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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:37:06 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:37:06 -0700 |
| commit | 7319a0bf0c6e5b46a82cfa2b57ab1b85b8d84629 (patch) | |
| tree | 6ace4769a6c5285843f6f5619723014955c56c94 /11502-h | |
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diff --git a/11502-h/11502-h.htm b/11502-h/11502-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fab7436 --- /dev/null +++ b/11502-h/11502-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10530 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta content="pg2html (binary v0.17)" name="linkgenerator" /> + <title> + An Englishman Looks at the World, by H.g. Wells + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;} + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + .xx-small {font-size: 60%;} + .x-small {font-size: 75%;} + .small {font-size: 85%;} + .large {font-size: 115%;} + .x-large {font-size: 130%;} + .indent5 { margin-left: 5%;} + .indent10 { margin-left: 10%;} + .indent15 { margin-left: 15%;} + .indent20 { margin-left: 20%;} + .indent25 { margin-left: 25%;} + .indent30 { margin-left: 30%;} + .indent35 { margin-left: 35%;} + .indent40 { margin-left: 40%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 1%; font-size: 0.6em; + font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; + text-align: right; background-color: #FFFACD; + border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;} + .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 15%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + .head { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} + span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 } + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} +</style> + </head> + <body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11502 ***</div> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD + </h1> + <h3> + Being a Series of Unrestrained Remarks upon Contemporary Matters + </h3> + <h2> + By H.G. Wells + </h2> + <h3> + 1914 + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE COMING OF BLIRIOT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> MY FIRST FLIGHT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> OFF THE CHAIN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> OF THE NEW REIGN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> WILL THE EMPIRE LIVE? </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE LABOUR UNREST </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> SOCIAL PANACEAS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> SYNDICALISM OR CITIZENSHIP </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> THE GREAT STATE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> THE NORMAL SOCIAL LIFE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> THE COMMON SENSE OF WARFARE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUBLIC LIBRARY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> ABOUT CHESTERTON AND BELLOC </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> ABOUT SIR THOMAS MORE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> TRAFFIC AND REBUILDING </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> THE SO-CALLED SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> DIVORCE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE EMPIRE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> THE ENDOWMENT OF MOTHERHOOD </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> DOCTORS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> AN AGE OF SPECIALISATION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> IS THERE A PEOPLE? </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> THE DISEASE OF PARLIAMENTS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> THE AMERICAN POPULATION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> THE POSSIBLE COLLAPSE OF CIVILISATION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> THE IDEAL CITIZEN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> SOME POSSIBLE DISCOVERIES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> THE HUMAN ADVENTURE </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE COMING OF BLIRIOT + </h2> + <h3> + (<i>July, 1909</i>.) + </h3> + <p> + The telephone bell rings with the petulant persistence that marks a trunk + call, and I go in from some ineffectual gymnastics on the lawn to deal + with the irruption. There is the usual trouble in connecting up, minute + voices in Folkestone and Dover and London call to one another and are + submerged by buzzings and throbbings. Then in elfin tones the real message + comes through: "Bliriot has crossed the Channel.... An article ... about + what it means." + </p> + <p> + I make a hasty promise and go out and tell my friends. + </p> + <p> + From my garden I look straight upon the Channel, and there are white caps + upon the water, and the iris and tamarisk are all asway with the + south-west wind that was also blowing yesterday. M. Bliriot has done very + well, and Mr. Latham, his rival, had jolly bad luck. That is what it means + to us first of all. It also, I reflect privately, means that I have + under-estimated the possible stability of aeroplanes. I did not expect + anything of the sort so soon. This is a good five years before my + reckoning of the year before last. + </p> + <p> + We all, I think, regret that being so near we were not among the fortunate + ones who saw that little flat shape skim landward out of the blue; surely + they have an enviable memory; and then we fell talking and disputing about + what that swift arrival may signify. It starts a swarm of questions. + </p> + <p> + First one remarks that here is a thing done, and done with an astonishing + effect of ease, that was incredible not simply to ignorant people but to + men well informed in these matters. It cannot be fifteen years ago since + Sir Hiram Maxim made the first machine that could lift its weight from the + ground, and I well remember how the clumsy quality of that success + confirmed the universal doubt that men could ever in any effectual manner + fly. + </p> + <p> + Since then a conspiracy of accidents has changed the whole problem; the + bicycle and its vibrations developed the pneumatic tyre, the pneumatic + tyre rendered a comfortable mechanically driven road vehicle possible, the + motor-car set an enormous premium on the development of very light, very + efficient engines, and at last the engineer was able to offer the + experimentalists in gliding one strong enough and light enough for the new + purpose. And here we are! Or, rather, M. Bliriot is! + </p> + <p> + What does it mean for us? + </p> + <p> + One meaning, I think, stands out plainly enough, unpalatable enough to our + national pride. This thing from first to last was made abroad. Of all that + made it possible we can only claim so much as is due to the improvement of + the bicycle. Gliding began abroad while our young men of muscle and + courage were braving the dangers of the cricket field. The motor-car and + its engine was being worked out "over there," while in this country the + mechanically propelled road vehicle, lest it should frighten the carriage + horses of the gentry, was going meticulously at four miles an hour behind + a man with a red flag. Over there, where the prosperous classes have some + regard for education and some freedom of imaginative play, where people + discuss all sorts of things fearlessly, and have a respect for science, + this has been achieved. + </p> + <p> + And now our insularity is breached by the foreigner who has got ahead with + flying. + </p> + <p> + It means, I take it, first and foremost for us, that the world cannot wait + for the English. + </p> + <p> + It is not the first warning we have had. It has been raining warnings upon + us; never was a slacking, dull people so liberally served with warnings of + what was in store for them. But this event—this foreigner-invented, + foreigner-built, foreigner-steered thing, taking our silver streak as a + bird soars across a rivulet—puts the case dramatically. We have + fallen behind in the quality of our manhood. In the men of means and + leisure in this island there was neither enterprise enough, imagination + enough, knowledge nor skill enough to lead in this matter. I do not see + how one can go into the history of this development and arrive at any + other conclusion. The French and Americans can laugh at our aeroplanes, + the Germans are ten years ahead of our poor navigables. We are displayed a + soft, rather backward people. Either we are a people essentially and + incurably inferior, or there is something wrong in our training, something + benumbing in our atmosphere and circumstances. That is the first and + gravest intimation in M. Bliriot's feat. + </p> + <p> + The second is that, in spite of our fleet, this is no longer, from the + military point of view, an inaccessible island. + </p> + <p> + So long as one had to consider the navigable balloon the aerial side of + warfare remained unimportant. A Zeppelin is little good for any purpose + but scouting and espionage. It can carry very little weight in proportion + to its vast size, and, what is more important, it cannot drop things + without sending itself up like a bubble in soda water. An armada of + navigables sent against this island would end in a dispersed, deflated + state, chiefly in the seas between Orkney and Norway—though I say it + who should not. But these aeroplanes can fly all round the fastest + navigable that ever drove before the wind; they can drop weights, take up + weights, and do all sorts of able, inconvenient things. They are birds. As + for the birds, so for aeroplanes; there is an upward limit of size. They + are not going to be very big, but they are going to be very able and + active. Within a year we shall have—or rather <i>they</i> will have—aeroplanes + capable of starting from Calais, let us say, circling over London, + dropping a hundredweight or so of explosive upon the printing machines of + <i>The Times</i>, and returning securely to Calais for another similar + parcel. They are things neither difficult nor costly to make. For the + price of a Dreadnought one might have hundreds. They will be extremely + hard to hit with any sort of missile. I do not think a large army of + under-educated, under-trained, extremely unwilling conscripts is going to + be any good against this sort of thing. + </p> + <p> + I do not think that the arrival of M. Bliriot means a panic resort to + conscription. It is extremely desirable that people should realise that + these foreign machines are not a temporary and incidental advantage that + we can make good by fussing and demanding eight, and saying we won't wait, + and so on, and then subsiding into indolence again. They are just the + first-fruits of a steady, enduring lead that the foreigner has won. The + foreigner is ahead of us in education, and this is especially true of the + middle and upper classes, from which invention and enterprise come—or, + in our own case, do not come. He makes a better class of man than we do. + His science is better than ours. His training is better than ours. His + imagination is livelier. His mind is more active. His requirements in a + novel, for example, are not kindly, sedative pap; his uncensored plays + deal with reality. His schools are places for vigorous education instead + of genteel athleticism, and his home has books in it, and thought and + conversation. Our homes and schools are relatively dull and uninspiring; + there is no intellectual guide or stir in them; and to that we owe this + new generation of nicely behaved, unenterprising sons, who play golf and + dominate the tailoring of the world, while Brazilians, Frenchmen, + Americans and Germans fly. + </p> + <p> + That we are hopelessly behindhand in aeronautics is not a fact by itself. + It is merely an indication that we are behindhand in our mechanical + knowledge and invention M. Bliriot's aeroplane points also to the fleet. + </p> + <p> + The struggle for naval supremacy is not merely a struggle in shipbuilding + and expenditure. Much more is it a struggle in knowledge and invention. It + is not the Power that has the most ships or the biggest ships that is + going to win in a naval conflict. It is the Power that thinks quickest of + what to do, is most resourceful and inventive. Eighty Dreadnoughts manned + by dull men are only eighty targets for a quicker adversary. Well, is + there any reason to suppose that our Navy is going to keep above the + general national level in these things? Is the Navy <i>bright</i>? + </p> + <p> + The arrival of M. Bliriot suggests most horribly to me how far behind we + must be in all matters of ingenuity, device, and mechanical contrivance. I + am reminded again of the days during the Boer war, when one realised that + it had never occurred to our happy-go-lucky Army that it was possible to + make a military use of barbed wire or construct a trench to defy shrapnel. + Suppose in the North Sea we got a surprise like that, and fished out a + parboiled, half-drowned admiral explaining what a confoundedly slim, + unexpected, almost ungentlemanly thing the enemy had done to him. + </p> + <p> + Very probably the Navy is the exception to the British system; its + officers are rescued from the dull homes and dull schools of their class + while still of tender years, and shaped after a fashion of their own. But + M. Bliriot reminds us that we may no longer shelter and degenerate behind + these blue backs. And the keenest men at sea are none the worse for having + keen men on land behind them. + </p> + <p> + Are we an awakening people? + </p> + <p> + It is the vital riddle of our time. I look out upon the windy Channel and + think of all those millions just over there, who seem to get busier and + keener every hour. I could imagine the day of reckoning coming like a + swarm of birds. + </p> + <p> + Here the air is full of the clamour of rich and prosperous people invited + to pay taxes, and beyond measure bitter. They are going to live abroad, + cut their charities, dismiss old servants, and do all sorts of silly, + vindictive things. We seem to be doing feeble next-to-nothings in the + endowment of research. Not one in twenty of the boys of the middle and + upper classes learns German or gets more than a misleading smattering of + physical science. Most of them never learn to speak French. Heaven alone + knows what they do with their brains! The British reading and thinking + public probably does not number fifty thousand people all told. It is + difficult to see whence the necessary impetus for a national renascence is + to come.... The universities are poor and spiritless, with no ambition to + lead the country. I met a Boy Scout recently. He was hopeful in his way, + but a little inadequate, I thought, as a basis for confidence in the + future of the Empire. + </p> + <p> + We have still our Derby Day, of course.... + </p> + <p> + Apart from these patriotic solicitudes, M. Bliriot has set quite another + train of thought going in my mind. The age of natural democracy is surely + at an end through these machines. There comes a time when men will be + sorted out into those who will have the knowledge, nerve, and courage to + do these splendid, dangerous things, and those who will prefer the humbler + level. I do not think numbers are going to matter so much in the warfare + of the future, and that when organised intelligence differs from the + majority, the majority will have no adequate power of retort. The common + man with a pike, being only sufficiently indignant and abundant, could + chase the eighteenth century gentleman as he chose, but I fail to see what + he can do in the way of mischief to an elusive chevalier with wings. But + that opens too wide a discussion for me to enter upon now. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + MY FIRST FLIGHT + </h2> + <h3> + (EASTBOURNE, <i>August 5, 1912—three years later</i>.) + </h3> + <p> + Hitherto my only flights have been flights of imagination but this morning + I flew. I spent about ten or fifteen minutes in the air; we went out to + sea, soared up, came back over the land, circled higher, planed steeply + down to the water, and I landed with the conviction that I had had only + the foretaste of a great store of hitherto unsuspected pleasures. At the + first chance I will go up again, and I will go higher and further. + </p> + <p> + This experience has restored all the keenness of my ancient interest in + flying, which had become a little fagged and flat by too much hearing and + reading about the thing and not enough participation. Sixteen years ago, + in the days of Langley and Lilienthal, I was one of the few journalists + who believed and wrote that flying was possible; it affected my reputation + unfavourably, and produced in the few discouraged pioneers of those days a + quite touching gratitude. Over my mantel as I write hangs a very blurred + and bad but interesting photograph that Professor Langley sent me sixteen + years ago. It shows the flight of the first piece of human machinery + heavier than air that ever kept itself up for any length of time. It was a + model, a little affair that would not have lifted a cat; it went up in a + spiral and came down unsmashed, bringing back, like Noah's dove, the + promise of tremendous things. + </p> + <p> + That was only sixteen years ago, and it is amusing to recall how + cautiously even we out-and-out believers did our prophesying. I was quite + a desperate fellow; I said outright that in my lifetime we should see men + flying. But I qualified that by repeating that for many years to come it + would be an enterprise only for quite fantastic daring and skill. We + conjured up stupendous difficulties and risks. I was deeply impressed and + greatly discouraged by a paper a distinguished Cambridge mathematician + produced to show that a flying machine was bound to pitch fearfully, that + as it flew on its pitching <i>must</i> increase until up went its nose, + down went its tail, and it fell like a knife. We exaggerated every + possibility of instability. We imagined that when the aeroplane wasn't + "kicking up ahind and afore" it would be heeling over to the lightest side + wind. A sneeze might upset it. We contrasted our poor human equipment with + the instinctive balance of a bird, which has had ten million years of + evolution by way of a start.... + </p> + <p> + The waterplane in which I soared over Eastbourne this morning with Mr. + Grahame-White was as steady as a motor-car running on asphalt. + </p> + <p> + Then we went on from those anticipations of swaying insecurity to + speculations about the psychological and physiological effects of flying. + Most people who look down from the top of a cliff or high tower feel some + slight qualms of dread, many feel a quite sickening dread. Even if men + struggled high into the air, we asked, wouldn't they be smitten up there + by such a lonely and reeling dismay as to lose all self-control? And, + above all, wouldn't the pitching and tossing make them quite horribly + sea-sick? + </p> + <p> + I have always been a little haunted by that last dread. It gave a little + undertow of funk to the mood of lively curiosity with which I got aboard + the waterplane this morning—that sort of faint, thin funk that so + readily invades one on the verge of any new experience; when one tries + one's first dive, for example, or pushes off for the first time down an + ice run. I thought I should very probably be sea-sick—or, to be more + precise, air-sick; I thought also that I might be very giddy, and that I + might get thoroughly cold and uncomfortable None of those things happened. + </p> + <p> + I am still in a state of amazement at the smooth steadfastness of the + motion. There is nothing on earth to compare with that, unless—and + that I can't judge—it is an ice yacht travelling on perfect ice. The + finest motor-car in the world on the best road would be a joggling, + quivering thing beside it. + </p> + <p> + To begin with, we went out to sea before the wind, and the plane would not + readily rise. We went with an undulating movement, leaping with a light + splashing pat upon the water, from wave to wave. Then we came about into + the wind and rose, and looking over I saw that there were no longer those + periodic flashes of white foam. I was flying. And it was as still and + steady as dreaming. I watched the widening distance between our floats and + the waves. It wasn't by any means a windless day; there was a brisk, + fluctuating breeze blowing out of the north over the downs. It seemed + hardly to affect our flight at all. + </p> + <p> + And as for the giddiness of looking down, one does not feel it at all. It + is difficult to explain why this should be so, but it is so. I suppose in + such matters I am neither exceptionally steady-headed nor is my head + exceptionally given to swimming. I can stand on the edge of cliffs of a + thousand feet or so and look down, but I can never bring myself right up + to the edge nor crane over to look to the very bottom. I should want to + lie down to do that. And the other day I was on that Belvedere place at + the top of the Rotterdam sky-scraper, a rather high wind was blowing, and + one looks down through the chinks between the boards one stands on upon + the heads of the people in the streets below; I didn't like it. But this + morning I looked directly down on a little fleet of fishing boats over + which we passed, and on the crowds assembling on the beach, and on the + bathers who stared up at us from the breaking surf, with an entirely + agreeable exaltation. And Eastbourne, in the early morning sunshine, had + all the brightly detailed littleness of a town viewed from high up on the + side of a great mountain. + </p> + <p> + When Mr. Grahame-White told me we were going to plane down I will confess + I tightened my hold on the sides of the car and prepared for something + like the down-going sensation of a switchback railway on a larger scale. + Just for a moment there was that familiar feeling of something pressing + one's heart up towards one's shoulders, and one's lower jaw up into its + socket and of grinding one's lower teeth against the upper, and then it + passed. The nose of the car and all the machine was slanting downwards, we + were gliding quickly down, and yet there was no feeling that one rushed, + not even as one rushes in coasting a hill on a bicycle. It wasn't a tithe + of the thrill of those three descents one gets on the great mountain + railway in the White City. There one gets a disagreeable quiver up one's + backbone from the wheels, and a real sense of falling. + </p> + <p> + It is quite peculiar to flying that one is incredulous of any collision. + Some time ago I was in a motor-car that ran over and killed a small dog, + and this wretched little incident has left an open wound upon my nerves. I + am never quite happy in a car now; I can't help keeping an apprehensive + eye ahead. But you fly with an exhilarating assurance that you cannot + possibly run over anything or run into anything—except the land or + the sea, and even those large essentials seem a beautifully safe distance + away. + </p> + <p> + I had heard a great deal of talk about the deafening uproar of the engine. + I counted a headache among my chances. There again reason reinforced + conjecture. When in the early morning Mr. Travers came from Brighton in + this Farman in which I flew I could hear the hum of the great insect when + it still seemed abreast of Beachy Head, and a good two miles away. If one + can hear a thing at two miles, how much the more will one not hear it at a + distance of two yards? But at the risk of seeming too contented for + anything I will assert I heard that noise no more than one hears the drone + of an electric ventilator upon one's table. It was only when I came to + speak to Mr. Grahame-White, or he to me, that I discovered that our voices + had become almost infinitesimally small. + </p> + <p> + And so it was I went up into the air at Eastbourne with the impression + that flying was still an uncomfortable experimental, and slightly heroic + thing to do, and came down to the cheerful gathering crowd upon the sands + again with the knowledge that it is a thing achieved for everyone. It will + get much cheaper, no doubt, and much swifter, and be improved in a dozen + ways—we <i>must</i> get self-starting engines, for example, for both + our aeroplanes and motor-cars—but it is available to-day for anyone + who can reach it. An invalid lady of seventy could have enjoyed all that I + did if only one could have got her into the passenger's seat. Getting + there was a little difficult, it is true; the waterplane was out in the + surf, and I was carried to it on a boatman's back, and then had to clamber + carefully through the wires, but that is a matter of detail. This flying + is indeed so certain to become a general experience that I am sure that + this description will in a few years seem almost as quaint as if I had set + myself to record the fears and sensations of my First Ride in a Wheeled + Vehicle. And I suspect that learning to control a Farman waterplane now is + probably not much more difficult than, let us say, twice the difficulty in + learning the control and management of a motor-bicycle. I cannot + understand the sort of young man who won't learn how to do it if he gets + half a chance. + </p> + <p> + The development of these waterplanes is an important step towards the huge + and swarming popularisation of flying which is now certainly imminent. We + ancient survivors of those who believed in and wrote about flying before + there was any flying used to make a great fuss about the dangers and + difficulties of landing and getting up. We wrote with vast gravity about + "starting rails" and "landing stages," and it is still true that landing + an aeroplane, except upon a well-known and quite level expanse, is a risky + and uncomfortable business. But getting up and landing upon fairly smooth + water is easier than getting into bed. This alone is likely to determine + the aeroplane routes along the line of the world's coastlines and lake + groups and waterways. The airmen will go to and fro over water as the + midges do. Wherever there is a square mile of water the waterplanes will + come and go like hornets at the mouth of their nest. But there are much + stronger reasons than this convenience for keeping over water. Over water + the air, it seems, lies in great level expanses; even when there are gales + it moves in uniform masses like the swift, still rush of a deep river. The + airman, in Mr. Grahame-White's phrase, can go to sleep on it. But over the + land, and for thousands of feet up into the sky, the air is more irregular + than a torrent among rocks; it is—if only we could see it—a + waving, whirling, eddying, flamboyant confusion. A slight hill, a ploughed + field, the streets of a town, create riotous, rolling, invisible streams + and cataracts of air that catch the airman unawares, make him drop + disconcertingly, try his nerves. With a powerful enough engine he climbs + at once again, but these sudden downfalls are the least pleasant and most + dangerous experience in aviation. They exact a tiring vigilance. + </p> + <p> + Over lake or sea, in sunshine, within sight of land, this is the perfect + way of the flying tourist. Gladly would I have set out for France this + morning instead of returning to Eastbourne. And then coasted round to + Spain and into the Mediterranean. And so by leisurely stages to India. And + the East Indies.... + </p> + <p> + I find my study unattractive to-day. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + OFF THE CHAIN + </h2> + <h3> + (<i>December, 1910</i>) + </h3> + <p> + I was ill in bed, reading Samuel Warren's "Ten Thousand a Year," and + noting how much the world can change in seventy years. + </p> + <p> + I had just got to the journey of Titmouse from London to Yorkshire in that + ex-sheriff's coach he bought in Long Acre—where now the motor-cars + are sold—when there came a telegram to bid me note how a certain Mr. + Holt was upon the ocean, coming back to England from a little excursion. + He had left London last Saturday week at midday; he hoped to be back by + Thursday; and he had talked to the President in Washington, visited + Philadelphia, and had a comparatively loitering afternoon in New York. + What had I to say about it? + </p> + <p> + Firstly, that I wish this article could be written by Samuel Warren. And + failing that, I wish that Charles Dickens, who wrote in his "American + Notes" with such passionate disgust and hostility about the first + Cunarder, retailing all the discomfort and misery of crossing the Atlantic + by steamship, could have shared Mr. Holt's experience. + </p> + <p> + Because I am chiefly impressed by the fact not that Mr. Holt has taken + days where weeks were needed fifty years ago, but that he has done it very + comfortably, without undue physical exertion, and at no greater expense, I + suppose, than it cost Dickens, whom the journey nearly killed. + </p> + <p> + If Mr. Holt's expenses were higher, it was for the special trains and the + sake of the record. Anyone taking ordinary trains and ordinary passages + may do what he has done in eighteen or twenty days. + </p> + <p> + When I was a boy, "Around the World in Eighty Days" was still a brilliant + piece of imaginative fiction. Now that is almost an invalid's pace. It + will not be very long before a man will be able to go round the world if + he wishes to do so ten times in a year. And it is perhaps forgivable if + those who, like Jules Verne, saw all these increments in speed, + motor-cars, and airships aeroplanes, and submarines, wireless telegraphy + and what not, as plain and necessary deductions from the promises of + physical science, should turn upon a world that read and doubted and + jeered with "I told you so. <i>Now</i> will you respect a prophet?" + </p> + <p> + It was not that the prophets professed any mystical and inexplicable + illumination at which a sceptic might reasonably mock; they were prepared + with ample reasons for the things they foretold. Now, quite as + confidently, they point on to a new series of consequences, high + probabilities that follow on all this tremendous development of swift, + secure, and cheapened locomotion, just as they followed almost necessarily + upon the mechanical developments of the last century. + </p> + <p> + Briefly, the ties that bind men to place are being severed; we are in the + beginning of a new phase in human experience. + </p> + <p> + For endless ages man led the hunting life, migrating after his food, + camping, homeless, as to this day are many of the Indians and Esquimaux in + the Hudson Bay Territory. Then began agriculture, and for the sake of + securer food man tethered himself to a place. The history of man's + progress from savagery to civilisation is essentially a story of settling + down. It begins in caves and shelters; it culminates in a wide spectacle + of farms and peasant villages, and little towns among the farms. There + were wars, crusades, barbarous invasions, set-backs, but to that state all + Asia, Europe, North Africa worked its way with an indomitable pertinacity. + The enormous majority of human beings stayed at home at last; from the + cradle to the grave they lived, married, died in the same district, + usually in the same village; and to that condition, law, custom, habits, + morals, have adapted themselves. The whole plan and conception of human + society is based on the rustic home and the needs and characteristics of + the agricultural family. There have been gipsies, wanderers, knaves, + knights-errant and adventurers, no doubt, but the settled permanent rustic + home and the tenure of land about it, and the hens and the cow, have + constituted the fundamental reality of the whole scene. Now, the really + wonderful thing in this astonishing development of cheap, abundant, swift + locomotion we have seen in the last seventy years—in the development + of which Mauretanias, aeroplanes, mile-a-minute expresses, tubes, + motor-buses and motor cars are just the bright, remarkable points—is + this: that it dissolves almost all the reason and necessity why men should + go on living permanently in any one place or rigidly disciplined to one + set of conditions. The former attachment to the soil ceases to be an + advantage. The human spirit has never quite subdued itself to the + laborious and established life; it achieves its best with variety and + occasional vigorous exertion under the stimulus of novelty rather than by + constant toil, and this revolution in human locomotion that brings nearly + all the globe within a few days of any man is the most striking aspect of + the unfettering again of the old restless, wandering, adventurous + tendencies in man's composition. + </p> + <p> + Already one can note remarkable developments of migration. There is, for + example, that flow to and fro across the Atlantic of labourers from the + Mediterranean. Italian workmen by the hundred thousand go to the United + States in the spring and return in the autumn. Again, there is a stream of + thousands of prosperous Americans to summer in Europe. Compared with any + European country, the whole population of the United States is fluid. + Equally notable is the enormous proportion of the British prosperous which + winters either in the high Alps or along the Riviera. England is rapidly + developing the former Irish grievance of an absentee propertied class. It + is only now by the most strenuous artificial banking back that migrations + on a far huger scale from India into Africa, and from China and Japan into + Australia and America are prevented. + </p> + <p> + All the indications point to a time when it will be an altogether + exceptional thing for a man to follow one occupation in one place all his + life, and still rarer for a son to follow in his father's footsteps or die + in his father's house. + </p> + <p> + The thing is as simple as the rule of three. We are off the chain of + locality for good and all. It was necessary heretofore for a man to live + in immediate contact with his occupation, because the only way for him to + reach it was to have it at his door, and the cost and delay of transport + were relatively too enormous for him to shift once he was settled. <i>Now</i> + he may live twenty or thirty miles away from his occupation; and it often + pays him to spend the small amount of time and money needed to move—it + may be half-way round the world—to healthier conditions or more + profitable employment. + </p> + <p> + And with every diminution in the cost and duration of transport it becomes + more and more possible, and more and more likely, to be profitable to move + great multitudes of workers seasonally between regions where work is + needed in this season and regions where work is needed in that. They can + go out to the agricultural lands at one time and come back into towns for + artistic work and organised work in factories at another. They can move + from rain and darkness into sunshine, and from heat into the coolness of + mountain forests. Children can be sent for education to sea beaches and + healthy mountains. + </p> + <p> + Men will harvest in Saskatchewan and come down in great liners to spend + the winter working in the forests of Yucatan. + </p> + <p> + People have hardly begun to speculate about the consequences of the return + of humanity from a closely tethered to a migratory existence. It is here + that the prophet finds his chief opportunity. Obviously, these great + forces of transport are already straining against the limits of existing + political areas. Every country contains now an increasing ingredient of + unenfranchised Uitlanders. Every country finds a growing section of its + home-born people either living largely abroad, drawing the bulk of their + income from the exterior, and having their essential interests wholly or + partially across the frontier. + </p> + <p> + In every locality of a Western European country countless people are found + delocalised, uninterested in the affairs of that particular locality, and + capable of moving themselves with a minimum of loss and a maximum of + facility into any other region that proves more attractive. In America + political life, especially State life as distinguished from national + political life, is degraded because of the natural and inevitable apathy + of a large portion of the population whose interests go beyond the State. + </p> + <p> + Politicians and statesmen, being the last people in the world to notice + what is going on in it, are making no attempt whatever to re-adapt this + hugely growing floating population of delocalised people to the public + service. As Mr. Marriott puts it in his novel, "<i>Now,"</i> they "drop + out" from politics as we understand politics at present. Local + administration falls almost entirely—and the decision of Imperial + affairs tends more and more to fall—into the hands of that dwindling + and adventurous moiety which sits tight in one place from the cradle to + the grave. No one has yet invented any method for the political expression + and collective direction of a migratory population, and nobody is + attempting to do so. It is a new problem.... + </p> + <p> + Here, then, is a curious prospect, the prospect of a new kind of people, a + floating population going about the world, uprooted, delocalised, and + even, it may be, denationalised, with wide interests and wide views, + developing no doubt, customs and habits of its own, a morality of its own, + a philosophy of its own, and yet from the point of view of current + politics and legislation unorganised and ineffective. + </p> + <p> + Most of the forces of international finance and international business + enterprise will be with it. It will develop its own characteristic + standards of art and literature and conduct in accordance with its new + necessities. It is, I believe, the mankind of the future. And the last + thing it will be able to do will be to legislate. The history of the + immediate future will, I am convinced, be very largely the history of the + conflict of the needs of this new population with the institutions, the + boundaries the laws, prejudices, and deep-rooted traditions established + during the home-keeping, localised era of mankind's career. + </p> + <p> + This conflict follows as inevitably upon these new gigantic facilities of + locomotion as the <i>Mauretania</i> followed from the discoveries of steam + and steel. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + OF THE NEW REIGN + </h2> + <h3> + (<i>June, 1911</i>.) + </h3> + <p> + The bunting and the crimson vanish from the streets. Already the vast army + of improvised carpenters that the Coronation has created set themselves to + the work of demolition, and soon every road that converges upon Central + London will be choked again with great loads of timber—but this time + going outward—as our capital emerges from this unprecedented + inundation of loyalty. The most elaborately conceived, the most stately of + all recorded British Coronations is past. + </p> + <p> + What new phase in the life of our nation and our Empire does this + tremendous ceremony inaugurate? The question is inevitable. There is + nothing in all the social existence of men so full of challenge as the + crowning of a king. It is the end of the overture; the curtain rises. This + is a new beginning-place for histories. + </p> + <p> + To us, the great mass of common Englishmen, who have no place in the + hierarchy of our land, who do not attend Courts nor encounter uniforms, + whose function is at most spectacular, who stand in the street and watch + the dignitaries and the liveries pass by, this sense of critical + expectation is perhaps greater than it is for those more immediately + concerned in the spectacle. They have had their parts to play, their + symbolic acts to perform, they have sat in their privileged places, and we + have waited at the barriers until their comfort and dignity was assured. I + can conceive many of them, a little fatigued, preparing now for social + dispersal, relaxing comfortably into gossip, discussing the detail of + these events with an air of things accomplished. They will decide whether + the Coronation has been a success and whether everything has or has not + passed off very well. For us in the great crowd nothing has as yet + succeeded or passed off well or ill. We are intent upon a King newly + anointed and crowned, a King of whom we know as yet very little, but who + has, nevertheless, roused such expectation as no King before him has done + since Tudor times, in the presence of gigantic opportunities. + </p> + <p> + There is a conviction widespread among us—his own words, perhaps, + have done most to create it—that King George is inspired, as no + recent predecessor has been inspired, by the conception of kingship, that + his is to be no rtle of almost indifferent abstinence from the broad + processes of our national and imperial development. That greater public + life which is above party and above creed and sect has, we are told, taken + hold of his imagination; he is to be no crowned image of unity and + correlation, a layer of foundation-stones and a signature to documents, + but an actor in our drama, a living Prince. + </p> + <p> + Time will test these hopes, but certainly we, the innumerable democracy of + individually unimportant men, have felt the need for such a Prince. Our + consciousness of defects, of fields of effort untilled, of vast + possibilities neglected and slipping away from us for ever, has never + really slumbered again since the chastening experiences of the Boer War. + Since then the national spirit, hampered though it is by the traditions of + party government and a legacy of intellectual and social heaviness, has + been in uneasy and ineffectual revolt against deadness, against stupidity + and slackness, against waste and hypocrisy in every department of life. We + have come to see more and more clearly how little we can hope for from + politicians, societies and organised movements in these essential things. + It is this that has invested the energy and manhood, the untried + possibilities of the new King with so radiant a light of hope for us. + </p> + <p> + Think what it may mean for us all—I write as one of that great + ill-informed multitude, sincerely and gravely patriotic, outside the + echoes of Court gossip and the easy knowledge of exalted society—if + our King does indeed care for these wider and profounder things! Suppose + we have a King at last who cares for the advancement of science, who is + willing to do the hundred things that are so easy in his position to + increase research, to honour and to share in scientific thought. Suppose + we have a King whose head rises above the level of the Court artist, and + who not only can but will appeal to the latent and discouraged power of + artistic creation in our race. Suppose we have a King who understands the + need for incessant, acute criticism to keep our collective activities + intelligent and efficient, and for a flow of bold, unhampered thought + through every department of the national life, a King liberal without + laxity and patriotic without pettiness or vulgarity. Such, it seems to us + who wait at present almost inexpressively outside the immediate clamours + of a mere artificial loyalty, are the splendid possibilities of the time. + </p> + <p> + For England is no exhausted or decaying country. It is rich with an + unmeasured capacity for generous responses. It is a country burthened + indeed, but not overwhelmed, by the gigantic responsibilities of Empire, a + little relaxed by wealth, and hampered rather than enslaved by a certain + shyness of temperament, a certain habitual timidity, slovenliness and + insincerity of mind. It is a little distrustful of intellectual power and + enterprise, a little awkward and ungracious to brave and beautiful things, + a little too tolerant of dull, well-meaning and industrious men and + arrogant old women. It suffers hypocrites gladly, because its criticism is + poor, and it is wastefully harsh to frank unorthodoxy. But its heart is + sound if its judgments fall short of acuteness and if its standards of + achievement are low. It needs but a quickening spirit upon the throne, + always the traditional centre of its respect, to rise from even the + appearance of decadence. There is a new quality seeking expression in + England like the rising of sap in the spring, a new generation asking only + for such leadership and such emancipation from restricted scope and + ungenerous hostility as a King alone can give it.... + </p> + <p> + When in its turn this latest reign comes at last to its reckoning, what + will the sum of its achievement be? What will it leave of things visible? + Will it leave a London preserved and beautified, or will it but add + abundantly to the lumps of dishonest statuary, the scars and masses of + ill-conceived rebuilding which testify to the aesthetic degradation of the + Victorian period? Will a great constellation of artists redeem the + ambitious sentimentalities and genteel skilfulness that find their fitting + mausoleum in the Tate Gallery? Will our literature escape at last from + pretentiousness and timidity, our philosophy from the foolish cerebrations + of university "characters" and eminent politicians at leisure, and our + starved science find scope and resources adequate to its gigantic needs? + Will our universities, our teaching, our national training, our public + services, gain a new health from the reviving vigour of the national + brain? Or is all this a mere wild hope, and shall we, after perhaps some + small flutterings of effort, the foundation of some ridiculous little + academy of literary busybodies and hangers-on, the public recognition of + this or that sociological pretender or financial "scientist," and a little + polite jobbery with picture-buying, relapse into lassitude and a contented + acquiescence in the rivalry of Germany and the United States for the + moral, intellectual and material leadership of the world? + </p> + <p> + The deaths and accessions of Kings, the changing of names and coins and + symbols and persons, a little force our minds in the marking off of + epochs. We are brought to weigh one generation against another, to reckon + up our position and note the characteristics of a new phase. What lies + before us in the next decades? Is England going on to fresh achievements, + to a renewed and increased predominance, or is she falling into a + secondary position among the peoples of the world? + </p> + <p> + The answer to that depends upon ourselves. Have we pride enough to attempt + still to lead mankind, and if we have, have we the wisdom and the quality? + Or are we just the children of Good Luck, who are being found out? + </p> + <p> + Some years ago our present King exhorted this island to "wake up" in one + of the most remarkable of British royal utterances, and Mr. Owen Seaman + assures him in verse of an altogether laureate quality that we are now + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Free of the snare of slumber's silken bands," +</pre> + <p> + though I have not myself observed it. It is interesting to ask, Is England + really waking up? and if she is, what sort of awakening is she likely to + have? + </p> + <p> + It is possible, of course, to wake up in various different ways. There is + the clear and beautiful dawn of new and balanced effort, easy, unresting, + planned, assured, and there is also the blundering-up of a still + half-somnolent man, irascible, clumsy, quarrelsome, who stubs his toe in + his first walk across the room, smashes his too persistent alarum clock in + a fit of nerves, and cuts his throat while shaving. All patriotic + vehemence does not serve one's country. Exertion is a more critical and + dangerous thing than inaction, and the essence of success is in the + ability to develop those qualities which make action effective, and + without which strenuousness is merely a clumsy and noisy protest against + inevitable defeat. These necessary qualities, without which no community + may hope for pre-eminence to-day, are a passion for fine and brilliant + achievement, relentless veracity of thought and method, and richly + imaginative fearlessness of enterprise. Have we English those qualities, + and are we doing our utmost to select and develop them? + </p> + <p> + I doubt very much if we are. Let me give some of the impressions that + qualify my assurance in the future of our race. + </p> + <p> + I have watched a great deal of patriotic effort during the last decade, I + have seen enormous expenditures of will, emotion and material for the sake + of our future, and I am deeply impressed, not indeed by any effect of + lethargy, but by the second-rate quality and the shortness and weakness of + aim in very much that has been done. I miss continually that sharply + critical imaginativeness which distinguishes all excellent work, which + shines out supremely in Cromwell's creation of the New Model, or Nelson's + plan of action at Trafalgar, as brightly as it does in Newton's + investigation of gravitation, Turner's rendering of landscape, or + Shakespeare's choice of words, but which cannot be absent altogether if + any achievement is to endure. We seem to have busy, energetic people, no + doubt, in abundance, patient and industrious administrators and + legislators; but have we any adequate supply of really creative ability? + </p> + <p> + Let me apply this question to one matter upon which England has certainly + been profoundly in earnest during the last decade. We have been almost + frantically resolved to keep the empire of the sea. But have we really + done all that could have been done? I ask it with all diffidence, but has + our naval preparation been free from a sort of noisy violence, a certain + massive dullness of conception? Have we really made anything like a sane + use of our resources? I do not mean of our resources in money or stuff. It + is manifest that the next naval war will be beyond all precedent a war of + mechanisms, giving such scope for invention and scientifically equipped + wit and courage as the world has never had before. Now, have we really + developed any considerable proportion of the potential human quality + available to meet the demand for wits? What are we doing to discover, + encourage and develop those supreme qualities of personal genius that + become more and more decisive with every new weapon and every new + complication and unsuspected possibility it introduces? Suppose, for + example, there was among us to-day a one-eyed, one-armed adulterer, rather + fragile, prone to sea-sickness, and with just that one supreme quality of + imaginative courage which made Nelson our starry admiral. Would he be + given the ghost of a chance now of putting that gift at his country's + disposal? I do not think he would, and I do not think he would because we + underrate gifts and exceptional qualities, because there is no quickening + appreciation for the exceptional best in a man, and because we overvalue + the good behaviour, the sound physique, the commonplace virtues of + mediocrity. + </p> + <p> + I have but the knowledge of the man in the street in these things, though + once or twice I have chanced on prophecy, and I am uneasily apprehensive + of the quality of all our naval preparations. We go on launching these + lumping great Dreadnoughts, and I cannot bring myself to believe in them. + They seem vulnerable from the air above and the deep below, vulnerable in + a shallow channel and in a fog (and the North Sea is both foggy and + shallow), and immensely costly. If I were Lord High Admiral of England at + war I would not fight the things. I would as soon put to sea in St. Paul's + Cathedral. If I were fighting Germany, I would stow half of them away in + the Clyde and half in the Bristol Channel, and take the good men out of + them and fight with mines and torpedoes and destroyers and airships and + submarines. + </p> + <p> + And when I come to military matters my persuasion that things are not all + right, that our current hostility to imaginative activity and our dull + acceptance of established methods and traditions is leading us towards + grave dangers, intensifies. In South Africa the Boers taught us in blood + and bitterness the obvious fact that barbed wire had its military uses, + and over the high passes on the way to Lhassa (though, luckily, it led to + no disaster) there was not a rifle in condition to use because we had not + thought to take glycerine. The perpetual novelty of modern conditions + demands an imaginative alertness we eliminate. I do not believe that the + Army Council or anyone in authority has worked out a tithe of the + essential problems of contemporary war. If they have, then it does not + show. Our military imagination is half-way back to bows and arrows. The + other day I saw a detachment of the Legion of Frontiersmen disporting + itself at Totteridge. I presume these young heroes consider they are + preparing for a possible conflict in England or Western Europe, and I + presume the authorities are satisfied with them. It is at any rate the + only serious war of which there is any manifest probability. Western + Europe is now a network of railways, tramways, high roads, wires of all + sorts; its chief beasts of burthen are the railway train and the motor car + and the bicycle; towns and hypertrophied villages are often practically + continuous over large areas; there is abundant water and food, and the + commonest form of cover is the house. But the Legion of Frontiersmen is + equipped for war, oh!—in Arizona in 1890, and so far as I am able to + judge the most modern sections of the army extant are organised for a + colonial war in (say) 1899 or 1900. There is, of course, a considerable + amount of vague energy demanding conscription and urging our youth towards + a familiarity with arms and the backwoodsman's life, but of any + thought-out purpose in our arming widely understood, of any realisation of + what would have to be done and where it would have to be done, and of any + attempts to create an instrument for that novel unprecedented undertaking, + I discover no trace. + </p> + <p> + In my capacity of devil's advocate pleading against national + over-confidence, I might go on to the quality of our social and political + movements. One hears nowadays a vast amount of chatter about efficiency—that + magic word—and social organisation, and there is no doubt a huge + expenditure of energy upon these things and a widespread desire to rush + about and make showy and startling changes. But it does not follow that + this involves progress if the enterprise itself is dully conceived and + most of it does seem to me to be dully conceived. In the absence of + penetrating criticism, any impudent industrious person may set up as an + "expert," organise and direct the confused good intentions at large, and + muddle disastrously with the problem in hand. The "expert" quack and the + bureaucratic intriguer increase and multiply in a dull-minded, uncritical, + strenuous period as disease germs multiply in darkness and heat. + </p> + <p> + I find the same doubts of our quality assail me when I turn to the supreme + business of education. It is true we all seem alive nowadays to the need + of education, are all prepared for more expenditure upon it and more, but + it does not follow necessarily in a period of stagnating imagination that + we shall get what we pay for. The other day I discovered my little boy + doing a subtraction sum, and I found he was doing it in a slower, + clumsier, less businesslike way than the one I was taught in an + old-fashioned "Commercial Academy" thirty odd years ago. The educational + "expert," it seems, has been at work substituting a bad method for a good + one in our schools because it is easier of exposition. The educational + "expert," in the lack of a lively public intelligence, develops all the + vices of the second-rate energetic, and he is, I am only too disposed to + believe, making a terrible mess of a great deal of our science teaching + and of the teaching of mathematics and English.... + </p> + <p> + I have written enough to make clear the quality of my doubts. I think the + English mind cuts at life with a dulled edge, and that its energy may be + worse than its somnolence. I think it undervalues gifts and fine + achievement, and overvalues the commonplace virtues of mediocre men. One + of the greatest Liberal statesmen in the time of Queen Victoria never held + office because he was associated with a divorce case a quarter of a + century ago. For him to have taken office would have been regarded as a + scandal. But it is not regarded as a scandal that our Government includes + men of no more ability than any average assistant behind a grocer's + counter. These are your gods, O England!—and with every desire to be + optimistic I find it hard under the circumstances to anticipate that the + New Epoch is likely to be a blindingly brilliant time for our Empire and + our race. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + WILL THE EMPIRE LIVE? + </h2> + <p> + What will hold such an Empire as the British together, this great, laxly + scattered, sea-linked association of ancient states and new-formed + countries, Oriental nations, and continental colonies? What will enable it + to resist the endless internal strains, the inevitable external pressures + and attacks to which it must be subjected This is the primary question for + British Imperialism; everything else is secondary or subordinated to that. + </p> + <p> + There is a multitude of answers. But I suppose most of them will prove + under examination either to be, or to lead to, or to imply very distinctly + this generalisation that if most of the intelligent and active people in + the Empire want it to continue it will, and that if a large proportion of + such active and intelligent people are discontented and estranged, nothing + can save it from disintegration. I do not suppose that a navy ten times + larger than ours, or conscription of the most irksome thoroughness, could + oblige Canada to remain in the Empire if the general will and feeling of + Canada were against it, or coerce India into a sustained submission if + India presented a united and resistant front. Our Empire, for all its roll + of battles, was not created by force; colonisation and diplomacy have + played a far larger share in its growth than conquest; and there is no + such strength in its sovereignty as the rule of pride and pressure demand. + It is to the free consent and participation of its constituent peoples + that we must look for its continuance. + </p> + <p> + A large and influential body of politicians considers that in preferential + trading between the parts of the Empire, and in the erection of a tariff + wall against exterior peoples, lies the secret of that deepened emotional + understanding we all desire. I have never belonged to that school. I am no + impassioned Free Trader—the sacred principle of Free Trade has + always impressed me as a piece of party claptrap; but I have never been + able to understand how an attempt to draw together dominions so scattered + and various as ours by a network of fiscal manipulation could end in + anything but mutual inconvenience mutual irritation, and disruption. + </p> + <p> + In an open drawer in my bureau there lies before me now a crumpled card on + which are the notes I made of a former discussion of this very issue, a + discussion between a number of prominent politicians in the days before + Mr. Chamberlain's return from South Africa and the adoption of Tariff + Reform by the Unionist Party; and I decipher again the same + considerations, unanswered and unanswerable, that leave me sceptical + to-day. + </p> + <p> + Take a map of the world and consider the extreme differences in position + and condition between our scattered states. Here is Canada, lying along + the United States, looking eastward to Japan and China, westward to all + Europe. See the great slashes of lake, bay, and mountain chain that cut it + meridianally. Obviously its main routes and trades and relations lie + naturally north and south; obviously its full development can only be + attained with those ways free, open, and active. Conceivably, you may + build a fiscal wall across the continent; conceivably, you may shut off + the east and half the west by impossible tariffs, and narrow its trade to + one artificial duct to England, but only at the price of a hampered + development It will be like nourishing the growing body of a man with the + heart and arteries of a mouse. + </p> + <p> + Then here, again, are New Zealand and Australia, facing South America and + the teeming countries of Eastern Asia; surely it is in relation to these + vast proximities that their economic future lies. Is it possible to + believe that shipping mutton to London is anything but the mere beginning + of their commercial development Look at India, again, and South Africa. Is + it not manifest that from the economic and business points of view each of + these is an entirely separate entity, a system apart, under distinct + necessities, needing entire freedom to make its own bargains and control + its trade in its own way in order to achieve its fullest material + possibilities? + </p> + <p> + Nor can I believe that financial entanglements greatly strengthen the + bonds of an empire in any case. We lost the American colonies because we + interfered with their fiscal arrangements, and it was Napoleon's attempt + to strangle the Continental trade with Great Britain that began his + downfall. + </p> + <p> + I do not find in the ordinary relations of life that business relations + necessarily sustain intercourse. The relations of buyer and seller are + ticklish relations, very liable to strains and conflicts. I do not find + people grow fond of their butchers and plumbers, and I doubt whether if + one were obliged by some special taxation to deal only with one butcher or + one plumber, it would greatly endear the relationship. Forced buying is + irritated buying, and it is the forbidden shop that contains the coveted + goods. Nor do I find, to take another instance, among the hotel staffs of + Switzerland and the Riviera—who live almost entirely upon British + gold—those impassioned British imperialist views the economic link + theory would lead me to expect. + </p> + <p> + And another link, too, upon which much stress is laid but about which I + have very grave doubts, is the possibility of a unified organisation of + the Empire for military defence. We are to have, it is suggested, an + imperial Army and an imperial Navy, and so far, no doubt, as the + guaranteeing of a general peace goes, we may develop a sense of + participation in that way. But it is well in these islands to remember + that our extraordinary Empire has no common enemy to weld it together from + without. + </p> + <p> + It is too usual to regard Germany as the common enemy. We in Great Britain + are now intensely jealous of Germany. We are intensely jealous of Germany + not only because the Germans outnumber us, and have a much larger and more + diversified country than ours, and lie in the very heart and body of + Europe, but because in the last hundred years, while we have fed on + platitudes and vanity, they have had the energy and humility to develop a + splendid system of national education, to toil at science and art and + literature, to develop social organisation, to master and better our + methods of business and industry, and to clamber above us in the scale of + civilisation. This has humiliated and irritated rather than chastened us, + and our irritation has been greatly exacerbated by the swaggering bad + manners, the talk of "Blood and Iron" and Mailed Fists, the Welt-Politik + rubbish that inaugurated the new German phase. + </p> + <p> + The British middle-class, therefore, is full of an angry, vague + disposition to thwart that expansion which Germans regard very reasonably + as their natural destiny; there are all the possibilities of a huge + conflict in that disposition, and it is perhaps well to remember how + insular—or, at least, how European—the essentials of this + quarrel are. We have lost our tempers, but Canada has not. There is + nothing in Germany to make Canada envious and ashamed of wasted years. + Canada has no natural quarrel with Germany, nor has India, nor South + Africa, nor Australasia. They have no reason to share our insular + exasperation. On the other hand, all these states have other special + preoccupations. New Zealand, for example, having spent half a century and + more in sheep-farming, land legislation, suppressing its drink traffic, + lowering its birth-rate, and, in short, the achievement of an ideal + preventive materialism, is chiefly consumed by hate and fear of Japan, + which in the same interval has made a stride from the thirteenth to the + twentieth century, and which teems with art and life and enterprise and + offspring. Now Japan in Welt-Politik is our ally. + </p> + <p> + You see, the British Empire has no common economic interests and no + natural common enemy. It is not adapted to any form of Zollverein or any + form of united aggression. Visibly, on the map of the world it has a + likeness to open hands, while the German Empire—except for a few + ill-advised and imitative colonies—is clenched into a central + European unity. + </p> + <p> + Physically, our Empire is incurably scattered, various, and divided, and + it is to quite other links and forces, it seems to me, than fiscal or + military unification that we who desire its continuance must look to hold + it together. There never was anything like it before. Essentially it is an + adventure of the British spirit, sanguine, discursive, and beyond + comparison insubordinate, adaptable, and originating. It has been made by + odd and irregular means by trading companies, pioneers, explorers, + unauthorised seamen, adventurers like Clive, eccentrics like Gordon, + invalids like Rhodes. It has been made, in spite of authority and + officialdom, as no other empire was ever made. The nominal rulers of + Britain never planned it. It happened almost in spite of them. Their chief + contribution to its history has been the loss of the United States. It is + a living thing that has arisen, not a dead thing put together. Beneath the + thin legal and administrative ties that hold it together lies the far more + vital bond of a traditional free spontaneous activity. It has a common + medium of expression in the English tongue, a unity of liberal and + tolerant purpose amidst its enormous variety of localised life and colour. + And it is in the development and strengthening, the enrichment the + rendering more conscious and more purposeful, of that broad creative + spirit of the British that the true cement and continuance of our Empire + is to be found. + </p> + <p> + The Empire must live by the forces that begot it. It cannot hope to give + any such exclusive prosperity as a Zollverein might afford; it can hold + out no hopes of collective conquests and triumphs—its utmost + military rtle must be the guaranteeing of a common inaggressive security; + but it can, if it is to survive, it must, give all its constituent parts + such a civilisation as none of them could achieve alone, a civilisation, a + wealth and fullness of life increasing and developing with the years. + Through that, and that alone, can it be made worth having and worth + serving. + </p> + <p> + And in the first place the whole Empire must use the English language. I + do not mean that any language must be stamped out, that a thousand + languages may not flourish by board and cradle and in folk-songs and + village gossip—Erse, the Taal, a hundred Indian and other Eastern + tongues, Canadian French—but I mean that also English must be + available, that everywhere there must be English teaching. And everyone + who wants to read science or history or philosophy, to come out of the + village life into wider thoughts and broader horizons, to gain + appreciation in art, must find ready to hand, easily attainable in + English, all there is to know and all that has been said thereon. It is + worth a hundred Dreadnoughts and a million soldiers to the Empire, that + wherever the imperial posts reach, wherever there is a curious or + receptive mind, there in English and by the imperial connection the full + thought of the race should come. To the lonely youth upon the New Zealand + sheep farm, to the young Hindu, to the trapper under a Labrador tilt, to + the half-breed assistant at a Burmese oil-well, to the self-educating + Scottish miner or the Egyptian clerk, the Empire and the English language + should exist, visibly and certainly, as the media by which his spirit + escapes from his immediate surroundings and all the urgencies of every + day, into a limitless fellowship of thought and beauty. + </p> + <p> + Now I am not writing this in any vague rhetorical way; I mean specifically + that our Empire has to become the medium of knowledge and thought to every + intelligent person in it, or that it is bound to go to pieces. It has no + economic, no military, no racial, no religious unity. Its only conceivable + unity is a unity of language and purpose and outlook. If it is not held + together by thought and spirit, it cannot be held together. No other + cement exists that can hold it together indefinitely. + </p> + <p> + Not only English literature, but all other literatures well translated + into English, and all science and all philosophy, have to be brought + within the reach of everyone capable of availing himself of such reading. + And this must be done, not by private enterprise or for gain, but as an + Imperial function. Wherever the Empire extends there its presence must + signify all that breadth of thought and outlook no localised life can + supply. + </p> + <p> + Only so is it possible to establish and maintain the wide understandings, + the common sympathy necessary to our continued association. The Empire, + mediately or immediately, must become the universal educator, news-agent, + book-distributor, civiliser-general, and vehicle of imaginative + inspiration for its peoples, or else it must submit to the gravitation of + its various parts to new and more invigorating associations. + </p> + <p> + No empire, it may be urged, has ever attempted anything of this sort, but + no empire like the British has ever yet existed. Its conditions and needs + are unprecedented, its consolidation is a new problem, to be solved, if it + is solved at all, by untried means. And in the English language as a + vehicle of thought and civilisation alone is that means to be found. + </p> + <p> + Now it is idle to pretend that at the present time the British Empire is + giving its constituent peoples any such high and rewarding civilisation as + I am here suggesting. It gives them a certain immunity from warfare, a + penny post, an occasional spectacular coronation, a few knighthoods and + peerages, and the services of an honest, unsympathetic, narrow-minded, and + unattractive officialism. No adequate effort is being made to render the + English language universal throughout its limits, none at all to use it as + a medium of thought and enlightenment. Half the good things of the human + mind are outside English altogether, and there is not sufficient + intelligence among us to desire to bring them in. If one would read honest + and able criticism, one must learn French; if one would be abreast of + scientific knowledge and philosophical thought, or see many good plays or + understand the contemporary European mind, German. + </p> + <p> + And yet it would cost amazingly little to get every good foreign thing + done into English as it appeared. It needs only a little understanding and + a little organisation to ensure the immediate translation of every + significant article, every scientific paper of the slightest value. The + effort and arrangement needed to make books, facilities for research, and + all forms of art accessible throughout the Empire, would be altogether + trivial in proportion to the consolidation it would effect. + </p> + <p> + But English people do not understand these things. Their Empire is an + accident. It was made for them by their exceptional and outcast men, and + in the end it will be lost, I fear, by the intellectual inertness of their + commonplace and dull-minded leaders. Empire has happened to them and + civilisation has happened to them as fresh lettuces come to tame rabbits. + They do not understand how they got, and they will not understand how to + keep. Art, thought, literature, all indeed that raises men above locality + and habit, all that can justify and consolidate the Empire, is nothing to + them. They are provincials mocked by a world-wide opportunity, the stupid + legatees of a great generation of exiles. They go out of town for the + "shootin'," and come back for the fooleries of Parliament, and to see what + the Censor has left of our playwrights and Sir Jesse Boot of our writers, + and to dine in restaurants and wear clothes. + </p> + <p> + Mostly they call themselves Imperialists, which is just their harmless way + of expressing their satisfaction with things as they are. In practice + their Imperialism resolves itself into a vigorous resistance to taxation + and an ill-concealed hostility to education. It matters nothing to them + that the whole next generation of Canadians has drawn its ideas mainly + from American publications, that India and Egypt, in despite of sounder + mental nourishment, have developed their own vernacular Press, that + Australia and New Zealand even now gravitate to America for books and + thought. It matters nothing to them that the poverty and insularity of our + intellectual life has turned American art to France and Italy, and the + American universities towards Germany. The slow starvation and decline of + our philosophy and science, the decadence of British invention and + enterprise, troubles them not at all, because they fail to connect these + things with the tangible facts of empire. "The world cannot wait for the + English." ... And the sands of our Imperial opportunity twirl through the + neck of the hour-glass. