Prices of bread, meat and milk, the three absolute necessities, are regulated by the commune. They vary as little as possible, and being essential to the carrying on of life, fortunes are not made from their sale. The law at the root of this wise decision is the result of the profiteering of tradesmen during the late war, which became so serious a scandal that the people suffering from it endeavoured to make it impossible to be repeated.
The Council does its work in the capital of each county, but the smaller cities, townships and villages are permitted to act independently, as their several interests demand, so long as in the main features of policy they subscribe to the intention the Chief Council has in view. Once a year the heads of each country department meet in the capital and make their reports. The Conference lasts for one week, and is the occasion of a general holiday. The Conference is open to all comers, who, while it sits, have an opportunity of expressing their opinion upon questions of public interest. This system seems to be working well; the discontented can air their discontent and the contented their approval. It works well, because all discussion is open, none taking place under closed doors; that fact alone is conducive to confidence, by implying it and receiving it. Where there is honesty there is no need for secrecy. “Do nothing with closed doors,” said M. Aurelius. The whole system of government is in the best sense Socialistic, as opposed to Individualistic the mark of the Radical. “Every man out for himself” is a destructive policy. While this form of Socialism makes for order, it does not discourage individual enterprise. Opinions may be stated under a reasonable check by minds skilled in government, which, being open to new ideas as long as they are proved to promote _public good_, learn by listening.
§ 8
If occasion demands it, each Commune throughout the country is empowered to send its chief and such officers as he may select to meet together in conference in any one of the chief cities of Britain. This extreme measure would probably only apply in times of a national crisis, such as possible war or unruly conduct as strikes or other disorder imperilling the well-being of a peaceful and industrious majority. Everything that works for unanimity, but without weakness, seems to be becoming natural. The artificial conditions, most disastrous in their effect, of tyrannical Trades Unions, have given way under a return to Guilds. The painters, craftsmen of all descriptions, and the best class of tradesmen are under certain elastic laws appertaining to their profession or business. There are no such mischievous people as Strike Leaders; long ago they proved failures, and the workmen became aware of the damage they had done to their reputation and threw them over. They did so directly it was brought home to them that their leaders were really tyrants. The Guilds _encourage good work_, as the Trades Union leaders of the past encouraged bad; indeed, they have it in their powers to impose a fine on bad work, if continued to be issued after warning has been given or a fine paid. The guilds can expel an idle delinquent as an unworthy citizen. As far as one could learn, that punishment, so far, has had to be carried into effect very rarely, because workmen and craftsmen of all kinds now recognise the wisdom of being honest in their own interest, _i.e._, for good pay to give good work.
§ 9
Being better educated or, shall we say, more widely informed and more wisely led, craftsmen in every branch of industry are better citizens, regarding their work as a contribution valuable to the Commune and to the country at large. By degrees it is becoming a habit of mind to regard all labour as noble, if executed honourably. Every man, whatever his calling may be, takes a pride in doing it well. Indeed, as my spirit wandered from place to place watching and listening, I gathered that _idleness_ and _slackness_, encouraged as they were by the Trades Unions, are now _despised_. For idle workmen of any sort or in any sphere of life, in trade, profession or craftsmanship, is not only a useless but mischievous item in the social system. The pride engendered by honest labour is the cause of healthy competition. Emulation is a quality which has grown to be a habit; emulation, not envy or jealousy, which are mean. When men grow wise they discard smallness. They do not begin every sentence with the first person singular, but with the second or first person plural; therefore, being inside and a part of the community, the co-worker is an essential link in the chain which binds an entire system and renders it strong.
This is the reverse of Radical tenet, which proclaiming the creed of the Jew Fagin, in his discourse with Noah Claypole, “Look after number one, my dear”--an admirable doctrine for thieves, but the reverse for the welfare of an honest community.
§ 10
Dreams are queer things, very illogical, and not restrained by formulæ. In dreams, Q.E.D. does not come in at all. The charm of a dream is that it is suggestive, not conclusive. It is like a kind of Inspiration: gaps have to be filled up; sequences are indefinite. All manner of odd situations jostle one another. An instant of time is as a thousand years. The ancients, in their wisdom, in their contemplative abstraction, may not have been far off the mark when they regarded dreams as omens, having the nucleus of some abstract truth. Swifter than any train or aeroplane can travel, as swiftly as a ray of light reaches the earth from the sun, the spirit, free of the body, moves in a dream. It can inhabit Mars awhile and be back in Piccadilly in less than a fraction of a minute divided into sixty pulsations. The spirit has to take no ticket to travel, to pay no price for a long journey. It has no aims, it only obeys impulse. There being no method in a dream removes it from actualities, which it only pictures. These being the chief characteristics of Dreamland, in the relation of a dream, which is automatic impression, a certain irregularity in the position of subjects to which it relates is not only permissible, but necessary to the picture it may be destined to paint. Having so far preserved a kind of sequence of ideas suggested as the teller of my dream, I obey the volatile journeys into all manner of crannies. No brain is so closely locked up that it can prevent the great inquisitor from entering. While they are free, dreams are tyrants over reason, to which they bear no relationship. The interpretation of a dream must be left to the listener of the tale it tells who can form whatever conclusion he pleases. The rationalist will probably only see folly; the mathematician, chaos; the unimaginative, nonsense. Probably the dreamer dreams in close relationship to his habit of mind. He may be an optimist at one moment a pessimist at another. He accentuates his likes and dislikes, hence through the relation of his dream he exposes himself, and gives himself over to every kind of criticism. To some he appears the reverse of veracious, to others a lunatic, but to a few he may appear in the nature of a prophet.
