Part 15

A third means of lightening the strain upon our _ouvriers_ is to multiply the facilities for emigration. I would even go so far as to say that I think an _International_ Emigration and Immigration League between all the civilized nations of the world, for the purpose of drafting overplus populations into thinly inhabited districts, would be rather a good thing than otherwise, the inconveniences attending differences of language, manners, and so forth, being quite surmountable; whereas the difficulties attendant upon the possession of more hands to labour than there is work to perform, and consequently more hungry stomachs than there is food to fill, is altogether insurmountable. With regard to the affliction of _mal du pays_, from which undoubtedly many of the expatriated would suffer at intervals, that would be found to be a much more tolerable burden to bear, combined with a sufficiency of victuals and clothing, than the pangs of starvation or semi-starvation even on one's "native heather."

But as it is no part of my programme to move too fast, or too far at once, I do not insist upon any international arrangement of the kind I have hinted at during, say, the present decade. I do, however, earnestly entreat all whom it may concern to try their best to place the matter of Emigration on a proper footing. I unhesitatingly maintain that whilst Great Britain possesses untold thousands of acres of virgin soil, and practically unlimited untried possibilities, in her numerous colonies, this our "sea-girt isle" ought not to suffer from a plethora of willing workers. The existing facilities held out to our overcrowded populations to induce them to venture upon "fresh fields and pastures new" might be multiplied a hundred-fold.

Surely it ought to be part of the fundamental policy of a State--especially of a State whose real governing body is elected by household suffrage--to take the most active measures for insuring the weal of all its citizens: the humblest as well as the highest. Does not this, indeed, form the very quintessential attribute of good government? Has it not been rightly said that a State represents the totality of all the individuals composing it? I assume these are sound political axioms; and if I am right in this assumption, may I not suggest, as the most certain way of attaining the desired end, that our Representative Government should formally acknowledge our claims upon them by appointing a Minister for "the Condition of the People," with a seat in the Cabinet? The next step would be easy, for when once the whole surroundings were fairly brought within the range of vision, the vital importance of Emigration as a principal means of amelioration would be recognized; and it would be discovered that an able Secretary for Emigration would prove an invaluable auxiliary in the effective working of the department.

It would be necessary, I apprehend, to select for this latter office a man eminent as well for good temper as for a capacious intellect, as the multiplicity of the functions he would have to perform would render such office by no means a sinecure; and the involved and complex matters he would have to deal with might, at times, go far in the direction of ruffling the serenest imperturbability.

The eye of fancy depicts him in the active performance of his multifarious duties, surrounded by numerous painstaking subordinates, some of whom bear to him huge tomes, containing a full alphabetical list (compiled from the census returns and other sources) of the populations, industries, and assessments of the United Kingdom, divided into areas of certain dimensions, showing the age, sex, occupation, and earnings or incomings of every person; the number of houses (with their rentals or estimated yearly value), workshops, or other business establishments of every kind, specifying how many hands are employed in each and the amount of wages paid; and also showing the number of persons in receipt of out-door relief, and approximate number of vagrants in each district. Other attentive satellites open before him the various domesday books, containing reports by competent surveyors as to the quantity, and the latent riches or irredeemable poverty, of uncultivated lands throughout those vast dominions of ours on which the sun never sets; with copious notes by skilled mercantile men and geographers, pointing out the places where commodious ports might be formed, railways constructed, or manufactories erected. Our much-worried Secretary, whose heart is in his work, compares notes, and directs some of his chief clerks to prepare digests of, for instance, the information contained in pp. 420 to 446 of the 17th volume of the first set of books, and pp. 97 to 104 of the 32nd volume of the second set, ready for his consideration on the day but one following. He then takes up similar digests, which have previously been prepared in like manner, and sees clearly that one hundred artisan families of various specified trades, full particulars of which are before him, may, with advantage to all parties, be transplanted, passage free, from the blind alleys of Flintchester to the new settlement of Hornihand in Australasia, with the authorities of which place the usual arrangement will be made to assist them on their _début_, and lend them a helping hand until they get fairly settled down. Day after day this kind of thing goes on throughout the year, except for some two months during the late summer and autumn vacation, when the hard-worked Secretary and his staff are enjoying a well-earned holiday.