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE LABOUR UNREST + </h2> + <h3> + (<i>May, 1912</i>.) + </h3> + <p> + Sec. 1 + </p> + <p> + Our country is, I think, in a dangerous state of social disturbance. The + discontent of the labouring mass of the community is deep and increasing. + It may be that we are in the opening phase of a real and irreparable class + war. + </p> + <p> + Since the Coronation we have moved very rapidly indeed from an assurance + of extreme social stability towards the recognition of a spreading + disorganisation. It is idle to pretend any longer that these Labour + troubles are the mere give and take of economic adjustment. No adjustment + is in progress. New and strange urgencies are at work in our midst, forces + for which the word "revolutionary" is only too faithfully appropriate. + Nothing is being done to allay these forces; everything conspires to + exasperate them. + </p> + <p> + Whither are these forces taking us? What can still be done and what has to + be done to avoid the phase of social destruction to which we seem to be + drifting? + </p> + <p> + Hitherto, in Great Britain at any rate, the working man has shown himself + a being of the most limited and practical outlook. His narrowness of + imagination, his lack of general ideas, has been the despair of the + Socialist and of every sort of revolutionary theorist. He may have struck + before, but only for definite increments of wages or definite limitations + of toil; his acceptance of the industrial system and its methods has been + as complete and unquestioning as his acceptance of earth and sky. Now, + with an effect of suddenness, this ceases to be the case. A new generation + of workers is seen replacing the old, workers of a quality unfamiliar to + the middle-aged and elderly men who still manage our great businesses and + political affairs. The worker is beginning now to strike for unprecedented + ends—against the system, against the fundamental conditions of + labour, to strike for no defined ends at all, perplexingly and + disconcertingly. The old-fashioned strike was a method of bargaining, + clumsy and violent perhaps, but bargaining still; the new-fashioned strike + is far less of a haggle, far more of a display of temper. The first thing + that has to be realised if the Labour question is to be understood at all + is this, that the temper of Labour has changed altogether in the last + twenty or thirty years. Essentially that is a change due to intelligence + not merely increased but greatly stimulated, to the work, that is, of the + board schools and of the cheap Press. The outlook of the workman has + passed beyond the works and his beer and his dog. He has become—or, + rather, he has been replaced by—a being of eyes, however imperfect, + and of criticism, however hasty and unjust. The working man of to-day + reads, talks, has general ideas and a sense of the round world; he is far + nearer to the ruler of to-day in knowledge and intellectual range than he + is to the working man of fifty years ago. The politician or business + magnate of to-day is no better educated and very little better informed + than his equals were fifty years ago. The chief difference is golf. The + working man questions a thousand things his father accepted as in the very + nature of the world, and among others he begins to ask with the utmost + alertness and persistence why it is that he in particular is expected to + toil. The answer, the only justifiable answer, should be that that is the + work for which he is fitted by his inferior capacity and culture, that + these others are a special and select sort, very specially trained and + prepared for their responsibilities, and that at once brings this new fact + of a working-class criticism of social values into play. The old workman + might and did quarrel very vigorously with his specific employer, but he + never set out to arraign all employers; he took the law and the Church and + Statecraft and politics for the higher and noble things they claimed to + be. He wanted an extra shilling or he wanted an hour of leisure, and that + was as much as he wanted. The young workman, on the other hand, has put + the whole social system upon its trial, and seems quite disposed to give + an adverse verdict. He looks far beyond the older conflict of interests + between employer and employed. He criticises the good intentions of the + whole system of governing and influential people, and not only their good + intentions, but their ability. These are the new conditions, and the + middle-aged and elderly gentlemen who are dealing with the crisis on the + supposition that their vast experience of Labour questions in the + 'seventies and 'eighties furnishes valuable guidance in this present issue + are merely bringing the gunpowder of misapprehension to the revolutionary + fort. + </p> + <p> + The workman of the new generation is full of distrust the most + demoralising of social influences. He is like a sailor who believes no + longer either in the good faith or seamanship of his captain, and, between + desperation and contempt, contemplates vaguely but persistently the + assumption of control by a collective forecastle. He is like a private + soldier obsessed with the idea that nothing can save the situation but the + death of an incompetent officer. His distrust is so profound that he + ceases not only to believe in the employer, but he ceases to believe in + the law, ceases to believe in Parliament, as a means to that tolerable + life he desires; and he falls back steadily upon his last resource of a + strike, and—if by repressive tactics we make it so—a criminal + strike. The central fact of all this present trouble is that distrust. + There is only one way in which our present drift towards revolution or + revolutionary disorder can be arrested, and that is by restoring the + confidence of these alienated millions, who visibly now are changing from + loyalty to the Crown, from a simple patriotism, from habitual industry, to + the more and more effective expression of a deepening resentment. + </p> + <p> + This is a psychological question, a matter of mental states. Feats of + legal subtlety are inopportune, arithmetical exploits still more so. To + emerge with the sum of 4s. 6-1/2d. as a minimum, by calculating on the + basis of the mine's present earnings, from a conference which the miners + and everybody else imagined was to give a minimum of 5s., may be clever, + but it is certainly not politic in the present stage of Labour feeling. To + stamp violently upon obscure newspapers nobody had heard of before and + send a printer to prison, and to give thereby a flaming advertisement to + the possible use of soldiers in civil conflicts and set every barrack-room + talking, may be permissible, but it is certainly very ill-advised. The + distrust deepens. + </p> + <p> + The real task before a governing class that means to go on governing is + not just at present to get the better of an argument or the best of a + bargain, but to lay hold of the imaginations of this drifting, sullen and + suspicious multitude, which is the working body of the country. What we + prosperous people, who have nearly all the good things of life and most of + the opportunity, have to do now is to justify ourselves. We have to show + that we are indeed responsible and serviceable, willing to give ourselves, + and to give ourselves generously for what we have and what we have had. We + have to meet the challenge of this distrust. + </p> + <p> + The slack days for rulers and owners are over. If there are still to be + rulers and owners and managing and governing people, then in the face of + the new masses, sensitive, intelligent, critical, irritable, as no common + people have ever been before, these rulers and owners must be prepared to + make themselves and display themselves wise, capable and heroic—beyond + any aristocratic precedent. The alternative, if it is an alternative, is + resignation—to the Social Democracy. + </p> + <p> + And it is just because we are all beginning to realise the immense need + for this heroic quality in those who rule and are rich and powerful, as + the response and corrective to these distrusts and jealousies that are + threatening to disintegrate our social order, that we have all followed + the details of this great catastrophe in the Atlantic with such intense + solicitude. It was one of those accidents that happen with a precision of + time and circumstance that outdoes art; not an incident in it all that was + not supremely typical. It was the penetrating comment of chance upon our + entire social situation. Beneath a surface of magnificent efficiency was—slap-dash. + The third-class passengers had placed themselves on board with an infinite + confidence in the care that was to be taken of them, and they went down, + and most of their women and children went down with the cry of those who + find themselves cheated out of life. + </p> + <p> + In the unfolding record of behaviour it is the stewardesses and bandsmen + and engineers—persons of the trade-union class—who shine as + brightly as any. And by the supreme artistry of Chance it fell to the lot + of that tragic and unhappy gentleman, Mr. Bruce Ismay, to be aboard and to + be caught by the urgent vacancy in the boat and the snare of the moment. + No untried man dare say that he would have behaved better in his place. He + escaped. He thought it natural to escape. His class thinks it was right + and proper that he did escape. It is not the man I would criticise, but + the manifest absence of any such sense of the supreme dignity of his + position as would have sustained him in that crisis. He was a rich man and + a ruling man, but in the test he was not a proud man. In the common man's + realisation that such is indeed the case with most of those who dominate + our world, lies the true cause and danger of our social indiscipline. And + the remedy in the first place lies not in social legislation and so forth, + but in the consciences of the wealthy. Heroism and a generous devotion to + the common good are the only effective answer to distrust. If such + dominating people cannot produce these qualities there will have to be an + end to them, and the world must turn to some entirely different method of + direction. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 2 + </p> + <p> + The essential trouble in our growing Labour disorder is the profound + distrust which has grown up in the minds of the new generation of workers + of either the ability or the good faith of the property owning, ruling and + directing class. I do not attempt to judge the justice or not of this + distrust; I merely point to its existence as one of the striking and + essential factors in the contemporary Labour situation. + </p> + <p> + This distrust is not, perhaps, the proximate cause of the strikes that now + follow each other so disconcertingly, but it embitters their spirit, it + prevents their settlement, and leads to their renewal. I have tried to + suggest that, whatever immediate devices for pacification might be + employed, the only way to a better understanding and co-operation, the + only escape from a social slide towards the unknown possibilities of + Social Democracy, lies in an exaltation of the standard of achievement and + of the sense of responsibility in the possessing and governing classes. It + is not so much "Wake up, England!" that I would say as "Wake up, + gentlemen!"—for the new generation of the workers is beyond all + question quite alarmingly awake and critical and angry. And they have not + merely to wake up, they have to wake up visibly and ostentatiously if + those old class reliances on which our system is based are to be preserved + and restored. + </p> + <p> + We need before anything else a restoration of class confidence. It is a + time when class should speak with class very frankly. + </p> + <p> + There is too much facile misrepresentation, too ready a disposition on + either side to accept caricatures as portraits and charges as facts. + However tacit our understandings were in the past, with this new kind of + Labour, this young, restive Labour of the twentieth century, which can + read, discuss and combine, we need something in the nature of a social + contract. And it is when one comes to consider by what possible means + these suspicious third-class passengers in our leaking and imperilled + social liner can be brought into generous co-operation with the second and + the first that one discovers just how lamentably out of date and out of + order our political institutions, which should supply the means for just + this inter-class discussion, have become. Between the busy and preoccupied + owning and employing class on the one hand, and the distressed, uneasy + masses on the other, intervenes the professional politician, not as a + mediator, but as an obstacle, who must be propitiated before any dealings + are possible. Our national politics no longer express the realities of the + national life; they are a mere impediment in the speech of the community. + With our whole social order in danger, our Legislature is busy over the + trivial little affairs of the Welsh Established Church, whose endowment + probably is not equal to the fortune of any one of half a dozen <i>Titanic</i> + passengers or a tithe of the probable loss of another strike among the + miners. We have a Legislature almost antiquarian, compiling a museum of + Gladstonian legacies rather than governing our world to-day. + </p> + <p> + Law is the basis of civilisation, but the lawyer is the law's consequence, + and, with us at least, the legal profession is the political profession. + It delights in false issues and merely technical politics. Steadily with + the ascendancy of the House of Commons the barristers have ousted other + types of men from political power. The decline of the House of Lords has + been the last triumph of the House of Lawyers, and we are governed now to + a large extent not so much by the people for the people as by the + barristers for the barristers. They set the tone of political life. And + since they are the most specialised, the most specifically trained of all + the professions, since their training is absolutely antagonistic to the + creative impulses of the constructive artist and the controlled + experiments of the scientific man, since the business is with evidence and + advantages and the skilful use of evidence and advantages, and not with + understanding, they are the least statesmanlike of all educated men, and + they give our public life a tone as hopelessly discordant with our very + great and urgent social needs as one could well imagine. They do not want + to deal at all with great and urgent social needs. They play a game, a + long and interesting game, with parties as sides, a game that rewards the + industrious player with prominence, place, power and great rewards, and + the less that game involves the passionate interests of other men, the + less it draws them into participation and angry interference, the better + for the steady development of the politician's career. A distinguished and + active fruitlessness, leaving the world at last as he found it, is the + political barrister's ideal career. To achieve that, he must maintain + legal and political monopolies, and prevent the invasion of political life + by living interests. And so far as he has any views about Labour beyond + the margin of his brief, the barrister politician seems to regard getting + men back to work on any terms and as soon as possible as the highest good. + </p> + <p> + And it is with such men that our insurgent modern Labour, with its vaguely + apprehended wants, its large occasions and its rapid emotional reactions, + comes into contact directly it attempts to adjust itself in the social + body. It is one of the main factors in the progressive embitterment of the + Labour situation that whatever business is afoot—arbitration, + conciliation, inquiry—our contemporary system presents itself to + Labour almost invariably in a legal guise. The natural infirmities of + humanity rebel against an unimaginative legality of attitude, and the + common workaday man has no more love for this great and necessary + profession to-day than he had in the time of Jack Cade. Little reasonable + things from the lawyers' point of view—the rejection, for example, + of certain evidence in the <i>Titanic</i> inquiry because it might amount + to a charge of manslaughter, the constant interruption and checking of a + Labour representative at the same tribunal upon trivial points—irritate + quite disproportionately. + </p> + <p> + Lawyer and working man are antipathetic types, and it is a very grave + national misfortune that at this time, when our situation calls aloud for + statecraft and a certain greatness of treatment, our public life should be + dominated as it has never been dominated before by this most able and + illiberal profession. + </p> + <p> + Now for that great multitude of prosperous people who find themselves at + once deeply concerned in our present social and economic crisis, and + either helplessly entangled in party organisation or helplessly outside + politics, the elimination and cure of this disease of statecraft, the + professional politician, has become a very urgent matter. To destroy him, + to get him back to his law courts and keep him there, it is necessary to + destroy the machinery of the party system that sustains him, and to adopt + some electoral method that will no longer put the independent + representative man at a hopeless disadvantage against the party nominee. + Such a method is to be found in proportional representation with large + constituencies, and to that we must look for our ultimate liberation from + our present masters, these politician barristers. But the Labour situation + cannot wait for this millennial release, and for the current issue it + seems to me patent that every reasonable prosperous man will, even at the + cost to himself of some trouble and hard thinking, do his best to keep as + much of this great and acute controversy as he possibly can out of the + lawyer's and mere politician's hands and in his own. Leave Labour to the + lawyers, and we shall go very deeply into trouble indeed before this + business is over. They will score their points, they will achieve + remarkable agreements full of the possibility of subsequent surprises, + they will make reputations, and do everything Heaven and their + professional training have made them to do, and they will exasperate and + exasperate! + </p> + <p> + Lawyers made the first French Revolution, and now, on a different side, + they may yet bring about an English one. These men below there are still, + as a class, wonderfully patient and reasonable, quite prepared to take + orders and recognise superior knowledge, wisdom and nobility. They make + the most reasonable claims for a tolerable life, for certain assurances + and certain latitudes. Implicit rather than expressed is their demand for + wisdom and right direction from those to whom the great surplus and + freedom of civilisation are given. It is an entirely reasonable demand if + man is indeed a social animal. But we have got to treat them fairly and + openly. This patience and reasonableness and willingness for leadership is + not limitless. It is no good scoring our mean little points, for example, + and accusing them of breach of contract and all sorts of theoretical + wrongs because they won't abide by agreements to accept a certain scale of + wages when the purchasing power of money has declined. When they made that + agreement they did not think of that possibility. When they said a pound + they thought of what was then a poundsworth of living. The Mint has since + been increasing its annual output of gold coins to two or three times the + former amount, and we have, as it were, debased the coinage with + extraordinary quantities of gold. But we who know and own did nothing to + adjust that; we did not tell the working man of that; we have let him find + it out slowly and indirectly at the grocer's shop. That may be permissible + from the lawyer's point of view, but it certainly isn't from the + gentleman's, and it is only by the plea that its inequalities give society + a gentleman that our present social system can claim to endure. + </p> + <p> + I would like to accentuate that, because if we are to emerge again from + these acute social dissensions a reunited and powerful people, there has + to be a change of tone, a new generosity on the part of those who deal + with Labour speeches, Labour literature, Labour representatives, and + Labour claims. Labour is necessarily at an enormous disadvantage in + discussion; in spite of a tremendous inferiority in training and education + it is trying to tell the community its conception of its needs and + purposes. It is not only young as a participator in the discussion of + affairs; it is actually young. The average working man is not half the age + of the ripe politicians and judges and lawyers and wealthy organisers who + trip him up legally, accuse him of bad faith, mark his every + inconsistency. It isn't becoming so to use our forensic advantages. It + isn't—if that has no appeal to you—wise. + </p> + <p> + The thing our society has most to fear from Labour is not organised + resistance, not victorious strikes and raised conditions, but the black + resentment that follows defeat. Meet Labour half-way, and you will find a + new co-operation in government; stick to your legal rights, draw the net + of repressive legislation tighter, then you will presently have to deal + with Labour enraged. If the anger burns free, that means revolution; if + you crush out the hope of that, then sabotage and a sullen general + sympathy for anarchistic crime. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 3 + </p> + <p> + In the preceding pages I have discussed certain aspects of the present + Labour situation. I have tried to show the profound significance in this + discussion of the distrust which has grown up in the minds of the workers, + and how this distrust is being exacerbated by our entirely too forensic + method of treating their claims. I want now to point out a still more + powerful set of influences which is steadily turning our Labour struggles + from mere attempts to adjust hours and wages into movements that are + gravely and deliberately revolutionary. + </p> + <p> + This is the obvious devotion of a large and growing proportion of the time + and energy of the owning and ruling classes to pleasure and excitement, + and the way in which this spectacle of amusement and adventure is now + being brought before the eyes and into the imagination of the working man. + </p> + <p> + The intimate psychology of work is a thing altogether too little + considered and discussed. One asks: "What keeps a workman working properly + at his work?" and it seems a sufficient answer to say that it is the need + of getting a living. But that is not the complete answer. Work must to + some extent interest; if it bores, no power on earth will keep a man doing + it properly. And the tendency of modern industrialism has been to + subdivide processes and make work more boring and irksome. Also the + workman must be satisfied with the living he is getting, and the tendency + of newspaper, theatre, cinematograph show and so forth is to fill his mind + with ideas of ways of living infinitely more agreeable and interesting + than his own. Habit also counts very largely in the regular return of the + man to his job, and the fluctuations of employment, the failure of the + employing class to provide any alternative to idleness during slack time, + break that habit of industry. And then, last but not least, there is + self-respect. Men and women are capable of wonders of self-discipline and + effort if they feel that theirs is a meritorious service, if they imagine + the thing they are doing is the thing they ought to do. A miner will cut + coal in a different spirit and with a fading zest if he knows his day's + output is to be burnt to waste secretly by a lunatic. Man is a social + animal; few men are naturally social rebels, and most will toil very + cheerfully in subordination if they feel that the collective end is a fine + thing and a great thing. + </p> + <p> + Now, this force of self-respect is much more acutely present in the mind + of the modern worker than it was in the thought of his fathers. He is + intellectually more active than his predecessors, his imagination is + relatively stimulated, he asks wide questions. The worker of a former + generation took himself for granted; it is a new phase when the toilers + begin to ask, not one man here or there, but in masses, in battalions, in + trades: "Why, then, are <i>we</i> toilers, and for what is it that we + toil?" + </p> + <p> + What answer do we give them? + </p> + <p> + I ask the reader to put himself in the place of a good workman, a young, + capable miner, let us say, in search of an answer to that question. He is, + we will suppose, temporarily unemployed through the production of a glut + of coal, and he goes about the world trying to see the fine and noble + collective achievements that justify the devotion of his whole life to + humble toil. I ask the reader: What have we got to show that man? What are + we doing up in the light and air that justifies our demand that he should + go on hewing in narrow seams and cramped corners until he can hew no more? + Where is he to be taken to see these crowning fruits of our release from + toil? Shall we take him to the House of Commons to note which of the + barristers is making most headway over Welsh Disestablishment, or shall we + take him to the <i>Titanic</i> inquiry to hear the latest about those + fifty-five third-class children (out of eighty-three) who were drowned? + Shall we give him an hour or so among the portraits at the Royal Academy, + or shall we make an enthusiastic tour of London sculpture and architecture + and saturate his soul with the beauty he makes possible? The new + Automobile Club, for example. "Without you and your subordination we could + not have had that." Or suppose we took him the round of the West-End clubs + and restaurants and made him estimate how many dinners London can produce + at a pinch at the price of his local daily minimum, say, and upward; or + borrow an aeroplane at Hendon and soar about counting all the golfers in + the Home Counties on any week-day afternoon. "You suffer at the roots of + things, far below there, but see all this nobility and splendour, these + sweet, bright flowers to which your rootlet life contributes." Or we might + spend a pleasant morning trying to get a passable woman's hat for the + price of his average weekly wages in some West-End shop.... + </p> + <p> + But indeed this thing is actually happening. The older type of miner was + illiterate, incurious; he read nothing, lived his own life, and if he had + any intellectual and spiritual urgencies in him beyond eating and drinking + and dog-fighting, the local little Bethel shunted them away from any + effective social criticism. The new generation of miners is on an + altogether different basis. It is at once less brutal and less spiritual; + it is alert, informed, sceptical, and the Press, with photographic + illustrations, the cinema, and a score of collateral forces, are giving it + precisely that spectacular view of luxury, amusement, aimlessness and + excitement, taunting it with just that suggestion that it is for that, and + that alone, that the worker's back aches and his muscles strain. Whatever + gravity and spaciousness of aim there may be in our prosperous social life + does not appear to him. He sees, and he sees all the more brightly because + he is looking at it out of toil and darkness, the glitter, the delight for + delight's sake, the show and the pride and the folly. Cannot you + understand how it is that these young men down there in the hot and + dangerous and toilsome and inglorious places of life are beginning to cry + out, "We are being made fools of," and to fling down their tools, and + cannot you see how futile it is to dream that Mr. Asquith or some other + politician by some trick of a Conciliation Act or some claptrap of + Compulsory Arbitration, or that any belated suppression of discussion and + strike organisations by the law, will avert this gathering storm? The + Spectacle of Pleasure, the parade of clothes, estates, motor-cars, luxury + and vanity in the sight of the workers is the culminating irritant of + Labour. So long as that goes on, this sombre resolve to which we are all + awakening, this sombre resolve rather to wreck the whole fabric than to + continue patiently at work, will gather strength. It does not matter that + such a resolve is hopeless and unseasonable; we are dealing here with the + profounder impulses that underlie reason. Crush this resentment; it will + recur with accumulated strength. + </p> + <p> + It does not matter that there is no plan in existence for any kind of + social order that could be set up in the place of our present system; no + plan, that is, that will endure half an hour's practical criticism. The + cardinal fact before us is that the workers do not intend to stand things + as they are, and that no clever arguments, no expert handling of legal + points, no ingenious appearances of concession, will stay that progressive + embitterment. + </p> + <p> + But I think I have said enough to express and perhaps convey my conviction + that our present Labour troubles are unprecedented, and that they mean the + end of an epoch. The supply of good-tempered, cheap labour—upon + which the fabric of our contemporary ease and comfort is erected—is + giving out. The spread of information and the means of presentation in + every class and the increase of luxury and self-indulgence in the + prosperous classes are the chief cause of that. In the place of that old + convenient labour comes a new sort of labour, reluctant, resentful, + critical, and suspicious. The replacement has already gone so far that I + am certain that attempts to baffle and coerce the workers back to their + old conditions must inevitably lead to a series of increasingly + destructive outbreaks, to stresses and disorder culminating in revolution. + It is useless to dream of going on now for much longer upon the old lines; + our civilisation, if it is not to enter upon a phase of conflict and + decay, must begin to adapt itself to the new conditions of which the first + and foremost is that the wages-earning labouring class as a distinctive + class, consenting to a distinctive treatment and accepting life at a + disadvantage is going to disappear. Whether we do it soon as the result of + our reflections upon the present situation, or whether we do it presently + through the impoverishment that must necessarily result from a lengthening + period of industrial unrest, there can be little doubt that we are going + to curtail very considerably the current extravagance of the spending and + directing classes upon food, clothing, display, and all the luxuries of + life. The phase of affluence is over. And unless we are to be the mere + passive spectators of an unprecedented reduction of our lives, all of us + who have leisure and opportunity have to set ourselves very strenuously to + the problem not of reconciling ourselves to the wage-earners, for that + possibility is over, but of establishing a new method of co-operation with + those who seem to be definitely decided not to remain wage-earners for + very much longer. We have, as sensible people, to realise that the old + arrangement which has given us of the fortunate minority so much leisure, + luxury, and abundance, advantages we have as a class put to so vulgar and + unprofitable a use, is breaking down, and that we have to discover a new, + more equable way of getting the world's work done. + </p> + <p> + Certain things stand out pretty obviously. It is clear that in the times + ahead of us there must be more economy in giving trouble and causing work, + a greater willingness to do work for ourselves, a great economy of labour + through machinery and skilful management. So much is unavoidable if we are + to meet these enlarged requirements upon which the insurgent worker + insists. If we, who have at least some experience of affairs, who own + property, manage businesses, and discuss and influence public + organisation, if we are not prepared to undertake this work of discipline + and adaptation for ourselves, then a time is not far distant when + insurrectionary leaders, calling themselves Socialists or Syndicalists, or + what not, men with none of our experience, little of our knowledge, and + far less hope of success, will take that task out of our hands.<a + href="#linknote-1" name="linknoteref-1" id="linknoteref-1"><small>1</small></a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="linknote-1" id="linknote-1"> Note--></a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 1 (<a href="#linknoteref-1">return</a>)<br /> [ Larkinism comes to endorse + me since this was written.] + </p> + <p> + We have, in fact, to "pull ourselves together," as the phrase goes, and + make an end to all this slack, extravagant living, this spectacle of + pleasure, that has been spreading and intensifying in every civilised + community for the last three or four decades. What is happening to Labour + is indeed, from one point of view, little else than the correlative of + what has been happening to the more prosperous classes in the community. + They have lost their self-discipline, their gravity, their sense of high + aims, they have become the victims of their advantages and Labour, grown + observant and intelligent, has discovered itself and declares itself no + longer subordinate. Just what powers of recovery and reconstruction our + system may have under these circumstances the decades immediately before + us will show. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 4 + </p> + <p> + Let us try to anticipate some of the social developments that are likely + to spring out of the present Labour situation. + </p> + <p> + It is quite conceivable, of course, that what lies before us is not + development but disorder. Given sufficient suspicion on one side and + sufficient obstinacy and trickery on the other, it may be impossible to + restore social peace in any form, and industrialism may degenerate into a + wasteful and incurable conflict. But that distressful possibility is the + worst and perhaps the least probable of many. It is much more acceptable + to suppose that our social order will be able to adjust itself to the new + outlook and temper and quality of the labour stratum that elementary + education, a Press very cheap and free, and a period of great general + affluence have brought about. + </p> + <p> + One almost inevitable feature of any such adaptation will be a changed + spirit in the general body of society. We have come to a serious condition + of our affairs, and we shall not get them into order again without a + thorough bracing-up of ourselves in the process. There can be no doubt + that for a large portion of our comfortable classes existence has been + altogether too easy for the last lifetime or so. The great bulk of the + world's work has been done out of their sight and knowledge; it has seemed + unnecessary to trouble much about the general conduct of things, + unnecessary, as they say, to "take life too seriously." This has not made + them so much vicious as slack, lazy, and over-confident; there has been an + elaboration of trivial things and a neglect of troublesome and important + things. The one grave shock of the Boer War has long been explained and + sentimentalised away. But it will not be so easy to explain away a + dislocated train service and an empty coal cellar as it was to get a + favourable interpretation upon some demonstration of national incompetence + half the world away. + </p> + <p> + It is indeed no disaster, but a matter for sincere congratulation that the + British prosperous and the British successful, to whom warning after + warning has rained in vain from the days of Ruskin, Carlyle, Matthew + Arnold, should be called to account at last in their own household. They + will grumble, they will be very angry, but in the end, I believe, they + will rise to the opportunities of their inconvenience. They will shake off + their intellectual lassitude, take over again the public and private + affairs they have come to leave so largely in the hands of the political + barrister and the family solicitor, become keen and critical and + constructive, bring themselves up to date again. + </p> + <p> + That is not, of course, inevitable, but I am taking now the more hopeful + view. + </p> + <p> + And then? What sort of working arrangements are our renascent owning and + directing classes likely to make with the new labouring class? How is the + work going to be done in the harder, cleaner, more equalised, and better + managed State that, in one's hopeful mood, one sees ahead of us? + </p> + <p> + Now after the experiences of the past twelve months it is obvious that the + days when most of the directed and inferior work of the community will be + done by intermittently employed and impecunious wage-earners is drawing to + an end. A large part of the task of reconstruction ahead of us will + consist in the working out of schemes for a more permanent type of + employment and for a direct participation of the worker in the pride, + profits, and direction of the work. Such schemes admit of wide variations + between a mere bonus system, a periodic tipping of the employees to + prevent their striking and a real and honest co-partnery. + </p> + <p> + In the latter case a great enterprise, forced to consider its "hands" as + being also in their degree "heads," would include a department of + technical and business instruction for its own people. From such ideas one + passes very readily to the conception of guild-managed businesses in which + the factor of capital would no longer stand out as an element distinct + from and contrasted with the proprietorship of the workers. One sees the + worker as an active and intelligent helper during the great portion of his + participation, and as an annuitant and perhaps, if he has devised + economies and improvements, a receiver of royalties during his declining + years. + </p> + <p> + And concurrently with the systematic reconstruction of a large portion of + our industries upon these lines there will have to be a vigorous + development of the attempts that are already being made, in garden cities, + garden suburbs, and the like, to re-house the mass of our population in a + more civilised and more agreeable manner. Probably that is not going to + pay from the point of view of the money-making business man, but we + prosperous people have to understand that there are things more important + and more profitable than money-making, and we have to tax ourselves not + merely in money, but in time, care, and effort in the matter. Half the + money that goes out of England to Switzerland and the Riviera ought to go + to the extremely amusing business of clearing up ugly corners and building + jolly and convenient workmen's cottages—even if we do it at a loss. + It is part of our discharge for the leisure and advantages the system has + given us, part of that just give and take, over and above the solicitor's + and bargain-hunter's and money-lender's conception of justice, upon which + social order ultimately rests. We have to do it not in a mood of + patronage, but in a mood of attentive solicitude. If not on high grounds, + then on low grounds our class has to set to work and make those other + classes more interested and comfortable and contented. It is what we are + for. It is quite impossible for workmen and poor people generally to plan + estates and arrange their own homes; they are entirely at the mercy of the + wealthy in this matter. There is not a slum, not a hovel, not an eyesore + upon the English landscape for which some well-off owner is not ultimately + to be blamed or excused, and the less we leave of such things about the + better for us in that day of reckoning between class and class which now + draws so near. + </p> + <p> + It is as plain now as the way from Calais to Paris that if the owning + class does not attend to these amenities the mass of the people, doing its + best to manage the thing through the politicians, presently will. They may + make a frightful mess of it, but that will never bring back things again + into the hands that hold them and neglect them. Their time will have + passed for ever. + </p> + <p> + But these are the mere opening requirements of this hope of mine of a + quickened social consciousness among the more fortunate and leisurely + section of the community I believe that much profounder changes in the + conditions of labour are possible than those I have suggested I am + beginning to suspect that scarcely any of our preconceptions about the way + work must be done, about the hours of work and the habits of work, will + stand an exhaustive scientific analysis. It is at least conceivable that + we could get much of the work that has to be done to keep our community + going in far more toil-saving and life-saving ways than we follow at the + present time. So far scientific men have done scarcely anything to + estimate under what conditions a man works best, does most work, works + more happily. Suppose it turns out to be the case that a man always + following one occupation throughout his lifetime, working regularly day + after day for so many hours, as most wage-earners do at the present time, + does not do nearly so much or nearly so well as he would do if he followed + first one occupation and then another, or if he worked as hard as he + possibly could for a definite period and then took holiday? I suspect very + strongly, indeed I am convinced, that in certain occupations, teaching, + for example, or surgery, a man begins by working clumsily and awkwardly, + that his interest and skill rise rapidly, that if he is really well suited + in his profession he may presently become intensely interested and capable + of enormous quantities of his very best work, and that then his interest + and vigour rapidly decline I am disposed to believe that this is true of + most occupations, of coal-mining or engineering, or brick-laying or + cotton-spinning. The thing has never been properly thought about. Our + civilisation has grown up in a haphazard kind of way, and it has been + convenient to specialise workers and employ them piecemeal. But if it is + true that in respect of any occupation a man has his period of maximum + efficiency, then we open up a whole world of new social possibilities. + What we really want from a man for our social welfare in that case is not + regular continuing work, but a few strenuous years of high-pressure + service. We can as a community afford to keep him longer at education and + training before he begins, and we can release him with a pension while he + is still full of life and the capacity for enjoying freedom. But obviously + this is impossible upon any basis of weekly wages and intermittent + employment; we must be handling affairs in some much more comprehensive + way than that before we can take and deal with the working life of a man + as one complete whole. + </p> + <p> + That is one possibility that is frequently in my thoughts about the + present labour crisis. There is another, and that is the great + desirability of every class in the community having a practical knowledge + of what labour means. There is a vast amount of work which either is now + or is likely to be in the future within the domain of the public + administration—road-making, mining, railway work, post-office and + telephone work, medical work, nursing, a considerable amount of building + for example. Why should we employ people to do the bulk of these things at + all? Why should we not as a community do them ourselves? Why, in other + words, should we not have a labour conscription and take a year or so of + service from everyone in the community, high or low? I believe this would + be of enormous moral benefit to our strained and relaxed community. I + believe that in making labour a part of everyone's life and the whole of + nobody's life lies the ultimate solution of these industrial difficulties. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 5 + </p> + <p> + It is almost a national boast that we "muddle through" our troubles, and I + suppose it is true and to our credit that by virtue of a certain + kindliness of temper, a humorous willingness to make the best of things, + and an entirely amiable forgetfulness, we do come out of pressures and + extremities that would smash a harder, more brittle people only a little + chipped and damaged. And it is quite conceivable that our country will, in + a measure, survive the enormous stresses of labour adjustment that are now + upon us, even if it never rises to any heroic struggle against these + difficulties. But it may survive as a lesser country, as an impoverished + and second-rate country. It will certainly do no more than that, if in any + part of the world there is to be found a people capable of taking up this + gigantic question in a greater spirit. Perhaps there is no such people, + and the conflicts and muddles before us will be world-wide. Or suppose + that it falls to our country in some strange way to develop a new courage + and enterprise, and to be the first to go forward into this new phase of + civilisation I foresee, from which a distinctive labouring class, a class + that is of expropriated wage-earners, will have almost completely + disappeared. + </p> + <p> + Now hitherto the utmost that any State, overtaken by social and economic + stresses, has ever achieved in the way of adapting itself to them has been + no more than patching. + </p> + <p> + Individuals and groups and trades have found themselves in imperfectly + apprehended and difficult times, and have reluctantly altered their ways + and ideas piecemeal under pressure. Sometimes they have succeeded in + rubbing along upon the new lines, and sometimes the struggle has submerged + them, but no community has ever yet had the will and the imagination to + recast and radically alter its social methods as a whole. The idea of such + a reconstruction has never been absent from human thought since the days + of Plato, and it has been enormously reinforced by the spreading material + successes of modern science, successes due always to the substitution of + analysis and reasoned planning for trial and the rule of thumb. But it has + never yet been so believed in and understood as to render any real + endeavour to reconstruct possible. The experiment has always been + altogether too gigantic for the available faith behind it, and there have + been against it the fear of presumption, the interests of all advantaged + people, and the natural sloth of humanity. We do but emerge now from a + period of deliberate happy-go-lucky and the influence of Herbert Spencer, + who came near raising public shiftlessness to the dignity of a national + philosophy. Everything would adjust itself—if only it was left + alone. + </p> + <p> + Yet some things there are that cannot be done by small adjustments, such + as leaping chasms or killing an ox or escaping from the roof of a burning + house. You have to decide upon a certain course on such occasions and + maintain a continuous movement. If you wait on the burning house until you + scorch and then turn round a bit or move away a yard or so, or if on the + verge of a chasm you move a little in the way in which you wish to go, + disaster will punish your moderation. And it seems to me that the + establishment of the world's work upon a new basis—and that and no + less is what this Labour Unrest demands for its pacification—is just + one of those large alterations which will never be made by the + collectively unconscious activities of men, by competitions and survival + and the higgling of the market. Humanity is rebelling against the + continuing existence of a labour class as such, and I can see no way by + which our present method of weekly wages employment can change by + imperceptible increments into a method of salary and pension—for it + is quite evident that only by reaching that shall we reach the end of + these present discontents. The change has to be made on a comprehensive + scale or not at all. We need nothing less than a national plan of social + development if the thing is to be achieved. + </p> + <p> + Now that, I admit, is, as the Americans say, a large proposition. But we + are living in a time of more and more comprehensive plans, and the mere + fact that no scheme so extensive has ever been tried before is no reason + at all why we should not consider one. We think nowadays quite serenely of + schemes for the treatment of the nation's health as one whole, where our + fathers considered illness as a blend of accident with special + providences; we have systematised the community's water supply, education, + and all sorts of once chaotic services, and Germany and our own infinite + higgledy-piggledy discomfort and ugliness have brought home to us at last + even the possibility of planning the extension of our towns and cities. It + is only another step upward in scale to plan out new, more tolerable + conditions of employment for every sort of worker and to organise the + transition from our present disorder. + </p> + <p> + The essential difficulty between the employer and the statesman in the + consideration of this problem is the difference in the scope of their + view. The employer's concern with the man who does his work is day-long or + week-long; the statesman's is life-long. The conditions of private + enterprise and modern competition oblige the employer to think only of the + worker as a hand, who appears and does his work and draws his wages and + vanishes again. Only such strikes as we have had during the past year will + rouse him from that attitude of mind. The statesman at the other extremity + has to consider the worker as a being with a beginning, a middle, an end—and + offspring. He can consider all these possibilities of deferring employment + and making the toil of one period of life provide for the leisure and + freedom of another, which are necessarily entirely out of the purview of + an employer pure and simple. And I find it hard to see how we can + reconcile the intermittency of competitive employment with the unremitting + demands of a civilised life except by the intervention of the State or of + some public organisation capable of taking very wide views between the + business organiser on the one hand and the subordinate worker on the + other. On the one hand we need some broader handling of business than is + possible in the private adventure of the solitary proprietor or the single + company, and on the other some more completely organised development of + the collective bargain. We have to bring the directive intelligence of a + concern into an organic relation with the conception of the national + output as a whole, and either through a trade union or a guild, or some + expansion of a trade union, we have to arrange a secure, continuous income + for the worker, to be received not directly as wages from an employer but + intermediately through the organisation. We need a census of our national + production, a more exhaustive estimate of our resources, and an entirely + more scientific knowledge of the conditions of maximum labour efficiency. + One turns to the State.... And it is at this point that the heart of the + patriotic Englishman sinks, because it is our national misfortune that all + the accidents of public life have conspired to retard the development of + just that body of knowledge, just that scientific breadth of imagination + which is becoming a vital necessity for the welfare of a modern civilised + community. + </p> + <p> + We are caught short of scientific men just as in the event of a war with + Germany we shall almost certainly be caught short of scientific sailors + and soldiers. You cannot make that sort of thing to order in a crisis. + Scientific education—and more particularly the scientific education + of our owning and responsible classes—has been crippled by the + bitter jealousy of the classical teachers who dominate our universities, + by the fear and hatred of the Established Church, which still so largely + controls our upper-class schools, and by the entire lack of understanding + and support on the part of those able barristers and financiers who rule + our political life. Science has been left more and more to men of modest + origin and narrow outlook, and now we are beginning to pay in internal + dissensions, and presently we may have to pay in national humiliation for + this almost organised rejection of stimulus and power. + </p> + <p> + But however thwarted and crippled our public imagination may be, we have + still got to do the best we can with this situation; we have to take as + comprehensive views as we can, and to attempt as comprehensive a method of + handling as our party-ridden State permits. In theory I am a Socialist, + and were I theorising about some nation in the air I would say that all + the great productive activities and all the means of communication should + be national concerns and be run as national services. But our State is + peculiarly incapable of such functions; at the present time it cannot even + produce a postage stamp that will stick; and the type of official it would + probably evolve for industrial organisation, slowly but unsurely, would be + a maddening combination of the district visitor and the boy clerk. It is + to the independent people of some leisure and resource in the community + that one has at last to appeal for such large efforts and understandings + as our present situation demands. In the default of our public services, + there opens an immense opportunity for voluntary effort. Deference to our + official leaders is absurd; it is a time when men must, as the phrase + goes, "come forward." + </p> + <p> + We want a National Plan for our social and economic development which + everyone may understand and which will serve as a unifying basis for all + our social and political activities. Such a plan is not to be flung out + hastily by an irresponsible writer. It can only come into existence as the + outcome of a wide movement of inquiry and discussion. My business in these + pages has been not prescription but diagnosis. I hold it to be the clear + duty of every intelligent person in the country to do his utmost to learn + about these questions of economic and social organisation and to work them + out to conclusions and a purpose. We have come to a phase in our affairs + when the only alternative to a great, deliberate renascence of will and + understanding is national disorder and decay. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 6 + </p> + <p> + I have attempted a diagnosis of this aspect of our national situation. I + have pointed out that nearly all the social forces of our time seem to be + in conspiracy to bring about the disappearance of a labour class as such + and the rearrangement of our work and industry upon a new basis. That + rearrangement demands an unprecedented national effort and the production + of an adequate National Plan. Failing that, we seem doomed to a period of + chronic social conflict and possibly even of frankly revolutionary + outbreaks that may destroy us altogether or leave us only a dwarfed and + enfeebled nation.... + </p> + <p> + And before we can develop that National Plan and the effective realisation + of such a plan that is needed to save us from that fate, two things stand + immediately before us to be done, unavoidable preliminaries to that more + comprehensive work. The first of these is the restoration of + representative government, and the second a renascence of our public + thought about political and social things. + </p> + <p> + As I have already suggested, a main factor in our present national + inability to deal with this profound and increasing social disturbance is + the entirely unrepresentative and unbusinesslike nature of our + parliamentary government. + </p> + <p> + It is to a quite extraordinary extent a thing apart from our national + life. It becomes more and more so. To go into the House of Commons is to + go aside out of the general stream of the community's vitality into a + corner where little is learnt and much is concocted, into a specialised + Assembly which is at once inattentive to and monstrously influential in + our affairs. There was a period when the debates in the House of Commons + were an integral, almost a dominant, part of our national thought, when + its speeches were read over in tens of thousands of homes, and a large and + sympathetic public followed the details of every contested issue. Now a + newspaper that dared to fill its columns mainly with parliamentary + debates, with a full report of the trivialities the academic points, the + little familiar jokes, and entirely insincere pleadings which occupy that + gathering would court bankruptcy. + </p> + <p> + This diminishing actuality of our political life is a matter of almost + universal comment to-day. But it is extraordinary how much of that comment + is made in a tone of hopeless dissatisfaction, how rarely it is associated + with any will to change a state of affairs that so largely stultifies our + national purpose. And yet the causes of our present political ineptitude + are fairly manifest, and a radical and effective reconstruction is well + within the wit of man. + </p> + <p> + All causes and all effects in our complex modern State are complex, but in + this particular matter there can be little doubt that the key to the + difficulty lies in the crudity and simplicity of our method of election, a + method which reduces our apparent free choice of rulers to a ridiculous + selection between undesirable alternatives, and hands our whole public + life over to the specialised manipulator. Our House of Commons could + scarcely misrepresent us more if it was appointed haphazard by the Lord + Chamberlain or selected by lot from among the inhabitants of Netting Hill. + Election of representatives in one-member local constituencies by a single + vote gives a citizen practically no choice beyond the candidates appointed + by the two great party organisations in the State. It is an electoral + system that forbids absolutely any vote splitting or any indication of + shades of opinion. The presence of more than two candidates introduces an + altogether unmanageable complication, and the voter is at once reduced to + voting not to secure the return of the perhaps less hopeful candidate he + likes, but to ensure the rejection of the candidate he most dislikes. So + the nimble wire-puller slips in. In Great Britain we do not have Elections + any more; we have Rejections. What really happens at a general election is + that the party organisations—obscure and secretive conclaves with + entirely mysterious funds—appoint about 1,200 men to be our rulers, + and all that we, we so-called self-governing people, are permitted to do + is, in a muddled, angry way, to strike off the names of about half of + these selected gentlemen. + </p> + <p> + Take almost any member of the present Government and consider his case. + You may credit him with a lifelong industrious intention to get there, but + ask yourself what is this man's distinction, and for what great thing in + our national life does he stand? By the complaisance of our party + machinery he was able to present himself to a perplexed constituency as + the only possible alternative to Conservatism and Tariff Reform, and so we + have him. And so we have most of his colleagues. + </p> + <p> + Now such a system of representation is surely a system to be destroyed at + any cost, because it stifles our national discussion and thwarts our + national will. And we can leave no possible method of alteration untried. + It is not rational that a great people should be baffled by the mere + mechanical degeneration of an electoral method too crudely conceived. + There exist alternatives, and to these alternatives we must resort. Since + John Stuart Mill first called attention to the importance of the matter + there has been a systematic study of the possible working of electoral + methods, and it is now fairly proved that in proportional representation, + with large constituencies returning each many members, there is to be + found a way of escape from this disastrous embarrassment of our public + business by the party wire-puller and the party nominee. + </p> + <p> + I will not dwell upon the particulars of the proportional representation + system here. There exists an active society which has organised the + education of the public in the details of the proposal. Suffice it that it + does give a method by which a voter may vote with confidence for the + particular man he prefers, with no fear whatever that his vote will be + wasted in the event of that man's chance being hopeless. There is a method + by which the order of the voter's subsequent preference is effectively + indicated. That is all, but see how completely it modifies the nature of + an election. Instead of a hampered choice between two, you have a free + choice between many. Such a change means a complete alteration in the + quality of public life. + </p> + <p> + The present immense advantage of the party nominee—which is the root + cause, which is almost the sole cause of all our present political + ineptitude—would disappear. He would be quite unable to oust any + well-known and representative independent candidate who chose to stand + against him. There would be an immediate alteration in type in the House + of Commons. In the place of these specialists in political getting-on + there would be few men who had not already gained some intellectual and + moral hold upon the community; they would already be outstanding and + distinguished men before they came to the work of government. Great + sections of our national life, science, art, literature, education, + engineering, manufacture would cease to be under-represented, or + misrepresented by the energetic barrister and political specialist, and + our Legislature would begin to serve, as we have now such urgent need of + its serving, as the means and instrument of that national conference upon + the social outlook of which we stand in need. + </p> + <p> + And it is to the need and nature of that Conference that I would devote + myself. I do not mean by the word Conference any gathering of dull and + formal and inattentive people in this dusty hall or that, with a jaded + audience and intermittently active reporters, such as this word may + conjure up to some imaginations. I mean an earnest direction of attention + in all parts of the country to this necessity for a studied and elaborated + project of conciliation and social co-operation We cannot afford to leave + such things to specialised politicians and self-appointed, self-seeking + "experts" any longer. A modern community has to think out its problems as + a whole and co-operate as a whole in their solution. We have to bring all + our national life into this discussion of the National Plan before us, and + not simply newspapers and periodicals and books, but pulpit and college + and school have to bear their part in it. And in that particular I would + appeal to the schools, because there more than anywhere else is the + permanent quickening of our national imagination to be achieved. + </p> + <p> + We want to have our young people filled with a new realisation that + History is not over, that nothing is settled, and that the supreme + dramatic phase in the story of England has still to come. It was not in + the Norman Conquest, not in the flight of King James II, nor the overthrow + of Napoleon; it is here and now. It falls to them to be actors not in a + reminiscent pageant but a living conflict, and the sooner they are + prepared to take their part in that the better our Empire will acquit + itself. How absurd is the preoccupation of our schools and colleges with + the little provincialisms of our past history before A.D. 1800! "No + current politics," whispers the schoolmaster, "no religion—except + the coldest formalities <i>Some parent might object</i>." And he pours + into our country every year a fresh supply of gentlemanly cricketing + youths, gapingly unprepared—unless they have picked up a broad + generalisation or so from some surreptitious Socialist pamphlet—for + the immense issues they must control, and that are altogether + uncontrollable if they fail to control them. The universities do scarcely + more for our young men. All this has to be altered, and altered vigorously + and soon, if our country is to accomplish its destinies. Our schools and + colleges exist for no other purpose than to give our youths a vision of + the world and of their duties and possibilities in the world. We can no + longer afford to have them the last preserves of an elderly orthodoxy and + the last repository of a decaying gift of superseded tongues. They are + needed too urgently to make our leaders leader-like and to sustain the + active understandings of the race. + </p> + <p> + And from the labour class itself we are also justified in demanding a far + more effectual contribution to the National Conference than it is making + at the present time. Mere eloquent apologies for distrust, mere + denunciations of Capitalism and appeals for a Socialism as featureless as + smoke, are unsatisfactory when one regards them as the entire contribution + of the ascendant worker to the discussion of the national future. The + labour thinker has to become definite in his demands and clearer upon the + give and take that will be necessary before they can be satisfied. He has + to realise rather more generously than he has done so far the enormous + moral difficulty there is in bringing people who have been prosperous and + at an advantage all their lives to the pitch of even contemplating a + social reorganisation that may minimise or destroy their precedence. We + have all to think, to think hard and think generously, and there is not a + man in England to-day, even though his hands are busy at work, whose brain + may not be helping in this great task of social rearrangement which lies + before us all. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SOCIAL PANACEAS + </h2> + <h3> + (<i>June, 1912</i>.) + </h3> + <p> + To have followed the frequent discussions of the Labour Unrest in the + Press is to have learnt quite a lot about the methods of popular thought. + And among other things I see now much better than I did why patent + medicines are so popular. It is clear that as a community we are far too + impatient of detail and complexity, we want overmuch to simplify, we + clamour for panaceas, we are a collective invitation to quacks. + </p> + <p> + Our situation is an intricate one, it does not admit of a solution neatly + done up in a word or a phrase. Yet so powerful is this wish to simplify + that it is difficult to make it clear that one is not oneself a + panacea-monger. One writes and people read a little inattentively and more + than a little impatiently, until one makes a positive proposal Then they + jump. "So <i>that's</i> your Remedy!" they say. "How absurdly inadequate!" + I was privileged to take part in one such discussion in 1912, and among + other things in my diagnosis of the situation I pointed out the extreme + mischief done to our public life by the futility of our electoral methods. + They make our whole public life forensic and ineffectual, and I pointed + out that this evil effect, which vitiates our whole national life, could + be largely remedied by an infinitely better voting system known as + Proportional Representation. Thereupon the <i>Westminster Gazette</i> + declared in tones of pity and contempt that it was no Remedy—and + dismissed me. It would be as intelligent to charge a doctor who pushed + back the crowd about a broken-legged man in the street with wanting to + heal the limb by giving the sufferer air. + </p> + <p> + The task before our community, the task of reorganising labour on a basis + broader than that of employment for daily or weekly wages, is one of huge + complexity, and it is as entirely reasonable as it is entirely preliminary + to clean and modernise to the utmost our representative and legislative + machinery. + </p> + <p> + It is remarkable how dominant is this disposition to get a phrase, a word, + a simple recipe, for an undertaking so vast in reality that for all the + rest of our lives a large part of the activities of us, forty million + people, will be devoted to its partial accomplishment. In the presence of + very great issues people become impatient and irritated, as they would not + allow themselves to be irritated by far more limited problems. Nobody in + his senses expects a panacea for the comparatively simple and trivial + business of playing chess. Nobody wants to be told to "rely wholly upon + your pawns," or "never, never move your rook"; nobody clamours "give me a + third knight and all will be well"; but that is exactly what everybody + seems to be doing in our present discussion And as another aspect of the + same impatience, I note the disposition to clamour against all sorts of + necessary processes in the development of a civilisation. For example, I + read over and over again of the failure of representative government, and + in nine cases out of ten I find that this amounts to a cry against any + sort of representative government. It is perfectly true that our + representative institutions do not work well and need a vigorous + overhauling, but while I find scarcely any support for such a revision, + the air is full of vague dangerous demands for aristocracy, for oligarchy, + for autocracy. It is like a man who jumps out of his automobile because he + has burst a tyre, refuses a proffered Stepney, and bawls passionately for + anything—for a four-wheeler, or a donkey, as long as he can be free + from that exploded mechanism. There are evidently quite a considerable + number of people in this country who would welcome a tyrant at the present + time, a strong, silent, cruel, imprisoning, executing, melodramatic sort + of person, who would somehow manage everything while they went on—being + silly. I find that form of impatience cropping up everywhere. I hear + echoes of Mr. Blatchford's "Wanted, a Man," and we may yet see a General + Boulanger prancing in our streets. There never was a more foolish cry. It + is not a man we want, but just exactly as many million men as there are in + Great Britain at the present time, and it is you, the reader, and I, and + the rest of us who must together go on with the perennial task of saving + the country by <i>firstly</i>, doing our own jobs just as well as ever we + can, and <i>secondly</i>—and this is really just as important as + firstly—doing our utmost to grasp our national purpose, doing our + utmost, that is, to develop and carry out our National Plan. It is + Everyman who must be the saviour of the State in a modern community; we + cannot shift our share in the burthen; and here again, I think, is + something that may well be underlined and emphasised. At present our + "secondly" is unduly subordinated to our "firstly"; our game is better + individually than collectively; we are like a football team that passes + badly, and our need is not nearly so much to change the players as to + broaden their style. And this brings me, in a spirit entirely + antagonistic, up against Mr. Galsworthy's suggestion of an autocratic + revolution in the methods of our public schools. + </p> + <p> + But before I go on to that, let me first notice a still more comprehensive + cry that has been heard again and again in this discussion, and that is + the alleged failure of education generally. There is never any remedial + suggestion made with this particular outcry; it is merely a gust of abuse + and insult for schools, and more particularly board schools, carrying with + it a half-hearted implication that they should be closed, and then the + contribution concludes. Now there is no outcry at the present time more + unjust or—except for the "Wanted, a Man" clamour—more foolish. + No doubt our educational resources, like most other things, fall far short + of perfection, but of all this imperfection the elementary schools are + least imperfect; and I would almost go so far as to say that, considering + the badness of their material, the huge, clumsy classes they have to deal + with, the poorness of their directive administration, their bad pay and + uncertain outlook, the elementary teachers of this country are amazingly + efficient. And it is not simply that they are good under their existing + conditions, but that this service has been made out of nothing whatever in + the course of scarcely forty years. An educational system to cover an + Empire is not a thing that can be got for the asking, it is not even to be + got for the paying; it has to be grown; and in the beginning it is bound + to be thin, ragged, forced, crammy, text-bookish, superficial, and all the + rest of it. As reasonable to complain that the children born last year + were immature. A little army of teachers does not flash into being at the + passing of an Education Act. Not even an organisation for training those + teachers comes to anything like satisfactory working order for many years, + without considering the delays and obstructions that have been caused by + the bickerings and bitterness of the various Christian Churches. So that + it is not the failure of elementary education we have really to consider, + but the continuance and extension of its already almost miraculous + results. + </p> + <p> + And when it comes to the education of the ruling and directing classes, + there is kindred, if lesser reason, for tempering zeal with patience. This + upper portion of our educational organisation needs urgently to be + bettered, but it is not to be bettered by trying to find an archangel who + will better it dictatorially. For the good of our souls there are no such + beings to relieve us of our collective responsibility. It is clear that + appointments in this field need not only far more care and far more + insistence upon creative power than has been shown in the past, but for + the rest we have to do with the men we have and the schools we have. We + cannot have an educational purge, if only because we have not the new men + waiting. Here again the need is not impatience, not revolution, but a + sustained and penetrating criticism, a steadfast, continuous urgency + towards effort and well-planned reconstruction and efficiency. + </p> + <p> + And as a last example of the present hysterical disposition to scrap + things before they have been fairly tried is the outcry against + examinations, which has done so much to take the keenness off the edge of + school work in the last few years. Because a great number of examiners + chosen haphazard turned out to be negligent and incompetent as examiners, + because their incapacity created a cynical trade in cramming, a great + number of people have come to the conclusion, just as examinations are + being improved into efficiency, that all examinations are bad. In + particular that excellent method of bringing new blood and new energy into + the public services and breaking up official gangs and cliques, the + competitive examination system, has been discredited, and the wire-puller + and the influential person are back again tampering with a steadily + increasing proportion of appointments.... + </p> + <p> + But I have written enough of this impatience, which is, as it were, merely + the passion for reconstruction losing its head and defeating its own ends. + There is no hope for us outside ourselves. No violent changes, no + Napoleonic saviours can carry on the task of building the Great State, the + civilised State that rises out of our disorders That is for us to do, all + of us and each one of us. We have to think clearly, and study and consider + and reconsider our ideas about public things to the very utmost of our + possibilities. We have to clarify our views and express them and do all we + can to stir up thinking and effort in those about us. + </p> + <p> + I know it would be more agreeable for all of us if we could have some + small pill-like remedy for all the troubles of the State, and take it and + go on just as we are going now. But, indeed, to say a word for that idea + would be a treason. We are the State, and there is no other way to make it + better than to give it the service of our lives. Just in the measure of + the aggregate of our devotions and the elaborated and criticised sanity of + our public proceedings will the world mend. + </p> + <p> + I gather from a valuable publication called "Secret Remedies," which + analyses many popular cures, that this hasty passion for simplicity, for + just one thing that will settle the whole trouble, can carry people to a + level beyond an undivided trust in something warranted in a bottle. They + are ready to put their faith in what amounts to practically nothing in a + bottle. And just at present, while a number of excellent people of the + middle class think that only a "man" is wanted and all will be well with + us, there is a considerable wave of hopefulness among the working class in + favour of a weak solution of nothing, which is offered under the + attractive label of Syndicalism. So far I have been able to discuss the + present labour situation without any use of this empty word, but when one + finds it cropping up in every other article on the subject, it becomes + advisable to point out what Syndicalism is not. And incidentally it may + enable me to make clear what Socialism in the broader sense, constructive + Socialism, that is to say, is. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SYNDICALISM OR CITIZENSHIP + </h2> + <p> + "Is a railway porter a railway porter first and a man afterwards, or is he + a man first and incidentally a railway porter?" + </p> + <p> + That is the issue between this tawdrification of trade unionism which is + called Syndicalism, and the ideals of that Great State, that great + commonweal, towards which the constructive forces in our civilisation + tend. Are we to drift on to a disastrous intensification of our present + specialisation of labour as labour, or are we to set to work steadfastly + upon a vast social reconstruction which will close this widening breach + and rescue our community from its present dependence upon the reluctant + and presently insurgent toil of a wages-earning proletariat? Regarded as a + project of social development, Syndicalism is ridiculous; regarded as an + illuminating and unintentionally ironical complement to the implicit + theories of our present social order, it is worthy of close attention. The + dream of the Syndicalist is an impossible social fragmentation. The + transport service is to be a democratic republic, the mines are to be a + democratic republic, every great industry is to be a democratic republic + within the State; our community is to become a conflict of inter-woven + governments of workers, incapable of progressive changes of method or of + extension or transmutation of function, the whole being of a man is to lie + within his industrial specialisation, and, upon lines of causation not + made clear, wages are to go on rising and hours of work are to go on + falling.... There the mind halts, blinded by the too dazzling vistas of an + unimaginative millennium And the way to this, one gathers, is by striking—persistent, + destructive striking—until it comes about. + </p> + <p> + Such is Syndicalism, the cheap Labour Panacea, to which the more + passionate and less intelligent portion of the younger workers, impatient + of the large constructive developments of modern Socialism, drifts + steadily. It is the direct and logical reaction to our present economic + system, which has counted our workers neither as souls nor as heads, but + as hands. They are beginning to accept the suggestions of that method. It + is the culmination in aggression of that, at first, entirely protective + trade unionism which the individual selfishness and collective + short-sightedness and State blindness of our owning and directing and + ruling classes forced upon the working man. At first trade unionism was + essentially defensive; it was the only possible defence of the workers, + who were being steadily pressed over the margin of subsistence. It was a + nearly involuntary resistance to class debasement. Mr. Vernon Hartshorn + has expressed it as that in a recent article. But his paper, if one read + it from beginning to end, displayed, compactly and completely, the + unavoidable psychological development of the specialised labour case. He + began in the mildest tones with those now respectable words, a "guaranteed + minimum" of wages, housing, and so forth, and ended with a very clear + intimation of an all-labour community. + </p> + <p> + If anything is certain in this world, it is that the mass of the community + will not rest satisfied with these guaranteed minima. All those possible + legislative increments in the general standard of living are not going to + diminish the labour unrest; they are going to increase it. A starving man + may think he wants nothing in the world but bread, but when he has eaten + you will find he wants all sorts of things beyond. Mr. Hartshorn assures + us that the worker is "not out for a theory." So much the worse for the + worker and all of us when, like the mere hand we have made him, he shows + himself unable to define or even forecast his ultimate intentions. He will + in that case merely clutch. And the obvious immediate next objective of + that clutch directly its imagination passes beyond the "guaranteed minima" + phase is the industry as a whole. + </p> + <p> + I do not see how anyone who desires the continuing development of + civilisation can regard a trade union as anything but a necessary evil, a + pressure-relieving contrivance an arresting and delaying organisation + begotten by just that class separation of labour which in the commonweal + of the Great State will be altogether destroyed. It leads nowhither; it is + a shelter hut on the road. The wider movement of modern civilisation is + against class organisation and caste feeling. These are forces + antagonistic to progress, continually springing up and endeavouring to + stereotype the transitory organisation, and continually being defeated. + </p> + <p> + Of all the solemn imbecilities one hears, surely the most foolish is this, + that we are in "an age of specialisation." The comparative fruitfulness + and hopefulness of our social order, in comparison with any other social + system, lies in its flat contradiction of that absurdity. Our medical and + surgical advances, for example, are almost entirely due to the invasion of + medical research by the chemist; our naval development to the supersession + of the sailor by the engineer; we sweep away the coachman with the + railway, beat the suburban line with the electric tramway, and attack that + again with the petrol omnibus, oust brick and stonework in substantial + fabrics by steel frames, replace the skilled maker of woodcuts by a + photographer, and so on through the whole range of our activities. Change + of function, arrest of specialisation by innovations in method and + appliance, progress by the infringement of professional boundaries and the + defiance of rule: these are the commonplaces of our time. The trained man, + the specialised man, is the most unfortunate of men; the world leaves him + behind, and he has lost his power of overtaking it. Versatility, alert + adaptability, these are our urgent needs. In peace and war alike the + unimaginative, uninventive man is a burthen and a retardation, as he never + was before in the world's history. The modern community, therefore, that + succeeds most rapidly and most completely in converting both its labourers + and its leisure class into a population of active, able, unhurried, + educated, and physically well-developed people will be inevitably the + dominant community in the world. That lies on the face of things about us; + a man who cannot see that must be blind to the traffic in our streets. + </p> + <p> + Syndicalism is not a plan of social development. It is a spirit of + conflict. That conflict lies ahead of us, the open war of strikes, or—if + the forces of law and order crush that down—then sabotage and that + black revolt of the human spirit into crime which we speak of nowadays as + anarchism, unless we can discover a broad and promising way from the + present condition of things to nothing less than the complete abolition of + the labour class. + </p> + <p> + That, I know, sounds a vast proposal, but this is a gigantic business + altogether, and we can do nothing with it unless we are prepared to deal + with large ideas. If St. Paul's begins to totter it is no good propping it + up with half a dozen walking-sticks, and small palliatives have no + legitimate place at all in this discussion. Our generation has to take up + this tremendous necessity of a social reconstruction in a great way; its + broad lines have to be thought out by thousands of minds, and it is for + that reason that I have put the stress upon our need of discussion, of a + wide intellectual and moral stimulation of a stirring up in our schools + and pulpits, and upon the modernisation and clarification of what should + be the deliberative assembly of the nation. + </p> + <p> + It would be presumptuous to anticipate the National Plan that must emerge + from so vast a debate, but certain conclusions I feel in my bones will + stand the test of an exhaustive criticism. The first is that a distinction + will be drawn between what I would call "interesting work" and what I + would call "mere labour." The two things, I admit, pass by insensible + gradations into one another, but while on the one hand such work as being + a master gardener and growing roses, or a master cabinet maker and making + fine pieces, or an artist of almost any sort, or a story writer, or a + consulting physician, or a scientific investigator, or a keeper of wild + animals, or a forester, or a librarian, or a good printer, or many sorts + of engineer, is work that will always find men of a certain temperament + enthusiastically glad to do it, if they can only do it for comfortable pay—for + such work is in itself <i>living</i>—there is, on the other hand, + work so irksome and toilsome, such as coal mining, or being a private + soldier during a peace, or attending upon lunatics, or stoking, or doing + over and over again, almost mechanically, little bits of a modern + industrial process, or being a cash desk clerk in a busy shop, that few + people would undertake if they could avoid it. + </p> + <p> + And the whole strength of our collective intelligence will be directed + first to reducing the amount of such irksome work by labour-saving + machinery, by ingenuity of management, and by the systematic avoidance of + giving trouble as a duty, and then to so distributing the residuum of it + that it will become the whole life of no class whatever in our population. + I have already quoted the idea of Professor William James of a universal + conscription for such irksome labour, and while he would have instituted + that mainly for its immense moral effect upon the community, I would point + out that, combined with a nationalisation of transport, mining, and so + forth, it is also a way to a partial solution of this difficulty of "mere + toil." + </p> + <p> + And the mention of a compulsory period of labour service for everyone—a + year or so with the pickaxe as well as with the rifle—leads me to + another idea that I believe will stand the test of unlimited criticism, + and that is a total condemnation of all these eight-hour-a-day, + early-closing, guaranteed-weekly-half-holiday notions that are now so + prevalent in Liberal circles. Under existing conditions, in our system of + private enterprise and competition, these restrictions are no doubt + necessary to save a large portion of our population from lives of + continuous toil, but, like trade unionism, they are a necessity of our + present conditions, and not a way to a better social state. If we rescue + ourselves as a community from poverty and discomfort, we must take care + not to fling ourselves into something far more infuriating to a normal + human being—and that is boredom. The prospect of a carefully + inspected sanitary life, tethered to some light, little, uninteresting + daily job, six or eight hours of it, seems to me—and I am sure I + write here for most normal, healthy, active people—more awful than + hunger and death. It is far more in the quality of the human spirit, and + still more what we all in our hearts want the human spirit to be, to fling + itself with its utmost power at a job and do it with passion. + </p> + <p> + For my own part, if I was sentenced to hew a thousand tons of coal, I + should want to get at it at once and work furiously at it, with the + shortest intervals for rest and refreshment and an occasional night + holiday, until I hewed my way out, and if some interfering person with a + benevolent air wanted to restrict me to hewing five hundredweight, and no + more and no less, each day and every day, I should be strongly disposed to + go for that benevolent person with my pick. That is surely what every + natural man would want to do, and it is only the clumsy imperfection of + our social organisation that will not enable a man to do his stint of + labour in a few vigorous years and then come up into the sunlight for good + and all. + </p> + <p> + It is along that line that I feel a large part of our labour + reorganisation, over and beyond that conscription, must ultimately go. The + community as a whole would, I believe, get far more out of a man if he had + such a comparatively brief passion of toil than if he worked, with + occasional lapses into unemployment, drearily all his life. But at + present, with our existing system of employment, one cannot arrange so + comprehensive a treatment of a man's life. There is needed some State or + quasi-public organisation which shall stand between the man and the + employer, act as his banker and guarantor, and exact his proper price. + Then, with his toil over, he would have an adequate pension and be free to + do nothing or anything else as he chose. In a Socialistic order of + society, where the State would also be largely the employer, such a method + would be, of course, far more easily contrived. + </p> + <p> + The more modern statements of Socialism do not contemplate making the + State the sole employer; it is chiefly in transport, mining, fisheries, + forestry, the cultivation of the food staples, and the manufacture of a + few such articles as bricks and steel, and possibly in housing in what one + might call the standardisable industries, that the State is imagined as + the direct owner and employer and it is just in these departments that the + bulk of the irksome toil is to be found. There remain large regions of + more specialised and individualised production that many Socialists + nowadays are quite prepared to leave to the freer initiatives of private + enterprise. Most of these are occupations involving a greater element of + interest, less direction and more co-operation, and it is just here that + the success of co-partnery and a sustained life participation becomes + possible.... + </p> + <p> + This complete civilised system without a specialised, property-less labour + class is not simply a possibility, it is necessary; the whole social + movement of the time, the stars in their courses, war against the + permanence of the present state of affairs. The alternative to this + gigantic effort to rearrange our world is not a continuation of muddling + along, but social war. The Syndicalist and his folly will be the avenger + of lost opportunities. Not a Labour State do we want, nor a Servile State, + but a powerful Leisure State of free men. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE GREAT STATE + </h2> + <p> + Sec. 1 + </p> + <p> + For many years now I have taken a part in the discussion of Socialism. + During that time Socialism has become a more and more ambiguous term. It + has seemed to me desirable to clear up my own ideas of social progress and + the public side of my life by restating them, and this I have attempted in + this essay. + </p> + <p> + In order to do so it has been convenient to coin two expressions, and to + employ them with a certain defined intention. They are firstly: The Normal + Social Life, and secondly: The Great State. Throughout this essay these + expressions will be used in accordance with the definitions presently to + be given, and the fact that they are so used will be emphasised by the + employment of capitals. It will be possible for anyone to argue that what + is here defined as the Normal Social Life is not the normal social life, + and that the Great State is indeed no state at all. That will be an + argument outside the range delimited by these definitions. + </p> + <p> + Now what is intended by the Normal Social Life here is a type of human + association and employment, of extreme prevalence and antiquity, which + appears to have been the lot of the enormous majority of human beings as + far back as history or tradition or the vestiges of material that supply + our conceptions of the neolithic period can carry us. It has never been + the lot of all humanity at any time, to-day it is perhaps less predominant + than it has ever been, yet even to-day it is probably the lot of the + greater moiety of mankind. + </p> + <p> + Essentially this type of association presents a localised community, a + community of which the greater proportion of the individuals are engaged + more or less directly in the cultivation of the land. With this there is + also associated the grazing or herding over wider or more restricted + areas, belonging either collectively or discretely to the community, of + sheep, cattle, goats, or swine, and almost always the domestic fowl is + commensal with man in this life. The cultivated land at least is usually + assigned, temporarily or inalienably, as property to specific individuals, + and the individuals are grouped in generally monogamic families of which + the father is the head. Essentially the social unit is the Family, and + even where, as in Mohammedan countries, there is no legal or customary + restriction upon polygamy, monogamy still prevails as the ordinary way of + living. Unmarried women are not esteemed, and children are desired. + According to the dangers or securities of the region, the nature of the + cultivation and the temperament of the people, this community is scattered + either widely in separate steadings or drawn together into villages. At + one extreme, over large areas of thin pasture this agricultural community + may verge on the nomadic; at another, in proximity to consuming markets, + it may present the concentration of intensive culture. There may be an + adjacent Wild supplying wood, and perhaps controlled by a simple forestry. + The law that holds this community together is largely traditional and + customary and almost always as its primordial bond there is some sort of + temple and some sort of priest. Typically, the temple is devoted to a + local god or a localised saint, and its position indicates the central + point of the locality, its assembly place and its market. Associated with + the agriculture there are usually a few imperfectly specialised tradesmen, + a smith, a garment-maker perhaps, a basket-maker or potter, who group + about the church or temple. The community may maintain itself in a state + of complete isolation, but more usually there are tracks or roads to the + centres of adjacent communities, and a certain drift of travel, a certain + trade in non-essential things. In the fundamentals of life this normal + community is independent and self-subsisting, and where it is not + beginning to be modified by the novel forces of the new times it produces + its own food and drink, its own clothing, and largely intermarries within + its limits. + </p> + <p> + This in general terms is what is here intended by the phrase the Normal + Social Life. It is still the substantial part of the rural life of all + Europe and most Asia and Africa, and it has been the life of the great + majority of human beings for immemorial years. It is the root life. It + rests upon the soil, and from that soil below and its reaction to the + seasons and the moods of the sky overhead have grown most of the + traditions, institutions, sentiments, beliefs, superstitions, and + fundamental songs and stories of mankind. + </p> + <p> + But since the very dawn of history at least this Normal Social Life has + never been the whole complete life of mankind. Quite apart from the + marginal life of the savage hunter, there have been a number of forces and + influences within men and women and without, that have produced abnormal + and surplus ways of living, supplemental, additional, and even + antagonistic to this normal scheme. + </p> + <p> + And first as to the forces within men and women. Long as it has lasted, + almost universal as it has been, the human being has never yet achieved a + perfect adaptation to the needs of the Normal Social Life. He has attained + nothing of that frictionless fitting to the needs of association one finds + in the bee or the ant. Curiosity, deep stirrings to wander, the still more + ancient inheritance of the hunter, a recurrent distaste for labour, and + resentment against the necessary subjugations of family life have always + been a straining force within the agricultural community. The increase of + population during periods of prosperity has led at the touch of bad + seasons and adversity to the desperate reliefs of war and the invasion of + alien localities. And the nomadic and adventurous spirit of man found + reliefs and opportunities more particularly along the shores of great + rivers and inland seas. Trade and travel began, at first only a trade in + adventitious things, in metals and rare objects and luxuries and slaves. + With trade came writing and money; the inventions of debt and rent, usury + and tribute. History finds already in its beginnings a thin network of + trading and slaving flung over the world of the Normal Social Life, a + network whose strands are the early roads, whose knots are the first towns + and the first courts. + </p> + <p> + Indeed, all recorded history is in a sense the history of these surplus + and supplemental activities of mankind. The Normal Social Life flowed on + in its immemorial fashion, using no letters, needing no records, leaving + no history. Then, a little minority, bulking disproportionately in the + record, come the trader, the sailor, the slave, the landlord and the + tax-compeller, the townsman and the king. + </p> + <p> + All written history is the story of a minority and their peculiar and + abnormal affairs. Save in so far as it notes great natural catastrophes + and tells of the spreading or retrocession of human life through changes + of climate and physical conditions it resolves itself into an account of a + series of attacks and modifications and supplements made by excessive and + superfluous forces engendered within the community upon the Normal Social + Life. The very invention of writing is a part of those modifying + developments. The Normal Social Life is essentially illiterate and + traditional. The Normal Social Life is as mute as the standing crops; it + is as seasonal and cyclic as nature herself, and reaches towards the + future only an intimation of continual repetitions. + </p> + <p> + Now this human over-life may take either beneficent or maleficent or + neutral aspects towards the general life of humanity. It may present + itself as law and pacification, as a positive addition and superstructure + to the Normal Social Life, as roads and markets and cities, as courts and + unifying monarchies, as helpful and directing religious organisations, as + literature and art and science and philosophy, reflecting back upon the + individual in the Normal Social Life from which it arose, a gilding and + refreshment of new and wider interests and added pleasures and resources. + One may define certain phases in the history of various countries when + this was the state of affairs, when a countryside of prosperous + communities with a healthy family life and a wide distribution of + property, animated by roads and towns and unified by a generally + intelligible religious belief, lived in a transitory but satisfactory + harmony under a sympathetic government. I take it that this is the + condition to which the minds of such original and vigorous reactionary + thinkers as Mr. G.K. Chesterton and Mr. Hilaire Belloc for example turn, + as being the most desirable state of mankind. + </p> + <p> + But the general effect of history is to present these phases as phases of + exceptional good luck, and to show the surplus forces of humanity as on + the whole antagonistic to any such equilibrium with the Normal Social + Life. To open the book of history haphazard is, most commonly, to open it + at a page where the surplus forces appear to be in more or less + destructive conflict with the Normal Social Life. One opens at the + depopulation of Italy by the aggressive great estates of the Roman Empire, + at the impoverishment of the French peasantry by a too centralised + monarchy before the revolution, or at the huge degenerative growth of the + great industrial towns of western Europe in the nineteenth century. Or + again one opens at destructive wars. One sees these surplus forces over + and above the Normal Social Life working towards unstable concentrations + of population, to centralisation of government, to migrations and + conflicts upon a large scale; one discovers the process developing into a + phase of social fragmentation and destruction and then, unless the whole + country has been wasted down to its very soil, the Normal Social Life + returns as the heath and furze and grass return after the burning of a + common. But it never returns in precisely its old form. The surplus forces + have always produced some traceable change; the rhythm is a little + altered. As between the Gallic peasant before the Roman conquest, the + peasant of the Gallic province, the Carlovingian peasant, the French + peasant of the thirteenth, the seventeenth, and the twentieth centuries, + there is, in spite of a general uniformity of life, of a common atmosphere + of cows, hens, dung, toil, ploughing, economy, and domestic intimacy, an + effect of accumulating generalising influences and of wider relevancies. + And the oscillations of empires and kingdoms, religious movements, wars, + invasions, settlements leave upon the mind an impression that the surplus + life of mankind, the less-localised life of mankind, that life of mankind + which is not directly connected with the soil but which has become more or + less detached from and independent of it, is becoming proportionately more + important in relation to the Normal Social Life. It is as if a different + way of living was emerging from the Normal Social Life and freeing itself + from its traditions and limitations. + </p> + <p> + And this is more particularly the effect upon the mind of a review of the + history of the past two hundred years. The little speculative activities + of the alchemist and natural philosopher, the little economic experiments + of the acquisitive and enterprising landed proprietor, favoured by + unprecedented periods of security and freedom, have passed into a new + phase of extraordinary productivity. They had added preposterously and + continue to add on a gigantic scale and without any evident limits to the + continuation of their additions, to the resources of humanity. To the + strength of horses and men and slaves has been added the power of machines + and the possibility of economies that were once incredible The Normal + Social Life has been overshadowed as it has never been overshadowed before + by the concentrations and achievements of the surplus life. Vast new + possibilities open to the race; the traditional life of mankind, its + traditional systems of association, are challenged and threatened; and all + the social thought, all the political activity of our time turns in + reality upon the conflict of this ancient system whose essentials we have + here defined and termed the Normal Social Life with the still vague and + formless impulses that seem destined either to involve it and the race in + a final destruction or to replace it by some new and probably more + elaborate method of human association. + </p> + <p> + Because there is the following difference between the action of the + surplus forces as we see them to-day and as they appeared before the + outbreak of physical science and mechanism. Then it seemed clearly + necessary that whatever social and political organisation developed, it + must needs; rest ultimately on the tiller of the soil, the agricultural + holding, and the Normal Social Life. But now even in agriculture huge + wholesale methods have appeared. They are declared to be destructive; but + it is quite conceivable that they may be made ultimately as recuperative + as that small agriculture which has hitherto been the inevitable social + basis. If that is so, then the new ways of living may not simply impose + themselves in a growing proportion upon the Normal Social Life, but they + may even oust it and replace it altogether. Or they may oust it and fail + to replace it. In the newer countries the Normal Social Life does not + appear to establish itself at all rapidly. No real peasantry appears in + either America or Australia; and in the older countries, unless there is + the most elaborate legislative and fiscal protection, the peasant + population wanes before the large farm, the estate, and overseas + production. + </p> + <p> + Now most of the political and social discussion of the last hundred years + may be regarded and rephrased as an attempt to apprehend this defensive + struggle of the Normal Social Life against waxing novelty and innovation + and to give a direction and guidance to all of us who participate. And it + is very largely a matter of temperament and free choice still, just where + we shall decide to place ourselves. Let us consider some of the key words + of contemporary thought, such as Liberalism, Individualism, Socialism, in + the light of this broad generalisation we have made; and then we shall + find it easier to explain our intention in employing as a second + technicality the phrase of The Great State as an opposite to the Normal + Social Life, which we have already defined. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 2 + </p> + <p> + The Normal Social Life has been defined as one based on agriculture, + traditional and essentially unchanging. It has needed no toleration and + displayed no toleration for novelty and strangeness. Its beliefs have been + on such a nature as to justify and sustain itself, and it has had an + intrinsic hostility to any other beliefs. The God of its community has + been a jealous god even when he was only a tribal and local god. Only very + occasionally in history until the coming of the modern period do we find + any human community relaxing from this ancient and more normal state of + entire intolerance towards ideas or practices other than its own. When + toleration and a receptive attitude towards alien ideas was manifested in + the Old World, it was at some trading centre or political centre; new + ideas and new religions came by water along the trade routes. And such + toleration as there was rarely extended to active teaching and propaganda. + Even in liberal Athens the hemlock was in the last resort at the service + of the ancient gods and the ancient morals against the sceptical critic. + </p> + <p> + But with the steady development of innovating forces in human affairs + there has actually grown up a cult of receptivity, a readiness for new + ideas, a faith in the probable truth of novelties. Liberalism—I do + not, of course, refer in any way to the political party which makes this + profession—is essentially anti-traditionalism; its tendency is to + commit for trial any institution or belief that is brought before it. It + is the accuser and antagonist of all the fixed and ancient values and + imperatives and prohibitions of the Normal Social Life. And growing up in + relation to Liberalism and sustained by it is the great body of scientific + knowledge, which professes at least to be absolutely undogmatic and + perpetually on its trial and under assay and re-examination. + </p> + <p> + Now a very large part of the advanced thought of the past century is no + more than the confused negation of the broad beliefs and institutions + which have been the heritage and social basis of humanity for immemorial + years. This is as true of the extremest Individualism as of the extremest + Socialism. The former denies that element of legal and customary control + which has always subdued the individual to the needs of the Normal Social + Life, and the latter that qualified independence of distributed property + which is the basis of family autonomy. Both are movements against the + ancient life, and nothing is more absurd than the misrepresentation which + presents either as a conservative force. They are two divergent schools + with a common disposition to reject the old and turn towards the new. The + Individualist professes a faith for which he has no rational evidence, + that the mere abandonment of traditions and controls must ultimately + produce a new and beautiful social order; while the Socialist, with an + equal liberalism, regards the outlook with a kind of hopeful dread, and + insists upon an elaborate readjustment, a new and untried scheme of social + organisation to replace the shattered and weakening Normal Social Life. + </p> + <p> + Both these movements, and, indeed, all movements that are not movements + for the subjugation of innovation and the restoration of tradition, are + vague in the prospect they contemplate. They produce no definite forecasts + of the quality of the future towards which they so confidently indicate + the way. But this is less true of modern socialism than of its antithesis, + and it becomes less and less true as socialism, under an enormous torrent + of criticism, slowly washes itself clean from the mass of partial + statement, hasty misstatement, sheer error and presumption that obscured + its first emergence. + </p> + <p> + But it is well to be very clear upon one point at this stage, and that is, + that this present time is not a battle-ground between individualism and + socialism; it is a battle-ground between the Normal Social Life on the one + hand and a complex of forces on the other which seek a form of replacement + and seem partially to find it in these and other doctrines. + </p> + <p> + Nearly all contemporary thinkers who are not too muddled to be assignable + fall into one of three classes, of which the third we shall distinguish is + the largest and most various and divergent. It will be convenient to say a + little of each of these classes before proceeding to a more particular + account of the third. Our analysis will cut across many accepted + classifications, but there will be ample justification for this + rearrangement. All of them may be dealt with quite justly as accepting the + general account of the historical process which is here given. + </p> + <p> + Then first we must distinguish a series of writers and thinkers which one + may call—the word conservative being already politically assigned—the + Conservators. + </p> + <p> + These are people who really do consider the Normal Social Life as the only + proper and desirable life for the great mass of humanity, and they are + fully prepared to subordinate all exceptional and surplus lives to the + moral standards and limitations that arise naturally out of the Normal + Social Life. They desire a state in which property is widely distributed, + a community of independent families protected by law and an intelligent + democratic statecraft from the economic aggressions of large accumulations + and linked by a common religion. Their attitude to the forces of change is + necessarily a hostile attitude. They are disposed to regard innovations in + transit and machinery as undesirable, and even mischievous disturbances of + a wholesome equilibrium. They are at least unfriendly to any organisation + of scientific research, and scornful of the pretensions of science. + Criticisms of the methods of logic, scepticism of the more widely diffused + human beliefs, they would classify as insanity. Two able English writers, + Mr. G.K. Chesterton and Mr. Belloc, have given the clearest expression to + this system of ideals, and stated an admirable case for it. They present a + conception of vinous, loudly singing, earthy, toiling, custom-ruled, + wholesome, and insanitary men; they are pagan in the sense that their + hearts are with the villagers and not with the townsmen, Christian in the + spirit of the parish priest. There are no other Conservators so + clear-headed and consistent. But their teaching is merely the logical + expression of an enormous amount of conservative feeling. Vast multitudes + of less lucid minds share their hostility to novelty and research; hate, + dread, and are eager to despise science, and glow responsive to the warm, + familiar expressions of primordial feelings and immemorial prejudices The + rural conservative, the liberal of the allotments and small-holdings type, + Mr. Roosevelt—in his Western-farmer, philoprogenitive phase as + distinguished from the phase of his more imperialist moments—all + present themselves as essentially Conservators as seekers after and + preservers of the Normal Social Life. + </p> + <p> + So, too, do Socialists of the William Morris type. The mind of William + Morris was profoundly reactionary He hated the whole trend of later + nineteenth-century modernism with the hatred natural to a man of + considerable scholarship and intense aesthetic sensibilities. His mind + turned, exactly as Mr. Belloc's turns, to the finished and enriched Normal + Social Life of western Europe in the middle ages, but, unlike Mr. Belloc, + he believed that, given private ownership of land and the ordinary + materials of life, there must necessarily be an aggregatory process, + usury, expropriation, the development of an exploiting wealthy class. He + believed profit was the devil. His "News from Nowhere" pictures a + communism that amounted in fact to little more than a system of private + ownership of farms and trades without money or any buying and selling, in + an atmosphere of geniality, generosity, and mutual helpfulness. Mr. + Belloc, with a harder grip upon the realities of life, would have the + widest distribution of proprietorship, with an alert democratic government + continually legislating against the protean reappearances of usury and + accumulation and attacking, breaking up, and redistributing any large + unanticipated bodies of wealth that appeared. But both men are equally set + towards the Normal Social Life, and equally enemies of the New. The + so-called "socialist" land legislation of New Zealand again is a tentative + towards the realisation of the same school of ideas: great estates are to + be automatically broken up, property is to be kept disseminated; a vast + amount of political speaking and writing in America and throughout the + world enforces one's impression of the widespread influence of Conservator + ideals. + </p> + <p> + Of course, it is inevitable that phases of prosperity for the Normal + Social Life will lead to phases of over-population and scarcity, there + will be occasional famines and occasional pestilences and plethoras of + vitality leading to the blood-letting of war. I suppose Mr. Chesterton and + Mr. Belloc at least have the courage of their opinions, and are prepared + to say that such things always have been and always must be; they are part + of the jolly rhythms of the human lot under the sun, and are to be taken + with the harvest home and love-making and the peaceful ending of honoured + lives as an integral part of the unending drama of mankind. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 3 + </p> + <p> + Now opposed to the Conservators are all those who do not regard + contemporary humanity as a final thing nor the Normal Social Life as the + inevitable basis of human continuity. They believe in secular change, in + Progress, in a future for our species differing continually more from its + past. On the whole, they are prepared for the gradual disentanglement of + men from the Normal Social Life altogether, and they look for new ways of + living and new methods of human association with a certain adventurous + hopefulness. + </p> + <p> + Now, this second large class does not so much admit of subdivision into + two as present a great variety of intermediaries between two extremes. I + propose to give distinctive names to these extremes, with the very clear + proviso that they are not antagonised, and that the great multitude of + this second, anti-conservator class, this liberal, more novel class modern + conditions have produced falls between them, and is neither the one nor + the other, but partaking in various degrees of both. On the one hand, + then, we have that type of mind which is irritated by and distrustful of + all collective proceedings which is profoundly distrustful of churches and + states, which is expressed essentially by Individualism. The Individualist + appears to regard the extensive disintegrations of the Normal Social Life + that are going on to-day with an extreme hopefulness. Whatever is ugly or + harsh in modern industrialism or in the novel social development of our + time he seems to consider as a necessary aspect of a process of selection + and survival, whose tendencies are on the whole inevitably satisfactory. + The future welfare of man he believes in effect may be trusted to the + spontaneous and planless activities of people of goodwill, and nothing but + state intervention can effectively impede its attainment. And curiously + close to this extreme optimistic school in its moral quality and logical + consequences, though contrasting widely in the sinister gloom of its + spirit, is the socialism of Karl Marx. He declared the contemporary world + to be a great process of financial aggrandisement and general + expropriation, of increasing power for the few and of increasing hardship + and misery for the many, a process that would go on until at last a crisis + of unendurable tension would be reached and the social revolution ensue. + The world had, in fact, to be worse before it could hope to be better. He + contemplated a continually exacerbated Class War, with a millennium of + extraordinary vagueness beyond as the reward of the victorious workers. + His common quality with the Individualist lies in his repudiation of and + antagonism to plans and arrangements, in his belief in the overriding + power of Law. Their common influence is the discouragement of collective + understandings upon the basis of the existing state. Both converge in + practice upon <i>laissez faire</i>. I would therefore lump them together + under the term of Planless Progressives, and I would contrast with them + those types which believe supremely in systematised purpose. + </p> + <p> + The purposeful and systematic types, in common with the Individualist and + Marxist, regard the Normal Social Life, for all the many thousands of + years behind it, as a phase, and as a phase which is now passing, in human + experience; and they are prepared for a future society that may be + ultimately different right down to its essential relationships from the + human past. But they also believe that the forces that have been assailing + and disintegrating the Normal Social Life, which have been, on the one + hand, producing great accumulations of wealth, private freedom, and + ill-defined, irresponsible and socially dangerous power, and, on the + other, labour hordes, for the most part urban, without any property or + outlook except continuous toil and anxiety, which in England have + substituted a dischargeable agricultural labourer for the independent + peasant almost completely, and in America seem to be arresting any general + development of the Normal Social Life at all, are forces of wide and + indefinite possibility that need to be controlled by a collective effort + implying a collective design, deflected from merely injurious consequences + and organised for a new human welfare upon new lines. They agree with that + class of thinking I have distinguished as the Conservators in their + recognition of vast contemporary disorders and their denial of the + essential beneficence of change. But while the former seem to regard all + novelty and innovation as a mere inundation to be met, banked back, + defeated and survived, these more hopeful and adventurous minds would + rather regard contemporary change as amounting on the whole to the + tumultuous and almost catastrophic opening-up of possible new channels, + the violent opportunity of vast, deep, new ways to great unprecedented + human ends, ends that are neither feared nor evaded. + </p> + <p> + Now while the Conservators are continually talking of the "eternal facts" + of human life and human nature and falling back upon a conception of + permanence that is continually less true as our perspectives extend, these + others are full of the conception of adaptation, of deliberate change in + relationship and institution to meet changing needs. I would suggest for + them, therefore, as opposed to the Conservators and contrasted with the + Planless Progressives, the name of Constructors. They are the extreme + right, as it were, while the Planless Progressives are the extreme left of + Anti-Conservator thought. + </p> + <p> + I believe that these distinctions I have made cover practically every + clear form of contemporary thinking, and are a better and more helpful + classification than any now current. But, of course, nearly every + individual nowadays is at least a little confused, and will be found to + wobble in the course even of a brief discussion between one attitude and + the other. This is a separation of opinions rather than of persons. And + particularly that word Socialism has become so vague and incoherent that + for a man to call himself a socialist nowadays is to give no indication + whatever whether he is a Conservator like William Morris, a + non-Constructor like Karl Marx, or a Constructor of any of half a dozen + different schools. On the whole, however, modern socialism tends to fall + towards the Constructor wing. So, too, do those various movements in + England and Germany and France called variously nationalist and + imperialist, and so do the American civic and social reformers. Under the + same heading must come such attempts to give the vague impulses of + Syndicalism a concrete definition as the "Guild Socialism" of Mr. Orage. + All these movements are agreed that the world is progressive towards a + novel and unprecedented social order, not necessarily and fatally better, + and that it needs organised and even institutional guidance thither, + however much they differ as to the form that order should assume. + </p> + <p> + For the greater portion of a century socialism has been before the world, + and it is not perhaps premature to attempt a word or so of analysis of + that great movement in the new terms we are here employing. The origins of + the socialist idea were complex and multifarious never at any time has it + succeeded in separating out a statement of itself that was at once simple, + complete and acceptable to any large proportion of those who call + themselves socialists. But always it has pointed to two or three definite + things. The first of these is that unlimited freedoms of private property, + with increasing facilities of exchange, combination, and aggrandisement, + become more and more dangerous to human liberty by the expropriation and + reduction to private wages slavery of larger and larger proportions of the + population. Every school of socialism states this in some more or less + complete form, however divergent the remedial methods suggested by the + different schools. And, next, every school of socialism accepts the + concentration of management and property as necessary, and declines to + contemplate what is the typical Conservator remedy, its re-fragmentation. + Accordingly it sets up not only against the large private owner, but + against owners generally, the idea of a public proprietor, the State, + which shall hold in the collective interest. But where the earlier + socialisms stopped short, and where to this day socialism is vague, + divided, and unprepared, is upon the psychological problems involved in + that new and largely unprecedented form of proprietorship, and upon the + still more subtle problems of its attainment. These are vast, and + profoundly, widely, and multitudinously difficult problems, and it was + natural and inevitable that the earlier socialists in the first enthusiasm + of their idea should minimise these difficulties, pretend in the fullness + of their faith that partial answers to objections were complete answers, + and display the common weaknesses of honest propaganda the whole world + over. Socialism is now old enough to know better. Few modern socialists + present their faith as a complete panacea, and most are now setting to + work in earnest upon these long-shirked preliminary problems of human + interaction through which the vital problem of a collective head and brain + can alone be approached. + </p> + <p> + A considerable proportion of the socialist movement remains, as it has + been from the first, vaguely democratic. It points to collective ownership + with no indication of the administrative scheme it contemplates to realise + that intention. Necessarily it remains a formless claim without hands to + take hold of the thing it desires. Indeed in a large number of cases it is + scarcely more than a resentful consciousness in the expropriated masses of + social disintegration. It spends its force very largely in mere revenges + upon property as such, attacks simply destructive by reason of the absence + of any definite ulterior scheme. It is an ill-equipped and planless + belligerent who must destroy whatever he captures because he can neither + use nor take away. A council of democratic socialists in possession of + London would be as capable of an orderly and sustained administration as + the Anabaptists in Munster. But the discomforts and disorders of our + present planless system do tend steadily to the development of this crude + socialistic spirit in the mass of the proletariat; merely vindictive + attacks upon property, sabotage, and the general strike are the logical + and inevitable consequences of an uncontrolled concentration of property + in a few hands, and such things must and will go on, the deep undertow in + the deliquescence of the Normal Social Life, until a new justice, a new + scheme of compensations and satisfactions is attained, or the Normal + Social Life re-emerges. + </p> + <p> + Fabian socialism was the first systematic attempt to meet the fatal + absence of administrative schemes in the earlier socialisms. It can + scarcely be regarded now as anything but an interesting failure, but a + failure that has all the educational value of a first reconnaissance into + unexplored territory. Starting from that attack on aggregating property, + which is the common starting-point of all socialist projects, the Fabians, + appalled at the obvious difficulties of honest confiscation and an open + transfer from private to public hands, conceived the extraordinary idea of + <i>filching</i> property for the state. A small body of people of extreme + astuteness were to bring about the municipalisation and nationalisation + first of this great system of property and then of that, in a manner so + artful that the millionaires were to wake up one morning at last, and + behold, they would find themselves poor men! For a decade or more Mr. + Pease, Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb, Mrs. Besant, Dr. Lawson + Dodd, and their associates of the London Fabian Society, did pit their + wits and ability, or at any rate the wits and ability of their leisure + moments, against the embattled capitalists of England and the world, in + this complicated and delicate enterprise, without any apparent diminution + of the larger accumulations of wealth. But in addition they developed + another side of Fabianism, still more subtle, which professed to be a kind + of restoration in kind of property to the proletariat and in this + direction they were more successful. A dexterous use, they decided, was to + be made of the Poor Law, the public health authority, the education + authority, and building regulations and so forth, to create, so to speak, + a communism of the lower levels. The mass of people whom the forces of + change had expropriated were to be given a certain minimum of food, + shelter, education, and sanitation, and this, the socialists were assured, + could be used as the thin end of the wedge towards a complete communism. + The minimum, once established, could obviously be raised continually until + either everybody had what they needed, or the resources of society gave + out and set a limit to the process. + </p> + <p> + This second method of attack brought the Fabian movement into co-operation + with a large amount of benevolent and constructive influence outside the + socialist ranks altogether. Few wealthy people really grudge the poor a + share of the necessities of life, and most are quite willing to assist in + projects for such a distribution. But while these schemes naturally + involved a very great amount of regulation and regimentation of the + affairs of the poor, the Fabian Society fell away more and more from its + associated proposals for the socialisation of the rich. The Fabian project + changed steadily in character until at last it ceased to be in any sense + antagonistic to wealth as such. If the lion did not exactly lie down with + the lamb, at any rate the man with the gun and the alleged social mad dog + returned very peaceably together. The Fabian hunt was up. + </p> + <p> + Great financiers contributed generously to a School of Economics that had + been founded with moneys left to the Fabian Society by earlier enthusiasts + for socialist propaganda and education. It remained for Mr. Belloc to + point the moral of the whole development with a phrase, to note that + Fabianism no longer aimed at the socialisation of the whole community, but + only at the socialisation of the poor. The first really complete project + for a new social order to replace the Normal Social Life was before the + world, and this project was the compulsory regimentation of the workers + and the complete state control of labour under a new plutocracy. Our + present chaos was to be organised into a Servile State. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 4 + </p> + <p> + Now to many of us who found the general spirit of the socialist movement + at least hopeful and attractive and sympathetic, this would be an almost + tragic conclusion, did we believe that Fabianism was anything more than + the first experiment in planning—and one almost inevitably shallow + and presumptuous—of the long series that may be necessary before a + clear light breaks upon the road humanity must follow. But we decline to + be forced by this one intellectual fiasco towards the <i>laissez faire</i> + of the Individualist and the Marxist, or to accept the Normal Social Life + with its atmosphere of hens and cows and dung, its incessant toil, its + servitude of women, and its endless repetitions as the only tolerable life + conceivable for the bulk of mankind—as the ultimate life, that is, + of mankind. With less arrogance and confidence, but it may be with a + firmer faith, we declare that we believe a more spacious social order than + any that exists or ever has existed, a Peace of the World in which there + is an almost universal freedom, health, happiness, and well-being and + which contains the seeds of a still greater future, is possible to + mankind. We propose to begin again with the recognition of those same + difficulties the Fabians first realised. But we do not propose to organise + a society, form a group for the control of the two chief political + parties, bring about "socialism" in twenty-five years, or do anything + beyond contributing in our place and measure to that constructive + discussion whose real magnitude we now begin to realise. + </p> + <p> + We have faith in a possible future, but it is a faith that makes the + quality of that future entirely dependent upon the strength and clearness + of purpose that this present time can produce. We do not believe the + greater social state is inevitable. + </p> + <p> + Yet there is, we hold, a certain qualified inevitability about this + greater social state because we believe any social state not affording a + general contentment, a general freedom, and a general and increasing + fullness of life, must sooner or later collapse and disintegrate again, + and revert more or less completely to the Normal Social Life, and because + we believe the Normal Social Life is itself thick-sown with the seeds of + fresh beginnings. The Normal Social Life has never at any time been + absolutely permanent, always it has carried within itself the germs of + enterprise and adventure and exchanges that finally attack its stability. + The superimposed social order of to-day, such as it is, with its huge + development of expropriated labour, and the schemes of the later Fabians + to fix this state of affairs in an organised form and render it plausibly + tolerable, seem also doomed to accumulate catastrophic tensions. + Bureaucratic schemes for establishing the regular lifelong subordination + of a labouring class, enlivened though they may be by frequent inspection, + disciplinary treatment during seasons of unemployment, compulsory + temperance, free medical attendance, and a cheap and shallow elementary + education fail to satisfy the restless cravings in the heart of man. They + are cravings that even the baffling methods of the most ingeniously worked + Conciliation Boards cannot permanently restrain. The drift of any Servile + State must be towards a class revolt, paralysing sabotage and a general + strike. The more rigid and complete the Servile State becomes, the more + thorough will be its ultimate failure. Its fate is decay or explosion. + From its dibris we shall either revert to the Normal Social Life and begin + again the long struggle towards that ampler, happier, juster arrangement + of human affairs which we of this book, at any rate, believe to be + possible, or we shall pass into the twilight of mankind. + </p> + <p> + This greater social life we put, then, as the only real alternative to the + Normal Social Life from which man is continually escaping. For it we do + not propose to use the expressions the "socialist state" or "socialism," + because we believe those terms have now by constant confused use become so + battered and bent and discoloured by irrelevant associations as to be + rather misleading than expressive. We propose to use the term The Great + State to express this ideal of a social system no longer localised, no + longer immediately tied to and conditioned by the cultivation of the land, + world-wide in its interests and outlook and catholic in its tolerance and + sympathy, a system of great individual freedom with a universal + understanding among its citizens of a collective thought and purpose. + </p> + <p> + Now, the difficulties that lie in the way of humanity in its complex and + toilsome journey through the coming centuries towards this Great State are + fundamentally difficulties of adaptation and adjustment. To no conceivable + social state is man inherently fitted: he is a creature of jealousy and + suspicion, unstable, restless, acquisitive, aggressive, intractable, and + of a most subtle and nimble dishonesty. Moreover, he is imaginative, + adventurous, and inventive. His nature and instincts are as much in + conflict with the necessary restrictions and subjugation of the Normal + Social Life as they are likely to be with any other social net that + necessity may weave about him. But the Normal Social Life has this + advantage that it has a vast accumulated moral tradition and a minutely + worked-out material method. All the fundamental institutions have arisen + in relation to it and are adapted to its conditions. To revert to it after + any phase of social chaos and distress is and will continue for many years + to be the path of least resistance for perplexed humanity. + </p> + <p> + This conception of the Great State, on the other hand, is still altogether + unsubstantial. It is a project as dream-like to-day as electric lighting, + electric traction, or aviation would have been in the year 1850. In 1850 a + man reasonably conversant with the physical science of his time could have + declared with a very considerable confidence that, given a certain measure + of persistence and social security, these things were more likely to be + attained than not in the course of the next century. But such a prophecy + was conditional on the preliminary accumulation of a considerable amount + of knowledge, on many experiments and failures. Had the world of 1850, by + some wave of impulse, placed all its resources in the hands of the ablest + scientific man alive, and asked him to produce a practicable paying + electric vehicle before 1852, at best he would have produced some clumsy, + curious toy, more probably he would have failed altogether; and, + similarly, if the whole population of the world came to the present writer + and promised meekly to do whatever it was told, we should find ourselves + still very largely at a loss in our project for a millennium. Yet just as + nearly every man at work upon Voltaic electricity in 1850 knew that he was + preparing for electric traction, so do I know quite certainly, in spite of + a whole row of unsolved problems before me, that I am working towards the + Great State. + </p> + <p> + Let me briefly recapitulate the main problems which have to be attacked in + the attempt to realise the outline of the Great State. At the base of the + whole order there must be some method of agricultural production, and if + the agricultural labourer and cottager and the ancient life of the small + householder on the holding, a life laborious, prolific, illiterate, + limited, and in immediate contact with the land used, is to recede and + disappear it must recede and disappear before methods upon a much larger + scale, employing wholesale machinery and involving great economies. It is + alleged by modern writers that the permanent residence of the cultivator + in close relation to his ground is a legacy from the days of cumbrous and + expensive transit, that the great proportion of farm work is seasonal, and + that a migration to and fro between rural and urban conditions would be + entirely practicable in a largely planned community. The agricultural + population could move out of town into an open-air life as the spring + approached, and return for spending, pleasure, and education as the days + shortened. Already something of this sort occurs under extremely + unfavourable conditions in the movement of the fruit and hop pickers from + the east end of London into Kent, but that is a mere hint of the extended + picnic which a broadly planned cultivation might afford. A fully developed + civilisation, employing machines in the hands of highly skilled men, will + minimise toil to the very utmost, no man will shove where a machine can + shove, or carry where a machine can carry; but there will remain, more + particularly in the summer, a vast amount of hand operations, invigorating + and even attractive to the urban population Given short hours, good pay, + and all the jolly amusement in the evening camp that a free, happy, and + intelligent people will develop for themselves, and there will be little + difficulty about this particular class of work to differentiate it from + any other sort of necessary labour. + </p> + <p> + One passes, therefore, with no definite transition from the root problem + of agricultural production in the Great State to the wider problem of + labour in general. + </p> + <p> + A glance at the countryside conjures up a picture of extensive tracts + being cultivated on a wholesale scale, of skilled men directing great + ploughing, sowing, and reaping plants, steering cattle and sheep about + carefully designed enclosures, constructing channels and guiding sewage + towards its proper destination on the fields, and then of added crowds of + genial people coming out to spray trees and plants, pick and sort and pack + fruits. But who are these people? Why are they in particular doing this + for the community? Is our Great State still to have a majority of people + glad to do commonplace work for mediocre wages, and will there be other + individuals who will ride by on the roads, sympathetically, no doubt, but + with a secret sense of superiority? So one opens the general problem of + the organisation for labour. + </p> + <p> + I am careful here to write "for labour" and not "of Labour," because it is + entirely against the spirit of the Great State that any section of the + people should be set aside as a class to do most of the monotonous, + laborious, and uneventful things for the community. That is practically + the present arrangement, and that, with a quickened sense of the need of + breaking people in to such a life, is the ideal of the bureaucratic + Servile State to which, in common with the Conservators, we are bitterly + opposed. And here I know I am at my most difficult, most speculative, and + most revolutionary point. We who look to the Great State as the present + aim of human progress believe a state may solve its economic problem + without any section whatever of the community being condemned to lifelong + labour. And contemporary events, the phenomena of recent strikes, the + phenomena of sabotage, carry out the suggestion that in a community where + nearly everyone reads extensively travels about, sees the charm and + variety in the lives of prosperous and leisurely people, no class is going + to submit permanently to modern labour conditions without extreme + resistance, even after the most elaborate Labour Conciliation schemes and + social minima are established Things are altogether too stimulating to the + imagination nowadays. Of all impossible social dreams that belief in + tranquillised and submissive and virtuous Labour is the wildest of all. No + sort of modern men will stand it. They will as a class do any vivid and + disastrous thing rather than stand it. Even the illiterate peasant will + only endure lifelong toil under the stimulus of private ownership and with + the consolations of religion; and the typical modern worker has neither + the one nor the other. For a time, indeed, for a generation or so even, a + labour mass may be fooled or coerced, but in the end it will break out + against its subjection, even if it breaks out to a general social + catastrophe. + </p> + <p> + We have, in fact, to invent for the Great State, if we are to suppose any + Great State at all, an economic method without any specific labour class. + If we cannot do so, we had better throw ourselves in with the Conservators + forthwith, for they are right and we are absurd. Adhesion to the + conception of the Great State involves adhesion to the belief that the + amount of regular labour, skilled and unskilled, required to produce + everything necessary for everyone living in its highly elaborate + civilisation may, under modern conditions, with the help of scientific + economy and power-producing machinery, be reduced to so small a number of + working hours per head in proportion to the average life of the citizen, + as to be met as regards the greater moiety of it by the payment of wages + over and above the gratuitous share of each individual in the general + output; and as regards the residue, a residue of rough, disagreeable, and + monotonous operations, by some form of conscription, which will demand a + year or so, let us say, of each person's life for the public service. If + we reflect that in the contemporary state there is already food, shelter, + and clothing of a sort for everyone, in spite of the fact that enormous + numbers of people do no productive work at all because they are too well + off, that great numbers are out of work, great numbers by bad nutrition + and training incapable of work, and that an enormous amount of the work + actually done is the overlapping production of competitive trade and work + upon such politically necessary but socially useless things as + Dreadnoughts, it becomes clear that the absolutely unavoidable labour in a + modern community and its ratio to the available vitality must be of very + small account indeed. But all this has still to be worked out even in the + most general terms. An intelligent science of economics should afford + standards and technicalities and systematised facts upon which to base an + estimate. The point was raised a quarter of a century ago by Morris in his + "News from Nowhere," and indeed it was already discussed by More in his + "Utopia." Our contemporary economics is, however, still a foolish, + pretentious pseudo-science, a festering mass of assumptions about buying + and selling and wages-paying, and one would as soon consult Bradshaw or + the works of Dumas as our orthodox professors of economics for any light + upon this fundamental matter. + </p> + <p> + Moreover, we believe that there is a real disposition to work in human + beings, and that in a well-equipped community, in which no one was under + an unavoidable urgency to work, the greater proportion of productive + operations could be made sufficiently attractive to make them desirable + occupations. As for the irreducible residue of undesirable toil, I owe to + my friend the late Professor William James this suggestion of a general + conscription and a period of public service for everyone, a suggestion + which greatly occupied his thoughts during the last years of his life. He + was profoundly convinced of the high educational and disciplinary value of + universal compulsory military service, and of the need of something more + than a sentimental ideal of duty in public life. He would have had the + whole population taught in the schools and prepared for this year (or + whatever period it had to be) of patient and heroic labour, the men for + the mines, the fisheries, the sanitary services, railway routine, the + women for hospital, and perhaps educational work, and so forth. He + believed such a service would permeate the whole state with a sense of + civic obligation.... + </p> + <p> + But behind all these conceivable triumphs of scientific adjustment and + direction lies the infinitely greater difficulty on our way to the Great + State, the difficulty of direction. What sort of people are going to + distribute the work of the community, decide what is or is not to be done, + determine wages, initiate enterprises; and under what sort of criticism, + checks, and controls are they going to do this delicate and extensive + work? With this we open the whole problem of government, administration + and officialdom. + </p> + <p> + The Marxist and the democratic socialist generally shirk this riddle + altogether; the Fabian conception of a bureaucracy, official to the extent + of being a distinct class and cult, exists only as a starting-point for + healthy repudiations. Whatever else may be worked out in the subtler + answers our later time prepares, nothing can be clearer than that the + necessary machinery of government must be elaborately organised to prevent + the development of a managing caste in permanent conspiracy, tacit or + expressed, against the normal man. Quite apart from the danger of + unsympathetic and fatally irritating government there can be little or no + doubt that the method of making men officials for life is quite the worst + way of getting official duties done. Officialdom is a species of + incompetence. This rather priggish, teachable, and well-behaved sort of + boy, who is attracted by the prospect of assured income and a pension to + win his way into the Civil Service, and who then by varied assiduities + rises to a sort of timidly vindictive importance, is the last person to + whom we would willingly entrust the vital interests of a nation. We want + people who know about life at large, who will come to the public service + seasoned by experience, not people who have specialised and acquired that + sort of knowledge which is called, in much the same spirit of + qualification as one speaks of German Silver, Expert Knowledge. It is + clear our public servants and officials must be so only for their periods + of service. They must be taught by life, and not "trained" by pedagogues. + In every continuing job there is a time when one is crude and blundering, + a time, the best time, when one is full of the freshness and happiness of + doing well, and a time when routine has largely replaced the stimulus of + novelty. The Great State will, I feel convinced, regard changes in + occupation as a proper circumstance in the life of every citizen; it will + value a certain amateurishness in its service, and prefer it to the trite + omniscience of the stale official. On that score of the necessity or + versatility, if on no other score, I am flatly antagonistic to the + conceptions of "Guild Socialism" which have arisen recently out of the + impact of Mr. Penty and Syndicalism upon the uneasy intelligence of Mr. + Orage. + </p> + <p> + And since the Fabian socialists have created a widespread belief that in + their projected state every man will be necessarily a public servant or a + public pupil because the state will be the only employer and the only + educator, it is necessary to point out that the Great State presupposes + neither the one nor the other. It is a form of liberty and not a form of + enslavement. We agree with the older forms of socialism in supposing an + initial proprietary independence in every citizen. The citizen is a + shareholder in the state. Above that and after that, he works if he + chooses. But if he likes to live on his minimum and do nothing—though + such a type of character is scarcely conceivable—he can. His earning + is his own surplus. Above the basal economics of the Great State we assume + with confidence there will be a huge surplus of free spending upon + extra-collective ends. Public organisations, for example, may distribute + impartially and possibly even print and make ink and paper for the + newspapers in the Great State, but they will certainly not own them. Only + doctrine-driven men have ever ventured to think they would. Nor will the + state control writers and artists, for example, nor the stage—though + it may build and own theatres—the tailor, the dressmaker, the + restaurant cook, an enormous multitude of other busy + workers-for-preferences. In the Great State of the future, as in the life + of the more prosperous classes of to-day, the greater proportion of + occupations and activities will be private and free. + </p> + <p> + I would like to underline in the most emphatic way that it is possible to + have this Great State, essentially socialistic, owning and running the + land and all the great public services, sustaining everybody in absolute + freedom at a certain minimum of comfort and well-being, and still leaving + most of the interests, amusements, and adornments of the individual life, + and all sorts of collective concerns, social and political discussion, + religious worship, philosophy, and the like to the free personal + initiatives of entirely unofficial people. + </p> + <p> + This still leaves the problem of systematic knowledge and research, and + all the associated problems of aesthetic, moral, and intellectual + initiative to be worked out in detail; but at least it dispels the + nightmare of a collective mind organised as a branch of the civil service, + with authors, critics, artists, scientific investigators appointed in a + phrensy of wire-pulling—as nowadays the British state appoints its + bishops for the care of its collective soul. + </p> + <p> + Let me now indicate how these general views affect the problem of family + organisation and the problem of women's freedom. In the Normal Social Life + the position of women is easily defined. They are subordinated but + important. The citizenship rests with the man, and the woman's relation to + the community as a whole is through a man. But within that limitation her + functions as mother, wife, and home-maker are cardinal. It is one of the + entirely unforeseen consequences that have arisen from the decay of the + Normal Social Life and its autonomous home that great numbers of women + while still subordinate have become profoundly unimportant They have + ceased to a very large extent to bear children, they have dropped most of + their home-making arts, they no longer nurse nor educate such children as + they have, and they have taken on no new functions that compensate for + these dwindling activities of the domestic interior. That subjugation + which is a vital condition to the Normal Social Life does not seem to be + necessary to the Great State. It may or it may not be necessary. And here + we enter upon the most difficult of all our problems. The whole spirit of + the Great State is against any avoidable subjugation; but the whole spirit + of that science which will animate the Great State forbids us to ignore + woman's functional and temperamental differences. A new status has still + to be invented for women, a Feminine Citizenship differing in certain + respects from the normal masculine citizenship. Its conditions remain to + be worked out. We have indeed to work out an entire new system of + relations between men and women, that will be free from servitude, + aggression, provocation, or parasitism. The public Endowment of Motherhood + as such may perhaps be the first broad suggestion of the quality of this + new status. A new type of family, a mutual alliance in the place of a + subjugation, is perhaps the most startling of all the conceptions which + confront us directly we turn ourselves definitely towards the Great State. + </p> + <p> + And as our conception of the Great State grows, so we shall begin to + realise the nature of the problem of transition, the problem of what we + may best do in the confusion of the present time to elucidate and render + practicable this new phase of human organisation. Of one thing there can + be no doubt, that whatever increases thought and knowledge moves towards + our goal; and equally certain is it that nothing leads thither that + tampers with the freedom of spirit, the independence of soul in common men + and women. In many directions, therefore, the believer in the Great State + will display a jealous watchfulness of contemporary developments rather + than a premature constructiveness. We must watch wealth; but quite as + necessary it is to watch the legislator, who mistakes propaganda for + progress and class exasperation to satisfy class vindictiveness for + construction. Supremely important is it to keep discussion open, to + tolerate no limitation on the freedom of speech, writing, art and book + distribution, and to sustain the utmost liberty of criticism upon all + contemporary institutions and processes. + </p> + <p> + This briefly is the programme of problems and effort to which my idea of + the Great State, as the goal of contemporary progress, leads me. + </p> + <p> + The diagram on p. 131 shows compactly the gist of the preceding + discussion; it gives the view of social development upon which I base all + my political conceptions. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE NORMAL SOCIAL LIFE + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +produces an increasing surplus of energy and opportunity, more +particularly under modern conditions of scientific organisation and +power production; and this through the operation of rent and of usury +tends to + | + |———————————————| + (a) release and (b) expropriate + | | + an increasing proportion of the population to become: + | | + (<i>a</i>) A LEISURE CLASS and (<i>b</i>) A LABOUR CLASS + under no urgent compulsion divorced from the land and + to work living upon uncertain wages + |3 |2 |1 |1 2 3| + | | which may degenerate degenerate | | + | | into a waster class into a sweated, | | + | | \ overworked, | | + | | \ violently | | + | | \ resentful | | + | | \ and destructive | | + | | \ rebel class | | + | | \ / | | + | | and produce a | | + | | SOCIAL DEBACLE | | + | | | | + | which may become which may become | + | a Governing the controlled | + | Class (with waster regimented | + | elements) in and disciplined | + | an unprogressive Labour Class of | + | Bureaucratic <————————-> an unprogressive | + | SERVILE STATE Bureaucratic | + | SERVILE STATE | + | | + which may become which may be + the whole community rendered needless + of the GREAT STATE by a universal + working under various compulsory year + motives and inducements or so of labour + but not constantly, service together + nor permanently with a scientific + nor unwillingly organisation + of production, + and so reabsorbed + by re-endowment + into the Leisure + Class of the + GREAT STATE +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE COMMON SENSE OF WARFARE + </h2> + <p> + Sec. 1 + </p> + <h3> + CONSCRIPTION + </h3> + <p> + I want to say as compactly as possible why I do not believe that + conscription would increase the military efficiency of this country, and + why I think it might be a disastrous step for this country to take. + </p> + <p> + By conscription I mean the compulsory enlistment for a term of service in + the Army of the whole manhood of the country. And I am writing now from + the point of view merely of military effectiveness. The educational value + of a universal national service, the idea which as a Socialist I support + very heartily, of making every citizen give a year or so of his life to + our public needs, are matters quite outside my present discussion. What I + am writing about now is this idea that the country can be strengthened for + war by making every man in it a bit of a soldier. + </p> + <p> + And I want the reader to be perfectly clear about the position I assume + with regard to war preparations generally. I am not pleading for peace + when there is no peace; this country has been constantly threatened during + the past decade, and is threatened now by gigantic hostile preparations; + it is our common interest to be and to keep at the maximum of military + efficiency possible to us. My case is not merely that conscription will + not contribute to that, but that it would be a monstrous diversion of our + energy and emotion and material resources from the things that need + urgently to be done. It would be like a boxer filling his arms with empty + boxing-gloves and then rushing—his face protruding over the armful—into + the fray. + </p> + <p> + Let me make my attack on this prevalent and increasing superstition of the + British need for conscription in two lines, one following the other. For, + firstly, it is true that Britain at the present time is no more capable of + creating such a conscript army as France or Germany possesses in the next + ten years than she is of covering her soil with a tropical forest, and, + secondly, it is equally true that if she had such an army it would not be + of the slightest use to her. For the conscript armies in which Europe + still so largely believes are only of use against conscript armies and + adversaries who will consent to play the rules of the German war game; + they are, if we chose to determine they shall be, if we chose to deal with + them as they should be dealt with, as out of date as a Roman legion or a + Zulu impi. + </p> + <p> + Now, first, as to the impossibility of getting our great army into + existence. All those people who write and talk so glibly in favour of + conscription seem to forget that to take a common man, and more + particularly a townsman, clap him into a uniform and put a rifle in his + hand does not make a soldier. He has to be taught not only the use of his + weapons, but the methods of a strange and unfamiliar life out of doors; he + has to be not simply drilled, but accustomed to the difficult modern + necessities of open order fighting, of taking cover, of entrenchment, and + he has to have created within him, so that it will stand the shock of + seeing men killed round about him, confidence in himself, in his officers, + and the methods and weapons of his side. Body, mind, and imagination have + all to be trained—and they need trainers. The conversion of a + thousand citizens into anything better than a sheep-like militia demands + the enthusiastic services of scores of able and experienced instructors + who know what war is; the creation of a universal army demands the + services of many scores of thousands of not simply "old soldiers," but + keen, expert, modern-minded <i>officers</i>. + </p> + <p> + Without these officers our citizen army would be a hydra without heads. + And we haven't these officers. We haven't a tithe of them. + </p> + <p> + We haven't these officers, and we can't make them in a hurry. It takes at + least five years to make an officer who knows his trade. It needs a + special gift, in addition to that knowledge, to make a man able to impart + it. And our Empire is at a peculiar disadvantage in the matter, because + India and our other vast areas of service and opportunity overseas drain + away a large proportion of just those able and educated men who would in + other countries gravitate towards the army. Such small wealth of officers + as we have—and I am quite prepared to believe that the officers we + have are among the very best in the world—are scarcely enough to go + round our present supply of private soldiers. And the best and most + brilliant among this scanty supply are being drawn upon more and more for + aerial work, and for all that increasing quantity of highly specialised + services which are manifestly destined to be the real fighting forces of + the future. We cannot spare the best of our officers for training + conscripts; we shall get the dismallest results from the worst of them; + and so even if it were a vital necessity for our country to have an army + of all its manhood now, we could not have it, and it would be a mere last + convulsion to attempt to make it with the means at our disposal. + </p> + <p> + But that brings me to my second contention, which is that we do not want + such an army. I believe that the vast masses of men in uniform maintained + by the Continental Powers at the present time are enormously overrated as + fighting machines. I see Germany in the likeness of a boxer with a mailed + fist as big as and rather heavier than its body, and I am convinced that + when the moment comes for that mailed fist to be lifted, the whole + disproportionate system will topple over. The military ascendancy of the + future lies with the country that dares to experiment most, that + experiments best, and meanwhile keeps its actual fighting force fit and + admirable and small and flexible. The experience of war during the last + fifteen years has been to show repeatedly the enormous defensive power of + small, scientifically handled bodies of men. These huge conscript armies + are made up not of masses of military muscle, but of a huge proportion of + military fat. Their one way of fighting will be to fall upon an antagonist + with all their available weight, and if he is mobile and dexterous enough + to decline that issue of adiposity they will become a mere embarrassment + to their own people. Modern weapons and modern contrivance are continually + decreasing the number of men who can be employed efficiently upon a length + of front. I doubt if there is any use for more than 400,000 men upon the + whole Franco-Belgian frontier at the present time. Such an army, properly + supplied, could—so far as terrestrial forces are concerned—hold + that frontier against any number of assailants. The bigger the forces + brought against it the sooner the exhaustion of the attacking power. Now, + it is for employment upon that frontier, and for no other conceivable + purpose in the world, that Great Britain is asked to create a gigantic + conscript army. + </p> + <p> + And if too big an army is likely to be a mere encumbrance in war, it is + perhaps even a still graver blunder to maintain one during that conflict + of preparation which is at present the European substitute for actual + hostilities. It consumes. It produces nothing. It not only eats and drinks + and wears out its clothes and withdraws men from industry, but under the + stress of invention it needs constantly to be re-armed and freshly + equipped at an expenditure proportionate to its size. So long as the + conflict of preparation goes on, then the bigger the army your adversary + maintains under arms the bigger is his expenditure and the less his + earning power. The less the force you employ to keep your adversary + over-armed, and the longer you remain at peace with him while he is + over-armed, the greater is your advantage. There is only one profitable + use for any army, and that is victorious conflict. Every army that is not + engaged in victorious conflict is an organ of national expenditure, an + exhausting growth in the national body. And for Great Britain an attempt + to create a conscript army would involve the very maximum of moral and + material exhaustion with the minimum of military efficiency. It would be a + disastrous waste of resources that we need most urgently for other things. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 2 + </p> + <p> + In the popular imagination the Dreadnought is still the one instrument of + naval war. We count our strength in Dreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts, + and so long as we are spending our national resources upon them faster + than any other country, if we sink at least #160 for every #100 sunk in + these obsolescent monsters by Germany, we have a reassuring sense of + keeping ahead and being thoroughly safe. This confidence in big, very + expensive battleships is, I believe and hope, shared by the German + Government and by Europe generally, but it is, nevertheless, a very + unreasonable confidence, and it may easily lead us into the most tragic of + national disillusionments. + </p> + <p> + We of the general public are led to suppose that the next naval war—if + ever we engage in another naval war—will begin with a decisive fleet + action. The plan of action is presented with an alluring simplicity. Our + adversary will come out to us, in a ratio of 10 to 16, or in some ratio + still more advantageous to us, according as our adversary happens to be + this Power or that Power, there will be some tremendous business with guns + and torpedoes, and our admirals will return victorious to discuss the + discipline and details of the battle and each other's little weaknesses in + the monthly magazines. This is a desirable but improbable anticipation. No + hostile Power is in the least likely to send out any battleships at all + against our invincible Dreadnoughts. They will promenade the seas, always + in the ratio of 16 or more to 10, looking for fleets securely tucked away + out of reach. They will not, of course, go too near the enemy's coast, on + account of mines, and, meanwhile, our cruisers will hunt the enemy's + commerce into port. + </p> + <p> + Then other things will happen. + </p> + <p> + The enemy we shall discover using unsportsmanlike devices against our + capital ships. Unless he is a lunatic, he will prove to be much stronger + in reality than he is on paper in the matter of submarines, torpedo-boats, + waterplanes and aeroplanes. These are things cheap to make and easy to + conceal. He will be richly stocked with ingenious devices for getting + explosives up to these two million pound triumphs of our naval + engineering. On the cloudy and foggy nights so frequent about these + islands he will have extraordinary chances, and sooner or later, unless we + beat him thoroughly in the air above and in the waters beneath, for + neither of which proceedings we are prepared, some of these chances will + come off, and we shall lose a Dreadnought. + </p> + <p> + It will be a poor consolation if an ill-advised and stranded Zeppelin or + so enlivens the quiet of the English countryside by coming down and + capitulating. It will be a trifling countershock to wing an aeroplane or + so, or blow a torpedo-boat out of the water. Our Dreadnoughts will cease + to be a source of unmitigated confidence A second battleship disaster will + excite the Press extremely. A third will probably lead to a retirement of + the battle fleet to some east coast harbour, a refuge liable to + aeroplanes, or to the west coast of Ireland—and the real naval war, + which, as I have argued in an earlier chapter, will be a war of + destroyers, submarines and hydroplanes, will begin. Incidentally a + commerce destroyer may take advantage of the retirement of our fleet to + raid our trade routes. + </p> + <p> + We shall then realise that the actual naval weapons are these smaller + weapons, and especially the destroyer, the submarine, and the waterplane—the + waterplane most of all, because of its possibilities of a comparative + bigness—in the hands of competent and daring men. And I find myself, + as a patriotic Englishman, more and more troubled by doubts whether we are + as certainly superior to any possible adversary in these essential things + as we are in the matter of Dreadnoughts. I find myself awake at nights, + after a day much agitated by a belligerent Press, wondering whether the + real Empire of the Sea may not even now have slipped out of our hands + while our attention has been fixed on our stately procession of giant + warships, while our country has been in a dream, hypnotised by the + Dreadnought idea. + </p> + <p> + For some years there seems to have been a complete arrest of the British + imagination in naval and military matters. That declining faculty, never a + very active or well-exercised one, staggered up to the conception of a + Dreadnought, and seems now to have sat down for good. Its reply to every + demand upon it has been "more Dreadnoughts." The future, as we British + seem to see it, is an avenue of Dreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts and + Super-Super-Dreadnoughts, getting bigger and bigger in a kind of inverted + perspective. But the ascendancy of fleets of great battleships in naval + warfare, like the phase of huge conscript armies upon land, draws to its + close. The progress of invention makes both the big ship and the army + crowd more and more vulnerable and less and less effective. A new phase of + warfare opens beyond the vista of our current programmes. Smaller, more + numerous and various and mobile weapons and craft and contrivances, manned + by daring and highly skilled men, must ultimately take the place of those + massivenesses. We are entering upon a period in which the invention of + methods and material for war is likely to be more rapid and diversified + than it has ever been before, and the question of what we have been doing + behind the splendid line of our Dreadnoughts to meet the demands of this + new phase is one of supreme importance. Knowing, as I do, the imaginative + indolence of my countrymen, it is a question I face with something very + near to dismay. + </p> + <p> + But it is one that has to be faced. The question that should occupy our + directing minds now is no longer "How can we get more Dreadnoughts?" but + "What have we to follow the Dreadnought?" + </p> + <p> + To the Power that has most nearly guessed the answer to that riddle + belongs the future Empire of the Seas. It is interesting to guess for + oneself and to speculate upon the possibility of a kind of armoured + mother-ship for waterplanes and submarines and torpedo craft, but + necessarily that would be a mere journalistic and amateurish guessing. I + am not guessing, but asking urgent questions. What force, what council, + how many imaginative and inventive men has the country got at the present + time employed not casually but professionally in anticipating the new + strategy, the new tactics, the new material, the new training that + invention is so rapidly rendering necessary? I have the gravest doubts + whether we are doing anything systematic at all in this way. + </p> + <p> + Now, it is the tremendous seriousness of this deficiency to which I want + to call attention. Great Britain has in her armour a gap more dangerous + and vital than any mere numerical insufficiency of men or ships. She is + short of minds. Behind its strength of current armaments to-day, a + strength that begins to evaporate and grow obsolete from the very moment + it comes into being, a country needs more and more this profounder + strength of intellectual and creative activity. + </p> + <p> + This country most of all, which was left so far behind in the production + of submarines, airships and aeroplanes, must be made to realise the folly + of its trust in established things. Each new thing we take up more + belatedly and reluctantly than its predecessor. The time is not far + distant when we shall be "caught" lagging unless we change all this. + </p> + <p> + We need a new arm to our service; we need it urgently, and we shall need + it more and more, and that arm is Research. We need to place inquiry and + experiment upon a new footing altogether, to enlist for them and organise + them, to secure the pick of our young chemists and physicists and + engineers, and to get them to work systematically upon the anticipation + and preparation of our future war equipment. We need a service of + invention to recover our lost lead in these matters. + </p> + <p> + And it is because I feel so keenly the want of such a service, and the + want of great sums of money for it, that I deplore the disposition to + waste millions upon the hasty creation of a universal service army and + upon excessive Dreadnoughting. I am convinced that we are spending upon + the things of yesterday the money that is sorely needed for the things of + to-morrow. + </p> + <p> + With our eyes averted obstinately from the future we are backing towards + disaster. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 3 + </p> + <p> + In the present armament competition there are certain considerations that + appear to be almost universally overlooked, and which tend to modify our + views profoundly of what should be done. Ultimately they will affect our + entire expenditure upon war preparation. + </p> + <p> + Expenditure upon preparation for war falls, roughly, into two classes: + there is expenditure upon things that have a diminishing value, things + that grow old-fashioned and wear out, such as fortifications, ships, guns, + and ammunition, and expenditure upon things that have a permanent and even + growing value, such as organised technical research, military and naval + experiment, and the education and increase of a highly trained class of + war experts. + </p> + <p> + I want to suggest that we are spending too much money in the former and + not enough in the latter direction We are buying enormous quantities of + stuff that will be old iron in twenty years' time, and we are starving + ourselves of that which cannot be bought or made in a hurry, and upon + which the strength of nations ultimately rests altogether; we are failing + to get and maintain a sufficiency of highly educated and developed men + inspired by a tradition of service and efficiency. + </p> + <p> + No doubt we must be armed to-day, but every penny we divert from + men-making and knowledge-making to armament beyond the margin of bare + safety is a sacrifice of the future to the present. Every penny we divert + from national wealth-making to national weapons means so much less in + resources, so much more strain in the years ahead. But a great system of + laboratories and experimental stations, a systematic, industrious increase + of men of the officer-aviator type, of the research student type, of the + engineer type, of the naval-officer type, of the skilled + sergeant-instructor type, a methodical development of a common sentiment + and a common zeal among such a body of men, is an added strength that + grows greater from the moment you call it into being. In our schools and + military and naval colleges lies the proper field for expenditure upon + preparation for our ultimate triumph in war. All other war preparation is + temporary but that. + </p> + <p> + This would be obvious in any case, but what makes insistence upon it + peculiarly urgent is the manifestly temporary nature of the present + European situation and the fact that within quite a small number of years + our war front will be turned in a direction quite other than that to which + it faces now. + </p> + <p> + For a decade and more all Western Europe has been threatened by German + truculence; the German, inflamed by the victories of 1870 and 1871, has + poured out his energy in preparation for war by sea and land, and it has + been the difficult task of France and England to keep the peace with him. + The German has been the provocator and leader of all modern armaments. But + that is not going on. It is already more than half over. If we can avert + war with Germany for twenty years, we shall never have to fight Germany. + In twenty years' time we shall be talking no more of sending troops to + fight side by side on the frontier of France; we shall be talking of + sending troops to fight side by side with French and Germans on the + frontiers of Poland. + </p> + <p> + And the justification of that prophecy is a perfectly plain one. The + German has filled up his country, his birth-rate falls, and the very + vigour of his military and naval preparations, by raising the cost of + living, hurries it down. His birth-rate falls as ours and the Frenchman's + falls, because he is nearing his maximum of population It is an inevitable + consequence of his geographical conditions. But eastward of him, from his + eastern boundaries to the Pacific, is a country already too populous to + conquer, but with possibilities of further expansion that are gigantic. + The Slav will be free to increase and multiply for another hundred years. + Eastward and southward bristle the Slavs, and behind the Slavs are the + colossal possibilities of Asia. + </p> + <p> + Even German vanity, even the preposterous ambitions that spring from that + brief triumph of Sedan, must awaken at last to these manifest facts, and + on the day when Germany is fully awake we may count the Western European + Armageddon as "off" and turn our eyes to the greater needs that will arise + beyond Germany. The old game will be over and a quite different new game + will begin in international relations. + </p> + <p> + During these last few years of worry and bluster across the North Sea we + have a little forgotten India in our calculations. As Germany faces round + eastward again, as she must do before very long, we shall find India + resuming its former central position in our ideas of international + politics. With India we may pursue one of two policies: we may keep her + divided and inefficient for war, as she is at present, and hold her and + own her and defend her as a prize, or we may arm her and assist her + development into a group of quasi-independent English-speaking States—in + which case she will become our partner and possibly at last even our + senior partner. But that is by the way. What I am pointing out now is that + whether we fight Germany or not, a time is drawing near when Germany will + cease to be our war objective and we shall cease to be Germany's war + objective, and when there will have to be a complete revision of our + military and naval equipment in relation to those remoter, vaster Asiatic + possibilities. + </p> + <p> + Now that possible campaign away there, whatever its particular nature may + be, which will be shaping our military and naval policy in the year 1933 + or thereabouts, will certainly be quite different in its conditions from + the possible campaign in Europe and the narrow seas which determines all + our preparations now. We cannot contemplate throwing an army of a million + British conscripts on to the North-West Frontier of India, and a fleet of + Super-Dreadnoughts will be ineffective either in Thibet or the Baltic + shallows. All our present stuff, indeed, will be on the scrap-heap then. + What will not be on the scrap-heap will be such enterprise and special + science and inventive power as we have got together. That is versatile. + That is good to have now and that will be good to have then. + </p> + <p> + Everyone nowadays seems demanding increased expenditure upon war + preparation. I will follow the fashion. I will suggest that we have the + courage to restrain and even to curtail our monstrous outlay upon war + material and that we begin to spend lavishly upon military and naval + education and training, upon laboratories and experimental stations, upon + chemical and physical research and all that makes knowledge and leading, + and that we increase our expenditure upon these things as fast as we can + up to ten or twelve millions a year. At present we spend about eighteen + and a half millions a year upon education out of our national funds, but + fourteen and a half of this, supplemented by about as much again from + local sources, is consumed in merely elementary teaching. So that we spend + only about four millions a year of public money on every sort of research + and education above the simple democratic level. Nearly thirty millions + for the foundations and only a seventh for the edifice of will and + science! Is it any marvel that we are a badly organised nation, a nation + of very widely diffused intelligence and very second-rate guidance and + achievement? Is it any marvel that directly we are tested by such a new + development as that of aeroplanes or airships we show ourselves in + comparison with the more braced-up nations of the Continent backward, + unorganised unimaginative, unenterprising? + </p> + <p> + Our supreme want to-day, if we are to continue a belligerent people, is a + greater supply of able educated men, versatile men capable of engines, of + aviation, of invention, of leading and initiative. We need more + laboratories, more scholarships out of the general mass of elementary + scholars, a quasi-military discipline in our colleges and a great array of + new colleges, a much readier access to instruction in aviation and + military and naval practice. And if we are to have national service let us + begin with it where it is needed most and where it is least likely to + disorganise our social and economic life; let us begin at the top. Let us + begin with the educated and propertied classes and exact a couple of + years' service in a destroyer or a waterplane, or an airship, or a, + research laboratory, or a training camp, from the sons of everybody who, + let us say, pays income tax without deductions. Let us mix with these a + big proportion—a proportion we may increase steadily—of keen + scholarship men from the elementary schools. Such a braced-up class as we + should create in this way would give us the realities of military power, + which are enterprise, knowledge, and invention; and at the same time it + would add to and not subtract from the economic wealth of the community + Make men; that is the only sane, permanent preparation for war. So we + should develop a strength and create a tradition that would not rust nor + grow old-fashioned in all the years to come. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL + </h2> + <p> + Circumstances have made me think a good deal at different times about the + business of writing novels, and what it means, and is, and may be; and I + was a professional critic of novels long before I wrote them. I have been + writing novels, or writing about novels, for the last twenty years. It + seems only yesterday that I wrote a review—the first long and + appreciative review he had—of Mr. Joseph Conrad's "Almayer's Folly" + in the <i>Saturday Review</i>. When a man has focussed so much of his life + upon the novel, it is not reasonable to expect him to take too modest or + apologetic a view of it. I consider the novel an important and necessary + thing indeed in that complicated system of uneasy adjustments and + readjustments which is modern civilisation I make very high and wide + claims for it. In many directions I do not think we can get along without + it. + </p> + <p> + Now this, I know, is not the usually received opinion. There is, I am + aware, the theory that the novel is wholly and solely a means of + relaxation. In spite of manifest facts, that was the dominant view of the + great period that we now in our retrospective way speak of as the + Victorian, and it still survives to this day. It is the man's theory of + the novel rather than the woman's. One may call it the Weary Giant theory. + The reader is represented as a man, burthened, toiling, worn. He has been + in his office from ten to four, with perhaps only two hours' interval at + his club for lunch; or he has been playing golf; or he has been waiting + about and voting in the House; or he has been fishing; or he has been + disputing a point of law; or writing a sermon; or doing one of a thousand + other of the grave important things which constitute the substance of a + prosperous man's life. Now at last comes the little precious interval of + leisure, and the Weary Giant takes up a book. Perhaps he is vexed: he may + have been bunkered, his line may have been entangled in the trees, his + favourite investment may have slumped, or the judge have had indigestion + and been extremely rude to him. He wants to forget the troublesome + realities of life. He wants to be taken out of himself, to be cheered, + consoled, amused—above all, amused. He doesn't want ideas, he + doesn't want facts; above all, he doesn't want—<i>Problems</i>. He + wants to dream of the bright, thin, gay excitements of a phantom world—in + which he can be hero—of horses ridden and lace worn and princesses + rescued and won. He wants pictures of funny slums, and entertaining + paupers, and laughable longshoremen, and kindly impulses making life + sweet. He wants romance without its defiance, and humour without its + sting; and the business of the novelist, he holds, is to supply this + cooling refreshment. That is the Weary Giant theory of the novel. It ruled + British criticism up to the period of the Boer war—and then + something happened to quite a lot of us, and it has never completely + recovered its old predominance. Perhaps it will; perhaps something else + may happen to prevent its ever doing so. + </p> + <p> + Both fiction and criticism to-day are in revolt against that tired giant, + the prosperous Englishman. I cannot think of a single writer of any + distinction to-day, unless it is Mr. W.W. Jacobs, who is content merely to + serve the purpose of those slippered hours. So far from the weary reader + being a decently tired giant, we realise that he is only an inexpressibly + lax, slovenly and under-trained giant, and we are all out with one accord + resolved to exercise his higher ganglia in every possible way. And so I + will say no more of the idea that the novel is merely a harmless opiate + for the vacant hours of prosperous men. As a matter of fact, it never has + been, and by its nature I doubt if it ever can be. + </p> + <p> + I do not think that women have ever quite succumbed to the tired giant + attitude in their reading. Women are more serious, not only about life, + but about books. No type or kind of woman is capable of that lounging, + defensive stupidity which is the basis of the tired giant attitude, and + all through the early 'nineties, during which the respectable frivolity of + Great Britain left its most enduring marks upon our literature, there was + a rebel undertow of earnest and aggressive writing and reading, supported + chiefly by women and supplied very largely by women, which gave the lie to + the prevailing trivial estimate of fiction. Among readers, women and girls + and young men at least will insist upon having their novels significant + and real, and it is to these perpetually renewed elements in the public + that the novelist must look for his continuing emancipation from the + wearier and more massive influences at work in contemporary British life. + </p> + <p> + And if the novel is to be recognised as something more than a relaxation, + it has also, I think, to be kept free from the restrictions imposed upon + it by the fierce pedantries of those who would define a general form for + it. Every art nowadays must steer its way between the rocks of trivial and + degrading standards and the whirlpool of arbitrary and irrational + criticism. Whenever criticism of any art becomes specialised and + professional whenever a class of adjudicators is brought into existence, + those adjudicators are apt to become as a class distrustful of their + immediate impressions, and anxious for methods of comparison between work + and work, they begin to emulate the classifications and exact measurements + of a science, and to set up ideals and rules as data for such + classification and measurements. They develop an alleged sense of + technique, which is too often no more than the attempt to exact a + laboriousness of method, or to insist upon peculiarities of method which + impress the professional critic not so much as being merits as being + meritorious. This sort of thing has gone very far with the critical + discussion both of the novel and the play. You have all heard that + impressive dictum that some particular theatrical display, although + moving, interesting, and continually entertaining from start to finish, + was for occult technical reasons "not a play," and in the same way you are + continually having your appreciation of fiction dashed by the mysterious + parallel condemnation, that the story you like "isn't a novel." The novel + has been treated as though its form was as well-defined as the sonnet. + Some year or so ago, for example, there was a quite serious discussion, + which began, I believe, in a weekly paper devoted to the interests of + various nonconformist religious organisations, about the proper length for + a novel. The critic was to begin his painful duties with a yard measure. + The matter was taken up with profound gravity by the <i>Westminster + Gazette</i>, and a considerable number of literary men and women were + circularised and asked to state, in the face of "Tom Jones," "The Vicar of + Wakefield," "The Shabby-Genteel Story," and "Bleak House," just exactly + how long the novel ought to be. Our replies varied according to the + civility of our natures, but the mere attempt to raise the question shows, + I think, how widespread among the editorial, paragraph-writing, + opinion-making sort of people is this notion of prescribing a definite + length and a definite form for the novel. In the newspaper correspondence + that followed, our friend the weary giant made a transitory appearance + again. We were told the novel ought to be long enough for him to take up + after dinner and finish before his whisky at eleven. + </p> + <p> + That was obviously a half-forgotten echo of Edgar Allan Poe's discussion + of the short story. Edgar Allan Poe was very definite upon the point that + the short story should be finished at a sitting. But the novel and short + story are two entirely different things, and the train of reasoning that + made the American master limit the short story to about an hour of reading + as a maximum, does not apply to the longer work. A short story is, or + should be, a simple thing; it aims at producing one single, vivid effect; + it has to seize the attention at the outset, and never relaxing, gather it + together more and more until the climax is reached. The limits of the + human capacity to attend closely therefore set a limit to it; it must + explode and finish before interruption occurs or fatigue sets in. But the + novel I hold to be a discursive thing; it is not a single interest, but a + woven tapestry of interests; one is drawn on first by this affection and + curiosity, and then by that; it is something to return to, and I do not + see that we can possibly set any limit to its extent. The distinctive + value of the novel among written works of art is in characterisation, and + the charm of a well-conceived character lies, not in knowing its destiny, + but in watching its proceedings. For my own part, I will confess that I + find all the novels of Dickens, long as they are, too short for me. I am + sorry they do not flow into one another more than they do. I wish Micawber + and Dick Swiveller and Sairey Gamp turned up again in other novels than + their own, just as Shakespeare ran the glorious glow of Falstaff through a + group of plays. But Dickens tried this once when he carried on the + Pickwick Club into "Master Humphrey's Clock." That experiment was + unsatisfactory, and he did not attempt anything of the sort again. + Following on the days of Dickens, the novel began to contract, to + subordinate characterisation to story and description to drama; + considerations of a sordid nature, I am told, had to do with that; + something about a guinea and a half and six shillings with which we will + not concern ourselves—but I rejoice to see many signs to-day that + that phase of narrowing and restriction is over, and that there is every + encouragement for a return towards a laxer, more spacious form of + novel-writing. The movement is partly of English origin, a revolt against + those more exacting and cramping conceptions of artistic perfection to + which I will recur in a moment, and a return to the lax freedom of form, + the rambling discursiveness, the right to roam, of the earlier English + novel, of "Tristram Shandy" and of "Tom Jones"; and partly it comes from + abroad, and derives a stimulus from such bold and original enterprises as + that of Monsieur Rolland in his "Jean Christophe." Its double origin + involves a double nature; for while the English spirit is towards + discursiveness and variety, the new French movement is rather towards + exhaustiveness. Mr. Arnold Bennett has experimented in both forms of + amplitude. His superb "Old Wives' Tale," wandering from person to person + and from scene to scene, is by far the finest "long novel" that has been + written in English in the English fashion in this generation, and now in + "Clayhanger" and its promised collaterals, he undertakes that complete, + minute, abundant presentation of the growth and modification of one or two + individual minds, which is the essential characteristic of the Continental + movement towards the novel of amplitude. While the "Old Wives' Tale" is + discursive, "Clayhanger" is exhaustive; he gives us both types of the new + movement in perfection. + </p> + <p> + I name "Jean Christophe" as a sort of archetype in this connection, + because it is just at present very much in our thoughts by reason of the + admirable translation Mr. Cannan is giving us; but there is a greater + predecessor to this comprehensive and spectacular treatment of a single + mind and its impressions and ideas, or of one or two associated minds, + that comes to us now <i>via</i> Mr. Bennett and Mr. Cannan from France. + The great original of all this work is that colossal last unfinished book + of Flaubert, "Bouvard et Picuchet." Flaubert, the bulk of whose life was + spent upon the most austere and restrained fiction—Turgenev was not + more austere and restrained—broke out at last into this gay, sad + miracle of intellectual abundance. It is not extensively read in this + country; it is not yet, I believe, translated into English; but there it + is—and if it is new to the reader I make him this present of the + secret of a book that is a precious wilderness of wonderful reading. But + if Flaubert is really the Continental emancipator of the novel from the + restrictions of form, the master to whom we of the English persuasion, we + of the discursive school, must for ever recur is he, whom I will maintain + against all comers to be the subtlest and greatest <i>artist</i>—I + lay stress upon that word artist—that Great Britain has ever + produced in all that is essentially the novel, Laurence Sterne.... + </p> + <p> + The confusion between the standards of a short story and the standards of + the novel which leads at last to these—what shall I call them?—<i>Westminster + Gazettisms?</i>—about the correct length to which the novelist + should aspire, leads also to all kinds of absurd condemnations and + exactions upon matters of method and style. The underlying fallacy is + always this: the assumption that the novel, like the story, aims at a + single, concentrated impression. From that comes a fertile growth of + error. Constantly one finds in the reviews of works of fiction the + complaint that this, that or the other thing in a novel is irrelevant. Now + it is the easiest thing, and most fatal thing, to become irrelevant in a + short story. A short story should go to its point as a man flies from a + pursuing tiger: he pauses not for the daisies in his path, or to note the + pretty moss on the tree he climbs for safety. But the novel by comparison + is like breakfasting in the open air on a summer morning; nothing is + irrelevant if the waiter's mood is happy, and the tapping of the thrush + upon the garden path, or the petal of apple-blossom that floats down into + my coffee, is as relevant as the egg I open or the bread and butter I + bite. And all sorts of things that inevitably mar the tense illusion which + is the aim of the short story—the introduction, for example, of the + author's personality—any comment that seems to admit that, after + all, fiction is fiction, a change in manner between part and part, + burlesque, parody, invective, all such thing's are not necessarily wrong + in the novel. Of course, all these things may fail in their effect; they + may jar, hinder, irritate, and all are difficult to do well; but it is no + artistic merit to evade a difficulty any more than it is a merit in a + hunter to refuse even the highest of fences. Nearly all the novels that + have, by the lapse of time, reached an assured position of recognised + greatness, are not only saturated in the personality of the author, but + have in addition quite unaffected personal outbreaks. The least successful + instance the one that is made the text against all such first-personal + interventions, is, of course, Thackeray. But I think the trouble with + Thackeray is not that he makes first-personal interventions, but that he + does so with a curious touch of dishonesty. I agree with the late Mrs. + Craigie that there was something profoundly vulgar about Thackeray. It was + a sham thoughtful, sham man-of-the-world pose he assumed; it is an + aggressive, conscious, challenging person astride before a fire, and a + little distended by dinner and a sense of social and literary precedences, + who uses the first person in Thackeray's novels. It isn't the real + Thackeray; it isn't a frank man who looks you in the eyes and bares his + soul and demands your sympathy. That is a criticism of Thackeray, but it + isn't a condemnation of intervention. + </p> + <p> + I admit that for a novelist to come in person in this way before his + readers involves grave risks; but when it is done without affectations, + starkly as a man comes in out of the darkness to tell of perplexing things + without—as, for instance, Mr. Joseph Conrad does for all practical + purposes in his "Lord Jim"—then it gives a sort of depth, a sort of + subjective reality, that no such cold, almost affectedly ironical + detachment as that which distinguishes the work of Mr. John Galsworthy, + for example, can ever attain. And in some cases the whole art and delight + of a novel may lie in the author's personal interventions; let such novels + as "Elizabeth and her German Garden," and the same writer's "Elizabeth in + R|gen," bear witness. + </p> + <p> + Now, all this time I have been hacking away at certain hampering and + limiting beliefs about the novel, letting it loose, as it were, in form + and purpose; I have still to say just what I think the novel is, and + where, if anywhere, its boundary-line ought to be drawn. It is by no means + an easy task to define the novel. It is not a thing premeditated. It is a + thing that has grown up into modern life, and taken upon itself uses and + produced results that could not have been foreseen by its originators. Few + of the important things in the collective life of man started out to be + what they are. Consider, for example, all the unexpected aesthetic values, + the inspiration and variety of emotional result which arises out of the + cross-shaped plan of the Gothic cathedral, and the undesigned delight and + wonder of white marble that has ensued, as I have been told, through the + ageing and whitening of the realistically coloured statuary of the Greeks + and Romans. Much of the charm of the old furniture and needlework, again, + upon which the present time sets so much store, lies in acquired and + unpremeditated qualities. And no doubt the novel grew up out of simple + story-telling, and the universal desire of children, old and young alike, + for a story. It is only slowly that we have developed the distinction of + the novel from the romance, as being a story of human beings, absolutely + credible and conceivable as distinguished from human beings frankly + endowed with the glamour, the wonder, the brightness, of a less exacting + and more vividly eventful world. The novel is a story that demands, or + professes to demand, no make-believe. The novelist undertakes to present + you people and things as real as any that you can meet in an omnibus. And + I suppose it is conceivable that a novel might exist which was just purely + a story of that kind and nothing more. It might amuse you as one is amused + by looking out of a window into a street, or listening to a piece of + agreeable music, and that might be the limit of its effect. But almost + always the novel is something more than that, and produces more effect + than that. The novel has inseparable moral consequences. It leaves + impressions, not simply of things seen, but of acts judged and made + attractive or unattractive. They may prove very slight moral consequences, + and very shallow moral impressions in the long run, but there they are, + none the less, its inevitable accompaniments. It is unavoidable that this + should be so. Even if the novelist attempts or affects to be impartial, he + still cannot prevent his characters setting examples; he still cannot + avoid, as people say, putting ideas into his readers' heads. The greater + his skill, the more convincing his treatment the more vivid his power of + suggestion. And it is equally impossible for him not to betray his sense + that the proceedings of this person are rather jolly and admirable, and of + that, rather ugly and detestable. I suppose Mr. Bennett, for example, + would say that he should not do so; but it is as manifest to any + disinterested observer that he greatly loves and admires his Card, as that + Richardson admired his Sir Charles Grandison, or that Mrs. Humphry Ward + considers her Marcella a very fine and estimable young woman. And I think + it is just in this, that the novel is not simply a fictitious record of + conduct, but also a study and judgment of conduct, and through that of the + ideas that lead to conduct, that the real and increasing value—or + perhaps to avoid controversy I had better say the real and increasing + importance—of the novel and of the novelist in modern life comes in. + </p> + <p> + It is no new discovery that the novel, like the drama, is a powerful + instrument of moral suggestion. This has been understood in England ever + since there has been such a thing as a novel in England. This has been + recognised equally by novelists, novel-readers, and the people who + wouldn't read novels under any condition whatever. Richardson wrote + deliberately for edification, and "Tom Jones" is a powerful and effective + appeal for a charitable, and even indulgent, attitude towards loose-living + men. But excepting Fielding and one or two other of those partial + exceptions that always occur in the case of critical generalisations, + there is a definable difference between the novel of the past and what I + may call the modern novel. It is a difference that is reflected upon the + novel from a difference in the general way of thinking. It lies in the + fact that formerly there was a feeling of certitude about moral values and + standards of conduct that is altogether absent to-day. It wasn't so much + that men were agreed upon these things—about these things there have + always been enormous divergences of opinion—as that men were + emphatic, cocksure, and unteachable about whatever they did happen to + believe to a degree that no longer obtains. This is the Balfourian age, + and even religion seeks to establish itself on doubt. There were, perhaps, + just as many differences in the past as there are now, but the outlines + were harder—they were, indeed, so hard as to be almost, to our + sense, savage. You might be a Roman Catholic, and in that case you did not + want to hear about Protestants, Turks, Infidels, except in tones of horror + and hatred. You knew exactly what was good and what was evil. Your priest + informed you upon these points, and all you needed in any novel you read + was a confirmation, implicit or explicit, of these vivid, rather than + charming, prejudices. If you were a Protestant you were equally clear and + unshakable. Your sect, whichever sect you belonged to, knew the whole of + truth and included all the nice people. It had nothing to learn in the + world, and it wanted to learn nothing outside its sectarian convictions. + The unbelievers you know, were just as bad, and said their creeds with an + equal fury—merely interpolating <i>nots</i>. People of every sort—Catholic, + Protestant, Infidel, or what not—were equally clear that good was + good and bad was bad, that the world was made up of good characters whom + you had to love, help and admire, and of bad characters to whom one might, + in the interests of goodness, even lie, and whom one had to foil, defeat + and triumph over shamelessly at every opportunity. That was the quality of + the times. The novel reflected this quality of assurance, and its utmost + charity was to unmask an apparent villain and show that he or she was + really profoundly and correctly good, or to unmask an apparent saint and + show the hypocrite. There was no such penetrating and pervading element of + doubt and curiosity—and charity, about the rightfulness and beauty + of conduct, such as one meets on every hand to-day. + </p> + <p> + The novel-reader of the past, therefore, like the novel-reader of the more + provincial parts of England to-day, judged a novel by the convictions that + had been built up in him by his training and his priest or his pastor. If + it agreed with these convictions he approved; if it did not agree he + disapproved—often with great energy. The novel, where it was not + unconditionally banned altogether as a thing disturbing and unnecessary, + was regarded as a thing subordinated to the teaching of the priest or + pastor, or whatever director and dogma was followed. Its modest moral + confirmations began when authority had completed its direction. The novel + was good—if it seemed to harmonise with the graver exercises + conducted by Mr. Chadband—and it was bad and outcast if Mr. Chadband + said so. And it is over the bodies of discredited and disgruntled + Chadbands that the novel escapes from its servitude and inferiority. + </p> + <p> + Now the conflict of authority against criticism is one of the eternal + conflicts of humanity. It is the conflict of organisation against + initiative, of discipline against freedom. It was the conflict of the + </p> + <p> + priest against the prophet in ancient Judaea, of the Pharisee against the + Nazarene, of the Realist against the Nominalist, of the Church against the + Franciscan and the Lollard, of the Respectable Person against the Artist, + of the hedge-clippers of mankind against the shooting buds. And to-day, + while we live in a period of tightening and extending social organisation, + we live also in a period of adventurous and insurgent thought, in an + intellectual spring unprecedented in the world's history. There is an + enormous criticism going on of the faiths upon which men's lives and + associations are based, and of every standard and rule of conduct. And it + is inevitable that the novel, just in the measure of its sincerity and + ability, should reflect and co-operate in the atmosphere and uncertainties + and changing variety of this seething and creative time. + </p> + <p> + And I do not mean merely that the novel is unavoidably charged with the + representation of this wide and wonderful conflict. It is a necessary part + of the conflict. The essential characteristic of this great intellectual + revolution amidst which we are living to-day, that revolution of which the + revival and restatement of nominalism under the name of pragmatism is the + philosophical aspect, consists in the reassertion of the importance of the + individual instance as against the generalisation. All our social, + political, moral problems are being approached in a new spirit, in an + inquiring and experimental spirit, which has small respect for abstract + principles and deductive rules. We perceive more and more clearly, for + example, that the study of social organisation is an empty and + unprofitable study until we approach it as a study of the association and + inter-reaction of individualised human beings inspired by diversified + motives, ruled by traditions, and swayed by the suggestions of a complex + intellectual atmosphere. And all our conceptions of the relationships + between man and man, and of justice and rightfulness and social + desirableness, remain something misfitting and inappropriate, something + uncomfortable and potentially injurious, as if we were trying to wear + sharp-edged clothes made for a giant out of tin, until we bring them to + the test and measure of realised individualities. + </p> + <p> + And this is where the value and opportunity of the modern novel comes in. + So far as I can see, it is the only medium through which we can discuss + the great majority of the problems which are being raised in such + bristling multitude by our contemporary social development Nearly every + one of those problems has at its core a psychological problem, and not + merely a psychological problem, but one in which the idea of individuality + is an essential factor. Dealing with most of these questions by a rule or + a generalisation is like putting a cordon round a jungle full of the most + diversified sort of game. The hunting only begins when you leave the + cordon behind you and push into the thickets. + </p> + <p> + Take, for example, the immense cluster of difficulties that arises out of + the increasing complexity of our state. On every hand we are creating + officials, and compared with only a few years ago the private life in a + dozen fresh directions comes into contact with officialdom. But we still + do practically nothing to work out the interesting changes that occur in + this sort of man and that, when you withdraw him as it were from the + common crowd of humanity, put his mind if not his body into uniform and + endow him with powers and functions and rules. It is manifestly a study of + the profoundest public and personal importance. It is manifestly a study + of increasing importance. The process of social and political organisation + that has been going on for the last quarter of a century is pretty clearly + going on now if anything with increasing vigour—and for the most + part the entire dependence of the consequences of the whole problem upon + the reaction between the office on the one hand and the weak, uncertain, + various human beings who take office on the other, doesn't seem even to be + suspected by the energetic, virtuous and more or less amiable people whose + activities in politics and upon the backstairs of politics bring about + these developments. They assume that the sort of official they need, a + combination of god-like virtue and intelligence with unfailing mechanical + obedience, can be made out of just any young nephew. And I know of no + means of persuading people that this is a rather unjustifiable assumption, + and of creating an intelligent controlling criticism of officials and of + assisting conscientious officials to an effective self-examination, and + generally of keeping the atmosphere of official life sweet and healthy, + except the novel. Yet so far the novel has scarcely begun its attack upon + this particular field of human life, and all the attractive varied play of + motive it contains. + </p> + <p> + Of course we have one supreme and devastating study of the illiterate + minor official in Bumble. That one figure lit up and still lights the + whole problem of Poor Law administration for the English reading + community. It was a translation of well-meant regulations and + pseudo-scientific conceptions of social order into blundering, arrogant, + ill-bred flesh and blood. It was worth a hundred Royal Commissions. You + may make your regulations as you please, said Dickens in effect; this is + one sample of the stuff that will carry them out. But Bumble stands almost + alone. Instead of realising that he is only one aspect of officialdom, we + are all too apt to make him the type of all officials, and not an urban + district council can get into a dispute about its electric light without + being denounced as a Bumbledom by some whirling enemy or other. The + burthen upon Bumble's shoulders is too heavy to be borne, and we want the + contemporary novel to give us a score of other figures to put beside him, + other aspects and reflections upon this great problem of officialism made + flesh. Bumble is a magnificent figure of the follies and cruelties of + ignorance in office—I would have every candidate for the post of + workhouse master pass a severe examination upon "Oliver Twist"—but + it is not only caricature and satire I demand. We must have not only the + fullest treatment of the temptations, vanities, abuses, and absurdities of + office, but all its dreams, its sense of constructive order, its + consolations, its sense of service, and its nobler satisfactions. You may + say that is demanding more insight and power in our novels and novelists + than we can possibly hope to find in them. So much the worse for us. I + stick to my thesis that the complicated social organisation of to-day + cannot get along without the amount of mutual understanding and mutual + explanation such a range of characterisation in our novels implies. The + success of civilisation amounts ultimately to a success of sympathy and + understanding. If people cannot be brought to an interest in one another + greater than they feel to-day, to curiosities and criticisms far keener, + and co-operations far subtler, than we have now; if class cannot be + brought to measure itself against, and interchange experience and sympathy + with class, and temperament with temperament then we shall never struggle + very far beyond the confused discomforts and uneasiness of to-day, and the + changes and complications of human life will remain as they are now, very + like the crumplings and separations and complications of an immense + avalanche that is sliding down a hill. And in this tremendous work of + human reconciliation and elucidation, it seems to me it is the novel that + must attempt most and achieve most. + </p> + <p> + You may feel disposed to say to all this: We grant the major premises, but + why look to the work of prose fiction as the main instrument in this + necessary process of, so to speak, sympathising humanity together? Cannot + this be done far more effectively through biography and autobiography, for + example? Isn't there the lyric; and, above all, isn't there the play? + Well, so far as the stage goes, I think it is a very charming and exciting + form of human activity, a display of actions and surprises of the most + moving and impressive sort; but beyond the opportunity it affords for + saying startling and thought-provoking things—opportunities Mr. + Shaw, for example, has worked to the utmost limit—I do not see that + the drama does much to enlarge our sympathies and add to our stock of + motive ideas. And regarded as a medium for startling and thought-provoking + things, the stage seems to me an extremely clumsy and costly affair. One + might just as well go about with a pencil writing up the thought-provoking + phrase, whatever it is, on walls. The drama excites our sympathies + intensely, but it seems to me it is far too objective a medium to widen + them appreciably, and it is that widening, that increase in the range of + understanding, at which I think civilisation is aiming. The case for + biography, and more particularly autobiography, as against the novel, is, + I admit, at the first blush stronger. You may say: Why give us these + creatures of a novelist's imagination, these phantom and fantastic + thinkings and doings, when we may have the stories of real lives, really + lived—the intimate record of actual men and women? To which one + answers: "Ah, if one could!" But it is just because biography does deal + with actual lives, actual facts, because it radiates out to touch + continuing interests and sensitive survivors, that it is so + unsatisfactory, so untruthful. Its inseparable falsehood is the worst of + all kinds of falsehood—the falsehood of omission. Think what an + abounding, astonishing, perplexing person Gladstone must have been in + life, and consider Lord Morley's "Life of Gladstone," cold, dignified—not + a life at all, indeed, so much as embalmed remains; the fire gone, the + passions gone, the bowels carefully removed. All biography has something + of that post-mortem coldness and respect, and as for autobiography—a + man may show his soul in a thousand half-conscious ways, but to turn upon + oneself and explain oneself is given to no one. It is the natural liars + and braggarts, your Cellinis and Casanovas, men with a habit of regarding + themselves with a kind of objective admiration, who do best in + autobiography. And, on the other hand, the novel has neither the intense + self-consciousness of autobiography nor the paralysing responsibilities of + the biographer. It is by comparison irresponsible and free. Because its + characters are figments and phantoms, they can be made entirely + transparent. Because they are fictions, and you know they are fictions, so + that they cannot hold you for an instant so soon as they cease to be true, + they have a power of veracity quite beyond that of actual records. Every + novel carries its own justification and its own condemnation in its + success or failure to convince you that <i>the thing was so</i>. Now + history, biography, blue-book and so forth, can hardly ever get beyond the + statement that the superficial fact was so. + </p> + <p> + You see now the scope of the claim I am making for the novel; it is to be + the social mediator, the vehicle of understanding, the instrument of + self-examination, the parade of morals and the exchange of manners, the + factory of customs, the criticism of laws and institutions and of social + dogmas and ideas. It is to be the home confessional, the initiator of + knowledge, the seed of fruitful self-questioning. Let me be very clear + here. I do not mean for a moment that the novelist is going to set up as a + teacher, as a sort of priest with a pen, who will make men and women + believe and do this and that. The novel is not a new sort of pulpit; + humanity is passing out of the phase when men <i>sit under</i> preachers + and dogmatic influences. But the novelist is going to be the most potent + of artists, because he is going to present conduct, devise beautiful + conduct, discuss conduct analyse conduct, suggest conduct, illuminate it + through and through. He will not teach, but discuss, point out, plead, and + display. And this being my view you will be prepared for the demand I am + now about to make for an absolutely free hand for the novelist in his + choice of topic and incident and in his method of treatment; or rather, if + I may presume to speak for other novelists, I would say it is not so much + a demand we make as an intention we proclaim. We are going to write, + subject only to our limitations, about the whole of human life. We are + going to deal with political questions and religious questions and social + questions. We cannot present people unless we have this free hand, this + unrestricted field. What is the good of telling stories about people's + lives if one may not deal freely with the religious beliefs and + organisations that have controlled or failed to control them? What is the + good of pretending to write about love, and the loyalties and treacheries + and quarrels of men and women, if one must not glance at those varieties + of physical temperament and organic quality, those deeply passionate needs + and distresses from which half the storms of human life are brewed? We + mean to deal with all these things, and it will need very much more than + the disapproval of provincial librarians, the hostility of a few + influential people in London, the scurrility of one paper, and the deep + and obstinate silences of another, to stop the incoming tide of aggressive + novel-writing. We are going to write about it all. We are going to write + about business and finance and politics and precedence and pretentiousness + and decorum and indecorum, until a thousand pretences and ten thousand + impostures shrivel in the cold, clear air of our elucidations. We are + going to write of wasted opportunities and latent beauties until a + thousand new ways of living open to men and women. We are going to appeal + to the young and the hopeful and the curious, against the established, the + dignified, and defensive. Before we have done, we will have all life + within the scope of the novel. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUBLIC LIBRARY + </h2> + <p> + Suppose a philosopher had a great deal of money to spend—though this + is not in accordance with experience, it is not inherently impossible—and + suppose he thought, as any philosopher does think, that the British public + ought to read much more and better books than they do, and that founding + public libraries was the way to induce them to do so, what sort of public + libraries would he found? That, I submit, is a suitable topic for a + disinterested speculator. + </p> + <p> + He would, I suppose, being a philosopher, begin by asking himself what a + library essentially was, and he would probably come to the eccentric + conclusion that it was essentially a collection of books. He would, in his + unworldliness, entirely overlook the fact that it might be a job for a + municipally influential builder, a costly but conspicuous monument to + opulent generosity, a news-room, an employment bureau, or a meeting-place + for the glowing young; he would never think for a moment of a library as a + thing one might build, it would present itself to him with astonishing + simplicity as a thing one would collect. Bricks ceased to be literature + after Babylon. + </p> + <p> + His first proceeding would be, I suppose, to make a list of that + collection. What books, he would say, have all my libraries to possess + anyhow? And he would begin to jot down—with the assistance of a few + friends, perhaps—this essential list. + </p> + <p> + He would, being a philosopher, insist on good editions, and he would also + take great pains with the selection. It would not be a limited or an + exclusive list—when in doubt he would include. He would disregard + modern fiction very largely, because any book that has any success can + always be bought for sixpence, and modern poetry, because, with an + exception or so, it does not signify at all. He would set almost all the + Greek and Roman literature in well-printed translations and with luminous + introductions—and if there were no good translations he would give + some good man #500 or so to make one—translations of all that is + good in modern European literatures, and, last but largest portion of his + list, editions of all that is worthy of our own. He would make a very + careful list of thoroughly modern encyclopaedias, atlases, and volumes of + information, and a particularly complete catalogue of all literature that + is still copyright; and then—with perhaps a secretary or so—he + would revise all his lists and mark against every book whether he would + have two, five or ten or twenty copies, or whatever number of copies of it + he thought proper in each library. + </p> + <p> + Then next, being a philosopher, he would decide that if he was going to + buy a great number of libraries in this way, he was going to make an + absolutely new sort of demand for these books, and that he was entitled to + a special sort of supply. + </p> + <p> + He would not expect the machinery of retail book-selling to meet the needs + of wholesale buying. So he would go either to wholesale booksellers, or + directly to the various publishers of the books and editions he had + chosen, and ask for reasonable special prices for the two thousand or + seven thousand or fifty thousand of each book he required. And the + publishers would, of course, give him very special prices, more especially + in the case of the out-of-copyright books. He would probably find it best + to buy whole editions in sheets and bind them himself in strong bindings. + And he would emerge from these negotiations in possession of a number of + complete libraries each of—how many books? Less than twenty thousand + ought to do it, I think, though that is a matter for separate discussion, + and that should cost him, buying in this wholesale way, under rather than + over #2,000 a library. + </p> + <p> + And next he would bethink himself of the readers of these books. "These + people," he would say, "do not know very much about books, which, indeed, + is why I am giving them this library." + </p> + <p> + Accordingly, he would get a number of able and learned people to write him + guides to his twenty thousand books, and, in fact, to the whole world of + reading, a guide, for example, to the books on history in general, a + special guide to books on English history, or French or German history, a + guide to the books on geology, a guide to poetry and poetical criticisms, + and so forth. + </p> + <p> + Some such books our philosopher would find already done—the + "Bibliography of American History," of the American Libraries' + Association, for example, and Mr. Nield's "Guide to Historical Fiction"—and + what are not done he would commission good men to do for him. Suppose he + had to commission forty such guides altogether and that they cost him on + the average #500 each, for he would take care not to sweat their makers, + then that would add another #20,000 to his expenditure. But if he was + going to found 400 libraries, let us say, that would only be #50 a library—a + very trivial addition to his expenditure. + </p> + <p> + The rarer books mentioned in these various guides would remind him, + however, of the many even his ample limit of twenty thousand forced him to + exclude, and he would, perhaps, consider the need of having two or three + libraries each for the storage of a hundred thousand books or so not kept + at the local libraries, but which could be sent to them at a day's notice + at the request of any reader. And then, and only then, would he give his + attention to the housing and staffing that this reality of books would + demand. + </p> + <p> + Being a philosopher and no fool, he would draw a very clear, hard + distinction between the reckless endowment of the building trade and the + dissemination of books. He would distinguish, too, between a library and a + news-room, and would find no great attraction in the prospect of supplying + the national youth with free but thumby copies of the sixpenny magazines. + He would consider that all that was needed for his library was, first, + easily accessible fireproof shelving for his collection, with ample space + for his additions, an efficient distributing office, a cloak-room, and so + forth, and eight or nine not too large, well lit, well carpeted, well + warmed and well ventilated rooms radiating from that office, in which the + guides and so forth could be consulted, and where those who had no + convenient, quiet room at home could read. + </p> + <p> + He would find that, by avoiding architectural vulgarities, a simple, well + proportioned building satisfying all these requirements and containing + housing for the librarian, assistant, custodian and staff could be built + for between #4,000 and #5,000, excluding the cost of site, and his sites, + which he would not choose for their conspicuousness, might average + something under another #1,000. + </p> + <p> + He would try to make a bargain with the local people for their + co-operation in his enterprise, though he would, as a philosopher, + understand that where a public library is least wanted it is generally + most needed. But in most cases he would succeed in stipulating for a + certain standard of maintenance by the local authority. Since moderately + prosperous illiterate men undervalue education and most town councillors + are moderately illiterate men, he would do his best to keep the salary and + appointment of the librarian out of such hands. He would stipulate for a + salary of at least #400, in addition to housing, light and heat, and he + would probably find it advisable to appoint a little committee of visitors + who would have the power to examine qualifications, endorse the + appointment, and recommend the dismissal of all his four hundred + librarians. He would probably try to make the assistantship at #100 a year + or thereabout a sort of local scholarship to be won by competition, and + only the cleaner and caretaker's place would be left to the local + politician. And, of course, our philosopher would stipulate that, apart + from all other expenditure, a sum of at least #200 a year should be set + aside for buying new books. + </p> + <p> + So our rich philosopher would secure at the minimum cost a number of + efficiently equipped libraries throughout the country. Eight thousand + pounds down and #900 a year is about as cheap as a public library can be. + Below that level, it would be cheaper to have no public library. Above + that level, a public library that is not efficient is either dishonestly + or incapably organised or managed, or it is serving too large a district + and needs duplication, or it is trying to do too much. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ABOUT CHESTERTON AND BELLOC + </h2> + <p> + It has been one of the less possible dreams of my life to be a painted + Pagan God and live upon a ceiling. I crown myself becomingly in stars or + tendrils or with electric coruscations (as the mood takes me), and wear an + easy costume free from complications and appropriate to the climate of + those agreeable spaces. The company about me on the clouds varies greatly + with the mood of the vision, but always it is in some way, if not always a + very obvious way, beautiful. One frequent presence is G.K. Chesterton, a + joyous whirl of brush work, appropriately garmented and crowned. When he + is there, I remark, the whole ceiling is by a sort of radiation convivial. + We drink limitless old October from handsome flagons, and we argue + mightily about Pride (his weak point) and the nature of Deity. A hygienic, + attentive, and essentially anaesthetic Eagle checks, in the absence of + exercise, any undue enlargement of our Promethean livers.... Chesterton + often—but never by any chance Belloc. Belloc I admire beyond + measure, but there is a sort of partisan viciousness about Belloc that + bars him from my celestial dreams. He never figures, no, not even in the + remotest corner, on my ceiling. And yet the divine artist, by some strange + skill that my ignorance of his technique saves me from the presumption of + explaining, does indicate exactly where Belloc is. A little quiver of the + paint, a faint aura, about the spectacular masses of Chesterton? I am not + certain. But no intelligent beholder can look up and miss the remarkable + fact that Belloc exists—and that he is away, safely away, away in + his heaven, which is, of course, the Park Lane Imperialist's hell. There + he presides.... + </p> + <p> + But in this life I do not meet Chesterton exalted upon clouds, and there + is but the mockery of that endless leisure for abstract discussion + afforded by my painted entertainments. I live in an urgent and incessant + world, which is at its best a wildly beautiful confusion of impressions + and at its worst a dingy uproar. It crowds upon us and jostles us, we get + our little interludes for thinking and talking between much rough + scuffling and laying about us with our fists. And I cannot afford to be + continually bickering with Chesterton and Belloc about forms of + expression. There are others for whom I want to save my knuckles. One may + be wasteful in peace and leisure, but economies are the soul of conflict. + </p> + <p> + In many ways we three are closely akin; we diverge not by necessity but + accident, because we speak in different dialects and have divergent + metaphysics. All that I can I shall persuade to my way of thinking about + thought and to the use of words in my loose, expressive manner, but Belloc + and Chesterton and I are too grown and set to change our languages now and + learn new ones; we are on different roads, and so we must needs shout to + one another across intervening abysses. These two say Socialism is a thing + they do not want for men, and I say Socialism is above all what I want for + men. We shall go on saying that now to the end of our days. But what we do + all three want is something very alike. Our different roads are parallel. + I aim at a growing collective life, a perpetually enhanced inheritance for + our race, through the fullest, freest development of the individual life. + What they aim at ultimately I do not understand, but it is manifest that + its immediate form is the fullest and freest development of the individual + life. We all three hate equally and sympathetically the spectacle of human + beings blown up with windy wealth and irresponsible power as cruelly and + absurdly as boys blow up frogs; we all three detest the complex causes + that dwarf and cripple lives from the moment of birth and starve and + debase great masses of mankind. We want as universally as possible the + jolly life, men and women warm-blooded and well-aired, acting freely and + joyously, gathering life as children gather corn-cockles in corn. We all + three want people to have property of a real and personal sort, to have + the son, as Chesterton put it, bringing up the port his father laid down, + and pride in the pears one has grown in one's own garden. And I agree with + Chesterton that giving—giving oneself out of love and fellowship—is + the salt of life. + </p> + <p> + But there I diverge from him, less in spirit, I think, than in the manner + of his expression. There is a base because impersonal way of giving. + "Standing drink," which he praises as noble, is just the thing I cannot + stand, the ultimate mockery and vulgarisation of that fine act of bringing + out the cherished thing saved for the heaven-sent guest. It is a mere + commercial transaction, essentially of the evil of our time. Think of it! + Two temporarily homeless beings agree to drink together, and they turn in + and face the public supply of drink (a little vitiated by private + commercial necessities) in the public-house. (It is horrible that life + should be so wholesale and heartless.) And Jones, with a sudden effusion + of manner, thrusts twopence or ninepence (got God knows how) into the + economic mysteries and personal delicacy of Brown. I'd as soon a man + slipped sixpence down my neck. If Jones has used love and sympathy to + detect a certain real thirst and need in Brown and knowledge and power in + its assuaging by some specially appropriate fluid, then we have an + altogether different matter; but the common business of "standing treat" + and giving presents and entertainments is as proud and unspiritual as + cock-crowing, as foolish and inhuman as that sorry compendium of + mercantile vices, the game of poker, and I am amazed to find Chesterton + commend it. + </p> + <p> + But that is a criticism by the way. Chesterton and Belloc agree with the + Socialist that the present world does not give at all what they want. They + agree that it fails to do so through a wild derangement of our property + relations. They are in agreement with the common contemporary man (whose + creed is stated, I think, not unfairly, but with the omission of certain + important articles by Chesterton), that the derangements of our property + relations are to be remedied by concerted action and in part by altered + laws. The land and all sorts of great common interests must be, if not + owned, then at least controlled, managed, checked, redistributed by the + State. Our real difference is only about a little more or a little less + owning. I do not see how Belloc and Chesterton can stand for anything but + a strong State as against those wild monsters of property, the strong, big + private owners. The State must be complex and powerful enough to prevent + them. State or plutocrat there is really no other practical alternative + before the world at the present time. Either we have to let the big + financial adventurers, the aggregating capitalist and his Press, in a + loose, informal combination, rule the earth, either we have got to stand + aside from preventive legislation and leave things to work out on their + present lines, or we have to construct a collective organisation + sufficiently strong for the protection of the liberties of the + some-day-to-be-jolly common man. So far we go in common. If Belloc and + Chesterton are not Socialists, they are at any rate not anti-Socialists. + If they say they want an organised Christian State (which involves + practically seven-tenths of the Socialist desire), then, in the face of + our big common enemies, of adventurous capital, of alien Imperialism, base + ambition, base intelligence, and common prejudice and ignorance, I do not + mean to quarrel with them politically, so long as they force no quarrel on + me. Their organised Christian State is nearer the organised State I want + than our present plutocracy. Our ideals will fight some day, and it will + be, I know, a first-rate fight, but to fight now is to let the enemy in. + When we have got all we want in common, then and only then can we afford + to differ. I have never believed that a Socialist Party could hope to form + a Government in this country in my lifetime; I believe it less now than + ever I did. I don't know if any of my Fabian colleagues entertain so + remarkable a hope. But if they do not, then unless their political aim is + pure cantankerousness, they must contemplate a working political + combination between the Socialist members in Parliament and just that + non-capitalist section of the Liberal Party for which Chesterton and + Belloc speak. Perpetual opposition is a dishonourable aim in politics; and + a man who mingles in political development with no intention of taking on + responsible tasks unless he gets all his particular formulae accepted is a + pervert, a victim of Irish bad example, and unfit far decent democratic + institutions ... + </p> + <p> + I digress again, I see, but my drift I hope is clear. Differ as we may, + Belloc and Chesterton are with all Socialists in being on the same side of + the great political and social cleavage that opens at the present time. We + and they are with the interests of the mass of common men as against that + growing organisation of great owners who have common interests directly + antagonistic to those of the community and State. We Socialists are only + secondarily politicians. Our primary business is not to impose upon, but + to ram right into the substance of that object of Chesterton's solicitude, + the circle of ideas of the common man, the idea of the State as his own, + as a thing he serves and is served by. We want to add to his sense of + property rather than offend it. If I had my way I would do that at the + street corners and on the trams, I would take down that alien-looking and + detestable inscription "L.C.C.," and put up, "This Tram, this Street, + belongs to the People of London." Would Chesterton or Belloc quarrel with + that? Suppose that Chesterton is right, and that there are incurable + things in the mind of the common man flatly hostile to our ideals; so much + of our ideals will fail. But we are doing our best by our lights, and all + we can. What are Chesterton and Belloc doing? If our ideal is partly right + and partly wrong, are they trying to build up a better ideal? Will they + state a Utopia and how they propose it shall be managed? If they lend + their weight only to such fine old propositions as that a man wants + freedom, that he has a right to do as he likes with his own, and so on, + they won't help the common man much. All that fine talk, without some + further exposition, goes to sustain Mr. Rockefeller's simple human love of + property, and the woman and child sweating manufacturer in his fight for + the inspector-free home industry. I bought on a bookstall the other day a + pamphlet full of misrepresentation and bad argument against Socialism by + an Australian Jew, published by the Single-Tax people apparently in a + disinterested attempt to free the land from the landowner by the simple + expedient of abusing anyone else who wanted to do as much but did not hold + Henry George to be God and Lord; and I know Socialists who will protest + with tears in their eyes against association with any human being who + sings any song but the "Red Flag" and doubts whether Marx had much + experience of affairs. Well, there is no reason why Chesterton and Belloc + should at their level do the same sort of thing. When we talk on a ceiling + or at a dinner-party with any touch of the celestial in its composition, + Chesterton and I, Belloc and I, are antagonists with an undying feud, but + in the fight against human selfishness and narrowness and for a finer, + juster law, we are brothers—at the remotest, half-brothers. + </p> + <p> + Chesterton isn't a Socialist—agreed! But now, as between us and the + Master of Elibank or Sir Hugh Bell or any other Free Trade Liberal + capitalist or landlord, which side is he on? You cannot have more than one + fight going on in the political arena at the same time, because only one + party or group of parties can win. + </p> + <p> + And going back for a moment to that point about a Utopia, I want one from + Chesterton. Purely unhelpful criticism isn't enough from a man of his + size. It isn't justifiable for him to go about sitting on other people's + Utopias. I appeal to his sense of fair play. I have done my best to + reconcile the conception of a free and generous style of personal living + with a social organisation that will save the world from the harsh + predominance of dull, persistent, energetic, unscrupulous grabbers + tempered only by the vulgar extravagance of their wives and sons. It isn't + an adequate reply to say that nobody stood treat there, and that the + simple, generous people like to beat their own wives and children on + occasion in a loving and intimate manner, and that they won't endure the + spirit of Mr. Sidney Webb. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ABOUT SIR THOMAS MORE + </h2> + <p> + There are some writers who are chiefly interesting in themselves, and some + whom chance and the agreement of men have picked out as symbols and + convenient indications of some particular group or temperament of + opinions. To the latter it is that Sir Thomas More belongs. An age and a + type of mind have found in him and his Utopia a figurehead and a token; + and pleasant and honourable as his personality and household present + themselves to the modern reader, it is doubtful if they would by this time + have retained any peculiar distinction among the many other contemporaries + of whom we have chance glimpses in letters and suchlike documents, were it + not that he happened to be the first man of affairs in England to imitate + the "Republic" of Plato. By that chance it fell to him to give the world a + noun and an adjective of abuse, "Utopian," and to record how under the + stimulus of Plato's releasing influence the opening problems of our modern + world presented themselves to the English mind of his time. For the most + part the problems that exercised him are the problems that exercise us + to-day, some of them, it may be, have grown up and intermarried, new ones + have joined their company, but few, if any, have disappeared, and it is + alike in his resemblances to and differences from the modern speculative + mind that his essential interest lies. + </p> + <p> + The portrait presented by contemporary mention and his own intentional and + unintentional admissions, is of an active-minded and agreeable-mannered + man, a hard worker, very markedly prone to quips and whimsical sayings and + plays upon words, and aware of a double reputation as a man of erudition + and a wit. This latter quality it was that won him advancement at court, + and it may have been his too clearly confessed reluctance to play the part + of an informal table jester to his king that laid the grounds of that + deepening royal resentment that ended only with his execution. But he was + also valued by the king for more solid merits, he was needed by the king, + and it was more than a table scorned or a clash of opinion upon the + validity of divorce; it was a more general estrangement and avoidance of + service that caused that fit of regal petulance by which he died. + </p> + <p> + It would seem that he began and ended his career in the orthodox religion + and a general acquiescence in the ideas and customs of his time, and he + played an honourable and acceptable part in that time; but his permanent + interest lies not in his general conformity but in his incidental + scepticism, in the fact that underlying the observances and recognised + rules and limitations that give the texture of his life were the + profoundest doubts, and that, stirred and disturbed by Plato, he saw fit + to write them down. One may question if such scepticism is in itself + unusual, whether any large proportion of great statesmen, great + ecclesiastics and administrators have escaped phases of destructive + self-criticism of destructive criticism of the principles upon which their + general careers were framed. But few have made so public an admission as + Sir Thomas More. A good Catholic undoubtedly he was, and yet we find him + capable of conceiving a non-Christian community excelling all Christendom + in wisdom and virtue; in practice his sense of conformity and orthodoxy + was manifest enough, but in his "Utopia" he ventures to contemplate, and + that not merely wistfully, but with some confidence, the possibility of an + absolute religious toleration. + </p> + <p> + The "Utopia" is none the less interesting because it is one of the most + inconsistent of books. Never were the forms of Socialism and Communism + animated by so entirely an Individualist soul. The hands are the hands of + Plato, the wide-thinking Greek, but the voice is the voice of a humane, + public-spirited, but limited and very practical English gentleman who + takes the inferiority of his inferiors for granted, dislikes friars and + tramps and loafers and all undisciplined and unproductive people, and is + ruler in his own household. He abounds in sound practical ideas, for the + migration of harvesters, for the universality of gardens and the + artificial incubation of eggs, and he sweeps aside all Plato's suggestion + of the citizen woman as though it had never entered his mind. He had + indeed the Whig temperament, and it manifested itself down even to the + practice of reading aloud in company, which still prevails among the more + representative survivors of the Whig tradition. He argues ably against + private property, but no thought of any such radicalism as the admission + of those poor peons of his, with head half-shaved and glaring uniform + against escape, to participation in ownership appears in his proposals. + His communism is all for the convenience of his Syphogrants and + Tranibores, those gentlemen of gravity and experience, lest one should + swell up above the others. So too is the essential Whiggery of the + limitation of the Prince's revenues. It is the very spirit of eighteenth + century Constitutionalism. And his Whiggery bears Utilitarianism instead + of the vanity of a flower. Among his cities, all of a size, so that "he + that knoweth one knoweth all," the Benthamite would have revised his + sceptical theology and admitted the possibility of heaven. + </p> + <p> + Like any Whig, More exalted reason above the imagination at every point, + and so he fails to understand the magic prestige of gold, making that + beautiful metal into vessels of dishonour to urge his case against it, nor + had he any perception of the charm of extravagance, for example, or the + desirability of various clothing. The Utopians went all in coarse linen + and undyed wool—why should the world be coloured?—and all the + economy of labour and shortening of the working day was to no other end + than to prolong the years of study and the joys of reading aloud, the + simple satisfactions of the good boy at his lessons, to the very end of + life. "In the institution of that weal publique this end is only and + chiefly pretended and minded, that what time may possibly be spared from + the necessary occupations and affairs of the commonwealth, all that the + citizens should withdraw from the bodily service to the free liberty of + the mind and garnishing of the same. For herein they suppose the felicity + of this life to consist." + </p> + <p> + Indeed, it is no paradox to say that "Utopia," which has by a conspiracy + of accidents become a proverb for undisciplined fancifulness in social and + political matters, is in reality a very unimaginative work. In that, next + to the accident of its priority, lies the secret of its continuing + interest. In some respects it is like one of those precious and delightful + scrapbooks people disinter in old country houses; its very poverty of + synthetic power leaves its ingredients, the cuttings from and imitations + of Plato, the recipe for the hatching of eggs, the stern resolutions + against scoundrels and rough fellows, all the sharper and brighter. There + will always be found people to read in it, over and above the countless + multitudes who will continue ignorantly to use its name for everything + most alien to More's essential quality. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TRAFFIC AND REBUILDING + </h2> + <p> + The London traffic problem is just one of those questions that appeal very + strongly to the more prevalent and less charitable types of English mind. + It has a practical and constructive air, it deals with impressively + enormous amounts of tangible property, it rests with a comforting effect + of solidity upon assumptions that are at once doubtful and desirable. It + seems free from metaphysical considerations, and it has none of those + disconcerting personal applications, those penetrations towards intimate + qualities, that makes eugenics, for example, faintly but persistently + uncomfortable. It is indeed an ideal problem for a healthy, hopeful, and + progressive middle-aged public man. And, as I say, it deals with enormous + amounts of tangible property. + </p> + <p> + Like all really serious and respectable British problems it has to be + handled gently to prevent its coming to pieces in the gift. It is safest + in charge of the expert, that wonderful last gift of time. He will talk + rapidly about congestion, long-felt wants, low efficiency, economy, and + get you into his building and rebuilding schemes with the minimum of doubt + and head-swimming. He is like a good Hendon pilot. Unspecialised writers + have the destructive analytical touch. They pull the wrong levers. So far + as one can gather from the specialists on the question, there is very + considerable congestion in many of the London thoroughfares, delays that + seem to be avoidable occur in the delivery of goods, multitudes of empty + vans cumber the streets, we have hundreds of acres of idle trucks—there + are more acres of railway sidings than of public parks in Greater London—and + our Overseas cousins find it ticklish work crossing Regent Street and + Piccadilly. Regarding life simply as an affair of getting people and + things from where they are to where they appear to be wanted, this seems + all very muddled and wanton. So far it is quite easy to agree with the + expert. And some of the various and entirely incompatible schemes experts + are giving us by way of a remedy, appeal very strongly to the imagination. + For example, there is the railway clearing house, which, it is suggested, + should cover I do not know how many acres of what is now slumland in + Shoreditch. The position is particularly convenient for an underground + connection with every main line into London. Upon the underground level of + this great building every goods train into London will run. Its trucks and + vans will be unloaded, the goods passed into lifts, which will take every + parcel, large and small, at once to a huge, ingeniously contrived + sorting-floor above. There in a manner at once simple, ingenious and + effective, they will be sorted and returned, either into delivery vans at + the street level or to the trains emptied and now reloading on the train + level. Above and below these three floors will be extensive warehouse + accommodation. Such a scheme would not only release almost all the vast + area of London now under railway yards for parks and housing, but it would + give nearly every delivery van an effective load, and probably reduce the + number of standing and empty vans or half-empty vans on the streets of + London to a quarter or an eighth of the present number. Mostly these are + heavy horse vans, and their disappearance would greatly facilitate the + conversion of the road surfaces to the hard and even texture needed for + horseless traffic. + </p> + <p> + But that is a scheme too comprehensive and rational for the ordinary + student of the London traffic problem, whose mind runs for the most part + on costly and devastating rearrangements of the existing roadways. + Moreover, it would probably secure a maximum of effect with a minimum of + property manipulation; always an undesirable consideration in practical + politics. And it would commit London and England to goods transit by + railway for another century. Far more attractive to the expert advisers of + our various municipal authorities are such projects as a new Thames bridge + scheme, which will (with incalculable results) inject a new stream of + traffic into Saint Paul's Churchyard; and the removal of Charing Cross + Station to the south side of the river. Then, again, we have the + systematic widening of various thoroughfares, the shunting of tramways + into traffic streams, and many amusing, expensive, and interesting + tunnellings and clearances. Taken together, these huge reconstructions of + London are incoherent and conflicting; each is based on its own + assumptions and separate "expert" advice, and the resulting new opening + plays its part in the general circulation as duct or aspirator, often with + the most surprising results. The discussion of the London traffic problem + as we practise it in our clubs is essentially the sage turning over and + over again of such fragmentary schemes, headshakings over the vacant sites + about Aldwych and the Strand, brilliant petty suggestions and—dispersal. + Meanwhile the experts intrigue; one partial plan after another gets itself + accepted, this and that ancient landmark perish, builders grow rich, and + architects infamous, and some Tower Bridge horror, some vulgarity of the + Automobile Club type, some Buckingham Palace atrocity, some Regent Street + stupidity, some such cramped and thwarted thing as that new arch which + gives upon Charing Cross is added to the confusion. I do not see any + reason to suppose that this continuous muddle of partial destruction and + partial rebuilding is not to constitute the future history of London. + </p> + <p> + Let us, however, drop the expert methods and handle this question rather + more rudely. Do we want London rebuilt? If we do, is there, after all, any + reason why we should rebuild it on its present site? London is where it is + for reasons that have long ceased to be valid; it grew there, it has + accumulated associations, an immense tradition, that this constant mucking + about of builders and architects is destroying almost as effectually as + removal to a new site. The old sort of rebuilding was a natural and + picturesque process, house by house, and street by street, a thing as + pleasing and almost as natural in effect as the spreading and interlacing + of trees; as this new building, this clearance of areas, the piercing of + avenues, becomes more comprehensive, it becomes less reasonable. If we can + do such big things we may surely attempt bigger things, so that whether we + want to plan a new capital or preserve the old, it comes at last to the + same thing, that it is unreasonable to be constantly pulling down the + London we have and putting it up again. Let us drain away our heavy + traffic into tunnels, set up that clearing-house plan, and control the + growth at the periphery, which is still so witless and ugly, and, save for + the manifest tidying and preserving that is needed, begin to leave the + central parts of London, which are extremely interesting even where they + are not quite beautiful, in peace. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE SO-CALLED SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY + </h2> + <p> + It has long been generally recognised that there are two quite divergent + ways of attacking sociological and economic questions, one that is called + scientific and one that is not, and I claim no particular virtue in the + recognition of that; but I do claim a certain freshness in my analysis of + this difference, and it is to that analysis that your attention is now + called. When I claim freshness I do not make, you understand, any claim to + original discovery. What I have to say, and have been saying for some + time, is also more or less, and with certain differences to be found in + the thought of Professor Bosanquet, for example, in Alfred Sidgwick's "Use + of Words in Reasoning," in Sigwart's "Logic," in contemporary American + metaphysical speculation. I am only one incidental voice speaking in a + general movement of thought. My trend of thought leads me to deny that + sociology is a science, or only a science in the same loose sense that + modern history is a science, and to throw doubt upon the value of + sociology that follows too closely what is called the scientific method. + </p> + <p> + The drift of my argument is to dispute not only that sociology is a + science, but also to deny that Herbert Spencer and Comte are to be exalted + as the founders of a new and fruitful system of human inquiry. I find + myself forced to depreciate these modern idols, and to reinstate the Greek + social philosophers in their vacant niches, to ask you rather to go to + Plato for the proper method, the proper way of thinking sociologically. + </p> + <p> + We certainly owe the word Sociology to Comte, a man of exceptionally + methodical quality. I hold he developed the word logically from an + arbitrary assumption that the whole universe of being was reducible to + measurable and commeasurable and exact and consistent expressions. + </p> + <p> + In a very obvious way, sociology seemed to Comte to crown the edifice of + the sciences; it was to be to the statesman what pathology and physiology + were to the doctor; and one gathers that, for the most part, he regarded + it as an intellectual procedure in no way differing from physics. His + classification of the sciences shows pretty clearly that he thought of + them all as exact logical systematisations of fact arising out of each + other in a synthetic order, each lower one containing the elements of a + lucid explanation of those above it—physics explaining chemistry; + chemistry, physiology; physiology, sociology; and so forth. His actual + method was altogether unscientific; but through all his work runs the + assumption that in contrast with his predecessors he is really being as + exact and universally valid as mathematics. To Herbert Spencer—very + appropriately since his mental characteristics make him the English + parallel to Comte—we owe the naturalisation of the word in English. + His mind being of greater calibre than Comte's, the subject acquired in + his hands a far more progressive character. Herbert Spencer was less + unfamiliar with natural history than with any other branch of practical + scientific work; and it was natural he should turn to it for precedents in + sociological research. His mind was invaded by the idea of classification, + by memories of specimens and museums; and he initiated that accumulation + of desiccated anthropological anecdotes that still figures importantly in + current sociological work. On the lines he initiated sociological + investigation, what there is of it, still tends to go. + </p> + <p> + From these two sources mainly the work of contemporary sociologists + derives. But there persists about it a curious discursiveness that + reflects upon the power and value of the initial impetus. Mr. V.V. + Branford, the able secretary of the Sociological Society, recently + attempted a useful work in a classification of the methods of what he + calls "approach," a word that seems to me eminently judicious and + expressive. A review of the first volume the Sociological Society has + produced brings home the aptness of this image of exploratory operations, + of experiments in "taking a line." The names of Dr. Beattie Crozier and + Mr. Benjamin Kidd recall works that impress one as large-scale sketches of + a proposed science rather than concrete beginnings and achievements. The + search for an arrangement, a "method," continues as though they were not. + The desperate resort to the analogical method of Commenius is confessed by + Dr. Steinmetz, who talks of social morphology, physiology, pathology, and + so forth. There is also a less initiative disposition in the Vicomte + Combes de Lestrade and in the work of Professor Giddings. In other + directions sociological work is apt to lose its general reference + altogether, to lapse towards some department of activity not primarily + sociological at all. Examples of this are the works of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney + Webb, M. Ostrogorski and M. Gustave le Bon. From a contemplation of all + this diversity Professor Durkheim emerges, demanding a "synthetic + science," "certain synthetic conceptions"—and Professor Karl Pearson + endorses the demand—to fuse all these various activities into + something that will live and grow. What is it that tangles this question + so curiously that there is not only a failure to arrive at a conclusion, + but a failure to join issue? + </p> + <p> + Well, there is a certain not too clearly recognised order in the sciences + to which I wish to call your attention, and which forms the gist of my + case against this scientific pretension. There is a gradation in the + importance of the instance as one passes from mechanics and physics and + chemistry through the biological sciences to economics and sociology, a + gradation whose correlatives and implications have not yet received + adequate recognition, and which do profoundly affect the method of study + and research in each science. + </p> + <p> + Let me begin by pointing out that, in the more modern conceptions of + logic, it is recognised that there are no identically similar objective + experiences; the disposition is to conceive all real objective being as + individual and unique. This is not a singular eccentric idea of mine; it + is one for which ample support is to be found in the writings of + absolutely respectable contemporaries, who are quite untainted by + association with fiction. It is now understood that conceivably only in + the subjective world, and in theory and the imagination, do we deal with + identically similar units, and with absolutely commensurable quantities. + In the real world it is reasonable to suppose we deal at most with <i>practically</i> + similar units and <i>practically</i> commensurable quantities. But there + is a strong bias, a sort of labour-saving bias in the normal human mind to + ignore this, and not only to speak but to think of a thousand bricks or a + thousand sheep or a thousand sociologists as though they were all + absolutely true to sample. If it is brought before a thinker for a moment + that in any special case this is not so, he slips back to the old attitude + as soon as his attention is withdrawn. This source of error has, for + instance, caught nearly the whole race of chemists, with one or two + distinguished exceptions, and <i>atoms</i> and <i>ions</i> and so forth of + the same species are tacitly assumed to be similar one to another. Be it + noted that, so far as the practical results of chemistry and physics go, + it scarcely matters which assumption we adopt. For purposes of inquiry and + discussion the incorrect one is infinitely more convenient. + </p> + <p> + But this ceases to be true directly we emerge from the region of chemistry + and physics. In the biological sciences of the eighteenth century, + commonsense struggled hard to ignore individuality in shells and plants + and animals. There was an attempt to eliminate the more conspicuous + departures as abnormalities, as sports, nature's weak moments, and it was + only with the establishment of Darwin's great generalisation that the hard + and fast classificatory system broke down, and individuality came to its + own. Yet there had always been a clearly felt difference between the + conclusions of the biological sciences and those dealing with lifeless + substance, in the relative vagueness, the insubordinate looseness and + inaccuracy of the former. The naturalist accumulated facts and multiplied + names, but he did not go triumphantly from generalisation to + generalisation after the fashion of the chemist or physicist. It is easy + to see, therefore, how it came about that the inorganic sciences were + regarded as the true scientific bed-rock. It was scarcely suspected that + the biological sciences might perhaps, after all, be <i>truer</i> than the + experimental, in spite of the difference in practical value in favour of + the latter. It was, and is by the great majority of people to this day, + supposed to be the latter that are invincibly true; and the former are + regarded as a more complex set of problems merely, with obliquities and + refractions that presently will be explained away. Comte and Herbert + Spencer certainly seem to me to have taken that much for granted. Herbert + Spencer no doubt talked of the unknown and the unknowable, but not in this + sense, as an element of inexactness running through all things. He thought + of the unknown as the indefinable beyond to an immediate world that might + be quite clearly and exactly known. + </p> + <p> + Well, there is a growing body of people who are beginning to hold the + converse view—that counting, classification, measurement, the whole + fabric of mathematics, is subjective and deceitful, and that the + uniqueness of individuals is the objective truth. As the number of units + taken diminishes, the amount of variety and inexactness of generalisation + increases, because individuality tells more and more. Could you take men + by the thousand billion, you could generalise about them as you do about + atoms; could you take atoms singly, it may be you would find them as + individual as your aunts and cousins. That concisely is the minority + belief, and it is the belief on which this present paper is based. + </p> + <p> + Now, what is called the scientific method is the method of ignoring + individualities; and, like many mathematical conventions, its great + practical convenience is no proof whatever of its final truth. Let me + admit the enormous value, the wonder of its results in mechanics, in all + the physical sciences, in chemistry, even in physiology—but what is + its value beyond that? Is the scientific method of value in biology? The + great advances made by Darwin and his school in biology were not made, it + must be remembered, by the scientific method, as it is generally + conceived, at all. He conducted a research into pre-documentary history. + He collected information along the lines indicated by certain + interrogations; and the bulk of his work was the digesting and critical + analysis of that. For documents and monuments he had fossils and + anatomical structures and germinating eggs too innocent to lie, and so far + he was nearer simplicity. But, on the other hand, he had to correspond + with breeders and travellers of various sorts, classes entirely analogous, + from the point of view of evidence, to the writers of history and memoirs. + I question profoundly whether the word "science," in current usage anyhow, + ever means such patient disentanglement as Darwin pursued. It means the + attainment of something positive and emphatic in the way of a conclusion, + based on amply repeated experiments capable of infinite repetition, + "proved," as they say, "up to the hilt." + </p> + <p> + It would be, of course, possible to dispute whether the word "science" + should convey this quality of certitude; but to most people it certainly + does at the present time. So far as the movements of comets and electric + trams go, there is, no doubt, practically cocksure science; and + indisputably Comte and Herbert Spencer believed that cocksure could be + extended to every conceivable finite thing. The fact that Herbert Spencer + called a certain doctrine Individualism reflects nothing on the + non-individualising quality of his primary assumptions and of his mental + texture. He believed that individuality (heterogeneity) was and is an + evolutionary product from an original homogeneity. It seems to me that the + general usage is entirely for the limitation of the use of the word + "science" to knowledge and the search after knowledge of a high degree of + precision. And not simply the general usage: "Science is measurement," + Science is "organised common sense," proud, in fact, of its essential + error, scornful of any metaphysical analysis of its terms. + </p> + <p> + If we quite boldly face the fact that hard positive methods are less and + less successful just in proportion as our "ologies" deal with larger and + less numerous individuals; if we admit that we become less "scientific" as + we ascend the scale of the sciences, and that we do and must change our + method, then, it is humbly submitted we shall be in a much better position + to consider the question of "approaching" sociology. We shall realise that + all this talk of the organisation of sociology, as though presently the + sociologist would be going about the world with the authority of a + sanitary engineer, is and will remain nonsense. + </p> + <p> + In one respect we shall still be in accordance with the Positivist map of + the field of human knowledge; with us as with that, sociology stands at + the extreme end of the scale from the molecular sciences. In these latter + there is an infinitude of units; in sociology, as Comte perceived, there + is only one unit. It is true that Herbert Spencer, in order to get + classification somehow, did, as Professor Durkheim has pointed out, + separate human society into societies, and made believe they competed one + with another and died and reproduced just like animals, and that + economists, following List, have for the purposes of fiscal controversy + discovered economic types; but this is a transparent device, and one is + surprised to find thoughtful and reputable writers off their guard against + such bad analogy. But, indeed, it is impossible to isolate complete + communities of men, or to trace any but rude general resemblances between + group and group. These alleged units have as much individuality as pieces + of cloud; they come, they go, they fuse and separate. And we are forced to + conclude that not only is the method of observation, experiment, and + verification left far away down the scale, but that the method of + classification under types, which has served so useful a purpose in the + middle group of subjects, the subjects involving numerous but a finite + number of units, has also to be abandoned here. We cannot put Humanity + into a museum, or dry it for examination; our one single still living + specimen is all history, all anthropology, and the fluctuating world of + men. There is no satisfactory means of dividing it, and nothing else in + the real world with which to compare it. We have only the remotest ideas + of its "life-cycle" and a few relics of its origin and dreams of its + destiny ... + </p> + <p> + Sociology, it is evident, is, upon any hypothesis, no less than the + attempt to bring that vast, complex, unique Being, its subject, into + clear, true relations with the individual intelligence. Now, since + individual intelligences are individual, and each is a little differently + placed in regard to the subject under consideration, since the personal + angle of vision is much wider towards humanity than towards the + circumambient horizon of matter, it should be manifest that no sociology + of universal compulsion, of anything approaching the general validity of + the physical sciences, is ever to be hoped for—at least upon the + metaphysical assumptions of this paper. With that conceded, we may go on + to consider the more hopeful ways in which that great Being may be + presented in a comprehensible manner. Essentially this presentation must + involve an element of self-expression must partake quite as much of the + nature of art as of science. One finds in the first conference of the + Sociological Society, Professor Stein, speaking, indeed a very different + philosophical dialect from mine, but coming to the same practical + conclusion in the matter, and Mr. Osman Newland counting "evolving ideals + for the future" as part of the sociologist's work. Mr. Alfred Fouillie + also moves very interestingly in the region of this same idea; he concedes + an essential difference between sociology and all other sciences in the + fact of a "certain kind of liberty belonging to society in the exercise of + its higher functions." He says further: "If this view be correct, it will + not do for us to follow in the steps of Comte and Spencer, and transfer, + bodily and ready-made, the conceptions and the methods of the natural + sciences into the science of society. For here the fact of <i>consciousness</i> + entails a reaction of the whole assemblage of social phenomena upon + themselves, such as the natural sciences have no example of." And he + concludes: "Sociology ought, therefore, to guard carefully against the + tendency to crystallise that which is essentially fluid and moving, the + tendency to consider as given fact or dead data that which creates itself + and gives itself into the world of phenomena continually by force of its + own ideal conception." These opinions do, in their various keys, sound a + similar <i>motif</i> to mine. If, indeed, the tendency of these remarks is + justifiable, then unavoidably the subjective element, which is beauty, + must coalesce with the objective, which is truth; and sociology mast be + neither art simply, nor science in the narrow meaning of the word at all, + but knowledge rendered imaginatively, and with an element of personality + that is to say, in the highest sense of the term, literature. + </p> + <p> + If this contention is sound, if therefore we boldly set aside Comte and + Spencer altogether, as pseudo-scientific interlopers rather than the + authoritative parents of sociology, we shall have to substitute for the + classifications of the social sciences an inquiry into the chief literary + forms that subserve sociological purposes. Of these there are two, one + invariably recognised as valuable and one which, I think, under the + matter-of-fact scientific obsession, is altogether underrated and + neglected The first, which is the social side of history, makes up the + bulk of valid sociological work at the present time. Of history there is + the purely descriptive part, the detailed account of past or contemporary + social conditions, or of the sequence of such conditions; and, in + addition, there is the sort of historical literature that seeks to + elucidate and impose general interpretations upon the complex of + occurrences and institutions, to establish broad historical + generalisations, to eliminate the mass of irrelevant incident, to present + some great period of history, or all history, in the light of one dramatic + sequence, or as one process. This Dr. Beattie Crozier, for example, + attempts in his "History of Intellectual Development." Equally + comprehensive is Buckle's "History of Civilisation." Lecky's "History of + European Morals," during the onset of Christianity again, is essentially + sociology. Numerous works—Atkinson's "Primal Law," and Andrew Lang's + "Social Origins," for example—may be considered, as it were, to be + fragments to the same purport. In the great design of Gibbon's "Decline + and Fall of the Roman Empire," or Carlyle's "French Revolution," you have + a greater insistence upon the dramatic and picturesque elements in + history, but in other respects an altogether kindred endeavour to impose + upon the vast confusions of the past a scheme of interpretation, valuable + just to the extent of its literary value, of the success with which the + discrepant masses have been fused and cast into the shape the insight of + the writer has determined. The writing of great history is entirely + analogous to fine portraiture, in which fact is indeed material, but + material entirely subordinate to vision. + </p> + <p> + One main branch of the work of a Sociological Society therefore should + surely be to accept and render acceptable, to provide understanding, + criticism, and stimulus for such literary activities as restore the dead + bones of the past to a living participation in our lives. + </p> + <p> + But it is in the second and at present neglected direction that I believe + the predominant attack upon the problem implied by the word "sociology" + must lie; the attack that must be finally driven home. There is no such + thing in sociology as dispassionately considering what <i>is</i>, without + considering what is <i>intended to be</i>. In sociology, beyond any + possibility of evasion, ideas are facts. The history of civilisation is + really the history of the appearance and reappearance, the tentatives and + hesitations and alterations, the manifestations and reflections in this + mind and that, of a very complex, imperfect elusive idea, the Social Idea. + It is that idea struggling to exist and realise itself in a world of + egotisms, animalisms, and brute matter. Now, I submit it is not only a + legitimate form of approach, but altogether the most promising and hopeful + form of approach, to endeavour to disentangle and express one's personal + version of that idea, and to measure realities from the stand-point of + that idealisation. I think, in fact, that the creation of Utopias—and + their exhaustive criticism—is the proper and distinctive method of + sociology. + </p> + <p> + Suppose now the Sociological Society, or some considerable proportion of + it, were to adopt this view, that sociology is the description of the + Ideal Society and its relation to existing societies, would not this give + the synthetic framework Professor Durkheim, for example, has said to be + needed? + </p> + <p> + Almost all the sociological literature beyond the province of history that + has stood the test of time and established itself in the esteem of men is + frankly Utopian. Plato, when his mind turned to schemes of social + reconstruction thrust his habitual form of dialogue into a corner; both + the "Republic" and the "Laws" are practically Utopias in monologue; and + Aristotle found the criticism of the Utopian suggestions of his + predecessors richly profitable. Directly the mind of the world emerged + again at the Renascence from intellectual barbarism in the brief breathing + time before Sturm and the schoolmasters caught it and birched it into + scholarship and a new period of sterility, it went on from Plato to the + making of fresh Utopias. Not without profit did More discuss pauperism in + this form and Bacon the organisation of research; and the yeast of the + French Revolution was Utopias. Even Comte, all the while that he is + professing science, fact, precision, is adding detail after detail to the + intensely personal Utopia of a Western Republic that constitutes his one + meritorious gift to the world. Sociologists cannot help making Utopias; + though they avoid the word, though they deny the idea with passion, their + very silences shape a Utopia. Why should they not follow the precedent of + Aristotle, and accept Utopias as material? + </p> + <p> + There used to be in my student days, and probably still flourishes, a most + valuable summary of fact and theory in comparative anatomy, called + Rolleston's "Forms of Animal Life." I figure to myself a similar book, a + sort of dream book of huge dimensions, in reality perhaps dispersed in + many volumes by many hands, upon the Ideal Society. This book, this + picture of the perfect state, would be the backbone of sociology. It would + have great sections devoted to such questions as the extent of the Ideal + Society, its relation to racial differences, the relations of the sexes in + it, its economic organisations, its organisation for thought and + education, its "Bible"—as Dr. Beattie Crozier would say—its + housing and social atmosphere, and so forth. Almost all the divaricating + work at present roughly classed together as sociological could be brought + into relation in the simplest manner, either as new suggestions, as new + discussion or criticism, as newly ascertained facts bearing upon such + discussions and sustaining or eliminating suggestions. The institutions of + existing states would come into comparison with the institutions of the + Ideal State, their failures and defects would be criticised most + effectually in that relation, and the whole science of collective + psychology, the psychology of human association, would be brought to bear + upon the question of the practicability of this proposed ideal. + </p> + <p> + This method would give not only a boundary shape to all sociological + activities, but a scheme of arrangement for text books and lectures, and + points of direction and reference for the graduation and post graduate + work of sociological students. + </p> + <p> + Only one group of inquiries commonly classed as sociological would have to + be left out of direct relationship with this Ideal State; and that is + inquiries concerning the rough expedients to meet the failure of imperfect + institutions. Social emergency work of all sorts comes under this head. + What to do with the pariah dogs of Constantinople, what to do with the + tramps who sleep in the London parks, how to organise a soup kitchen or a + Bible coffee van, how to prevent ignorant people, who have nothing else to + do, getting drunk in beer-houses, are no doubt serious questions for the + practical administrator, questions of primary importance to the + politician; but they have no more to do with sociology than the erection + of a temporary hospital after the collision of two trains has to do with + railway engineering. + </p> + <p> + So much for my second and most central and essential portion of + sociological work. It should be evident that the former part, the + historical part, which conceivably will be much the bulkier and more + abundant of the two, will in effect amount to a history of the suggestions + in circumstance and experience of that Idea of Society of which the second + will consist, and of the instructive failures in attempting its incomplete + realisation. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + DIVORCE + </h2> + <p> + The time is fast approaching when it will be necessary for the general + citizen to form definite opinions upon proposals for probably quite + extensive alterations of our present divorce laws, arising out of the + recommendations of the recent Royal Commission on the subject. It may not + be out of place, therefore, to run through some of the chief points that + are likely to be raised, and to set out the main considerations affecting + these issues. + </p> + <p> + Divorce is not one of those things that stand alone, and neither divorce + law nor the general principles of divorce are to be discussed without a + reference to antecedent arrangements. Divorce is a sequel to marriage, and + a change in the divorce law is essentially a change in the marriage law. + There was a time in this country when our marriage was a practically + divorceless bond, soluble only under extraordinary circumstances by people + in situations of exceptional advantage for doing so. Now it is a bond + under conditions, and in the event of the adultery of the wife, or of the + adultery plus cruelty or plus desertion of the husband, and of one or two + other rarer and more dreadful offences, it can be broken at the instance + of the aggrieved party. A change in the divorce law is a change in the + dissolution clauses, so to speak, of the contract for the marriage + partnership. It is a change in the marriage law. + </p> + <p> + A great number of people object to divorce under any circumstances + whatever. This is the case with the orthodox Catholic and with the + orthodox Positivist. And many religious and orthodox people carry their + assertion of the indissolubility of marriage to the grave; they demand + that the widow or widower shall remain unmarried, faithful to the vows + made at the altar until death comes to the release of the lonely survivor + also. Re-marriage is regarded by such people as a posthumous bigamy. There + is certainly a very strong and logical case to be made out for a marriage + bond that is indissoluble even by death. It banishes step-parents from the + world. It confers a dignity of tragic inevitability upon the association + of husband and wife, and makes a love approach the gravest, most momentous + thing in life. It banishes for ever any dream of escape from the presence + and service of either party, or of any separation from the children of the + union. It affords no alternative to "making the best of it" for either + husband or wife; they have taken a step as irrevocable as suicide. And + some logical minds would even go further, and have no law as between the + members of a family, no rights, no private property within that limit. The + family would be the social unit and the father its public representative, + and though the law might intervene if he murdered or ill-used wife or + children, or they him, it would do so in just the same spirit that it + might prevent him from self-mutilation or attempted suicide, for the good + of the State simply, and not to defend any supposed independence of the + injured member. There is much, I assert, to be said for such a complete + shutting up of the family from the interference of the law, and not the + least among these reasons is the entire harmony of such a view with the + passionate instincts of the natural man and woman in these matters. All + unsophisticated human beings appear disposed to a fierce proprietorship in + their children and their sexual partners, and in no respect is the + ordinary mortal so easily induced to vehemence and violence. + </p> + <p> + For my own part, I do not think the maintenance of a marriage that is + indissoluble, that precludes the survivor from re-marriage, that gives + neither party an external refuge from the misbehaviour of the other, and + makes the children the absolute property of their parents until they grow + up, would cause any very general unhappiness Most people are reasonable + enough, good-tempered enough, and adaptable enough to shake down even in a + grip so rigid, and I would even go further and say that its very rigidity, + the entire absence of any way out at all, would oblige innumerable people + to accommodate themselves to its conditions and make a working success of + unions that, under laxer conditions, would be almost certainly dissolved. + We should have more people of what I may call the "broken-in" type than an + easier release would create, but to many thinkers the spectacle of a human + being thoroughly "broken-in" is in itself extremely satisfactory. A few + more crimes of desperation perhaps might occur, to balance against an + almost universal effort to achieve contentment and reconciliation. We + should hear more of the "natural law" permitting murder by the jealous + husband or by the jealous wife, and the traffic in poisons would need a + sedulous attention—but even there the impossibility of re-marriage + would operate to restrain the impatient. On the whole, I can imagine the + world rubbing along very well with marriage as unaccommodating as a + perfected steel trap. Exceptional people might suffer or sin wildly—to + the general amusement or indignation. + </p> + <p> + But when once we part from the idea of such a rigid and eternal marriage + bond—and the law of every civilised country and the general thought + and sentiment everywhere have long since done so—then the whole + question changes. If marriage is not so absolutely sacred a bond, if it is + not an eternal bond, but a bond we may break on this account or that, then + at once we put the question on a different footing. If we may terminate it + for adultery or cruelty, or any cause whatever, if we may suspend the + intimacy of husband and wife by separation orders and the like, if we + recognise their separate property and interfere between them and their + children to ensure the health and education of the latter, then we open at + once the whole question of a terminating agreement. Marriage ceases to be + an unlimited union and becomes a definite contract. We raise the whole + question of "What are the limits in marriage, and how and when may a + marriage terminate?" + </p> + <p> + Now, many answers are being given to that question at the present time. We + may take as the extremest opposite to the eternal marriage idea the + proposal of Mr. Bernard Shaw, that marriage should be terminable at the + instance of either party. You would give due and public notice that your + marriage was at an end, and it would be at an end. This is marriage at its + minimum, as the eternal indissoluble marriage is marriage at its maximum, + and the only conceivable next step would be to have a marriage makeable by + the oral declaration of both parties and terminable by the oral + declaration of either, which would be, indeed, no marriage at all, but an + encounter. You might marry a dozen times in that way in a day.... + Somewhere between these extremes lies the marriage law of a civilised + state. Let us, rather than working down from the eternal marriage of the + religious idealists, work up from Mr. Shaw. The former course is, perhaps, + inevitable for the legislator, but the latter is much more convenient for + our discussion. + </p> + <p> + Now, the idea of a divorce so easy and wilful as Mr. Shaw proposes arises + naturally out of an exclusive consideration of what I may call the amorous + sentimentalities of marriage. If you regard marriage as merely the union + of two people in love, then, clearly, it is intolerable, an outrage upon + human dignity, that they should remain intimately united when either + ceases to love. And in that world of Mr. Shaw's dreams, in which everybody + is to have an equal income and nobody is to have children, in that + culminating conversazione of humanity, his marriage law will, no doubt, + work with the most admirable results. But if we make a step towards + reality and consider a world in which incomes are unequal, and economic + difficulties abound—for the present we will ignore the complication + of offspring—we at once find it necessary to modify the first fine + simplicity of divorce at either partner's request. Marriage is almost + always a serious economic disturbance for both man and woman: work has to + be given up and rearranged, resources have to be pooled; only in the + rarest cases does it escape becoming an indefinite business partnership. + Accordingly, the withdrawal of one partner raises at once all sorts of + questions of financial adjustment, compensation for physical, mental, and + moral damage, division of furniture and effects and so forth. No doubt a + very large part of this could be met if there existed some sort of + marriage settlement providing for the dissolution of the partnership. + Otherwise the petitioner for a Shaw-esque divorce must be prepared for the + most exhaustive and penetrating examination before, say, a court of three + assessors—representing severally the husband, the wife, and justice—to + determine the distribution of the separation. This point, however, leads + me to note in passing the need that does exist even to-day for a more + precise business supplement to marriage as we know it in England and + America. I think there ought to be a very definite and elaborate treaty of + partnership drawn up by an impartial private tribunal for every couple + that marries, providing for most of the eventualities of life, taking + cognizance of the earning power, the property and prospects of either + party, insisting upon due insurances, ensuring private incomes for each + partner, securing the welfare of the children, and laying down equitable + conditions in the event of a divorce or separation. Such a treaty ought to + be a necessary prelude to the issue of a licence to marry. And given such + a basis to go upon, then I see no reason why, in the case of couples who + remain childless for five or six years, let us say, and seem likely to + remain childless, the Shaw-esque divorce at the instance of either party, + without reason assigned, should not be a very excellent thing indeed. + </p> + <p> + And I take up this position because I believe in the family as the + justification of marriage. Marriage to me is no mystical and eternal + union, but a practical affair, to be judged as all practical things are + judged—by its returns in happiness and human welfare. And directly + we pass from the mists and glamours of amorous passion to the warm + realities of the nursery, we pass into a new system of considerations + altogether. We are no longer considering A. in relation to Mrs. A., but A. + and Mrs. A. in relation to an indefinite number of little A.'s, who are + the very life of the State in which they live. Into the case of Mr. A. <i>v</i>. + Mrs. A. come Master A. and Miss A. intervening. They have the strongest + claim against both their parents for love, shelter and upbringing, and the + legislator and statesman, concerned as he is chiefly with the future of + the community, has the strongest reasons for seeing that they get these + things, even at the price of considerable vexation, boredom or indignity + to Mr. and Mrs. A. And here it is that there arises the rational case + against free and frequent divorce and the general unsettlement and + fluctuation of homes that would ensue. + </p> + <p> + At this point we come to the verge of a jungle of questions that would + demand a whole book for anything like a complete answer. Let us try as + swiftly and simply as possible to form a general idea at least of the way + through. Remember that we are working upward from Mr. Shaw's question of + "Why not separate at the choice of either party?" We have got thus far, + that no two people who do not love each other should be compelled to live + together, except where the welfare of their children comes in to override + their desire to separate, and now we have to consider what may or may not + be for the welfare of the children. Mr. Shaw, following the late Samuel + Butler, meets this difficulty by the most extravagant abuse of parents. He + would have us believe that the worst enemies a child can have are its + mother and father, and that the only civilised path to citizenship is by + the incubator, the crjche, and the mixed school and college. In these + matters he is not only ignorant, but unfeeling and unsympathetic, + extraordinarily so in view of his great capacity for pity and sweetness in + other directions and of his indignant hatred of cruelty and unfairness, + and it is not necessary to waste time in discussing what the common + experience confutes Neither is it necessary to fly to the other extreme, + and indulge in preposterous sentimentalities about the magic of fatherhood + and a mother's love. These are not magic and unlimited things, but + touchingly qualified and human things. The temperate truth of the matter + is that in most parents there are great stores of pride, interest, natural + sympathy, passionate love and devotion which can be tapped in the + interests of the children and the social future, and that it is the mere + commonsense of statecraft to use their resources to the utmost. It does + not follow that every parent contains these reservoirs, and that a + continual close association with the parents is always beneficial to + children. If it did, we should have to prosecute everyone who employed a + governess or sent away a little boy to a preparatory school. And our real + task is to establish a test that will gauge the desirability and benefit + of a parent's continued parentage. There are certainly parents and homes + from which the children might be taken with infinite benefit to themselves + and to society, and whose union it is ridiculous to save from the divorce + court shears. + </p> + <p> + Suppose, now, we made the willingness of a parent to give up his or her + children the measure of his beneficialness to them. There is no reason why + we should restrict divorce only to the relation of husband and wife. Let + us broaden the word and make it conceivable for a husband or wife to + divorce not only the partner, but the children. Then it might be possible + to meet the demands of the Shaw-esque extremist up to the point of + permitting a married parent, who desired freedom, to petition for a + divorce, not from his or her partner simply, but from his or her family, + and even for a widow or widower to divorce a family. Then would come the + task of the assessors. They would make arrangements for the dissolution of + the relationship, erring from justice rather in the direction of + liberality towards the divorced group, they would determine contributions, + exact securities appoint trustees and guardians.... On the whole, I do not + see why such a system should not work very well. It would break up many + loveless homes, quarrelling and bickering homes, and give a safety-valve + for that hate which is the sinister shadow of love. I do not think it + would separate one child from one parent who was really worthy of its + possession. + </p> + <p> + So far I have discussed only the possibility of divorce without offences, + the sort of divorce that arises out of estrangement and incompatibilities. + But divorce, as it is known in most Christian countries, has a punitive + element, and is obtained through the failure of one of the parties to + observe the conditions of the bond and the determination of the other to + exact suffering. Divorce as it exists at present is not a readjustment but + a revenge. It is the nasty exposure of a private wrong. In England a + husband may divorce his wife for a single act of infidelity, and there can + be little doubt that we are on the eve of an equalisation of the law in + this respect. I will confess I consider this an extreme concession to the + passion of jealousy, and one likely to tear off the roof from many a + family of innocent children. Only infidelity leading to supposititious + children in the case of the wife, or infidelity obstinately and + offensively persisted in or endangering health in the case of the husband, + really injure the home sufficiently to justify a divorce on the + assumptions of our present argument. If we are going to make the welfare + of the children our criterion in these matters, then our divorce law does + in this direction already go too far. A husband or wife may do far more + injury to the home by constantly neglecting it for the companionship of + some outside person with whom no "matrimonial offence" is ever committed. + Of course, if our divorce law exists mainly for the gratification of the + fiercer sexual resentments, well and good, but if that is so, let us + abandon our pretence that marriage is an institution for the establishment + and protection of homes. And while on the one hand existing divorce laws + appear to be obsessed by sexual offences, other things of far more evil + effect upon the home go without a remedy. There are, for example, + desertion, domestic neglect, cruelty to the children drunkenness or + harmful drug-taking, indecency of living and uncontrollable extravagance. + I cannot conceive how any logical mind, having once admitted the principle + of divorce, can hesitate at making these entirely home-wrecking things the + basis of effective pleas. But in another direction, some strain of + sentimentality in my nature makes me hesitate to go with the great + majority of divorce law reformers. I cannot bring myself to agree that + either a long term of imprisonment or the misfortune of insanity should in + itself justify a divorce. I admit the social convenience, but I wince at + the thought of those tragic returns of the dispossessed. So far as + insanity goes, I perceive that the cruelty of the law would but endorse + the cruelty of nature. But I do not like men to endorse the cruelty of + nature. + </p> + <p> + And, of course, there is no decent-minded person nowadays but wants to put + an end to that ugly blot upon our civilisation, the publication of + whatever is most spicy and painful in divorce court proceedings. It is an + outrage which falls even more heavily on the innocent than on the guilty, + and which has deterred hundreds of shy and delicate-minded people from + seeking legal remedies for nearly intolerable wrongs. The sort of person + who goes willingly to the divorce court to-day is the sort of person who + would love a screaming quarrel in a crowded street. The emotional breach + of the marriage bond is as private an affair as its consummation, and it + would be nearly as righteous to subject young couples about to marry to a + blustering cross-examination by some underbred bully of a barrister upon + their motives, and then to publish whatever chance phrases in their + answers appeared to be amusing in the press, as it is to publish + contemporary divorce proceedings. The thing is a nastiness, a stream of + social contagion and an extreme cruelty, and there can be no doubt that + whatever other result this British Royal Commission may have, there at + least will be many sweeping alterations. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE EMPIRE + </h2> + <p> + Sec. 1 + </p> + <p> + "If Youth but Knew" is the title of a book published some years ago, but + still with a quite living interest, by "Kappa"; it is the bitter complaint + of a distressed senior against our educational system. He is hugely + disappointed in the public-school boy, and more particularly in one + typical specimen. He is—if one might hazard a guess—an uncle + bereft of great expectations. He finds an echo in thousands of other + distressed uncles and parents. They use the most divergent and inadequate + forms of expression for this vague sense that the result has not come out + good enough; they put it contradictorily and often wrongly, but the sense + is widespread and real and justifiable and we owe a great debt to "Kappa" + for an accurate diagnosis of what in the aggregate amounts to a grave + national and social evil. + </p> + <p> + The trouble with "Kappa's" particular public-school boy is his unlit + imagination, the apathetic commonness of his attitude to life at large. He + is almost stupidly not interested in the mysteries of material fact, nor + in the riddles and great dramatic movements of history, indifferent to any + form of beauty, and pedantically devoted to the pettiness of games and + clothing and social conduct. It is, in fact, chiefly by his style in these + latter things, his extensive unilluminated knowledge of Greek and Latin, + and his greater costliness, that he differs from a young carpenter or + clerk. A young carpenter or clerk of the same temperament would have no + narrower prejudices nor outlook, no less capacity for the discussion of + broad questions and for imaginative thinking. And it has come to the mind + of "Kappa" as a discovery, as an exceedingly remarkable and moving thing, + a thing to cry aloud about, that this should be so, that this is all that + the best possible modern education has achieved. He makes it more than a + personal issue. He has come to the conclusion that this is not an + exceptional case at all, but a fair sample of what our upper-class + education does for the imagination of those who must presently take the + lead among us. He declares plainly that we are raising a generation of + rulers and of those with whom the duty of initiative should chiefly + reside, who have minds atrophied by dull studies and deadening + suggestions, and he thinks that this is a matter of the gravest concern + for the future of this land and Empire. It is difficult to avoid agreeing + with him either in his observation or in his conclusion. Anyone who has + seen much of undergraduates, or medical students, or Army candidates, and + also of their social subordinates, must be disposed to agree that the + difference between the two classes is mainly in unimportant things—in + polish, in manner, in superficialities of accent and vocabulary and social + habit—and that their minds, in range and power, are very much on a + level. With an invincibly aristocratic tradition we are failing altogether + to produce a leader class adequate to modern needs. The State is + light-headed. + </p> + <p> + But while one agrees with "Kappa" and shares his alarm, one must confess + the remedies he considers indicated do not seem quite so satisfactory as + his diagnosis of the disease. He attacks the curriculum and tells us we + must reduce or revolutionise instruction and exercise in the dead + languages, introduce a broader handling of history, a more inspiring + arrangement of scientific courses, and so forth. I wish, indeed, it were + possible to believe that substituting biology for Greek prose composition + or history with models and photographs and diagrams for Latin + versification, would make any considerable difference in this matter. For + so one might discuss this question and still give no offence to a most + amiable and influential class of men. But the roots of the evil, the + ultimate cause of that typical young man's deadness, lie not at all in + that direction. To indicate the direction in which it does lie is quite + unavoidably to give offence to an indiscriminatingly sensitive class. Yet + there is need to speak plainly. This deadening of soul comes not from the + omission or inclusion of this specific subject or that; it is the effect + of the general scholastic atmosphere. It is an atmosphere that admits of + no inspiration at all. It is an atmosphere from which living stimulating + influences have been excluded from which stimulating and vigorous + personalities are now being carefully eliminated, and in which dull, + prosaic men prevail invincibly. The explanation of the inert commonness of + "Kappa's" schoolboy lies not in his having learnt this or not learnt that, + but in the fact that from seven to twenty he has been in the intellectual + shadow of a number of good-hearted, sedulously respectable conscientiously + manly, conforming, well-behaved men, who never, to the knowledge of their + pupils and the public, at any rate, think strange thoughts do imaginative + or romantic things, pay tribute to beauty, laugh carelessly, or + countenance any irregularity in the world. All erratic and enterprising + tendencies in him have been checked by them and brought at last to + nothing; and so he emerges a mere residuum of decent minor dispositions. + The dullness of the scholastic atmosphere the grey, intolerant mediocrity + that is the natural or assumed quality of every upper-class schoolmaster, + is the true cause of the spiritual etiolation of "Kappa's" young friend. + </p> + <p> + Now, it is a very grave thing, I know, to bring this charge against a + great profession—to say, as I do say, that it is collectively and + individually dull. But someone has to do this sooner or later; we have + restrained ourselves and argued away from the question too long. There is, + I allege, a great lack of vigorous and inspiring minds in our schools. Our + upper-class schools are out of touch with the thought of the time, in a + backwater of intellectual apathy. We have no original or heroic + school-teachers. Let me ask the reader frankly what part our leading + headmasters play in his intellectual world; if when some prominent one + among them speaks or writes or talks, he expects anything more than + platitudes and little things? Has he ever turned aside to learn what this + headmaster or that thought of any question that interested him? Has he + ever found freshness or power in a schoolmaster's discourse; or found a + schoolmaster caring keenly for fine and beautiful things? Who does not + know the schoolmaster's trite, safe admirations, his thin, evasive + discussion, his sham enthusiasms for cricket, for fly-fishing, for + perpendicular architecture, for boyish traits; his timid refuge in "good + form," his deadly silences? + </p> + <p> + And if we do not find him a refreshing and inspiring person, and his mind + a fountain of thought in which we bathe and are restored, is it likely our + sons will? If the schoolmaster at large is grey and dull, shirking + interesting topics and emphatic speech, what must he be like in the + monotonous class-room? These may seem wanton charges to some, but I am not + speaking without my book. Monthly I am brought into close contact with the + pedagogic intelligence through the medium of three educational magazines. + A certain morbid habit against which I struggle in vain makes me read + everything I catch a schoolmaster writing. I am, indeed, one of the + faithful band who read the Educational Supplement of the <i>Times</i>. In + these papers schoolmasters write about their business, lectures upon the + questions of their calling are reported at length, and a sort of invalid + discussion moves with painful decorum through the correspondence column. + The scholastic mind so displayed in action fascinates me. It is like + watching a game of billiards with wooden cushes and beechwood balls. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 2 + </p> + <p> + But let me take one special instance. In a periodical, now no longer + living, called the <i>Independent Review</i>, there appeared some years + ago a very curious and typical contribution by the Headmaster of Dulwich, + which I may perhaps use as an illustration of the mental habits which seem + inseparably associated with modern scholastic work. It is called "English + Ideas on Education," and it begins—trite, imitative, undistinguished—thus: + </p> + <p> + "The most important question in a country is that of education, and the + most important people in a country are those who educate its inhabitants. + Others have most of the present in their hands: those who educate have all + the future. With the present is bound up all the happiness only of the + utterly selfish and the thoughtless among mankind; on the future rest all + the thoughts of every parent and every wise man and patriot." + </p> + <p> + It is the opening of a boy's essay. And from first to last this remarkable + composition is at or below that level. It is an entirely inconclusive + paper, it is impossible to understand why it was written; it quotes + nothing it says nothing about and was probably written in ignorance of + "Kappa" or any other modern contributor to English ideas, and it occupied + about six and a quarter of the large-type pages of this now vanished <i>Independent + Review</i>. "English Ideas on Education"!—this very brevity is + eloquent, the more so since the style is by no means succinct. It must be + read to be believed. It is quite extraordinarily non-prehensile in quality + and substance nothing is gripped and maintained and developed; it is like + the passing of a lax hand over the surfaces of disarranged things. It is + difficult to read, because one's mind slips over it and emerges too soon + at the end, mildly puzzled though incurious still as to what it is all + about. One perceives Mr. Gilkes through a fog dimly thinking that Greek + has something vital to do with "a knowledge of language and man," that the + classical master is in some mysterious way superior to the science man and + more imaginative, and that science men ought not to be worried with the + Greek that is too high for them; and he seems, too, to be under the odd + illusion that "on all this" Englishmen "seem now to be nearly in + agreement," and also on the opinion that games are a little overdone and + that civic duties and the use of the rifle ought to be taught. Statements + are made—the sort of statements that are suffered in an atmosphere + where there is no swift, fierce opposition to be feared; they frill out + into vague qualifications and butt gently against other partially + contradictory statements. There is a classification of minds—the + sort of classification dear to the Y.M.C.A. essayists, made for the + purposes of the essay and unknown to psychology. There are, we are told, + accurate unimaginative, ingenious minds capable of science and kindred + vulgar things (such was Archimedes), and vague, imaginative minds, with + the gift for language and for the treatment of passion and the higher + indefinable things (such as Homer and Mr. Gilkes), and, somehow, this + justifies those who are destined for "science" in dropping Greek. Certain + "considerations," however, loom inconclusively upon this issue—rather + like interested spectators of a street fight in a fog. For example, to + learn a language is valuable "in proportion as the nation speaking it is + great"—a most empty assertion; and "no languages are so good," for + the purpose of improving style, "as the exact and beautiful languages of + Rome and Greece." + </p> + <p> + Is it not time at least that this last, this favourite but threadbare + article of the schoolmaster's creed was put away for good? Everyone who + has given any attention to this question must be aware that the + intellectual gesture is entirely different in highly inflected languages + such as Greek and Latin and in so uninflected a language as English, that + learning Greek to improve one's English style is like learning to swim in + order to fence better, and that familiarity with Greek seems only too + often to render a man incapable of clear, strong expression in English at + all. Yet Mr. Gilkes can permit this old assertion, so dear to country + rectors and the classical scholar, to appear within a column's distance of + such style as this: + </p> + <p> + "It is now understood that every subject is valuable, if it is properly + taught; it will perform that which, as follows from the accounts given + above of the aim of education, is the work most important in the case of + boys—that is, it will draw out their faculties and make them useful + in the world, alert, trained in industry, and able to understand, so far + as their school lessons educated them, and make themselves master of any + subject set before them." + </p> + <p> + This quotation is conclusive. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 3 + </p> + <p> + I am haunted by a fear that the careless reader will think I am writing + against upper-class schoolmasters. I am, it is undeniable, writing against + their dullness, but it is, I hold, a dullness that is imposed upon them by + the conditions under which they live. Indeed, I believe, could I put the + thing directly to the profession—"Do you not yourselves feel + needlessly limited and dull?"—should receive a majority of + affirmative responses. We have, as a nation, a certain ideal of what a + schoolmaster must be; to that he must by art or nature approximate, and + there is no help for it but to alter our ideal. Nothing else of any wide + value can be done until that is done. + </p> + <p> + In the first place, the received ideal omits a most necessary condition. + We do not insist upon a headmaster or indeed any of our academic leaders + and dignitaries, being a man of marked intellectual character, a man of + intellectual distinction. It is assumed, rather lightly in many cases, + that he has done "good work," as they say—the sort of good work that + is usually no good at all, that increases nothing, changes nothing, + stimulates no one, leads no whither. That, surely, must be altered. We + must see to it that our leading schoolmasters at any rate must be men of + insight and creative intelligence, men who could at a pinch write a good + novel or produce illuminating criticism or take an original part in + theological or philosophical discussion, or do any of these minor things. + They must be authentic men, taking a line of their own and capable of + intellectual passion. They should be able to make their mark outside the + school, if only to show they carry a living soul into it. As things are, + nothing is so fatal to a schoolmaster's career as to do that. + </p> + <p> + And closely related to this omission is our extreme insistence upon what + we call high moral character, meaning, really, something very like an + entire absence of moral character. We insist upon tact, conformity, and an + unblemished record. Now, in these days, of warring opinion, these days of + gigantic, strange issues that cannot possibly be expressed in the formulae + of the smaller times that have gone before, tact is evasion, conformity + formality, and silence an unblemished record, mere evidence of the damning + burial of a talent of life. The sort of man into whose hands we give our + sons' minds must never have experimented morally or thought at all freely + or vigorously about, for example, God, Socialism, the Mosaic account of + the Creation, social procedure, Republicanism, beauty, love, or, indeed, + about anything likely to interest an intelligent adolescent. At the + approach of all such things he must have acquired the habit of the modest + cough, the infectious trick of the nice evasion. How can "Kappa" expect + inspiration from the decorous resultants who satisfy these conditions? + What brand can ever be lit at altars that have borne no fire? And you find + the secondary schoolmaster who complies with these restrictions becoming + the zealous and grateful agent of the tendencies that have made him what + he is, converting into a practice those vague dreads of idiosyncrasy, of + positive acts and new ideas, that dictated the choice of him and his rule + of life. His moral teaching amounts to this: to inculcate truth-telling + about small matters and evasion about large, and to cultivate a morbid + obsession in the necessary dawn of sexual consciousness. So far from + wanting to stimulate the imagination, he hates and dreads it. I find him + perpetually haunted by a ridiculous fear that boys will "do something," + and in his terror seeking whatever is dull and unstimulating and tiring in + intellectual work, clipping their reading, censoring their periodicals, + expurgating their classics, substituting the stupid grind of organised + "games" for natural, imaginative play, persecuting loafers—and so + achieving his end and turning out at last, clean-looking, passively + well-behaved, apathetic, obliterated young men, with the nicest manners + and no spark of initiative at all, quite safe not to "do anything" for + ever. + </p> + <p> + I submit this may be a very good training for polite servants, but it is + not the way to make masters in the world. If we English believe we are + indeed a masterful people, we must be prepared to expose our children to + more and more various stimulations than we do; they must grow up free, + bold, adventurous, initiated, even if they have to take more risks in the + doing of that. An able and stimulating teacher is as rare as a fine + artist, and is a thing worth having for your son, even at the price of + shocking your wife by his lack of respect for that magnificent compromise, + the Establishment, or you by his Socialism or by his Catholicism or + Darwinism, or even by his erroneous choice of ties and collars. Boys who + are to be free, masterly men must hear free men talking freely of + religion, of philosophy, of conduct. They must have heard men of this + opinion and that, putting what they believe before them with all the + courage of conviction. They must have an idea of will prevailing over + form. It is far more important that boys should learn from original, + intellectually keen men than they should learn from perfectly respectable + men, or perfectly orthodox men, or perfectly nice men. The vital thing to + consider about your son's schoolmaster is whether he talked lifeless + twaddle yesterday by way of a lesson, and not whether he loved unwisely or + was born of poor parents, or was seen wearing a frock-coat in combination + with a bowler, or confessed he doubted the Apostles' Creed, or called + himself a Socialist, or any disgraceful thing like that, so many years + ago. It is that sort of thing "Kappa" must invert if he wants a change in + our public schools. You may arrange and rearrange curricula, abolish + Greek, substitute "science"—it will not matter a rap. Even those + model canoes of yours, "Kappa," will be wasted if you still insist upon + model schoolmasters. So long as we require our schoolmasters to be + politic, conforming, undisturbing men, setting up Polonius as an ideal for + them, so long will their influence deaden the souls of our sons. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE ENDOWMENT OF MOTHERHOOD + </h2> + <p> + Some few years ago the Fabian Society, which has been so efficient in + keeping English Socialism to the lines of "artfulness and the 'eighties," + refused to have anything to do with the Endowment of Motherhood. + Subsequently it repented and produced a characteristic pamphlet in which + the idea was presented with a sort of minimising furtiveness as a mean + little extension of outdoor relief. These Fabian Socialists, instead of + being the daring advanced people they are supposed to be, are really in + many things twenty years behind the times. There need be nothing + shamefaced about the presentation of the Endowment of Motherhood. There is + nothing shameful about it. It is a plain and simple idea for which the + mind of the man in the street has now been very completely prepared. It + has already crept into social legislation to the extent of thirty + shillings. + </p> + <p> + I suppose if one fact has been hammered into us in the past two decades + more than any other it is this: that the supply of children is falling off + in the modern State; that births, and particularly good-quality births, + are not abundant enough; that the birth-rate, and particularly the + good-class birth-rate, falls steadily below the needs of our future. + </p> + <p> + If no one else has said a word about this important matter, ex-President + Roosevelt would have sufficed to shout it to the ends of the earth. Every + civilised community is drifting towards "race-suicide" as Rome drifted + into "race-suicide" at the climax of her empire. + </p> + <p> + Well, it is absurd to go on building up a civilisation with a dwindling + supply of babies in the cradles—and these not of the best possible + sort—and so I suppose there is hardly an intelligent person in the + English-speaking communities who has not thought of some possible remedy—from + the naive scoldings of Mr. Roosevelt and the more stolid of the + periodicals to sane and intelligible legislative projects. + </p> + <p> + The reasons for the fall in the birth-rate are obvious enough. It is a + necessary consequence of the individualistic competition of modern life. + People talk of modern women "shirking" motherhood, but it would be a silly + sort of universe in which a large proportion of women had any natural and + instinctive desire to shirk motherhood, and, I believe, a huge proportion + of modern women are as passionately predisposed towards motherhood as ever + women were. But modern conditions conspire to put a heavy handicap upon + parentage and an enormous premium upon the partial or complete evasion of + offspring, and that is where the clue to the trouble lies. Our social + arrangements discourage parentage very heavily, and the rational thing for + a statesman to do in the matter is not to grow eloquent, but to do + intelligent things to minimise that discouragement. + </p> + <p> + Consider the case of an energetic young man and an energetic young woman + in our modern world. So long as they remain "unencumbered" they can + subsist on a comparatively small income and find freedom and leisure to + watch for and follow opportunities of self-advancement; they can travel, + get knowledge and experience, make experiments, succeed. One might almost + say the conditions of success and self-development in the modern world are + to defer marriage as long as possible, and after that to defer parentage + as long as possible. And even when there is a family there is the + strongest temptation to limit it to three or four children at the outside. + Parents who can give three children any opportunity in life prefer to do + that than turn out, let us say, eight ill-trained children at a + disadvantage, to become the servants and unsuccessful competitors of the + offspring of the restrained. That fact bites us all; it does not require a + search. It is all very well to rant about "race-suicide," but there are + the clear, hard conditions of contemporary circumstances for all but the + really rich, and so patent are they that I doubt if all the eloquence of + Mr. Roosevelt and its myriad echoes has added a thousand babies to the + eugenic wealth of the English-speaking world. + </p> + <p> + Modern married people, and particularly those in just that capable middle + class from which children are most urgently desirable from the statesman's + point of view, are going to have one or two children to please themselves + but they are not going to have larger families under existing conditions, + though all the ex-Presidents and all the pulpits in the world clamour + together for them to do so. + </p> + <p> + If having and rearing children is a private affair, then no one has any + right to revile small families; if it is a public service, then the parent + is justified in looking to the State to recognise that service and offer + some compensation for the worldly disadvantages it entails. He is + justified in saying that while his unencumbered rival wins past him he is + doing the State the most precious service in the world by rearing and + educating a family, and that the State has become his debtor. + </p> + <p> + In other words, the modern State has got to pay for its children if it + really wants them—and more particularly it has to pay for the + children of good homes. + </p> + <p> + The alternative to that is racial replacement and social decay. That is + the essential idea conveyed by this phrase, the Endowment of Motherhood. + </p> + <p> + Now, how is the paying to be done? That needs a more elaborate answer, of + which I will give here only the roughest, crudest suggestion. + </p> + <p> + Probably it would be found best that the payment should be made to the + mother, as the administrator of the family budget, that its amount should + be made dependent upon the quality of the home in which the children are + being reared, upon their health and physical development, and upon their + educational success. Be it remembered, we do not want any children; we + want good-quality children. The amount to be paid, I would particularly + point out, should vary with the standing of the home. People of that + excellent class which spends over a hundred a year on each child ought to + get about that much from the State, and people of the class which spends + five shillings a week per head on them would get about that, and so on. + And if these payments were met by a special income tax there would be no + social injustice whatever in such an unequality of payment. Each social + stratum would pay according to its prosperity, and the only redistribution + that would in effect occur would be that the childless people of each + class would pay for the children of that class. The childless family and + the small family would pay equally with the large family, incomes being + equal, but they would receive in proportions varying with the health and + general quality of their children. That, I think, gives the broad + principles upon which the payments would be made. + </p> + <p> + Of course, if these subsidies resulted in too rapid a rise in the + birth-rate, it would be practicable to diminish the inducement; and if, on + the other hand, the birth-rate still fell, it would be easy to increase + the inducement until it sufficed. + </p> + <p> + That concisely is the idea of the Endowment of Motherhood. I believe + firmly that some such arrangement is absolutely necessary to the + continuous development of the modern State. These proposals arise so + obviously out of the needs of our time that I cannot understand any really + intelligent opposition to them. I can, however, understand a partial and + silly application of them. It is most important that our good-class + families should be endowed, but the whole tendency of the timid and + disingenuous progressivism of our time, which is all mixed up with ideas + of charity and aggressive benevolence to the poor, would be to apply this—as + that Fabian tract I mention does—only to the poor mother. To endow + poor and bad-class motherhood and leave other people severely alone would + be a proceeding so supremely idiotic, so harmful to our national quality, + as to be highly probable in the present state of our public intelligence. + It comes quite on a level with the policy of starving middle-class + education that has left us with nearly the worst educated middle class in + Western Europe. + </p> + <p> + The Endowment of Motherhood does not attract the bureaucratic type of + reformer because it offers a minimum chance of meddlesome interference + with people's lives. There would be no chance of "seeking out" anybody and + applying benevolent but grim compulsions on the strength of it. In spite + of its wide scope it would be much less of a public nuisance than that Wet + Children's Charter, which exasperates me every time I pass a public-house + on a rainy night. But, on the other hand, there would be an enormous + stimulus to people to raise the quality of their homes, study infantile + hygiene, seek out good schools for them—and do their duty as all + good parents naturally want to do now—if only economic forces were + not so pitilessly against them—thoroughly and well. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + DOCTORS + </h2> + <p> + In that extravagant world of which I dream, in which people will live in + delightful cottages and ground rents will serve instead of rates, and + everyone will have a chance of being happy—in that impossible world + all doctors will be members of one great organisation for the public + health, with all or most of their income guaranteed to them: I doubt if + there will be any private doctors at all. + </p> + <p> + Heaven forbid I should seem to write a word against doctors as they are. + Daily I marvel at the wonders the general practitioner achieves, having + regard to the difficulties of his position. + </p> + <p> + But I cannot hide from myself, and I do not intend to hide from anyone + else, my firm persuasion that the services the general practitioner is + able to render us are not one-tenth so effectual as they might be if, + instead of his being a private adventurer, he were a member of a sanely + organised public machine. Consider what his training and equipment are, + consider the peculiar difficulties of his work, and then consider for a + moment what better conditions might be invented, and perhaps you will not + think my estimate of one-tenth an excessive understatement in this matter. + </p> + <p> + Nearly the whole of our medical profession and most of our apparatus for + teaching and training doctors subsist on strictly commercial lines by + earning fees. This chief source of revenue is eked out by the wanton + charity of old women, and conspicuous subscriptions by popularity hunters, + and a small but growing contribution (in the salaries of medical officers + of health and so forth) from the public funds. But the fact remains that + for the great mass of the medical profession there is no living to be got + except at a salary for hospital practice or by earning fees in receiving + or attending upon private cases. + </p> + <p> + So long as a doctor is learning or adding to knowledge, he earns nothing, + and the common, unintelligent man does not see why he should earn + anything. So that a doctor who has no religious passion for poverty and + self-devotion gets through the minimum of training and learning as quickly + and as cheaply as possible, and does all he can to fill up the rest of his + time in passing rapidly from case to case. The busier he keeps, the less + his leisure for thought and learning, the richer he grows, and the more he + is esteemed. His four or five years of hasty, crowded study are supposed + to give him a complete and final knowledge of the treatment of every sort + of disease, and he goes on year after year, often without co-operation, + working mechanically in the common incidents of practice, births, cases of + measles and whooping cough, and so forth, and blundering more or less in + whatever else turns up. + </p> + <p> + There are no public specialists to whom he can conveniently refer the + difficulties he constantly encounters; only in the case of rich patients + is the specialist available; there are no properly organised information + bureaus for him, and no means whatever of keeping him informed upon + progress and discovery in medical science. He is not even required to set + apart a month or so in every two or three years in order to return to + lectures and hospitals and refresh his knowledge. Indeed, the income of + the average general practitioner would not permit of such a thing, and + almost the only means of contact between him and current thought lies in + the one or other of our two great medical weeklies to which he happens to + subscribe. + </p> + <p> + Now just as I have nothing but praise for the average general + practitioner, so I have nothing but praise and admiration for those + stalwart-looking publications. Without them I can imagine nothing but the + most terrible intellectual atrophy among our medical men. But since they + are private properties run for profit they have to pay, and half their + bulk consists of the brilliantly written advertisements of new drugs and + apparatus. They give much knowledge, they do much to ventilate perplexing + questions, but a broadly conceived and properly endowed weekly circular + could, I believe, do much more. At any rate, in my Utopia this duty of + feeding up the general practitioners will not be left to private + enterprise. + </p> + <p> + Behind the first line of my medical army will be a second line of able men + constantly digesting new research for its practical needs—correcting, + explaining, announcing; and, in addition, a force of public specialists to + whom every difficulty in diagnosis will be at once referred. And there + will be a properly organised system of reliefs that will allow the general + practitioner and his right hand, the nurse, to come back to the + refreshment of study before his knowledge and mind have got rusty. But + then my Utopia is a Socialistic system. Under our present system of + competitive scramble, under any system that reduces medical practice to + mere fee-hunting nothing of this sort is possible. + </p> + <p> + Then in my Utopia, for every medical man who was mainly occupied in + practice, I would have another who was mainly occupied in or about + research. People hear so much about modern research that they do not + realise how entirely inadequate it is in amount and equipment. Our general + public is still too stupid to understand the need and value of sustained + investigations in any branch of knowledge at all. In spite of all the + lessons of the last century, it still fails to realise how discovery and + invention enrich the community and how paying an investment is the public + employment of clever people to think and experiment for the benefit of + all. It still expects to get a Newton or a Joule for #800 a year, and + requires him to conduct his researches in the margin of time left over + when he has got through his annual eighty or ninety lectures. It imagines + discoveries are a sort of inspiration that comes when professors are + running to catch trains. It seems incapable of imagining how enormous are + the untried possibilities of research. Of course, if you will only pay a + handful of men salaries at which the cook of any large London hotel would + turn up his nose, you cannot expect to have the master minds of the world + at your service; and save for a few independent or devoted men, therefore, + it is not reasonable to suppose that such a poor little dribble of medical + research as is now going on is in the hands of persons of much more than + average mental equipment. How can it be? + </p> + <p> + One hears a lot of the rigorous research into the problem of cancer that + is now going on. Does the reader realise that all the men in the whole + world who are giving any considerable proportion of their time to this + cancer research would pack into a very small room, that they are working + in little groups without any properly organised system of + intercommunication, and that half of them are earning less than a quarter + of the salary of a Bond Street shopwalker by those vastly important + inquiries? Not one cancer case in twenty thousand is being properly + described and reported. And yet, in comparison with other diseases, cancer + is being particularly well attended to. + </p> + <p> + The general complacency with the progress in knowledge we have made and + are making is ridiculously unjustifiable. Enormous things were no doubt + done in the nineteenth century in many fields of knowledge, but all that + was done was out of all proportion petty in comparison with what might + have been done. I suppose the whole of the unprecedented progress in + material knowledge of the nineteenth century was the work of two or three + thousand men, who toiled against opposition, spite and endless + disadvantages, without proper means of intercommunication and with + wretched facilities for experiment. Such discoveries as were distinctively + medical were the work of only a few hundred men. Now, suppose instead of + that scattered band of un-co-ordinated workers a great army of hundreds of + thousands of well-paid men; suppose, for instance, the community had kept + as many scientific and medical investigators as it has bookmakers and + racing touts and men about town—should we not know a thousand times + as much as we do about disease and health and strength and power? + </p> + <p> + But these are Utopian questionings. The sane, practical man shakes his + head, smiles pityingly at my dreamy impracticability, and passes them by. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AN AGE OF SPECIALISATION + </h2> + <p> + There is something of the phonograph in all of us, but in the sort of + eminent person who makes public speeches about education and reading, and + who gives away prizes and opens educational institutions, there seems to + be little else but gramophone. + </p> + <p> + These people always say the same things, and say them in the same note. + And why should they do that if they are really individuals? + </p> + <p> + There is, I cannot but suspect, in the mysterious activities that underlie + life, some trade in records for these distinguished gramophones, and it is + a trade conducted upon cheap and wholesale lines. There must be in these + demiurgic profundities a rapid manufacture of innumerable thousands of + that particular speech about "scrappy reading," and that contrast of + "modern" with "serious" literature, that babbles about in the provinces so + incessantly. Gramophones thinly disguised as bishops, gramophones still + more thinly disguised as eminent statesmen, gramophones K.C.B. and + gramophones F.R.S. have brazened it at us time after time, and will + continue to brazen it to our grandchildren when we are dead and all our + poor protests forgotten. And almost equally popular in their shameless + mouths is the speech that declares this present age to be an age of + specialisation. We all know the profound droop of the eminent person's + eyelids as he produces that discovery, the edifying deductions or the + solemn warnings he unfolds from this proposition, and all the dignified, + inconclusive rigmarole of that cylinder. And it is nonsense from beginning + to end. + </p> + <p> + This is most distinctly <i>not</i> an age of specialisation. There has + hardly been an age in the whole course of history less so than the + present. A few moments of reflection will suffice to demonstrate that. + This is beyond any precedent an age of change, change in the appliances of + life, in the average length of life, in the general temper of life; and + the two things are incompatible. It is only under fixed conditions that + you can have men specialising. + </p> + <p> + They specialise extremely, for example, under such conditions as one had + in Hindustan up to the coming of the present generation. There the metal + worker or the cloth worker, the wheelwright or the druggist of yesterday + did his work under almost exactly the same conditions as his predecessor + did it five hundred years before. He had the same resources, the same + tools, the same materials; he made the same objects for the same ends. + Within the narrow limits thus set him he carried work to a fine + perfection; his hand, his mental character were subdued to his medium. His + dress and bearing even were distinctive; he was, in fact, a highly + specialised man. He transmitted his difference to his sons. Caste was the + logical expression in the social organisation of this state of high + specialisation, and, indeed, what else is caste or any definite class + distinctions but that? But the most obvious fact of the present time is + the disappearance of caste and the fluctuating uncertainty of all class + distinctions. + </p> + <p> + If one looks into the conditions of industrial employment specialisation + will be found to linger just in proportion as a trade has remained + unaffected by inventions and innovation. The building trade, for example, + is a fairly conservative one. A brick wall is made to-day much as it was + made two hundred years ago, and the bricklayer is in consequence a highly + skilled and inadaptable specialist. No one who has not passed through a + long and tedious training can lay bricks properly. And it needs a + specialist to plough a field with horses or to drive a cab through the + streets of London. Thatchers, old-fashioned cobblers, and hand workers are + all specialised to a degree no new modern calling requires. With machinery + skill disappears and unspecialised intelligence comes in. Any generally + intelligent man can learn in a day or two to drive an electric tram, fix + up an electric lighting installation, or guide a building machine or a + steam plough. He must be, of course, much more generally intelligent than + the average bricklayer, but he needs far less specialised skill. To repair + machinery requires, of course, a special sort of knowledge, but not a + special sort of training. + </p> + <p> + In no way is this disappearance of specialisation more marked than in + military and naval affairs. In the great days of Greece and Rome war was a + special calling, requiring a special type of man. In the Middle Ages war + had an elaborate technique, in which the footman played the part of an + unskilled labourer, and even within a period of a hundred years it took a + long period of training and discipline before the common discursive man + could be converted into the steady soldier. Even to-day traditions work + powerfully, through extravagance of uniform, and through survivals of that + mechanical discipline that was so important in the days of hand-to-hand + fighting, to keep the soldier something other than a man. For all the + lessons of the Boer war we are still inclined to believe that the soldier + has to be something severely parallel, carrying a rifle he fires under + orders, obedient to the pitch of absolute abnegation of his private + intelligence. We still think that our officers have, like some very + elaborate and noble sort of performing animal, to be "trained." They learn + to fight with certain specified "arms" and weapons, instead of developing + intelligence enough to use anything that comes to hand. + </p> + <p> + But, indeed, when a really great European war does come and lets loose + motor-cars, bicycles, wireless telegraphy, aeroplanes, new projectiles of + every size and shape, and a multitude of ingenious persons upon the + preposterously vast hosts of conscription, the military caste will be + missing within three months of the beginning, and the inventive, + versatile, intelligent man will have come to his own. + </p> + <p> + And what is true of a military caste is equally true of a special + governing class such as our public schools maintain. + </p> + <p> + The misunderstanding that has given rise to this proposition that this is + an age of specialisation, and through that no end of mischief in + misdirected technical education and the like, is essentially a confusion + between specialisation and the division of labour. No doubt this is an age + when everything makes for wider and wider co-operations. Work that was + once done by one highly specialised man—the making of a watch, for + example—is now turned out wholesale by elaborate machinery, or + effected in great quantities by the contributed efforts of a number of + people. Each of these people may bring a highly developed intelligence to + bear for a time upon the special problem in hand, but that is quite a + different thing from specialising to do that thing. + </p> + <p> + This is typically shown in scientific research. The problem or the parts + of problems upon which the inquiry of an individual man is concentrated + are often much narrower than the problems that occupied Faraday or Dalton, + and yet the hard and fast lines that once divided physicist from chemist, + or botanist from pathologist have long since gone. Professor Farmer, the + botanist, investigates cancer, and the ordinary educated man, familiar + though he is with their general results, would find it hard to say which + were the chemists and which the physicists among Professors Dewar and + Ramsey Lord Rayleigh and Curie. The classification of sciences that was + such a solemn business to our grandfathers is now merely a mental + obstruction. + </p> + <p> + It is interesting to glance for a moment at the possible source of this + mischievous confusion between specialisation and the division of labour. I + have already glanced at the possibility of a diabolical world + manufacturing gramophone records for our bishops and statesmen and + suchlike leaders of thought, but if we dismiss that as a merely elegant + trope, I must confess I think it is the influence of Herbert Spencer. His + philosophy is pervaded by an insistence which is, I think, entirely + without justification, that the universe, and every sort of thing in it, + moves from the simple and homogeneous to the complex and heterogeneous. An + unwary man obsessed with that idea would be very likely to assume without + consideration that men were less specialised in a barbaric state of + society than they are to-day. I think I have given reasons for believing + that the reverse of this is nearer the truth. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IS THERE A PEOPLE? + </h2> + <p> + Of all the great personifications that have dominated the mind of man, the + greatest, the most marvellous, the most impossible and the most + incredible, is surely the People, that impalpable monster to which the + world has consecrated its political institutions for the last hundred + years. + </p> + <p> + It is doubtful now whether this stupendous superstition has reached its + grand climacteric, and there can be little or no dispute that it is + destined to play a prominent part in the history of mankind for many years + to come. There is a practical as well as a philosophical interest, + therefore, in a note or so upon the attributes of this legendary being. I + write "legendary," but thereby I display myself a sceptic. To a very large + number of people the People is one of the profoundest realities in life. + They believe—what exactly do they believe about the people? + </p> + <p> + When they speak of the People they certainly mean something more than the + whole mass of individuals in a country lumped together. That is the + people, a mere varied aggregation of persons, moved by no common motive, a + complex interplay. The People, as the believer understands the word, is + something more mysterious than that. The People is something that + overrides and is added to the individualities that make up the people. It + is, as it were, itself an individuality of a higher order—as indeed, + its capital "P" displays. It has a will of its own which is not the will + of any particular person in it, it has a power of purpose and judgment of + a superior sort. It is supposed to be the underlying reality of all + national life and the real seat of all public religious emotion. + Unfortunately, it lacks powers of expression, and so there is need of + rulers and interpreters. If they express it well in law and fact, in book + and song, they prosper under its mysterious approval; if they do not, it + revolts or forgets or does something else of an equally annihilatory sort. + That, briefly, is the idea of the People. My modest thesis is that there + exists nothing of the sort, that the world of men is entirely made up of + the individuals that compose it, and that the collective action is just + the algebraic sum of all individual actions. + </p> + <p> + How far the opposite opinion may go, one must talk to intelligent + Americans or read the contemporary literature of the first French + Revolution to understand. I find, for example, so typical a young American + as the late Frank Norris roundly asserting that it is the People to whom + we are to ascribe the triumphant emergence of the name of Shakespeare from + the ruck of his contemporaries and the passage in which this assertion is + made is fairly representative of the general expression of this sort of + mysticism. "One must keep one's faith in the People—the Plain + People, the Burgesses, the Grocers—else of all men the artists are + most miserable and their teachings vain. Let us admit and concede that + this belief is ever so sorely tried at times.... But in the end, and at + last, they will listen to the true note and discriminate between it and + the false." And then he resorts to italics to emphasise: "<i>In the last + analysis the People are always right</i>." + </p> + <p> + And it was that still more typical American, Abraham Lincoln, who declared + his equal confidence in the political wisdom of this collective being. + "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all + the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." The thing is + in the very opening words of the American Constitution, and Theodore + Parker calls it "the American idea" and pitches a still higher note: "A + government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; a + government of all the principles of eternal justice, <i>the unchanging law + of God."