Having apologised to my readers, I propose now to allow my dream to lead me, as it most certainly will do, how and where it likes, to obey its impulses even though they are disconnected. To do otherwise would tend to muddle up dreams with realities, or such realities we see in waking hours. And now, feeling free, I can continue with the story in all its oddities of arrangement, because this is not a philosophical treatise, although it might be construed into one. It is not my business as a dream teller to reason, but to leave that to my readers.
In the pursuit of largeness of Vision, breadth of Faith, development of Charity, and strengthening of Hope, the new world formed in my dream _recognises all religions_, or rather their creeds, with their differences of approach towards a great mystery, and places them upon an equality of ministration. Church and State are separated. The Hebrew, Roman, Anglican, and Presbyterian Churches are, if not numerically equal, equally respected. The grand mystical tenets of the Hebrews, the loneliness of the Divine Spirit worshipped, its nearness as well as its aloofness from what it has created, its complete unchangeable supremacy associated with its antiquity, are respected and admired as sincere emotions of one prominent part in the mind of man. The grave simplicity of the Hebrew ritual is accepted as an expression of mysterious faith. Having travelled so far into man’s mind, it was arrested before any explanation of mysteries arrived to drag the incomprehensible into the region of logic. No longer despised, the Hebrew faith is as the Father of many children. Differing from it in detail, the Moslem faith is the elder child of pure Deism. Mahommed is to his followers what Moses is to the Hebrews and Jesus Christ to Christians. We, who have to govern so large a portion of the Moslem world, belong to a nation which of necessity must come into constant contact with a Faith which (having its defects, according to Western thought) is to the people who follow it the fountain of Wisdom and the well of Truth; a Faith, indeed, from which the most ardent Christian can learn many lessons of sobriety and reverence. God the all powerful is the unapproachable Spirit; only by prayer, praise and entire trust are we brought spiritually near to Him.
The Roman Catholic community of thought is, in a sense, nearer to Western life and ideals than the Hebrew or Moslem, but the element from which it sprang is the same. The One Supreme God, the Father of His creation, and the mystical spirit which contains _all_. Differences are only matters of words, they are additions which in no wise touch the root of the matter. God Almighty is still the root from which springs the Tree of Life and all its branches. Deus and Zeus are the same word. All the pagan gods emanate from the Divine centre, be it Olympus, Rome, or Jerusalem. The Roman Church saw fit to construe pagan mythology in a new vernacular. Its saints and holy men became the lesser gods, but no less or more were they, or are they, absolutely dependent upon the all powerful Deity, the final author of all, the dispenser of all, the father of all.
The Anglican Church is the child of the Roman and grandchild of pagan mythology, the great grandchild of the Hebrew Faith. The metal of which the chain is formed is gold forged by the Divine Spirit. Probably the break between the Anglican and Roman Church was a political, more than a religious, _evolution_. The English never liked submission to Rome. England has always been a friend to liberty, an enemy to tyranny, and long may it so remain, be it either religious or political.
Nonconformity, especially that branch we call “Presbyterian,” came from an attempt to simplify ritual, as far as possible, to reconstruct allegiance with primitive worshippers. The root of belief the reformers did not touch. The Deity remained pre-eminent. The new world, that of my dream, while admitting differences, recognises essential similarities. Hence all denominations are held equal--equal as regards the respect due to them, and equal in the intention which dominates differences of detail. Was it not Augustine who said: “There is no religion which has not something of the Spirit of God in it”? Sectarianism takes no part in the new world. I saw in my dream that the cathedrals and churches of England are open to all religions. To the Hebrews the altars there are as the ark presided over by the shining cherubims. To the Moslem as a symbol of the nearness of the Divine Being; to the Catholics as the symbol of self sacrifice; to the Presbyters as symbols of Divine Hope and assistance. In them the ancient Psalms of David are sung by Hebrews, whose incense carries prayers of the faithful up to their roofs and far above them again. Jesus Christ worshipped in the Synagogue--why should not the Hebrews worship in His Temples? I saw in my dream that the Roman Mass, in all its splendour of detail, its imagery, its exuberance of symbolism, is celebrated in the cathedrals and churches once reserved as Temples of Protestantism. The simpler ritual of the Anglicans is also reverently administered, and the almost entirely bald ritual of Presbyters finds its place within the historic walls of the churches of Liberal England.
The breadth of sympathy thus shown to all religious denominations my spirit saw had nothing but a good result. It is a form of departure which is catching; it engenders peace; it breaks up animosity; it extends mental outlook from small to great things. Without temporising differences it permits them, it places them as small matters by the side of big essentials, hence the charity to which a broad view of religion has given rise is spreading and seems to enter into the spirit of a new and larger life. Hence religion appears to me to coalesce with a spirit of fraternity which, obviously, is growing, not sentimentally, but as a social and indispensable fact.
The cathedrals and churches are adorned with pictures, not necessarily sectarian or of what are called religious subjects. Prominent features of the History of the World are presented, but I do not remember to have seen any pictures in which war is figured. The new world abominates war, and while it is in a measure prepared for such a foolish experiment as war is, it is not considered worthy of handing down by the Arts of Peace, which are and must be _constructive_.
It is recognised that while mankind is selfish, grasping and cruel, wars will occur. The ideal is, of course, general disarmament, but that is unlikely. Still, it is thought that the more widely and constantly the Arts of Peace are sown, and the greater interest taken in life, not as a dissipation, but as concentration of energy used on things that matter, the less likely war will intervene and shatter, for perhaps a century, all peaceful intellectual progress.