The more I ruminate on this matter of Emigration the more I am convinced that it is indispensable; it should run on wider lines, and cover a far more extended area than is possible under anything short of Governmental intervention. Seeing the utter inutility and inefficacy of isolated exertions to deal with the mighty problems which our complex civilization presents for solution, I should, on behalf of myself and my class, hail with joy the prospect of State interference in our interests. Sneers may continue to be directed against, and witty sarcasms levelled at, a "Paternal Government," "infringement of that liberty of the subject which is the inherent privilege and birthright of every Briton," and other like cuckoo-cries. But meantime we starve; we increase and multiply in obedience to the law of Nature, and our opportunities of earning subsistence do _not_ increase and multiply in a corresponding ratio. And without by any means desiring to steep my pen in midnight blackness in order to portray possible portentous consequences, yet it is a proposition not to be controverted that the ever-increasing preponderance of born toilers over any quantity of remunerative toil which can by any possibility be created within the limits of Great Britain proper must inevitably cause such consequences to be calamitous. For some time past the dark shadow of over-population has been looming on the horizon of "Merrie England," at first no bigger than a man's hand, but later advancing nearer and still more near and assuming colossal proportions; and the time cannot be far distant when it will obstinately refuse to be ignored any longer, even by the most unreflective, but will assert itself in a manner little to be desired. How, then, to avert this evil? How to postpone the advent of the fateful day? Are not these queries of vital interest to all ranks of society? I for one feel them to be so: hence the above gropings after gleams of daylight in the midst of the gathering shades. I do not pretend to aver that I have found the sunshine, that I have discovered an absolute cure for all the ills that "flesh is heir to." Too well I know what mistakes and blunders are interwoven in the best-devised schemes of human origin. Nevertheless, I hold that the free expression and ventilation of opinions, even though they may be erroneous, is often eventually productive of good, by serving to dispel vagueness of thought and loose generalization, and solidifying the abstract into the concrete; until which process has been accomplished no thing soever can be dealt with satisfactorily. Therefore, as a firm _dis_believer in the Malthusian philosophy, as also in the recommendations for checking the increase of population more recently scattered broadcast amongst us, and being deeply impressed with the imperative necessity of confronting the difficulty at once--_now_, in these days when the heavens above us appear to be hardening into brass, and the earth beneath us to be corrugating into iron--I have requested the Editor of this REVIEW to afford me the opportunity of giving publicity to my views.

Closely allied to this division of my paper, if not actually of it, is the subject of _Charity_. Here, again, what a lamentable waste of vital force, what an invertebrate entity crying aloud to be overhauled, remodelled, jointed, and braced! Contrast the grand sum total yearly given in charity with the paucity of definite results attained--the well-worn comparison of the Nasmyth hammer and the nut instantaneously recurs to one's mind. Except when subscriptions are raised for some specific object outside the usual round altogether, how little there is to show for the expenditure! Why is this so? And what is the remedy? Obviously, I opine, the cause is individualism, isolation, caprice,--and as obviously, I ween, the only cure is combination, organization, system. Where we have now hundreds of little benevolent societies, with their honorary secretaries and treasurers and fussy committees, each neutralizing the others, let us have two or three established on a broad basis, with a central committee who, when the "sinews of war" are collected in one focus, will be strong enough to enter on paths at present untrodden, and wise enough to understand that almost innumerable differentiations in the nature of gifts will be necessary to cope successfully with the almost illimitable diversities in the nature of requirements, and who will insist on being invested with discretionary powers in matters of occasional aids and supplemental benevolences. Then it will be no longer possible for the shameless pauper, flaunting his rags and sores in the marketplace, or the whining sycophantic hypocrite, to monopolize the coals of one society, the blankets of a second, the soup of a third, and so on _ad infinitum_, not seldom exchanged for means of procuring beer to give additional zest to the utterance of the sentiment--"What fools these gentlefolks be." The most searching inquiries would be instituted, and perchance succour afforded to those to whom it would prove an inestimable boon, but who, from constitutional timidity or _mauvaise honte_, now starve and drop and die in silence, overlooked by almoners who take the first miserable-looking object who comes to hand, the most self-asserting or the most "'umble," and straightway pour out the contents of their cornucopias upon shams, making a miserable travesty of the sacred name of Charity.

Mind.

It is refreshing to know that so far as this branch of the subject is concerned, our governors, having by the force of circumstances been compelled to realize the fact of our existence, and our claim to be considered as veritably part and parcel of the body politic, with rights of common citizenship, have further, within the last few years, by the passing of the Compulsory Education Act, shown themselves possessed of political sagacity, by thus taking steps to insure that our descendants, when their turn comes to exercise and enjoy the civil privileges now granted to them, shall at least have a ploughed and manured soil in which to sow the seeds of love for law and order with some chance of due fructification, instead of the rough, hibbly-hobbly cinder-heap of their forefathers, which acknowledged no fertilizing influence but gross bribery, and partially justified the political ostracism and exclusion of its owners from all share in electoral privileges.

All hail, then, to the School Board system as a great step in the right direction. Undeniably true as are some of the accusations brought against it, alleging that many blunders and useless extravagances, and much disregard for the susceptibilities of well-meaning but mistaken opponents, have marked its progress onward in too many instances; yet as the general idea is laudable and eminently conducive to promoting the highest interests of the entire population, and as in the nature of things it may be expected that greater experience will bring greater wisdom, and the faults charged against the movement gradually become "small by degrees and beautifully less," let us heartily wish it God-speed.

Yet, why does the good work stop here? Why should not provision be made for building upon the foundation thus laid? Why should totally unformed intelligences be the only ones to profit by this guardian care, and why should they be led a little way on the road and then left to flounder along by themselves, and lose themselves in interminable mazes? Why, in short, should education be confined to children, and not extended to adults?

It is true that the University Extension Scheme, as now carried out in many of our larger provincial towns to a very, very limited and only faintly appreciable extent, tends to show that the wind is just beginning to blow in this direction also. Something, however, much more comprehensive is needed. The masses are not reached, as will be patent to any one who will take the trouble to attend any of the courses of lectures delivered in connection with this extension system. The neophytes seeking initiation into this or that special branch of learning will be found to be composed principally of what we call "better class" people, with a sprinkling of pupil teachers and sucking governesses.

Nor is this the fault of the masses themselves, as may perhaps be conjectured; the mere circumstance of the prices charged for admission in itself forming an insuperable barrier to the great majority having any part or lot in the matter, to say nothing of the fact that the whole apparatus is professedly set in motion for the benefit of the middle-class public solely.

But however inadequate this minute increase in the volume of the fertilizing waters of Literature and Science may be for the mighty task of irrigating the parched and arid desert which stretches out in measureless extent before us, yet I am fain to regard it as a favourable omen--as a symptomatic indication that the "fountains of the great deeps" of human ignorance are beginning to be broken up, and that the tide _is_ rising which, when it has reached its full height, will disseminate the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge far and wide over the landscape so that the lowly equally with the high-born may pluck and eat thereof. The monster Cerberus has received a buffet on one of its three heads, and the Hesperidean Gardens may ere long, I am sanguine enough to hope, be entered by any thirsty passer-by without fear of molestation.

All this, however, is dreamy, unsubstantial verbiage. That it is not also mere chimerical nonsense, which will not bear the strain of practical application, I will attempt to show--always supposing as a necessary preliminary, as in all the hypothetical propositions throughout this paper, that that portion of the community who are nursed in the lap of fortune are imbued with sympathetic feelings towards the less favoured sharers of their common humanity, and do not object to take a little trouble and bear a little charge by way of displaying their fellow-feeling.

Grant this premiss, and what follows, or something better, may easily be rendered an accomplished fact.

The first step will be the formation of a council or committee, after the manner before suggested, save that in this case we shall want an infusion of men of culture who at the same time shall be good workers and good philanthropists (a rare combination, but not an impossible one, I venture to think, notwithstanding the seductions a life of Sybaritic ease and delicate refinement specially offers to the scholar), in every considerable town or group of villages throughout the length and breadth of the land, with power over the district purse-strings, and with no superior authority except the Minister or Secretary of State for Education at Whitehall--for, of course, such a functionary will in those happy times be quite as much a necessity as a Master of the Buckhounds--who alone will have power to veto their proceedings and issue general rules for their guidance.

If I had the ear of this all-important official, I should whisper to him that in my view the best mode of enlightening the working classes would be to take possession of three already-existing institutions, and enlarge their dimensions so as to make of them real forces, distinctly visible, instead of the hole-and-corner obscure trivialities they are now. These three institutions are--1st, Free Libraries; 2nd, Lecture Halls; 3rd, Class Rooms.

1. To Free Libraries I have accorded the first place, because in all probability it is there that the beneficial results will be more immediately apparent, and the advantages offered will, in the first instance, be most considerably made use of. The major portion of the huge and unwieldy mass to be operated on would fly off at a tangent from the exactness and method necessarily incident to formal lectures, and in a still greater degree to class-work. It must first be left to itself to sprawl and struggle at its own free-will; the restraining chain must not be too soon brought into view; gradually and insensibly the quickening influence must be brought to bear; the change from density to clear-headedness, from sluggish inertness to mental activity, will not be effected in a moment; not all at once will the spiritual part of the long-benighted assert its claim to an equality with the animal part; desultory reading only will impart a love for reading; odd waifs and strays of information picked up just anyhow will alone create the desire for the acquisition of further knowledge, and by imperceptible degrees the naturally well-regulated mind will reject vagueness and demand exactness; having reached which stage it will be fit to undergo the further regimen prescribed. A good starting-point, however, will have been gained when our operatives generally are imbued with a genuine love of books and obtain a somewhat varied, if superficial, knowledge anent the salient features of English literature.

These words, "_English_ literature," are used advisedly; for while I would have every town of over 5000 inhabitants possessed of a Free Library (varying in size according to the population), and every village have its book-loan society, it would be well to insist on the greatest and best of our own writers being well represented upon the shelves of every institution of this character before venturing on translations either of the ancient classics or modern foreign authors, even of European reputation. Homer, Thucydides, Æschylus, Plato, Virgil, and the rest, as well as Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, and the innumerable host of Continental immortals, can very well wait a bit. We want to inspire _British_ operatives with a love of letters. In endeavouring to effect this, shall we not give the foremost place to the productions of _British_ genius? We have to _form_ a taste. Is it not desirable that, to begin with at all events, this should be a _national_ taste? But is not this the very way, it may be asked, to foster insular prejudices, narrowness, and bigotry? I reply, not necessarily, as many of our ablest _littérateurs_ have not hesitated to attack the various abuses, follies, and weaknesses which crop up in these islands from time to time--some hurling denunciations at them aglow with all the fervour of passion and intellect; others piercing them with the sharp spear of satire; and others yet again calmly but pitilessly holding them up to contempt in a train of close reasoning. Many, too, in addition to lashing the vices peculiar to their native country, have, in terms of generous eloquence, eulogized the virtues of our neighbours. Therefore, the man who is disposed to wrap himself up in a mantle of national self-glorification and self-righteousness will not find that the hierarchs of our national literature are at all times compliant enough to fasten the clasp for him.

But I have a further answer--_i.e._, independently altogether of the question whether the perusal of English works solely will or will not have a tendency to nip the growing flower of cosmopolitanism in the bud, the one essential point in training the English subject to think is to train him to think in his own vernacular--to show him of what mighty things his mother-tongue is capable, and to satisfy him that

"Age cannot weary, nor custom stale Its infinite variety;"

and that if ever he, individually, wants to raise up his voice and make himself heard on any subject that interests him or his fellows, he must not fritter away his attention on more distant objects, but concentrate his gaze on those which immediately surround him.

This view may appear somewhat contradictory to the one expressed when dealing with the subject of Emigration; but really it is not so. The leaving behind the special spot of earth where one drew one's first breath, played as a boy, saw his first sweetheart, and grew up to manhood, the parting from old friends and long-familiar objects, may and does entail a severe struggle, and inflict many a bitter pang; but it is unavoidable, and so must be submitted to. It is otherwise with home ideas, habits, modes of thought, literature. These will serve to mitigate the poignancy of separation from one's native land, will intertwine themselves more closely round one's affections by reason of that very separation, and be the means of causing miniature Englands to arise in far-off regions, and in various degrees of latitude and longitude. While releasing as cheerfully as may be what we _must_ let go, let us hug more closely still that which we _can_ retain.

To return: In a well-equipped Free Library no standard British author should be conspicuous by his absence. The poets, from Chaucer and Gower to Tennyson and Browning; the dramatists, from Marlowe and Shakspeare to W. S. Gilbert and Tom Taylor; the _modern_ historians, from Hume and Gibbon to Froude and Freeman; the modern theologians, from Hooker and Jeremy Taylor to Canon Farrar and the Dean of Westminster; the modern essayists, from the projectors of the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ to the contributors to the current Reviews and Magazines; the philosophers, the leaders in all departments of science, should be there; the best writers of prose fiction, also, from Fielding and Goldsmith to Trollope and George Eliot, should be well represented. The most profound and the most volatile will alike find sufficient to occupy their attention here for some time. The "Anglican paddock" (to misapply a now well-known term) will afford plenty of grazing ground to cattle of moderate appetites for a considerable period; and when it is exhausted, why, then, there are toothsome grasses in endless profusion to be cropped over the boundary fence.