</i> + </p> + <p> + It is unavoidable that a collective wisdom distinct from any individual + and personal one is intended in these passages. Mr. Norris, for example, + never figured to himself a great wave of critical discrimination sweeping + through the ranks of the various provision trades and a multitude of + simple, plain burgesses preferring Shakespeare and setting Marlowe aside. + Such a particularisation of his statement would have at once reduced it to + absurdity. Nor does any American see the people particularised in that + way. They believe in the People one and indivisible, a simple, mystical + being, which pervades and dominates the community and determines its final + collective consequences. + </p> + <p> + Now upon the belief that there is a People rests a large part of the + political organisation of the modern world. The idea was one of the chief + fruits of the speculations of the eighteenth century, and the American + Constitution is its most perfect expression. One turns, therefore, + inevitably to the American instance, not because it is the only one, but + because there is the thing in its least complicated form. We have there an + almost exactly logical realisation of this belief. The whole political + machine is designed and expressed to register the People's will, + literature is entirely rewarded and controlled by the effectual suffrages + of the bookseller's counter, science (until private endowment intervened) + was in the hands of the State Legislatures, and religion the concern of + the voluntary congregations. + </p> + <p> + On the assumption that there is a People there could be no better state of + affairs. You and I and everyone, except for a vote or a book, or a service + now and then, can go about our business, you to your grocery and I to + mine, and the direction of the general interests rests safe in the + People's hands. Now that is by no means a caricature of the attitude of + mind of many educated Americans. You find they have little or nothing to + do with actual politics, and are inclined to regard the professional + politician with a certain contempt; they trouble their heads hardly at all + about literature, and they contemplate the general religious condition of + the population with absolute unconcern. It is not that they are + unpatriotic or morally trivial that they stand thus disengaged; it is that + they have a fatalistic belief in this higher power. Whatever troubles and + abuses may arise they have an absolute faith that "in the last analysis" + the People will get it right. + </p> + <p> + And now suppose that I am right and that there is no People! Suppose that + the crowd is really no more than a crowd, a vast miscellaneous confusion + of persons which grows more miscellaneous every year. Suppose this + conception of the People arose out of a sentimental idealisation, Rousseau + fashion, of the ancient homogeneous peasant class—a class that is + rapidly being swept out of existence by modern industrial developments—and + that whatever slender basis of fact it had in the past is now altogether + gone. What consequences may be expected? + </p> + <p> + It does not follow that because the object of your reverence is a dead + word you will get no oracles from the shrine. If the sacred People remains + impassive, inarticulate, non-existent, there are always the keepers of the + shrine who will oblige. Professional politicians, venal and violent men, + will take over the derelict political control, people who live by the book + trade will alone have a care for letters, research and learning will be + subordinated to political expediency, and a great development of noisily + competitive religious enterprises will take the place of any common + religious formula. There will commence a secular decline in the quality of + public thought, emotion and activity. There will be no arrest or remedy + for this state of affairs so long as that superstitious faith in the + People as inevitably right "in the last analysis" remains. And if my + supposition is correct, it should be possible to find in the United + States, where faith in the people is indisputably dominant, some such + evidence of the error of this faith. Is there? + </p> + <p> + I write as one that listens from afar. But there come reports of + legislative and administrative corruption, of organised public blackmail, + that do seem to carry out my thesis. One thinks of Edgar Allan Poe, who + dreamt of founding a distinctive American literature, drugged and killed + almost as it were symbolically, amid electioneering and nearly lied out of + all posthumous respect by that scoundrel Griswold; one thinks of State + Universities that are no more than mints for bogus degrees; one thinks of + "Science" Christianity and Zion City. These things are quite insufficient + for a Q.E.D., but I submit they favour my proposition. + </p> + <p> + Suppose there is no People at all, but only enormous, differentiating + millions of men. All sorts of widely accepted generalisations will + collapse if that foundation is withdrawn. I submit it as worth + considering. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE DISEASE OF PARLIAMENTS + </h2> + <p> + Sec. 1 + </p> + <p> + There is a growing discord between governments and governed in the world. + </p> + <p> + There has always been discord between governments and governed since + States began; government has always been to some extent imposed, and + obedience to some extent reluctant. We have come to regard it as a matter + of course that under all absolutions and narrow oligarchies the community, + so soon as it became educated and as its social elaboration developed a + free class with private initiatives, so soon, indeed, as it attained to + any power of thought and expression at all, would express discontent. But + we English and Americans and Western Europeans generally had supposed + that, so far as our own communities were concerned, this discontent was + already anticipated and met by representative institutions. We had + supposed that, with various safeguards and elaborations, our communities + did, as a matter of fact, govern themselves. Our panacea for all + discontents was the franchise. Social and national dissatisfaction could + be given at the same time a voice and a remedy in the ballot box. Our + liberal intelligences could and do still understand Russians wanting + votes, Indians wanting votes, women wanting votes. The history of + nineteenth-century Liberalism in the world might almost be summed up in + the phrase "progressive enfranchisement." But these are the desires of a + closing phase in political history. The new discords go deeper than that. + The new situation which confronts our Liberal intelligence is the + discontent of the enfranchised, the contempt and hostility of the voters + for their elected delegates and governments. + </p> + <p> + This discontent, this resentment, this contempt even, and hostility to + duly elected representatives is no mere accident of this democratic + country or that; it is an almost world-wide movement. It is an almost + universal disappointment with so-called popular government, and in many + communities—in Great Britain particularly—it is manifesting + itself by an unprecedented lawlessness in political matters, and in a + strange and ominous contempt for the law. One sees it, for example, in the + refusal of large sections of the medical profession to carry out insurance + legislation, in the repudiation of Irish Home Rule by Ulster, and in the + steady drift of great masses of industrial workers towards the conception + of a universal strike. The case of the discontented workers in Great + Britain and France is particularly remarkable. These people form effective + voting majorities in many constituencies; they send alleged Socialist and + Labour representatives into the legislative assembly; and, in addition, + they have their trade unions with staffs of elected officials, elected + ostensibly to state their case and promote their interests. Yet nothing is + now more evident than that these officials, working-men representatives + and the like, do not speak for their supporters, and are less and less + able to control them. The Syndicalist movement, sabotage in France, and + Larkinism in Great Britain, are, from the point of view of social + stability, the most sinister demonstrations of the gathering anger of the + labouring classes with representative institutions. These movements are + not revolutionary movements, not movements for reconstruction such as were + the democratic Socialist movements that closed the nineteenth century. + They are angry and vindictive movements. They have behind them the most + dangerous and terrible of purely human forces, the wrath, the blind + destructive wrath, of a cheated crowd. + </p> + <p> + Now, so far as the insurrection of labour goes, American conditions differ + from European, and the process of disillusionment will probably follow a + different course. American labour is very largely immigrant labour still + separated by barriers of language and tradition from the established + thought of the nation. It will be long before labour in America speaks + with the massed effectiveness of labour in France and England, where + master and man are racially identical, and where there is no variety of + "Dagoes" to break up the revolt. But in other directions the American + disbelief in and impatience with "elected persons" is and has been far + profounder than it is in Europe. The abstinence of men of property and + position from overt politics, and the contempt that banishes political + discussion from polite society, are among the first surprises of the + visiting European to America, and now that, under an organised pressure of + conscience, college-trained men and men of wealth are abandoning this + strike of the educated and returning to political life, it is, one notes, + with a prevailing disposition to correct democracy by personality, and to + place affairs in the hands of autocratic mayors and presidents rather than + to carry out democratic methods to the logical end. At times America seems + hot for a Caesar. If no Caesar is established, then it will be the good + fortune of the Republic rather than its democratic virtue which will have + saved it. + </p> + <p> + And directly one comes to look into the quality and composition of the + elected governing body of any modern democratic State, one begins to see + the reason and nature of its widening estrangement from the community it + represents. In no sense are these bodies really representative of the + thought and purpose of the nation; the conception of its science, the + fresh initiatives of its philosophy and literature, the forces that make + the future through invention and experiment, exploration and trial and + industrial development have no voice, or only an accidental and feeble + voice, there. The typical elected person is a smart rather than + substantial lawyer, full of cheap catchwords and elaborate tricks of + procedure and electioneering, professing to serve the interests of the + locality which is his constituency, but actually bound hand and foot to + the specialised political association, his party, which imposed him upon + that constituency. Arrived at the legislature, his next ambition is + office, and to secure and retain office he engages in elaborate manoeuvres + against the opposite party, upon issues which his limited and specialised + intelligence indicates as electorally effective. But being limited and + specialised, he is apt to drift completely out of touch with the interests + and feelings of large masses of people in the community. In Great Britain, + the United States and France alike there is a constant tendency on the + part of the legislative body to drift into unreality, and to bore the + country with the disputes that are designed to thrill it. In Great + Britain, for example, at the present time the two political parties are + both profoundly unpopular with the general intelligence, which is + sincerely anxious, if only it could find a way, to get rid of both of + them. Irish Home Rule—an issue as dead as mutton, is opposed to + Tariff Reform, which has never been alive. Much as the majority of people + detest the preposterously clumsy attempts to amputate Ireland from the + rule of the British Parliament which have been going on since the + breakdown of Mr. Gladstone's political intelligence, their dread of + foolish and scoundrelly fiscal adventurers is sufficiently strong to + retain the Liberals in office. The recent exposures of the profound + financial rottenness of the Liberal party have deepened the public resolve + to permit no such enlarged possibilities of corruption as Tariff Reform + would afford their at least equally dubitable opponents. And meanwhile, + beneath those ridiculous alternatives, those sham issues, the real and + very urgent affairs of the nation, the vast gathering discontent of the + workers throughout the Empire, the racial conflicts in India and South + Africa which will, if they are not arrested, end in our severance from + India, the insane waste of national resources, the control of disease, the + frightful need of some cessation of armament, drift neglected.... + </p> + <p> + Now do these things indicate the ultimate failure and downfall of + representative government? Was this idea which inspired so much of the + finest and most generous thought of the eighteenth and nineteenth + centuries a wrong idea, and must we go back to Caesarism or oligarchy or + plutocracy or a theocracy, to Rome or Venice or Carthage, to the strong + man or the ruler by divine right, for the political organisation of the + future? + </p> + <p> + My answer to that question would be an emphatic No. My answer would be + that the idea of representative government is the only possible idea for + the government of a civilised community. But I would add that so far + representative government has not had even the beginnings of a fair trial. + So far we have not had representative government, but only a devastating + caricature. + </p> + <p> + It is quite plain now that those who first organised the parliamentary + institutions which now are the ruling institutions of the greater part of + mankind fell a prey to certain now very obvious errors. They did not + realise that there are hundreds of different ways in which voting may be + done, and that every way will give a different result. They thought, and + it is still thought by a great number of mentally indolent people, that if + a country is divided up into approximately equivalent areas, each + returning one or two representatives, if every citizen is given one vote, + and if there is no legal limit to the presentation of candidates, that + presently a cluster of the wisest, most trusted and best citizens will + come together in the legislative assembly. + </p> + <p> + In reality the business is far more complicated than this. In reality a + country will elect all sorts of different people according to the + electoral method employed. It is a fact that anyone who chooses to + experiment with a willing school or club may verify. Suppose, for example, + that you take your country, give every voter one single vote, put up six + and twenty candidates for a dozen vacancies, and give them no adequate + time for organisation. The voters, you will find, will return certain + favourites, A and B and C and D let us call them, by enormous majorities, + and behind these at a considerable distance will come E, F, G, H, I, J, K, + and L. Now give your candidates time to develop organisation. A lot of + people who swelled A's huge vote will dislike J and K and L so much, and + prefer M and N so much, that if they are assured that by proper + organisation A's return can be made certain without their voting for him, + they will vote for M and N. But they will do so only on that + understanding. Similarly certain B-ites will want O and P if they can be + got without sacrificing B. So that adequate party organisation in the + community may return not the dozen a naive vote would give, but A, B, C, + D, E, F, G, H, M, N, O, P. Now suppose that, instead of this arrangement, + your community is divided into twelve constituencies and no candidate may + contest more than one of them. And suppose each constituency has strong + local preferences. A, B and C are widely popular; in every constituency + they have supporters but in no constituency does any one of the three + command a majority. They are great men, not local men. Q, who is an + unknown man in most of the country, has, on the contrary, a strong sect of + followers in the constituency for which A stands, and beats him by one + vote; another local celebrity, E, disposes of B in the same way; C is + attacked not only by S but T, whose peculiar views upon vaccination, let + us say, appeal to just enough of C's supporters to let in S. Similar + accidents happen in the other constituencies, and the country that would + have unreservedly returned A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K and L on the + first system, return instead O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Numerous + voters who would have voted for A if they had a chance vote instead for R, + S, T, etc., numbers who would have voted for B, vote for Q, V, W, X, etc. + But now suppose that A and B are opposed to one another, and that there is + a strong A party and a strong B party highly organised in the country. B + is really the second favourite over the country as a whole, but A is the + first favourite. D, F, H, J, L, N, P, R, U, W, Y constitute the A + candidates and in his name they conquer. B, C, E, G, I, K, M, O, Q, S, V + are all thrown out in spite of the wide popularity of B and C. B and C, we + have supposed, are the second and third favourites, and yet they go out in + favour of Y, of whom nobody has heard before, some mere hangers-on of A's. + Such a situation actually occurs in both Ulster and Home-Rule Ireland. + </p> + <p> + But now let us suppose another arrangement, and that is that the whole + country is one constituency, and every voter has, if he chooses to + exercise them, twelve votes, which, however, he must give, if he gives + them all, to twelve separate people. Then quite certainly A, B, C, D will + come in, but the tail will be different. M, N, O, P may come up next to + them, and even Z, that eminent non-party man, may get in. But now + organisation may produce new effects. The ordinary man, when he has twelve + votes to give, likes to give them all, so that there will be a good deal + of wild voting at the tails of the voting papers. Now if a small resolute + band decide to plump for T or to vote only for A and T or B and T, T will + probably jump up out of the rejected. This is the system which gives the + specialist, the anti-vaccinator or what not, the maximum advantage. V, W, + X and Y, being rather hopeless anyhow, will probably detach themselves + from party and make some special appeal, say to the teetotal vote or the + Mormon vote or the single tax vote, and so squeeze past O, P, Q, R, who + have taken a more generalised line. + </p> + <p> + I trust the reader will bear with me through these alphabetical + fluctuations. Many people, I know from colloquial experiences, do at about + this stage fly into a passion. But if you will exercise self-control, then + I think you will see my point that, according to the method of voting, + almost any sort of result may be got out of an election except the + production of a genuinely representative assembly. + </p> + <p> + And that is the a priori case for supposing, what our experience of + contemporary life abundantly verifies, that the so-called representative + assemblies of the world are not really representative at all. I will go + farther and say that were it not for the entire inefficiency of our method + of voting, not one-tenth of the present American and French Senators, the + French Deputies, the American Congressmen, and the English Members of + Parliament would hold their positions to-day. They would never have been + heard of. They are not really the elected representatives of the people; + they are the products of a ridiculous method of election; they are the + illegitimate children of the party system and the ballot-box, who have + ousted the legitimate heirs from their sovereignty. They are no more the + expression of the general will than the Tsar or some President by <i>pronunciamento</i>. + They are an accidental oligarchy of adventurers. Representative government + has never yet existed in the world; there was an attempt to bring it into + existence in the eighteenth century, and it succumbed to an infantile + disorder at the very moment of its birth. What we have in the place of the + leaders and representatives are politicians and "elected persons." + </p> + <p> + The world is passing rapidly from localised to generalised interests, but + the method of election into which our fathers fell is the method of + electing one or two representatives from strictly localised + constituencies. Its immediate corruption was inevitable. If discussing and + calculating the future had been, as it ought to be, a common, systematic + occupation, the muddles of to-day might have been foretold a hundred years + ago. From such a rough method of election the party system followed as a + matter of course. In theory, of course, there may be any number of + candidates for a constituency and a voter votes for the one he likes best; + in practice there are only two or three candidates, and the voter votes + for the one most likely to beat the candidate he likes least. It cannot be + too strongly insisted that in contemporary elections we vote against; we + do not vote for. If A, B and C are candidates, and you hate C and all his + works and prefer A, but doubt if he will get as many votes as B, who is + indifferent to you, the chances are you will vote for B. If C and B have + the support of organised parties, you are still less likely to risk + "wasting" your vote upon A. If your real confidence is in G, who is not a + candidate for your constituency, and if B pledges himself to support G, + while A retains the right of separate action, you may vote for B even if + you distrust him personally. Additional candidates would turn any election + of this type into a wild scramble. The system lies, in fact, wholly open + to the control of political organisations, calls out, indeed, for the + control of political organisations, and has in every country produced what + is so evidently demanded. The political organisations to-day rule us + unchallenged. Save as they speak for us, the people are dumb. + </p> + <p> + Elections of the prevalent pattern, which were intended and are still + supposed by simple-minded people to give every voter participation in + government, do as a matter of fact effect nothing of the sort. They give + him an exasperating fragment of choice between the agents of two party + organisations, over neither of which he has any intelligible control. For + twenty-five years I have been a voter, and in all that time I have only + twice had an opportunity of voting for a man of distinction in whom I had + the slightest confidence. Commonly my choice of a "representative" has + been between a couple of barristers entirely unknown to me or the world at + large. Rather more than half the men presented for my selection have not + been English at all, but of alien descent. This, then, is the sum of the + political liberty of the ordinary American or Englishman, that is the + political emancipation which Englishwomen have shown themselves so + pathetically eager to share. He may reject one of two undesirables, and + the other becomes his "representative." Now this is not popular government + at all; it is government by the profession of politicians, whose control + becomes more and more irresponsible in just the measure that they are able + to avoid real factions within their own body. Whatever the two party + organisations have a mind to do together, whatever issue they chance to + reserve from "party politics," is as much beyond the control of the free + and independent voter as if he were a slave subject in ancient Peru. + </p> + <p> + Our governments in the more civilised parts of the world to-day are only + in theory and sentiment democratic. In reality they are democracies so + eviscerated by the disease of bad electoral methods that they are mere + cloaks for the parasitic oligarchies that have grown up within their form + and substance. The old spirit of freedom and the collective purpose which + overthrew and subdued priestcrafts and kingcrafts, has done so, it seems, + only to make way for these obscure political conspiracies. Instead of + liberal institutions, mankind has invented a new sort of usurpation. And + it is not unnatural that many of us should be in a phase of political + despair. + </p> + <p> + These oligarchies of the party organisations have now been evolving for + two centuries, and their inherent evils and dangers become more and more + manifest. The first of these is the exclusion from government of the more + active and intelligent sections of the community. It is not treated as + remarkable, it is treated as a matter of course, that neither in Congress + nor in the House of Commons is there any adequate representation of the + real thought of the time, of its science, invention and enterprise, of its + art and feeling, of its religion and purpose. When one speaks of + Congressmen or Members of Parliament one thinks, to be plain about it, of + intellectual riff-raff. When one hears of a pre-eminent man in the + English-speaking community, even though that pre-eminence may be in + political or social science, one is struck by a sense of incongruity if he + happens to be also in the Legislature. When Lord Haldane disengages the + Gifford lectures or Lord Morley writes a "Life of Gladstone" or + ex-President Roosevelt is delivered of a magazine article, there is the + same sort of excessive admiration as when a Royal Princess does a + water-colour sketch or a dog walks on its hind legs. + </p> + <p> + Now this intellectual inferiority of the legislator is not only directly + bad for the community by producing dull and stupid legislation, but it has + a discouraging and dwarfing effect upon our intellectual life. Nothing so + stimulates art, thought and science as realisation; nothing so cripples it + as unreality. But to set oneself to know thoroughly and to think clearly + about any human question is to unfit oneself for the forensic claptrap + which is contemporary politics, is to put oneself out of the effective + current of the nation's life. The intelligence of any community which does + not make a collective use of that intelligence, starves and becomes + hectic, tends inevitably to preciousness and futility on the one hand, and + to insurgency, mischief and anarchism on the other. + </p> + <p> + From the point of view of social stability this estrangement of the + national government and the national intelligence is far less serious than + the estrangement between the governing body and the real feeling of the + mass of the people. To many observers this latter estrangement seems to be + drifting very rapidly towards a social explosion in the British Isles. The + organised masses of labour find themselves baffled both by their + parliamentary representatives and by their trade union officials. They are + losing faith in their votes and falling back in anger upon insurrectionary + ideals, upon the idea of a general strike, and upon the expedients of + sabotage. They are doing this without any constructive proposals at all, + for it is ridiculous to consider Syndicalism as a constructive proposal. + They mean mischief because they are hopeless and bitterly disappointed. It + is the same thing in France, and before many years are over it will be the + same thing in America. That way lies chaos. In the next few years there + may be social revolt and bloodshed in most of the great cities of Western + Europe. That is the trend of current probability. Yet the politicians go + on in an almost complete disregard of this gathering storm. Their + jerrymandered electoral methods are like wool in their ears, and the + rejection of Tweedledum for Tweedledee is taken as a "mandate" for + Tweedledee's distinctive brand of political unrealities.... + </p> + <p> + Is this an incurable state of things? Is this method of managing our + affairs the only possible electoral method, and is there no remedy for its + monstrous clumsiness and inefficiency but to "show a sense of humour," or, + in other words, to grin and bear it? Or is it conceivable that there may + be a better way to government than any we have yet tried, a method of + government that would draw every class into conscious and willing + co-operation with the State, and enable every activity of the community to + play its proper part in the national life? That was the dream of those who + gave the world representative government in the past. Was it an impossible + dream? + </p> + <p> + Sec. 2 + </p> + <p> + Is this disease of Parliaments an incurable disease, and have we, + therefore, to get along as well as we can with it, just as a tainted and + incurable invalid diets and is careful and gets along through life? Or is + it possible that some entirely more representative and effective + collective control of our common affairs can be devised? + </p> + <p> + The answer to that must determine our attitude to a great number of + fundamental questions. If no better governing body is possible than the + stupid, dilatory and forensic assemblies that rule in France, Britain and + America to-day, then the civilised human community has reached its climax. + That more comprehensive collective handling of the common interests to + which science and intelligent Socialism point, that collective handling + which is already urgently needed if the present uncontrolled waste of + natural resources and the ultimate bankruptcy of mankind is to be avoided, + is quite beyond the capacity of such assemblies; already there is too much + in their clumsy and untrustworthy hands, and the only course open to us is + an attempt at enlightened Individualism, an attempt to limit and restrict + State activities in every possible way, and to make little private + temporary islands of light and refinement amidst the general disorder and + decay. All collectivist schemes, all rational Socialism, if only + Socialists would realise it, all hope for humanity, indeed, are dependent + ultimately upon the hypothetical possibility of a better system of + government than any at present in existence. + </p> + <p> + Let us see first, then, if we can lay down any conditions which such a + better governing body would satisfy. Afterwards it will be open to us to + believe or disbelieve in its attainment. Imagination is the essence of + creation. If we can imagine a better government we are half-way to making + it. + </p> + <p> + Now, whatever other conditions such a body will satisfy, we may be sure + that it will not be made up of members elected by single-member + constituencies. A single-member constituency must necessarily contain a + minority, and may even contain a majority of dissatisfied persons whose + representation is, as it were, blotted out by the successful candidate. + Three single-member constituencies which might all return members of the + same colour, if they were lumped together to return three members would + probably return two of one colour and one of another. There would still, + however, be a suppressed minority averse to both these colours, or + desiring different shades of those colours from those afforded them in the + constituency. Other things being equal, it may be laid down that the + larger the constituency and the more numerous its representatives, the + greater the chance of all varieties of thought and opinion being + represented. + </p> + <p> + But that is only a preliminary statement; it still leaves untouched all + the considerations advanced in the former part of this discussion to show + how easily the complications and difficulties of voting lead to a + falsification of the popular will and understanding. But here we enter a + region where a really scientific investigation has been made, and where + established results are available. A method of election was worked out by + Hare in the middle of the last century that really does seem to avoid or + mitigate nearly every falsifying or debilitating possibility in elections; + it was enthusiastically supported by J.S. Mill; it is now advocated by a + special society—the Proportional Representation Society—to + which belong men of the most diverse type of distinction, united only by + the common desire to see representative government a reality and not a + disastrous sham. It is a method which does render impossible nearly every + way of forcing candidates upon constituencies, and nearly every trick for + rigging results that now distorts and cripples the political life of the + modern world. It exacts only one condition, a difficult but not an + impossible condition, and that is the honest scrutiny and counting of the + votes. + </p> + <p> + The peculiar invention of the system is what is called the single + transferable vote—that is to say, a vote which may be given in the + first instance to one candidate, but which, in the event of his already + having a sufficient quota of votes to return him, may be transferred to + another. The voter marks clearly in the list of the candidates the order + of his preference by placing 1, 2, 3, and so forth against the names. In + the subsequent counting the voting papers are first classified according + to the first votes. Let us suppose that popular person A is found to have + received first votes enormously in excess of what is needed to return him. + The second votes are then counted on his papers, and after the number of + votes necessary to return him has been deducted, the surplus votes are + divided in due proportion among the second choice names, and count for + them. That is the essential idea of the whole thing. At a stroke all that + anxiety about wasting votes and splitting votes, <i>which is the secret of + all party political manipulation</i> vanishes. You may vote for A well + knowing that if he is safe your vote will be good for C. You can make sure + of A, and at the same time vote for C. You are in no need of a "ticket" to + guide you, and you need have no fear that in supporting an independent + candidate you will destroy the prospects of some tolerably sympathetic + party man without any compensating advantage. The independent candidate + does, in fact, become possible for the first time. The Hobson's choice of + the party machine is abolished. + </p> + <p> + Let me be a little more precise about the particulars of this method, the + only sound method, of voting in order to ensure an adequate representation + of the community. Let us resort again to the constituency I imagined in my + last paper, a constituency in which candidates represented by all the + letters of the alphabet struggle for twelve places. And let us suppose + that A, B, C and D are the leading favourites. Suppose that there are + twelve thousand voters in the constituency, and that three thousand votes + are cast for A—I am keeping the figures as simple as possible—then + A has two thousand more than is needed to return him. <i>All</i> the + second votes on his papers are counted, and it is found that 600, or a + fifth of them, go to C; 500, or a sixth, go to E; 300, or a tenth, to G; + 300 to J; 200, or a fifteenth, each to K and L, and a hundred each, or a + thirtieth, to M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, W and Z. Then the surplus of 2,000 + is divided in these proportions—that is a fifth of 2,000 goes to C, + a sixth to E, and the rest to G, J, etc., in proportion. C, who already + has 900 votes, gets another 400, and is now returned and has, moreover, + 300 to spare; and the same division of the next votes upon C's paper + occurs as has already been made with A's. But previously to this there has + been a distribution of B's surplus votes, B having got 1,200 of first + votes. And so on. After the distribution of the surplus votes of the elect + at the top of the list, there is a distribution of the second votes upon + the papers of those who have voted for the hopeless candidates at the + bottom of the list. At last a point is reached when twelve candidates have + a quota. + </p> + <p> + In this way the "wasting" of a vote, or the rejection of a candidate for + any reason except that hardly anybody wants him, become practically + impossible. This method of the single transferable vote with very large + constituencies and many members does, in fact, give an entirely valid + electoral result; each vote tells for all it is worth, and the freedom of + the voter is only limited by the number of candidates who put up or are + put up for election. This method, and this method alone, gives + representative government; all others of the hundred and one possible + methods admit of trickery, confusion and falsification. Proportional + Representation is not a faddist proposal, not a perplexing ingenious + complication of a simple business; it is the carefully worked out right + way to do something that hitherto we have been doing in the wrong way. It + is no more an eccentricity than is proper baking in the place of baking + amidst dirt and with unlimited adulteration, or the running of trains to + their destinations instead of running them without notice into casually + selected sidings and branch lines. It is not the substitution of something + for something else of the same nature; it is the substitution of right for + wrong. It is the plain common sense of the greatest difficulty in + contemporary affairs. + </p> + <p> + I know that a number of people do not, will not, admit this of + Proportional Representation. Perhaps it is because of that hideous + mouthful of words for a thing that would be far more properly named Sane + Voting. This, which is the only correct way, these antagonists regard as a + peculiar way. It has unfamiliar features, and that condemns it in their + eyes. It takes at least ten minutes to understand, and that is too much + for their plain, straightforward souls. "Complicated"—that word of + fear! They are like the man who approved of an electric tram, but said + that he thought it would go better without all that jiggery-pokery of + wires up above. They are like the Western judge in the murder trial who + said that if only they got a man hanged for this abominable crime, he + wouldn't make a pedantic fuss about the question of <i>which</i> man. They + are like the plain, straightforward promoter who became impatient with + maps and planned a railway across Switzerland by drawing a straight line + with a ruler across Jungfrau and Matterhorn and glacier and gorge. Or else + they are like Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., who knows too well what would + happen to him. + </p> + <p> + Now let us consider what would be the necessary consequences of the + establishment of Proportional Representation in such a community as Great + Britain—that is to say, the redistribution of the country into great + constituencies such as London or Ulster or Wessex or South Wales, each + returning a score or more of members, and the establishment of voting by + the single transferable vote. The first, immediate, most desirable result + would be the disappearance of the undistinguished party candidate; he + would vanish altogether. He would be no more seen. Proportional + Representation would not give him the ghost of a chance. The very young + man of good family, the subsidised barrister, the respectable nobody, the + rich supporter of the party would be ousted by known men. No candidate who + had not already distinguished himself, and who did not stand for something + in the public eye, would have a chance of election. There alone we have a + sufficient reason for anticipating a very thorough change in the quality + and character of the average legislator. + </p> + <p> + And next, no party organisation, no intimation from headquarters, no dirty + tricks behind the scenes, no conspiracy of spite and scandal would have + much chance of keeping out any man of real force and distinction who had + impressed the public imagination. To be famous in science, to have led + thought, to have explored or administered or dissented courageously from + the schemes of official wire-pullers would no longer be a bar to a man's + attainment of Parliament. It would be a help. Not only the level of + parliamentary intelligence, but the level of personal independence would + be raised far above its present position. And Parliament would become a + gathering of prominent men instead of a means to prominence. + </p> + <p> + The two-party system which holds all the English-speaking countries to-day + in its grip would certainly be broken up by Proportional Representation. + Sane Voting in the end would kill the Liberal and Tory and Democratic and + Republican party-machines. That secret rottenness of our public life, that + hidden conclave which sells honours, fouls finance, muddles public + affairs, fools the passionate desires of the people, and ruins honest men + by obscure campaigns would become impossible. The advantage of party + support would be a doubtful advantage, and in Parliament itself the party + men would find themselves outclassed and possibly even outnumbered by the + independent. It would be only a matter of a few years between the adoption + of Sane Voting and the disappearance of the Cabinet from British public + life. It would become possible for Parliament to get rid of a minister + without getting rid of a ministry, and to express its disapproval of—let + us say—some foolish project for rearranging the local government of + Ireland without opening the door upon a vista of fantastical fiscal + adventures. The party-supported Cabinet, which is now the real government + of the so-called democratic countries, would cease to be so, and + government would revert more and more to the legislative assembly. And not + only would the latter body resume government, but it would also + necessarily take into itself all those large and growing exponents of + extra-parliamentary discontent that now darken the social future. The case + of the armed "Unionist" rebel in Ulster, the case of the workman who + engages in sabotage, the case for sympathetic strikes and the general + strike, all these cases are identical in this, that they declare + Parliament a fraud, that justice lies outside it and hopelessly outside + it, and that to seek redress through Parliament is a waste of time and + energy. Sane Voting would deprive all these destructive movements of the + excuse and necessity for violence. + </p> + <p> + There is, I know, a disposition in some quarters to minimise the + importance of Proportional Representation, as though it were a mere + readjustment of voting methods. It is nothing of the sort; it is a + prospective revolution. It will revolutionise government far more than a + mere change from kingdom to republic or vice versa could possibly do; it + will give a new and unprecedented sort of government to the world. The + real leaders of the country will govern the country. For Great Britain, + for example, instead of the secret, dubious and dubitable Cabinet, which + is the real British government of to-day, poised on an unwieldy and + crowded House of Commons, we should have open government by the + representatives of, let us say, twenty great provinces, Ulster, Wales, + London, for example, each returning from twelve to thirty members. It + would be a steadier, stabler, more confident, and more trusted government + than the world has ever seen before. Ministers, indeed, and even + ministries might come and go, but that would not matter, as it does now, + because there would be endless alternatives through which the assembly + could express itself instead of the choice between two parties. + </p> + <p> + The arguments against Proportional Representation that have been advanced + hitherto are trivial in comparison with its enormous advantages. Implicit + in them all is the supposition that public opinion is at bottom a foolish + thing, and that electoral methods are to pacify rather than express a + people. It is possibly true that notorious windbags, conspicuously + advertised adventurers, and the heroes of temporary sensations may run a + considerable chance upon the lists. My own estimate of the popular wisdom + is against the idea that any vividly prominent figure must needs get in; I + think the public is capable of appreciating, let us say, the charm and + interest of Mr. Sandow or Mr. Jack Johnson or Mr. Harry Lauder or Mr. Evan + Roberts without wanting to send these gentlemen into Parliament. And I + think that the increased power that the Press would have through its + facilities in making reputations may also be exaggerated. Reputations are + mysterious things and not so easily forced, and even if it were possible + for a section of the Press to limelight a dozen or so figures up to the + legislature, they would still have, I think, to be interesting, + sympathetic and individualised figures; and at the end they would be only + half a dozen among four hundred men of a repute more naturally achieved. A + third objection is that this reform would give us group politics and + unstable government. It might very possibly give us unstable ministries, + but unstable ministries may mean stable government, and such stable + ministries as that which governs England at the present time may, by + clinging obstinately to office, mean the wildest fluctuations of policy. + Mr. Ramsay Macdonald has drawn a picture of the too-representative + Parliament of Proportional Representation, split up into groups each + pledged to specific measures and making the most extraordinary treaties + and sacrifices of the public interest in order to secure the passing of + these definite bills. But Mr. Ramsay Macdonald is exclusively a + parliamentary man; he knows contemporary parliamentary "shop" as a clerk + knows his "guv'nor," and he thinks in the terms of his habitual life; he + sees representatives only as politicians financed from party headquarters; + it is natural that he should fail to see that the quality and condition of + the sanely elected Member of Parliament will be quite different from these + scheming climbers into positions of trust with whom he deals to-day. It is + the party system based on insane voting that makes governments indivisible + wholes and gives the group and the cave their terrors and their + effectiveness. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald is as typical a product of existing + electoral methods as one could well have, and his peculiarly keen sense of + the power of intrigue in legislation is as good evidence as one could wish + for of the need for drastic change. + </p> + <p> + Of course, Sane Voting is not a short cut to the millennium, it is no way + of changing human nature, and in the new type of assembly, as in the old, + spite, vanity, indolence, self-interest, and downright dishonesty will + play their part. But to object to a reform on that account is not a + particularly effective objection. These things will play their part, but + it will be a much smaller part in the new than in the old. It is like + objecting to some projected and long-needed railway because it does not + propose to carry its passengers by immediate express to heaven. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE AMERICAN POPULATION + </h2> + <p> + Sec. 1 + </p> + <p> + The social conditions and social future of America constitute a system of + problems quite distinct and separate from the social problems of any other + part of the world. The nearest approach to parallel conditions, and that + on a far smaller and narrower scale, is found in the British colonies and + in the newly settled parts of Siberia. For while in nearly every other + part of the world the population of to-day is more or less completely + descended from the prehistoric population of the same region, and has + developed its social order in a slow growth extending over many centuries, + the American population is essentially a transplanted population, a still + fluid and imperfect fusion of great fragments torn at this point or that + from the gradually evolved societies of Europe. The European social + systems grow and flower upon their roots, in soil which has made them and + to which they are adapted. The American social accumulation is a various + collection of cuttings thrust into a new soil and respiring a new air, so + different that the question is still open to doubt, and indeed there are + those who do doubt, how far these cuttings are actually striking root and + living and growing, whether indeed they are destined to more than a + temporary life in the new hemisphere. I propose to discuss and weigh + certain arguments for and against the belief that these ninety million + people who constitute the United States of America are destined to develop + into a great distinctive nation with a character and culture of its own. + </p> + <p> + Humanly speaking, the United States of America (and the same is true of + Canada and all the more prosperous, populous and progressive regions of + South America) is a vast sea of newly arrived and unstably rooted people. + Of the seventy-six million inhabitants recorded by the 1900 census, ten + and a half million were born and brought up in one or other of the + European social systems, and the parents of another twenty-six millions + were foreigners. Another nine million are of African negro descent. + Fourteen million of the sixty-five million native-born are living not in + the state of their birth, but in other states to which they have migrated. + Of the thirty and a half million whites whose parents on both sides were + native Americans, a high proportion probably had one if not more + grand-parents foreign-born. Nearly five and a half million out of + thirty-three and a half million whites in 1870 were foreign-born, and + another five and a quarter million the children of foreign-born parents. + The children of the latter five and a quarter million count, of course, in + the 1900 census as native-born of native parents. Immigration varies + enormously with the activity of business, but in 1906 it rose for the + first time above a million. + </p> + <p> + These figures may be difficult to grasp. The facts may be seen in a more + concrete form by the visitor to Ellis Island, the receiving station for + the immigrants into New York Harbour. One goes to this place by tugs from + the United States barge office in Battery Park, and in order to see the + thing properly one needs a letter of introduction to the commissioner in + charge. Then one is taken through vast barracks littered with people of + every European race, every type of low-class European costume, and every + degree of dirtiness, to a central hall in which the gist of the examining + goes on. The floor of this hall is divided up into a sort of maze of + winding passages between lattice work, and along these passages, day after + day, incessantly, the immigrants go, wild-eyed Gipsies, Armenians, Greeks, + Italians, Ruthenians, Cossacks, German peasants, Scandinavians, a few + Irish still, impoverished English, occasional Dutch; they halt for a + moment at little desks to exhibit papers, at other little desks to show + their money and prove they are not paupers, to have their eyes scanned by + this doctor and their general bearing by that. Their thumb-marks are + taken, their names and heights and weights and so forth are recorded for + the card index; and so, slowly, they pass along towards America, and at + last reach a little wicket, the gate of the New World. Through this metal + wicket drips the immigration stream—all day long, every two or three + seconds, an immigrant with a valise or a bundle, passes the little desk + and goes on past the well-managed money-changing place, past the carefully + organised separating ways that go to this railway or that, past the + guiding, protecting officials—into a new world. The great majority + are young men and young women between seventeen and thirty, good, + youthful, hopeful peasant stock. They stand in a long string, waiting to + go through that wicket, with bundles, with little tin boxes, with cheap + portmanteaus with odd packages, in pairs, in families, alone, women with + children, men with strings of dependents, young couples. All day that + string of human beads waits there, jerks forward, waits again; all day and + every day, constantly replenished, constantly dropping the end beads + through the wicket, till the units mount to hundreds and the hundreds to + thousands.... In such a prosperous year as 1906 more immigrants passed + through that wicket into America than children were born in the whole of + France. + </p> + <p> + This figure of a perpetual stream of new stranger citizens will serve to + mark the primary distinction between the American social problem and that + of any European or Asiatic community. + </p> + <p> + The vast bulk of the population of the United States has, in fact, only + got there from Europe in the course of the last hundred years, and mainly + since the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne of Great Britain. That + is the first fact that the student of the American social future must + realise. Only an extremely small proportion of its blood goes back now to + those who fought for freedom in the days of George Washington. The + American community is not an expanded colonial society that has become + autonomous. It is a great and deepening pool of population accumulating + upon the area these predecessors freed, and since fed copiously by + affluents from every European community. Fresh ingredients are still being + added in enormous quantity, in quantity so great as to materially change + the racial quality in a score of years. It is particularly noteworthy that + each accession of new blood seems to sterilise its predecessors. Had there + been no immigration at all into the United States, but had the rate of + increase that prevailed in 1810-20 prevailed to 1900, the population, + which would then have been a purely native American one, would have + amounted to a hundred million—that is to say, to approximately nine + million in excess of the present total population. The new waves are for a + time amazingly fecund, and then comes a rapid fall in the birth-rate. The + proportion of colonial and early republican blood in the population is, + therefore, probably far smaller even than the figures I have quoted would + suggest. + </p> + <p> + These accesses of new population have come in a series of waves, very much + as if successive reservoirs of surplus population in the Old World had + been tapped, drained and exhausted. First came the Irish and Germans, then + Central Europeans of various types, then Poland and Western Russia began + to pour out their teeming peoples, and more particularly their Jews, + Bohemia, the Slavonic states, Italy and Hungary followed and the latest + arrivals include great numbers of Levantines, Armenians and other peoples + from Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula. The Hungarian immigrants have + still a birth-rate of forty-six per thousand, the highest birth-rate in + the world. + </p> + <p> + A considerable proportion of the Mediterranean arrivals, it has to be + noted, and more especially the Italians, do not come to settle. They work + for a season or a few years, and then return to Italy. The rest come to + stay. + </p> + <p> + A vast proportion of these accessions to the American population since + 1840 has, with the exception of the East European Jews, consisted of + peasantry, mainly or totally illiterate, accustomed to a low standard of + life and heavy bodily toil. For most of them the transfer to a new country + meant severance from the religious communion in which they had been bred + and from the servilities or subordinations to which they were accustomed + They brought little or no positive social tradition to the synthesis to + which they brought their blood and muscle. + </p> + <p> + The earlier German, English and Scandinavian incomers were drawn from a + somewhat higher social level, and were much more closely akin in habits + and faith to the earlier founders of the Republic. + </p> + <p> + Our inquiry is this: What social structure is this pool of mixed humanity + developing or likely to develop? + </p> + <p> + Sec. 2 + </p> + <p> + If we compare any European nation with the American, we perceive at once + certain broad differences. The former, in comparison with the latter, is + evolved and organised; the latter, in comparison with the former, is + aggregated and chaotic. In nearly every European country there is a social + system often quite elaborately classed and defined; each class with a + sense of function, with an idea of what is due to it and what is expected + of it. Nearly everywhere you find a governing class, aristocratic in + spirit, sometimes no doubt highly modified by recent economic and + industrial changes, with more or less of the tradition of a feudal + nobility, then a definite great mercantile class, then a large + self-respecting middle class of professional men, minor merchants, and so + forth, then a new industrial class of employees in the manufacturing and + urban districts, and a peasant population rooted to the land. There are, + of course, many local modifications of this form: in France the nobility + is mostly expropriated; in England, since the days of John Bull, the + peasant has lost his common rights and his holding, and become an + "agricultural labourer" to a newer class of more extensive farmer. But + these are differences in detail; the fact of the organisation, and the + still more important fact of the traditional feeling of organisation, + remain true of all these older communities. + </p> + <p> + And in nearly every European country, though it may be somewhat despoiled + here and shorn of exclusive predominance there, or represented by a + dislocated "reformed" member, is the Church, custodian of a great moral + tradition, closely associated with the national universities and the + organisation of national thought. The typical European town has its castle + or great house, its cathedral or church, its middle-class and lower-class + quarters. Five miles off one can see that the American town is on an + entirely different plan. In his remarkable "American Scene," Mr. Henry + James calls attention to the fact that the Church as one sees it and feels + it universally in Europe is altogether absent, and he adds a comment as + suggestive as it is vague. Speaking of the appearance of the Churches, so + far as they do appear amidst American urban scenery, he says: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Looking for the most part no more established or + seated than a stopped omnibus, they are reduced to the + inveterate bourgeois level (that of private, accommodated + pretensions merely), and fatally despoiled of the fine old + ecclesiastical arrogance, ... The field of American life is + as bare of the Church as a billiard-table of a centre-piece; a + truth that the myriad little structures 'attended' on Sundays + and on the 'off' evenings of their 'sociables' proclaim as + with the audible sound of the roaring of a million mice.... + + "And however one indicates one's impression of the + clearance, the clearance itself, in its completeness, with the + innumerable odd connected circumstances that bring it + home, represents, in the history of manners and morals, a + deviation in the mere measurement of which hereafter may + well reside a certain critical thrill. I say hereafter because + it is a question of one of those many measurements that + would as yet, in the United States, be premature. Of all + the solemn conclusions one feels as 'barred,' the list is quite + headed in the States, I think, by this particular abeyance + of judgment. When an ancient treasure of precious vessels, + overscored with glowing gems and wrought artistically into + wondrous shapes, has, by a prodigious process, been converted + through a vast community into the small change, + the simple circulating medium of dollars and 'nickels,' we + can only say that the consequent permeation will be of + values of a new order. Of <i>what</i> order we must wait to + see." +</pre> + <p> + America has no Church. Neither has it a peasantry nor an aristocracy, and + until well on in the Victorian epoch it had no disproportionately rich + people. + </p> + <p> + In America, except in the regions where the negro abounds, there is no + lower stratum. There is no "soil people" to this community at all; your + bottom-most man is a mobile freeman who can read, and who has ideas above + digging and pigs and poultry-keeping, except incidentally for his own + ends. No one owns to subordination As a consequence, any position which + involves the acknowledgment of an innate inferiority is difficult to fill; + there is, from the European point of view, an extraordinary dearth of + servants, and this endures in spite of a great peasant immigration. The + servile tradition will not root here now; it dies forthwith. An enormous + importation of European serfs and peasants goes on, but as they touch this + soil their backs begin to stiffen with a new assertion. + </p> + <p> + And at the other end of the scale, also, one misses an element. There is + no territorial aristocracy, no aristocracy at all, no throne, no + legitimate and acknowledged representative of that upper social structure + of leisure, power and State responsibility which in the old European + theory of Society was supposed to give significance to the whole. The + American community, one cannot too clearly insist, does not correspond to + an entire European community at all, but only to the middle masses of it, + to the trading and manufacturing class between the dimensions of the + magnate and the clerk and skilled artisan. It is the central part of the + European organism without either the dreaming head or the subjugated feet. + Even the highly feudal slave-holding "county family" traditions of + Virginia and the South pass now out of memory. So that in a very real + sense the past of the American nation is in Europe, and the settled order + of the past is left behind there. This community was, as it were, taken + off its roots, clipped of its branches, and brought hither. It began + neither serf nor lord, but burgher and farmer; it followed the normal + development of the middle class under Progress everywhere and became + capitalistic. The huge later immigration has converged upon the great + industrial centres and added merely a vast non-servile element of + employees to the scheme. + </p> + <p> + America has been and still very largely is a one-class country. It is a + great sea of human beings detached from their traditions of origin. The + social difference from Europe appears everywhere, and nowhere more + strikingly than in the railway carriages. In England the compartments in + these are either "first class," originally designed for the aristocracy, + or "second class," for the middle class, or "third class," for the + populace. In America there is only one class, one universal simple + democratic car. In the Southern States, however, a proportion of these + simple democratic cars are inscribed with the word "White," whereby nine + million people are excluded. But to this original even-handed treatment + there was speedily added a more sumptuous type of car, the parlour car, + accessible to extra dollars; and then came special types of train, all + made up of parlour cars and observation cars and the like. In England + nearly every train remains still first, second and third, or first and + third. And now, quite outdistancing the differentiation of England, + America produces private cars and private trains, such as Europe reserves + only for crowned heads. + </p> + <p> + The evidence of the American railways, then, suggests very strongly what a + hundred other signs confirm, that the huge classless sea of American + population is not destined to remain classless, is already developing + separations and distinctions and structures of its own. And monstrous + architectural portents in Boston and Salt Lake City encourage one to + suppose that even that churchless aspect, which so stirred the speculative + element in Mr. Henry James, is only the opening formless phase of a + community destined to produce not only classes but intellectual and moral + forms of the most remarkable kind. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 3 + </p> + <p> + It is well to note how these ninety millions of people whose social future + we are discussing are distributed. This huge development of human + appliances and resources is here going on in a community that is still, + for all the dense crowds of New York, the teeming congestion of East Side, + extraordinarily scattered. America, one recalls, is still an unoccupied + country across which the latest developments of civilisation are rushing. + We are dealing here with a continuous area of land which is, leaving + Alaska out of account altogether, equal to Great Britain, France, the + German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, Belgium, Japan, + Holland, Spain and Portugal, Sweden and Norway, Turkey in Europe, Egypt + and the whole Empire of India, and the population spread out over this + vast space is still less than the joint population of the first two + countries named and not a quarter that of India. + </p> + <p> + Moreover, it is not spread at all evenly. Much of it is in undistributed + clots. It is not upon the soil; barely half of it is in holdings and homes + and authentic communities. It is a population of an extremely modern type. + Urban concentration has already gone far with it; fifteen millions of it + are crowded into and about twenty great cities, another eighteen millions + make up five hundred towns. Between these centres of population run + railways indeed, telegraph wires, telephone connections, tracks of various + sorts, but to the European eye these are mere scratchings on a virgin + surface. An empty wilderness manifests itself through this thin network of + human conveniences, appears in the meshes even at the railroad side. + </p> + <p> + Essentially, America is still an unsettled land, with only a few + incidental good roads in favoured places, with no universal police, with + no wayside inns where a civilised man may rest, with still only the + crudest of rural postal deliveries, with long stretches of swamp and + forest and desert by the track side, still unassailed by industry. This + much one sees clearly enough eastward of Chicago. Westward it becomes more + and more the fact. In Idaho, at last, comes the untouched and perhaps + invincible desert, plain and continuous through the long hours of travel. + Huge areas do not contain one human being to the square mile, still vaster + portions fall short of two.... + </p> + <p> + It is upon Pennsylvania and New York State and the belt of great towns + that stretches out past Chicago to Milwaukee and Madison that the nation + centres and seems destined to centre. One needs but examine a tinted + population map to realise that. The other concentrations are provincial + and subordinate; they have the same relation to the main axis that Glasgow + or Cardiff have to London in the British scheme. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 4 + </p> + <p> + When I speak of this vast multitude, these ninety millions of the United + States of America as being for the most part peasants de-peasant-ised and + common people cut off from their own social traditions, I do not intend to + convey that the American community is as a whole traditionless. There is + in America a very distinctive tradition indeed, which animates the entire + nation, gives a unique idiom to its press and all its public utterances, + and is manifestly the starting point from which the adjustments of the + future must be made. + </p> + <p> + The mere sight of the stars and stripes serves to recall it; "Yankee" in + the mouth of a European gives something of its quality. One thinks at once + of a careless abandonment of any pretension, of tireless energy and daring + enterprise, of immense self-reliance, of a disrespect for the past so + complete that a mummy is in itself a comical object, and the blowing out + of an ill-guarded sacred flame, a delightful jest. One thinks of the + enterprise of the sky-scraper and the humour of "A Yankee at the Court of + King Arthur," and of "Innocents Abroad." Its dominant notes are democracy, + freedom, and confidence. It is religious-spirited without superstition + consciously Christian in the vein of a nearly Unitarian Christianity, + fervent but broadened, broadened as a halfpenny is broadened by being run + over by an express train, substantially the same, that is to say, but with + a marked loss of outline and detail. It is a tradition of romantic + concession to good and inoffensive women and a high development of that + personal morality which puts sexual continence and alcoholic temperance + before any public virtue. It is equally a tradition of sporadic emotional + public-spiritedness, entirely of the quality of gallantry, of handsome and + surprising gifts to the people, disinterested occupation of office and the + like. It is emotionally patriotic, hypotheticating fighting and dying for + one's country as a supreme good while inculcating also that working and + living for oneself is quite within the sphere of virtuous action. It + adores the flag but suspects the State. One sees more national flags and + fewer national servants in America than in any country in the world. Its + conception of manners is one of free plain-spoken men revering women and + shielding them from most of the realities of life, scornful of + aristocracies and monarchies, while asserting simply, directly, boldly and + frequently an equal claim to consideration with all other men. If there is + any traditional national costume, it is shirt-sleeves. And it cherishes + the rights of property above any other right whatsoever. + </p> + <p> + Such are the details that come clustering into one's mind in response to + the phrase, the American tradition. + </p> + <p> + From the War of Independence onward until our own times that tradition, + that very definite ideal, has kept pretty steadily the same. It is the + image of a man and not the image of a State. Its living spirit has been + the spirit of freedom at any cost, unconditional and irresponsible. It is + the spirit of men who have thrown off a yoke, who are jealously resolved + to be unhampered masters of their "own," to whom nothing else is of + anything but secondary importance. That was the spirit of the English + small gentry and mercantile class, the comfortable property owners, the + Parliamentarians, in Stuart times. Indeed even earlier, it is very largely + the spirit of More's "Utopia." It was that spirit sent Oliver Cromwell + himself packing for America, though a heedless and ill-advised and + unforeseeing King would not let him go. It was the spirit that made + taxation for public purposes the supreme wrong and provoked each country, + first the mother country and then in its turn the daughter country, to + armed rebellion. It has been the spirit of the British Whig and the + British Nonconformist almost up to the present day. In the Reform Club of + London, framed and glazed over against Magna Charta, is the American + Declaration of Independence, kindred trophies they are of the same + essentially English spirit of stubborn insubordination. But the American + side of it has gone on unchecked by the complementary aspect of the + English character which British Toryism expresses. + </p> + <p> + The War of Independence raised that Whig suspicion of and hostility to + government and the freedom of private property and the repudiation of any + but voluntary emotional and supererogatory co-operation in the national + purpose to the level of a religion, and the American Constitution with but + one element of elasticity in the Supreme Court decisions, established + these principles impregnably in the political structure. It organised + disorganisation. Personal freedom, defiance of authority, and the stars + and stripes have always gone together in men's minds; and subsequent waves + of immigration, the Irish fleeing famine, for which they held the English + responsible, and the Eastern European Jews escaping relentless + persecutions, brought a persuasion of immense public wrongs, as a + necessary concomitant of systematic government, to refresh without + changing this defiant thirst for freedom at any cost. + </p> + <p> + In my book, "The Future in America," I have tried to make an estimate of + the working quality of this American tradition of unconditional freedom + for the adult male citizen. I have shown that from the point of view of + anyone who regards civilisation as an organisation of human + interdependence and believes that the stability of society can be secured + only by a conscious and disciplined co-ordination of effort, it is a + tradition extraordinarily and dangerously deficient in what I have called + a "<i>sense of the State</i>." And by a "sense of the State" I mean not + merely a vague and sentimental and showy public-spiritedness—of that + the States have enough and to spare—but a real sustaining conception + of the collective interest embodied in the State as an object of simple + duty and as a determining factor in the life of each individual. It + involves a sense of function and a sense of "place," a sense of a general + responsibility and of a general well-being overriding the individual's + well-being, which are exactly the senses the American tradition attacks + and destroys. + </p> + <p> + For the better part of a century the American tradition, quite as much by + reason of what it disregards as of what it suggests, has meant a great + release of human energy, a vigorous if rough and untidy exploitation of + the vast resources that the European invention of railways and telegraphic + communication put within reach of the American people. It has stimulated + men to a greater individual activity, perhaps, than the world has ever + seen before. Men have been wasted by misdirection no doubt, but there has + been less waste by inaction and lassitude than was the case in any + previous society. Great bulks of things and great quantities of things + have been produced, huge areas brought under cultivation, vast cities + reared in the wilderness. + </p> + <p> + But this tradition has failed to produce the beginnings or promise of any + new phase of civilised organisation, the growths have remained largely + invertebrate and chaotic, and, concurrently with its gift of splendid and + monstrous growth, it has also developed portentous political and economic + evils. No doubt the increment of human energy has been considerable, but + it has been much less than appears at first sight. Much of the human + energy that America has displayed in the last century is not a development + of new energy but a diversion. It has been accompanied by a fall in the + birth-rate that even the immigration torrent has not altogether replaced. + Its insistence on the individual, its disregard of the collective + organisation, its treatment of women and children as each man's private + concern, has had its natural outcome. Men's imaginations have been turned + entirely upon individual and immediate successes and upon concrete + triumphs; they have had no regard or only an ineffectual sentimental + regard for the race. Every man was looking after himself, and there was no + one to look after the future. Had the promise of 1815 been fulfilled, + there would now be in the United States of America one hundred million + descendants of the homogeneous and free-spirited native population of that + time. There is not, as a matter of fact, more than thirty-five million. + There is probably, as I have pointed out, much less. Against the assets of + cities, railways, mines and industrial wealth won, the American tradition + has to set the price of five-and-seventy million native citizens who have + never found time to get born, and whose place is now more or less filled + by alien substitutes. Biologically speaking, this is not a triumph for the + American tradition. It is, however, very clearly an outcome of the intense + individualism of that tradition. Under the sway of that it has burnt its + future in the furnace to keep up steam. + </p> + <p> + The next and necessary evil consequent upon this exaltation of the + individual and private property over the State, over the race that is and + over public property, has been a contempt for public service. It has + identified public spirit with spasmodic acts of public beneficence. The + American political ideal became a Cincinnatus whom nobody sent for and who + therefore never left his plough. There has ensued a corrupt and + undignified political life, speaking claptrap, dark with violence, + illiterate and void of statesmanship or science, forbidding any healthy + social development through public organisation at home, and every year + that the increasing facilities of communication draw the alien nations + closer, deepening the risks of needless and disastrous wars abroad. + </p> + <p> + And in the third place it is to be remarked that the American tradition + has defeated its dearest aims of a universal freedom and a practical + equality. The economic process of the last half-century, so far as America + is concerned has completely justified the generalisations of Marx. There + has been a steady concentration of wealth and of the reality as + distinguished from the forms of power in the hands of a small energetic + minority, and a steady approximation of the condition of the mass of the + citizens to that of the so-called proletariat of the European communities. + The tradition of individual freedom and equality is, in fact, in process + of destroying the realities of freedom and equality out of which it rose. + Instead of the six hundred thousand families of the year 1790, all at + about the same level of property and, excepting the peculiar condition of + seven hundred thousand blacks, with scarcely anyone in the position of a + hireling, we have now as the most striking, though by no means the most + important, fact in American social life a frothy confusion of + millionaires' families, just as wasteful, foolish and vicious as + irresponsible human beings with unlimited resources have always shown + themselves to be. And, concurrently with the appearance of these + concentrations of great wealth, we have appearing also poverty, poverty of + a degree that was quite unknown in the United States for the first century + of their career as an independent nation. In the last few decades slums as + frightful as any in Europe have appeared with terrible rapidity, and there + has been a development of the viler side of industrialism, of sweating and + base employment of the most ominous kind. + </p> + <p> + In Mr. Robert Hunter's "Poverty" one reads of "not less than eighty + thousand children, most of whom are little girls, at present employed in + the textile mills of this country. In the South there are now six times as + many children at work as there were twenty years ago. Child labour is + increasing yearly in that section of the country. Each year more little + ones are brought in from the fields and hills to live in the degrading and + demoralising atmosphere of the mill towns...." + </p> + <p> + Children are deliberately imported by the Italians. I gathered from + Commissioner Watchorn at Ellis Island that the proportion of little + nephews and nieces, friends' sons and so forth brought in by them is + peculiarly high, and I heard him try and condemn a doubtful case. It was a + particularly unattractive Italian in charge of a dull-eyed little boy of + no ascertainable relationship.... + </p> + <p> + In the worst days of cotton-milling in England the conditions were hardly + worse than those now existing in the South. Children, the tiniest and + frailest, of five and six years of age, rise in the morning and, like old + men and women, go to the mills to do their day's labour; and, when they + return home, "wearily fling themselves on their beds, too tired to take + off their clothes." Many children work all night—"in the maddening + racket of the machinery, in an atmosphere insanitary and clouded with + humidity and lint." + </p> + <p> + "It will be long," adds Mr. Hunter in his description, "before I forget + the face of a little boy of six years, with his hands stretched forward to + rearrange a bit of machinery, his pallid face and spare form already + showing the physical effects of labour. This child, six years of age, was + working twelve hours a day." + </p> + <p> + From Mr. Spargo's "Bitter Cry of the Children" I learn this much of the + joys of certain among the youth of Pennsylvania: + </p> + <p> + "For ten or eleven hours a day children of ten and eleven stoop over the + chute and pick out the slate and other impurities from the coal as it + moves past them. The air is black with coal dust, and the roar of the + crushers, screens and rushing mill-race of coal is deafening. Sometimes + one of the children falls into the machinery and is terribly mangled, or + slips into the chute and is smothered to death. Many children are killed + in this way. Many others, after a time, contract coal-miners asthma and + consumption, which gradually undermine their health. Breathing continually + day after day the clouds of coal dust, their lungs become black and choked + with small particles of anthracite...." + </p> + <p> + In Massachusetts, at Fall River, the Hon. J.F. Carey tells how little + naked boys, free Americans, work for Mr. Borden, the New York millionaire, + packing cloth into bleaching vats, in a bath of chemicals that bleaches + their little bodies like the bodies of lepers.... + </p> + <p> + Altogether it would seem that at least one million and a half children are + growing up in the United States of America stunted and practically + uneducated because of unregulated industrialism. These children, ill-fed, + ill-trained mentally benighted, since they are alive and active, since + they are an active and positive and not a negative evil, are even more + ominous in the American outlook than those five and sixty million of good + race and sound upbringing who will now never be born. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 5 + </p> + <p> + It must be repeated that the American tradition is really the tradition of + one particular ingredient in this great admixture and stirring up of + peoples. This ingredient is the Colonial British, whose seventeenth + century Puritanism and eighteenth century mercantile radicalism and + rationalism manifestly furnished all the stuff out of which the American + tradition is made. It is this stuff planted in virgin soil and inflated to + an immense and buoyant optimism by colossal and unanticipated material + prosperity and success. From that British middle-class tradition comes the + individualist protestant spirit, the keen self-reliance and personal + responsibility, the irresponsible expenditure, the indiscipline and + mystical faith in things being managed properly if they are only let + alone. "State-blindness" is the natural and almost inevitable quality of a + middle-class tradition, a class that has been forced neither to rule nor + obey, which has been concentrated and successfully concentrated on private + gain. + </p> + <p> + This middle-class British section of the American population was, and is + to this day, the only really articulate ingredient in its mental + composition. And so it has had a monopoly in providing the American forms + of thought. The other sections of peoples that have been annexed by or + have come into this national synthesis are <i>silent</i> so far as any + contribution to the national stock of ideas and ideals is concerned. There + are, for example, those great elements, the Spanish Catholics, the French + Catholic population of Louisiana, the Irish Catholics, the + French-Canadians who are now ousting the sterile New Englander from New + England, the Germans, the Italians the Hungarians. Comparatively they say + nothing. From all the ten million of coloured people come just two or + three platform voices, Booker Washington, Dubois, Mrs. Church Terrell, + mere protests at specific wrongs. The clever, restless Eastern European + Jews, too, have still to find a voice. Professor M|nsterberg has written + with a certain bitterness of the inaudibility of the German element in the + American population. They allow themselves, he remonstrates, to count for + nothing. They did not seem to exist, he points out, even in politics until + prohibitionist fury threatened their beer. Then, indeed, the American + German emerged from silence and obscurity, but only to rescue his mug and + retire again with it into enigmatical silence. + </p> + <p> + If there is any exception to this predominance of the tradition of the + English-speaking, originally middle-class, English-thinking northerner in + the American mind, it is to be found in the spread of social democracy + outward from the festering tenement houses of Chicago into the mining and + agrarian regions of the middle west. It is a fierce form of socialist + teaching that speaks throughout these regions, far more closely akin to + the revolutionary Socialism of the continent of Europe than to the + constructive and evolutionary Socialism of Great Britain. Its typical + organ is <i>The Appeal to Reason</i>, which circulates more than a quarter + of a million copies weekly from Kansas City. It is a Socialism reeking + with class feeling and class hatred and altogether anarchistic in spirit; + a new and highly indigestible contribution to the American moral and + intellectual synthesis. It is remarkable chiefly as the one shrill + exception in a world of plastic acceptance. + </p> + <p> + Now it is impossible to believe that this vast silence of these imported + and ingested factors that the American nation has taken to itself is as + acquiescent as it seems. No doubt they are largely taking over the + traditional forms of American thought and expression quietly and without + protest, and wearing them; but they will wear them as a man wears a + misfit, shaping and adapting it every day more and more to his natural + form, here straining a seam and there taking in a looseness. A force of + modification must be at work. It must be at work in spite of the fact + that, with the exception of social democracy, it does not anywhere show as + a protest or a fresh beginning or a challenge to the prevailing forms. + </p> + <p> + How far it has actually been at work is, perhaps, to be judged best by an + observant stroller, surveying the crowds of a Sunday evening in New York, + or read in the sheets of such a mirror of popular taste as the Sunday + edition of the <i>New York American</i> or the <i>New York Herald</i>. In + the former just what I mean by the silent modification of the old + tradition is quite typically shown. Its leading articles are written by + Mr. Arthur Brisbane, the son of one of the Brook Farm Utopians, that + gathering in which Hawthorne and Henry James senior, and Margaret Fuller + participated, and in which the whole brilliant world of Boston's past, the + world of Emerson, Longfellow, Thoreau, was interested. Mr. Brisbane is a + very distinguished man, quite over and above the fact that he is paid the + greatest salary of any journalist in the world. He writes with a wit and + directness that no other living man can rival, and he holds up constantly + what is substantially the American ideal of the past century to readers + who evidently need strengthening in it. It is, of course, the figure of a + man and not of a State; it is a man, clean, clean shaved and almost + obtrusively strong-jawed, honest, muscular, alert, pushful, chivalrous, + self-reliant, non-political except when he breaks into shrewd and + penetrating voting—"you can fool all the people some of the time," + etc.—and independent—independent—in a world which is + therefore certain to give way to him. + </p> + <p> + His doubts, his questionings, his aspirations, are dealt with by Mr. + Brisbane with a simple direct fatherliness with all the beneficent + persuasiveness of a revivalist preacher. Millions read these leaders and + feel a momentary benefit, en route for the more actual portions of the + paper. He asks: "Why are all men gamblers?" He discusses our Longing for + Immortal Imperfection, and "Did we once live on the moon?" He recommends + the substitution of whisky and soda for neat whisky, drawing an + illustration from the comparative effect of the diluted and of the + undiluted liquid as an eye-wash ("Try whisky on your friend's eyeball!" is + the heading), sleep ("The man who loses sleep will make a failure of his + life, or at least diminish greatly his chances of success"), and the + education of the feminine intelligence ("The cow that kicks her weaned + calf is all heart"). He makes identically the same confident appeal to the + moral motive which was for so long the salvation of the Puritan + individualism from which the American tradition derives. "That hand," he + writes, "which supports the head of the new-born baby, the mother's hand, + supports the civilisation of the world." + </p> + <p> + But that sort of thing is not saving the old native strain in the + population. It moves people, no doubt, but inadequately. And here is a + passage that is quite the quintessence of Americanism, of all its deep + moral feeling and sentimental untruthfulness. I wonder if any man but an + American or a British nonconformist in a state of rhetorical excitement + ever believed that Shakespeare wrote his plays or Michael Angelo painted + in a mood of humanitarian exaltation, "<i>for the good of all men</i>." + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "What <i>shall</i> we strive for? <i>Money</i>? + + "Get a thousand millions. Your day will come, and + in due course the graveyard rat will gnaw as calmly at + your bump of acquisitiveness as at the mean coat of the + pauper. + + "Then shall we strive for <i>power</i>? + + "The names of the first great kings of the world are + forgotten, and the names of all those whose power we envy + will drift to forgetfulness soon. What does the most powerful + man in the world amount to standing at the brink of + Niagara, with his solar plexus trembling? What is his + power compared with the force of the wind or the energy + of one small wave sweeping along the shore? + + "The power which man can build up within himself, + for himself, is nothing. Only the dull reasoning of gratified + egotism can make it seem worth while. + + "Then what is worth while? Let us look at some of + the men who have come and gone, and whose lives inspire + us. Take a few at random: + + "Columbus, Michael Angelo, Wilberforce, Shakespeare, + Galileo, Fulton, Watt, Hargreaves—these will do. + + "Let us ask ourselves this question: 'Was there any + <i>one thing</i> that distinguished <i>all</i> their lives, + that united all these men, active in fields so different?' + + "Yes. Every man among them, and every man whose + life history is worth the telling, did something for <i>the good + of other men</i>.... + + "Get money if you can. Get power if you can; Then, if + you want to be more than the ten thousand million unknown + mingled in the dust beneath you, see what good you can + do with your money and your power. + + "If you are one of the many millions who have not + and can't get money or power, see what good you can do + without either: + + "You can help carry a load for an old man. You can + encourage and help a poor devil trying to reform. You + can set a good example to children. You can stick to the + men with whom you work, fighting honestly for their + welfare. + + "Time was when the ablest man would rather kill ten + men than feed a thousand children. That time has gone. + We do not care much about feeding the children, but we + care less about killing the men. To that extent we have + improved already. + + "The day will come when we shall prefer helping our + neighbour to robbing him—legally—of a million dollars. + + "Do what good you can <i>now</i>, while it is unusual, + and have the satisfaction of being a pioneer and an + eccentric." +</pre> + <p> + It is the voice of the American tradition strained to the utmost to make + itself audible to the new world, and cracking into italics and breaking + into capitals with the strain. The rest of that enormous bale of paper is + eloquent of a public void of moral ambitions, lost to any sense of + comprehensive things, deaf to ideas, impervious to generalisations, a + public which has carried the conception of freedom to its logical extreme + of entire individual detachment. These tell-tale columns deal all with + personality and the drama of personal life. They witness to no interest + but the interest in intense individual experiences. The engagements, the + love affairs, the scandals of conspicuous people are given in pitiless + detail in articles adorned with vigorous portraits and sensational + pictorial comments. Even the eavesdroppers who write this stuff strike the + personal note, and their heavily muscular portraits frown beside the + initial letter. Murders and crimes are worked up to the keenest pitch of + realisation, and any new indelicacy in fashionable costume, any new + medical device or cure, any new dance or athleticism, any new breach in + the moral code, any novelty in sea bathing or the woman's seat on + horseback, or the like, is given copious and moving illustration, stirring + headlines, and eloquent reprobation. There is a coloured supplement of + knock-about fun, written chiefly in the quaint dialect of the New York + slums. It is a language from which "th" has vanished, and it presents a + world in which the kicking by a mule of an endless succession of victims + is an inexhaustible joy to young and old. "Dat ole Maud!" There is a + smaller bale dealing with sport. In the advertisement columns one finds + nothing of books, nothing of art; but great choice of bust developers, + hair restorers, nervous tonics, clothing sales, self-contained flats, and + business opportunities.... + </p> + <p> + Individuality has, in fact, got home to itself, and, as people say, taken + off its frills. All but one; Mr. Arthur Brisbane's eloquence one may + consider as the last stitch of the old costume—mere decoration. + Excitement remains the residual object in life. The <i>New York American</i> + represents a clientele to be counted by the hundred thousand, manifestly + with no other solicitudes, just burning to live and living to burn. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 6 + </p> + <p> + The modifications of the American tradition that will occur through its + adoption by these silent foreign ingredients in the racial synthesis are + not likely to add to it or elaborate it in any way. They tend merely to + simplify it to bare irresponsible non-moral individualism. It is with the + detail and qualification of a tradition as with the inflexions of a + language; when another people takes it over the refinements disappear. But + there are other forces of modification at work upon the American tradition + of an altogether more hopeful kind. It has entered upon a constructive + phase. Were it not so, then the American social outlook would, indeed, be + hopeless. + </p> + <p> + The effectual modifying force at work is not the strangeness nor the + temperamental maladjustment of the new elements of population, but the + conscious realisation of the inadequacy of the tradition on the part of + the more intelligent sections of the American population. That blind + national conceit that would hear no criticism and admit no deficiency has + disappeared. In the last decade such a change has come over the American + mind as sometimes comes over a vigorous and wilful child. Suddenly it + seems to have grown up, to have begun to weigh its powers and consider its + possible deficiencies. There was a time when American confidence and + self-satisfaction seemed impregnable; at the slightest qualm of doubt + America took to violent rhetoric as a drunkard resorts to drink. Now the + indictment I have drawn up harshly, bluntly and unflatteringly in Sec. 4 + would receive the endorsement of American after American. The falling + birth-rate of all the best elements in the State, the cankering effect of + political corruption, the crumbling of independence and equality before + the progressive aggregation of wealth—he has to face them, he cannot + deny them. There has arisen a new literature, the literature of national + self-examination, that seems destined to modify the American tradition + profoundly. To me it seems to involve the hope and possibility of a + conscious collective organisation of social life. + </p> + <p> + If ever there was an epoch-marking book it was surely Henry Demarest + Lloyd's "Wealth against Commonwealth." It marks an epoch not so much by + what it says as by what it silently abandons. It was published in 1894, + and it stated in the very clearest terms the incompatibility of the almost + limitless freedom of property set up by the constitution, with the + practical freedom and general happiness of the mass of men. It must be + admitted that Lloyd never followed up the implications of this + repudiation. He made his statements in the language of the tradition he + assailed, and foreshadowed the replacement of chaos by order in quite + chaotic and mystical appeals. Here, for instance, is a typical passage + from "Man, the Social Creator". + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Property is now a stumbling-block to the people, just + as government has been. Property will not be abolished, + but, like government, it will be democratised. + + "The philosophy of self-interest as the social solution + was a good living and working synthesis in the days when + civilisation was advancing its frontiers twenty miles a day + across the American continent, and every man for himself + was the best social mobilisation possible. + + "But to-day it is a belated ghost that has overstayed + the cock-crow. These were frontier morals. But this same, + everyone for himself, becomes most immoral when the + frontier is abolished and the pioneer becomes the fellow-citizen + and these frontier morals are most uneconomic when + labour can be divided and the product multiplied. Most + uneconomic, for they make closure the rule of industry, + leading not to wealth, but to that awful waste of wealth + which is made visible to every eye in our unemployed—not + hands alone, but land, machinery, and, most of all, hearts. + Those who still practise these frontier morals are like + criminals, who, according to the new science of penology, + are simply reappearances of old types. Their acquisitiveness + once divine like Mercury's, is now out of place except + in jail. Because out of place, they are a danger. A sorry + day it is likely to be for those who are found in the way + when the new people rise to rush into each other's arms, + to get together, to stay together and to live together. The + labour movement halts because so many of its rank and + file—and all its leaders—do not see clearly the golden thread + of love on which have been strung together all the past + glories of human association, and which is to serve for + the link of the new Association of Friends who Labour, + whose motto is 'All for All.'" +</pre> + <p> + The establishment of the intricate co-operative commonwealth by a rush of + eighty million flushed and shiny-eyed enthusiasts, in fact, is Lloyd's + proposal. He will not face, and few Americans to this day will face, the + cold need of a great science of social adjustment and a disciplined and + rightly ordered machinery to turn such enthusiasms to effect. They seem + incurably wedded to gush. However, he did express clearly enough the + opening phase of American disillusionment with the wild go-as-you-please + that had been the conception of life in America through a vehement, + wasteful, expanding century. And he was the precursor of what is now a + bulky and extremely influential literature of national criticism. A number + of writers, literary investigators one may call them, or sociological men + of letters, or magazine publicists—they are a little difficult to + place—has taken up the inquiry into the condition of civic + administration, into economic organisation into national politics and + racial interaction, with a frank fearlessness and an absence of windy + eloquence that has been to many Europeans a surprising revelation of the + reserve forces of the American mind. President Roosevelt, that magnificent + reverberator of ideas, that gleam of wilful humanity, that fantastic first + interruption to the succession of machine-made politicians at the White + House, has echoed clearly to this movement and made it an integral part of + the general intellectual movement of America. + </p> + <p> + It is to these first intimations of the need of a "sense of the State" in + America that I would particularly direct the reader's attention in this + discussion. They are the beginnings of what is quite conceivably a great + and complex reconstructive effort. I admit they are but beginnings. They + may quite possibly wither and perish presently; they may much more + probably be seized upon by adventurers and converted into a new cant + almost as empty and fruitless as the old. The fact remains that, through + this busy and immensely noisy confusion of nearly a hundred millions of + people, these little voices go intimating more and more clearly the + intention to undertake public affairs in a new spirit and upon new + principles, to strengthen the State and the law against individual + enterprise, to have done with those national superstitions under which + hypocrisy and disloyalty and private plunder have sheltered and prospered + for so long. + </p> + <p> + Just as far as these reform efforts succeed and develop is the + organisation of the United States of America into a great, self-conscious, + civilised nation, unparalleled in the world's history, possible; just as + far as they fail is failure written over the American future. The real + interest of America for the next century to the student of civilisation + will be the development of these attempts, now in their infancy, to create + and realise out of this racial hotchpotch, this human chaos, an idea, of + the collective commonwealth as the datum of reference for every individual + life. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 7 + </p> + <p> + I have hinted in the last section that there is a possibility that the new + wave of constructive ideas in American thought may speedily develop a cant + of its own. But even then, a constructive cant is better than a + destructive one. Even the conscious hypocrite has to do something to + justify his pretences, and the mere disappearance from current thought of + the persuasion that organisation is a mistake and discipline needless, + clears the ground of one huge obstacle even if it guarantees nothing about + the consequent building. + </p> + <p> + But, apart from this, are there more solid and effectual forces behind + this new movement of ideas that makes for organisation in American medley + at the present time? + </p> + <p> + The speculative writer casting about for such elements lights upon four + sets of possibilities which call for discussion. First, one has to ask: + How far is the American plutocracy likely to be merely a wasteful and + chaotic class, and how far is it likely to become consciously aristocratic + and constructive? Secondly, and in relation to this, what possibilities of + pride and leading are there in the great university foundations of + America? Will they presently begin to tell as a restraining and directing + force upon public thought? Thirdly, will the growing American Socialist + movement, which at present is just as anarchistic and undisciplined in + spirit as everything else in America, presently perceive the constructive + implications of its general propositions and become statesmanlike and + constructive? And, fourthly, what are the latent possibilities of the + American women? Will women as they become more and more aware of + themselves as a class and of the problem of their sex become a force upon + the anarchistic side, a force favouring race-suicide, or upon the + constructive side which plans and builds and bears the future? + </p> + <p> + The only possible answer to each one of these questions at present is + guessing and an estimate. But the only way in which a conception of the + American social future may be reached lies through their discussion. + </p> + <p> + Let us begin by considering what constructive forces may exist in this new + plutocracy which already so largely sways American economic and political + development. The first impression is one of extravagant and aimless + expenditure, of a class irresponsible and wasteful beyond all precedent. + One gets a Zolaesque picture of that aspect in Mr. Upton Sinclair's + "Metropolis," or the fashionable intelligence of the popular New York + Sunday editions, and one finds a good deal of confirmatory evidence in + many incidental aspects of the smart American life of Paris and the + Riviera. The evidence in the notorious Thaw trial, after one has + discounted its theatrical elements, was still a very convincing + demonstration of a rotten and extravagant, because aimless and + functionless, class of rich people. But one has to be careful in this + matter if one is to do justice to the facts. If a thing is made up of two + elements, and one is noisy and glaringly coloured, and the other is quiet + and colourless, the first impression created will be that the thing is + identical with the element that is noisy and glaringly coloured. One is + much less likely to hear of the broad plans and the quality of the wise, + strong and constructive individuals in a class than of their foolish + wives, their spendthrift sons, their mistresses, and their moments of + irritation and folly. + </p> + <p> + In the making of very rich men there is always a factor of good fortune + and a factor of design and will. One meets rich men at times who seem to + be merely lucky gamblers, who strike one as just the thousandth man in a + myriad of wild plungers, who are, in fact, chance nobodies washed up by an + eddy. Others, again, strike one as exceptionally lucky half-knaves. But + there are others of a growth more deliberate and of an altogether higher + personal quality. One takes such men as Mr. J.D. Rockefeller or Mr. + Pierpont Morgan—the scale of their fortunes makes them public + property—and it is clear that we are dealing with persons on quite a + different level of intellectual power from the British Colonel Norths, for + example, or the South African Joels. In my "Future in America" I have + taken the former largely at Miss Tarbell's estimate, and treated him as a + case of acquisitiveness raised in Baptist surroundings. But I doubt very + much if that exhausts the man as he is to-day. Given a man brought up to + saving and "getting on" as if to a religion, a man very acquisitive and + very patient and restrained, and indubitably with great organising power, + and he grows rich beyond the dreams of avarice. And having done so, there + he is. What is he going to do? Every step he takes up the ascent to riches + gives him new perspectives and new points of view. + </p> + <p> + It may have appealed to the young Rockefeller, clerk in a Chicago house, + that to be rich was itself a supreme end; in the first flush of the + discovery that he was immensely rich, he may have thanked Heaven as if for + a supreme good, and spoken to a Sunday school gathering as if he knew + himself for the most favoured of men. But all that happened twenty years + ago or more. One does not keep on in that sort of satisfaction; one + settles down to the new facts. And such men as Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. + Pierpont Morgan do not live in a made and protected world with their minds + trained, tamed and fed and shielded from outside impressions as royalties + do. The thought of the world has washed about them; they have read and + listened to the discussion of themselves for some decades; they have had + sleepless nights of self-examination. To succeed in acquiring enormous + wealth does not solve the problem of life; indeed, it reopens it in a new + form. "What shall I do with myself?" simply recurs again. You may have + decided to devote yourself to getting on, getting wealthy. Well, you have + got it. Now, again, comes the question: "What shall I do?" + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pierpont Morgan, I am told, collected works of art. I can understand + that satisfying a rich gentleman of leisure, but not a man who has felt + the sensation of holding great big things in his great big hands. Saul, + going out to seek his father's asses, found a kingdom—and became + very spiritedly a king, and it seems to me that these big industrial and + financial organisers, whatever in their youth they proposed to do or be, + must many of them come to realise that their organising power is up + against no less a thing than a nation's future. Napoleon, it is curious to + remember once wanted to run a lodging-house, and a man may start to corner + oil and end the father of a civilisation. + </p> + <p> + Now, I am disposed to suspect at times that an inkling of such a + realisation may have come to some of these very rich men. I am inclined to + put it among the possibilities of our time that it may presently become + clearly and definitely the inspiring idea of many of those who find + themselves predominantly rich. I do not see why these active rich should + not develop statesmanship, and I can quite imagine them developing very + considerable statesmanship. Because these men were able to realise their + organising power in the absence of economic organisation, it does not + follow that they will be fanatical for a continuing looseness and freedom + of property. The phase of economic liberty ends itself, as Marx long ago + pointed out. The American business world becomes more and more a managed + world with fewer and fewer wild possibilities of succeeding. Of all people + the big millionaires should realise this most acutely, and, in fact, there + are many signs that they do. It seems to me that the educational zeal of + Mr. Andrew Carnegie and the university and scientific endowments of Mr. + Rockefeller are not merely showy benefactions; they express a definite + feeling of the present need of constructive organisation in the social + scheme. The time has come to build. There is, I think, good reason for + expecting that statesmanship of the millionaires to become more organised + and scientific and comprehensive in the coming years. It is plausible at + least to maintain that the personal quality of the American plutocracy has + risen in the last three decades, has risen from the quality of a mere + irresponsible wealthy person towards that of a real aristocrat with a + "sense of the State." That one may reckon the first hopeful possibility in + the American outlook. + </p> + <p> + And intimately connected with this development of an attitude of public + responsibility in the very rich is the decay on the one hand of the + preposterous idea once prevalent in America that politics is an unsuitable + interest for a "gentleman," and on the other of the democratic jealousy of + any but poor politicians. In New York they talk very much of "gentlemen," + and by "gentlemen" they seem to mean rich men "in society" with a college + education. Nowadays, "gentlemen" seem more and more disposed towards + politics, and less and less towards a life of business or detached + refinement. President Roosevelt, for example, was one of the pioneers in + this new development, this restoration of virility to the gentlemanly + ideal. His career marks the appearance of a new and better type of man in + American politics, the close of the rule of the idealised nobody. + </p> + <p> + The prophecy has been made at times that the United States might develop a + Caesarism, and certainly the position of president might easily become + that of an imperator. No doubt in the event of an acute failure of the + national system such a catastrophe might occur, but the more hopeful and + probable line of development is one in which a conscious and powerful, if + informal, aristocracy will play a large part. It may, indeed, never have + any of the outward forms of an aristocracy or any definite public + recognition. The Americans are as chary of the coronet and the known + aristocratic titles as the Romans were of the word King. Octavius, for + that reason, never called himself king nor Italy a kingdom. He was just + the Caesar of the Republic, and the Empire had been established for many + years before the Romans fully realised that they had returned to monarchy. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 8 + </p> + <p> + The American universities are closely connected in their development with + the appearance and growing class-consciousness of this aristocracy of + wealth. The fathers of the country certainly did postulate a need of + universities, and in every state Congress set aside public lands to + furnish a university with material resources. Every State possesses a + university, though in many instances these institutions are in the last + degree of feebleness. In the days of sincere democracy the starvation of + government and the dislike of all manifest inequalities involved the + starvation of higher education. Moreover, the entirely artificial nature + of the State boundaries, representing no necessary cleavages and traversed + haphazard by the lines of communication, made some of these State + foundations unnecessary and others inadequate to a convergent demand. From + the very beginning, side by side with the State universities, were the + universities founded by benefactors; and with the evolution of new centres + of population, new and extremely generous plutocratic endowments appeared. + The dominant universities of America to-day, the treasure houses of + intellectual prestige, are almost all of them of plutocratic origin, and + even in the State universities, if new resources are wanted to found new + chairs, to supply funds for research or publication or what not, it is to + the more State-conscious wealthy and not to the State legislature that the + appeal is made almost as a matter of course. The common voter, the small + individualist has less constructive imagination—is more + individualistic, that is, than the big individualist. + </p> + <p> + This great network of universities that is now spread over the States, + interchanging teachers, literature and ideas, and educating not only the + professions but a growing proportion of business leaders and wealthy + people, must necessarily take an important part in the reconstruction of + the American tradition that is now in progress. It is giving a large and + increasing amount of attention to the subjects that bear most directly + upon the peculiar practical problems of statecraft in America, to + psychology, sociology and political science. It is influencing the press + more and more directly by supplying a rising proportion of journalists and + creating an atmosphere of criticism and suggestion. It is keeping itself + on the one hand in touch with the popular literature of public criticism + in those new and curious organs of public thought, the ten-cent magazines; + and on the other it is making a constantly more solid basis of common + understanding upon which the newer generation of plutocrats may meet. That + older sentimental patriotism must be giving place under its influence to a + more definite and effectual conception of a collective purpose. It is to + the moral and intellectual influence of sustained scientific study in the + universities, and a growing increase of the college-trained element in the + population that we must look if we are to look anywhere for the new + progressive methods, for the substitution of persistent, planned and + calculated social development for the former conditions of systematic + neglect and corruption in public affairs varied by epileptic seizures of + "Reform." + </p> + <p> + Sec. 9 + </p> + <p> + A third influence that may also contribute very materially to the + reconstruction of the American tradition is the Socialist movement. It is + true that so far American Socialism has very largely taken an Anarchistic + form, has been, in fact, little more than a revolutionary movement of the + wages-earning class against the property owner. It has already been + pointed out that it derives not from contemporary English Socialism but + from the Marxist social democracy of the continent of Europe, and has not + even so much of the constructive spirit as has been developed by the + English Socialists of the Fabian and Labour Party group or by the newer + German evolutionary Socialists. Nevertheless, whenever Socialism is + intelligently met by discussion or whenever it draws near to practicable + realisation, it becomes, by virtue of its inherent implications, a + constructive force, and there is no reason to suppose that it will not be + intelligently met on the whole and in the long run in America. The + alternative to a developing Socialism among the labouring masses in + America is that revolutionary Anarchism from which it is slowly but + definitely marking itself off. In America we have to remember that we are + dealing with a huge population of people who are for the most part, and + more and more evidently destined under the present system of free + industrial competition, to be either very small traders, small farmers on + the verge of debt, or wages-earners for all their lives. They are going to + lead limited lives and worried lives—and they know it. Nearly + everyone can read and discuss now, the process of concentrating property + and the steady fixation of conditions that were once fluid and adventurous + goes on in the daylight visibly to everyone. And it has to be borne in + mind also that these people are so far under the sway of the American + tradition that each thinks himself as good as any man and as much entitled + to the fullness of life. Whatever social tradition their fathers had, + whatever ideas of a place to be filled humbly and seriously and duties to + be done, have been left behind in Europe. No Church dominates the scenery + of this new land, and offers in authoritative and convincing tones + consolations hereafter for lives obscurely but faithfully lived. Whatever + else happens in this national future, upon one point the patriotic + American may feel assured, and that is of an immense general discontent in + the working class and of a powerful movement in search of a general + betterment. The practical forms and effects of that movement will depend + almost entirely upon the average standard of life among the workers and + their general education. Sweated and ill-organised foreigners, such as one + finds in New Jersey living under conditions of great misery, will be + fierce, impatient and altogether dangerous. They will be acutely + exasperated by every picture of plutocratic luxury in their newspaper, + they will readily resort to destructive violence. The western miner, the + western agriculturist, worried beyond endurance between the money-lender + and railway combinations will be almost equally prone to savage methods of + expression. <i>The Appeal to Reason</i>, for example, to which I have made + earlier reference in this chapter, is furious to wreck the present + capitalistic system, but it is far too angry and impatient for that + satisfaction to produce any clear suggestion of what shall replace it. + </p> + <p> + To call this discontent of the seething underside of the American system + Socialism is a misnomer. Were there no Socialism there would be just as + much of this discontent, just the same insurgent force and desire for + violence, taking some other title and far more destructive methods. This + discontent is a part of the same planless confusion that gives on the + other side the wanton irresponsible extravagances of the smart people of + New York. But Socialism alone, of all the forms of expression adopted by + the losers in the economic struggle, contains constructive possibilities + and leads its adherents towards that ideal of an organised State, planned + and developed, from which these terrible social stresses may be + eliminated, which is also the ideal to which sociology and the thoughts of + every constructive-minded and foreseeing man in any position of life tend + to-day. In the Socialist hypothesis of collective ownership and + administration as the social basis, there is the germ of a "sense of the + State" that may ultimately develop into comprehensive conceptions of + social order, conceptions upon which enlightened millionaires and + unenlightened workers may meet at last in generous and patriotic + co-operation. + </p> + <p> + The chances of the American future, then, seem to range between two + possibilities just as a more or less constructive Socialism does or does + not get hold of and inspire the working mass of the population. In the + worst event—given an emotional and empty hostility to property as + such, masquerading as Socialism—one has the prospect of a bitter and + aimless class war between the expropriated many and the property-holding + few, a war not of general insurrection but of localised outbreaks, strikes + and brutal suppressions, a war rising to bloody conflicts and sinking to + coarsely corrupt political contests, in which one side may prevail in one + locality and one in another, and which may even develop into a chronic + civil war in the less-settled parts of the country or an irresistible + movement for secession between west and east. That is assuming the + greatest imaginable vehemence and short-sighted selfishness and the least + imaginable intelligence on the part of both workers and the + plutocrat-swayed government. But if the more powerful and educated + sections of the American community realise in time the immense moral + possibilities of the Socialist movement, if they will trouble to + understand its good side instead of emphasising its bad, if they will keep + in touch with it and help in the development of a constructive content to + its propositions, then it seems to me that popular Socialism may count as + a third great factor in the making of the civilised American State. + </p> + <p> + In any case, it does not seem to me probable that there can be any + national revolutionary movement or any complete arrest in the development + of an aristocratic phase in American history. The area of the country is + too great and the means of communication between the workers in different + parts inadequate for a concerted rising or even for effective political + action in mass. In the worst event—and it is only in the worst event + that a great insurrectionary movement becomes probable—the + newspapers, magazines, telephones and telegraphs, all the apparatus of + discussion and popular appeal, the railways, arsenals, guns, flying + machines, and all the material of warfare, will be in the hands of the + property owners, and the average of betrayal among the leaders of a class, + not racially homogeneous, embittered, suspicious united only by their + discomforts and not by any constructive intentions, will necessarily be + high. So that, though the intensifying trouble between labour and capital + may mean immense social disorganisation and lawlessness, though it may + even supply the popular support in new attempts at secession, I do not see + in it the possibility and force for that new start which the revolutionary + Socialists anticipate; I see it merely as one of several forces making, on + the whole and particularly in view of the possible mediatory action of the + universities, for construction and reconciliation. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 10 + </p> + <p> + What changes are likely to occur in the more intimate social life of the + people of the United States? Two influences are at work that may modify + this profoundly. One is that spread of knowledge and that accompanying + change in moral attitude which is more and more sterilising the once + prolific American home, and the second is the rising standard of feminine + education. There has arisen in this age a new consciousness in women. They + are entering into the collective thought to a degree unprecedented in the + world's history, and with portents at once disquieting and confused. + </p> + <p> + In Sec. 5 I enumerated what I called the silent factors in the American + synthesis, the immigrant European aliens, the Catholics, the coloured + blood, and so forth. I would now observe that, in the making of the + American tradition, the women also have been to a large extent, and quite + remarkably, a silent factor. That tradition is not only fundamentally + middle-class and English, but it is also fundamentally masculine. The + citizen is the man. The woman belongs to him. He votes for her, works for + her, does all the severer thinking for her. She is in the home behind the + shop or in the dairy at the farmhouse with her daughters. She gets the + meal while the men talk. The American imagination and American feeling + centre largely upon the family and upon "mother." American ideals are + homely. The social unit is the home, and it is another and a different set + of influences and considerations that are never thought of at all when the + home sentiment is under discussion, that, indeed, it would be indelicate + to mention at such a time, which are making that social unit the home of + one child or of no children at all. + </p> + <p> + That ideal of a man-owned, mother-revering home has been the prevalent + American ideal from the landing of the <i>Mayflower</i> right down to the + leader writing of Mr. Arthur Brisbane. And it is clear that a very + considerable section among one's educated women contemporaries do not mean + to stand this ideal any longer. They do not want to be owned and + cherished, and they do not want to be revered. How far they represent + their sex in this matter it is very hard to say. In England in the + professional and most intellectually active classes it is scarcely an + exaggeration to say that <i>all</i> the most able women below + five-and-thirty are workers for the suffrage and the ideal of equal and + independent citizenship, and active critics of the conventions under which + women live to-day. It is at least plausible to suppose that a day is + approaching when the alternatives between celibacy or a life of economic + dependence and physical subordination to a man who has chosen her, and + upon whose kindness her happiness depends, or prostitution, will no longer + be a satisfactory outlook for the great majority of women, and when, with + a newly aroused political consciousness, they will be prepared to exert + themselves as a class to modify this situation. It may be that this is + incorrect, and that in devotion to an accepted male and his children most + women do still and will continue to find their greatest satisfaction in + life. But it is the writer's impression that so simple and single-hearted + a devotion is rare, and that, released from tradition—and education, + reading and discussion do mean release from tradition—women are as + eager for initiative, freedom and experience as men. In that case they + will persist in the present agitation for political rights, and these + secured, go on to demand a very considerable reconstruction of our present + social order. + </p> + <p> + It is interesting to point the direction in which this desire for + independence will probably take them. They will discover that the + dependence of women at the present time is not so much a law-made as an + economic dependence due to the economic disadvantages their sex imposes + upon them. Maternity and the concomitants of maternity are the + circumstances in their lives, exhausting energy and earning nothing, that + place them at a discount. From the stage when property ceased to be + chiefly the creation of feminine agricultural toil (the so-called + primitive matriarchate) to our present stage, women have had to depend + upon a man's willingness to keep them, in order to realise the organic + purpose of their being. Whether conventionally equal or not, whether + voters or not, that necessity for dependence will still remain under our + system of private property and free independent competition. There is only + one evident way by which women as a class can escape from that dependence + each upon an individual man and from all the practical inferiority this + dependence entails, and that is by so altering their status as to make + maternity and the upbringing of children a charge not upon the husband of + the mother but upon the community. The public Endowment of Maternity is + the only route by which the mass of women can reach that personal freedom + and independent citizenship so many of them desire. + </p> + <p> + Now, this idea of the Endowment of Maternity—or as it is frequently + phrased, the Endowment of the Home—is at present put forward by the + modern Socialists as an integral part of their proposals, and it is + interesting to note that there is this convergent possibility which may + bring the feminist movement at last altogether into line with constructive + Socialism. Obviously, before anything in the direction of family endowment + becomes practicable, public bodies and the State organisation will need to + display far more integrity and efficiency than they do in America at the + present time. Still, that is the trend of things in all contemporary + civilised communities, and it is a trend that will find a powerful + reinforcement in men's solicitudes as the increasing failure of the + unsupported private family to produce offspring adequate to the needs of + social development becomes more and more conspicuous. The impassioned + appeals of President Roosevelt have already brought home the race-suicide + of the native-born to every American intelligence, but mere rhetoric will + not in itself suffice to make people, insecurely employed and struggling + to maintain a comfortable standard of life against great economic + pressure, prolific. Presented as a call to a particularly onerous and + quite unpaid social duty the appeal for unrestricted parentage fails. + Husband and wife alike dread an excessive burthen. Travel, leisure, + freedom, comfort, property and increased ability for business competition + are the rewards of abstinence from parentage, and even the disapproval of + President Roosevelt and the pride of offspring are insufficient + counterweights to these inducements. Large families disappear from the + States, and more and more couples are childless. Those who have children + restrict their number in order to afford those they have some reasonable + advantage in life. This, in the presence of the necessary knowledge, is as + practically inevitable a consequence of individualist competition and the + old American tradition as the appearance of slums and a class of + millionaires. + </p> + <p> + These facts go to the very root of the American problem. I have already + pointed out that, in spite of a colossal immigration, the population of + the United States was at the end of the nineteenth century over twenty + millions short of what it should have been through its own native increase + had the birth-rate of the opening of the century been maintained. For a + hundred years America has been "fed" by Europe. That feeding process will + not go on indefinitely. The immigration came in waves as if reservoir + after reservoir was tapped and exhausted. Nowadays England, Scotland, + Ireland, France and Scandinavia send hardly any more; they have no more to + send. Germany and Switzerland send only a few. The South European and + Austrian supply is not as abundant as it was. There may come a time when + Europe and Western Asia will have no more surplus population to send, when + even Eastern Asia will have passed into a less fecund phase, and when + America will have to look to its own natural increase for the continued + development of its resources. + </p> + <p> + If the present isolated family of private competition is still the social + unit, it seems improbable that there will be any greater natural increase + than there is in France. + </p> + <p> + Will the growing idea of a closer social organisation have developed by + that time to the possibility of some collective effort in this matter? Or + will that only come about after the population of the world has passed + through a phase of absolute recession? The peculiar constitution of the + United States gives a remarkable freedom of experiment in these matters to + each individual state, and local developments do not need to wait upon a + national change of opinion; but, on the other hand, the superficial + impression of an English visitor is that any such profound interference + with domestic autonomy runs counter to all that Americans seem to hold + dear at the present time. These are, however, new ideas and new + considerations that have still to be brought adequately before the + national consciousness, and it is quite impossible to calculate how a + population living under changing conditions and with a rising standard of + education and a developing feminine consciousness may not think and feel + and behave in a generation's time. At present for all political and + collective action America is a democracy of untutored individualist men + who will neither tolerate such interference between themselves and the + women they choose to marry as the Endowment of Motherhood implies, nor + view the "kids" who will at times occur even in the best-regulated + families as anything but rather embarrassing, rather amusing by-products + of the individual affections. + </p> + <p> + I find in the London <i>New Age</i> for August 15th, 1908, a description + by Mr. Jerome K. Jerome of "John Smith," the average British voter. John + Smith might serve in some respects for the common man of all the modern + civilisations. Among other things that John Smith thinks and wants, he + wants: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "a little house and garden in the country all to himself. + His idea is somewhere near half an acre of ground. He + would like a piano in the best room; it has always been his + dream to have a piano. The youngest girl, he is convinced, + is musical. As a man who has knocked about the world + and has thought, he quite appreciates the argument that + by co-operation the material side of life can be greatly + improved. He quite sees that by combining a dozen families + together in one large house better practical results can be + obtained. It is as easy to direct the cooking for a hundred + as for half a dozen. There would be less waste of food, of + coals, of lighting. To put aside one piano for one girl is + absurd. He sees all this, but it does not alter one little + bit his passionate craving for that small house and garden + all to himself. He is built that way. He is typical of a + good many other men and women built on the same pattern. + What are you going to do with them? Change them—their + instincts, their very nature, rooted in the centuries? + Or, as an alternative, vary Socialism to fit John Smith? + Which is likely to prove the shorter operation?" +</pre> + <p> + That, however, is by the way. Here is the point at issue: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "He has heard that Socialism proposes to acknowledge + woman's service to the State by paying her a weekly wage + according to the number of children that she bears and + rears. I don't propose to repeat his objections to the idea; + they could hardly be called objections. There is an ugly + look comes into his eyes; something quite undefinable, + prehistoric, almost dangerous, looks out of them.... In + talking to him on this subject you do not seem to be + talking to a man. It is as if you had come face to face + with something behind civilisation, behind humanity, something + deeper down still among the dim beginnings of + creation...." +</pre> + <p> + Now, no doubt Mr. Jerome is writing with emphasis here. But there is + sufficient truth in the passage for it to stand here as a rough symbol of + another factor in this question. John Smithism, that manly and + individualist element in the citizen, stands over against and resists all + the forces of organisation that would subjugate it to a collective + purpose. It is careless of coming national cessation and depopulation, + careless of the insurgent spirit beneath the acquiescences of Mrs. Smith, + careless of its own inevitable defeat in the economic struggle, careless + because it can understand none of these things; it is obstinately + muddle-headed, asserting what it conceives to be itself against the + universe and all other John Smiths whatsoever. It is a factor with all + other factors. The creative, acquisitive, aggressive spirit of those + bigger John Smiths who succeed as against the myriads of John Smiths who + fail, the wider horizons and more efficient methods of the educated man, + the awakening class-consciousness of women, the inevitable futility of + John Smithism, the sturdy independence that makes John Smith resent even + disciplined co-operation with Tom Brown to achieve a common end, his + essential incapacity, indeed, for collective action; all these things are + against the ultimate triumph, and make for the ultimate civilisation even + of John Smith. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 11 + </p> + <p> + It may be doubted if the increasing collective organisation of society to + which the United States of America, in common with all the rest of the + world, seem to be tending will be to any very large extent a national + organisation. The constitution is an immense and complicated barrier to + effectual centralisation. There are many reasons for supposing the + national government will always remain a little ineffectual and detached + from the full flow of American life, and this notwithstanding the very + great powers with which the President is endowed. + </p> + <p> + One of these reasons is certainly the peculiar accident that has placed + the seat of government upon the Potomac. To the thoughtful visitor to the + United States this hiding away of the central government in a minute + district remote from all the great centres of thought, population and + business activity becomes more remarkable more perplexing, more suggestive + of an incurable weakness in the national government as he grasps more + firmly the peculiarities of the American situation. + </p> + <p> + I do not see how the central government of that great American nation of + which I dream can possibly be at Washington, and I do not see how the + present central government can possibly be transferred to any other + centre. But to go to Washington, to see and talk to Washington, is to + receive an extraordinary impression of the utter isolation and + hopelessness of Washington. The National Government has an air of being + marooned there. Or as though it had crept into a corner to do something in + the dark. One goes from the abounding movement and vitality of the + northern cities to this sunny and enervating place through the negligently + cultivated country of Virginia, and one discovers the slovenly, unfinished + promise of a city, broad avenues lined by negro shanties and patches of + cultivation, great public buildings and an immense post office, a lifeless + museum, an inert university, a splendid desert library, a street of + souvenir shops, a certain industry of "seeing Washington," an idiotic + colossal obelisk. It seems an ideal nest for the tariff manipulator, a + festering corner of delegates and agents and secondary people. In the + White House, in the time of President Roosevelt, the present writer found + a transitory glow of intellectual activity, the spittoons and glass + screens that once made it like a London gin palace had been removed, and + the former orgies of handshaking reduced to a minimum. It was, one felt, + an accidental phase. The assassination of McKinley was an interruption of + the normal Washington process. To this place, out of the way of + everywhere, come the senators and congressmen, mostly leaving their + families behind them in their states of origin, and hither, too, are drawn + a multitude of journalists and political agents and clerks, a crowd of + underbred, mediocre men. For most of them there is neither social nor + intellectual life. The thought of America is far away, centred now in New + York; the business and economic development centres upon New York; apart + from the President, it is in New York that one meets the people who + matter, and the New York atmosphere that grows and develops ideas and + purposes. New York is the natural capital of the United States, and would + need to be the capital of any highly organised national system. Government + from the district of Columbia is in itself the repudiation of any highly + organised national system. + </p> + <p> + But government from this ineffectual, inert place is only the most + striking outcome of that inflexible constitution the wrangling delegates + of 1787-8 did at last produce out of a conflict of State jealousies. They + did their best to render centralisation or any coalescence of States + impossible and private property impregnable, and so far their work has + proved extraordinarily effective. Only a great access of intellectual and + moral vigour in the nation can ever set it aside. And while the more and + more sterile millions of the United States grapple with the legal and + traditional difficulties that promise at last to arrest their development + altogether, the rest of the world will be moving on to new phases. An + awakened Asia will be reorganising its social and political conceptions in + the light of modern knowledge and modern ideas, and South America will be + working out its destinies, perhaps in the form of a powerful confederation + of states. All Europe will be schooling its John Smiths to finer + discipline and broader ideas. It is quite possible that the American John + Smiths may have little to brag about in the way of national predominance + by A.D. 2000. It is quite possible that the United States may be sitting + meekly at the feet of at present unanticipated teachers. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE POSSIBLE COLLAPSE OF CIVILISATION + </h2> + <h3> + (<i>New Year, 1909</i>.) + </h3> + <p> + The Editor of the <i>New York World</i> has asked me to guess the general + trend of events in the next thirty years or so with especial reference to + the outlook for the State and City of New York. I like and rarely refuse + such cheerful invitations to prophesy. I have already made a sort of + forecast (in my "Anticipations") of what may happen if the social and + economic process goes on fairly smoothly for all that time, and shown a + New York relieved from its present congestion by the development of the + means of communication, and growing and spreading in wide and splendid + suburbs towards Boston and Philadelphia. I made that forecast before ever + I passed Sandy Hook, but my recent visit only enhanced my sense of growth + and "go" in things American. Still, we are nowadays all too apt to think + that growth is inevitable and progress in the nature of things; the + Wonderful Century, as Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace called the nineteenth, has + made us perhaps over-confident and forgetful of the ruins of great cities + and confident prides of the past that litter the world, and here I will + write about the other alternative, of the progressive process "hitting + something," and smashing. + </p> + <p> + There are two chief things in modern life that impress me as dangerous and + incalculable. The first of these is the modern currency and financial + system, and the second is the chance we take of destructive war. Let me + dwell first of all on the mysterious possibilities of the former, and then + point out one or two uneasy developments of the latter. + </p> + <p> + Now, there is nothing scientific about our currency and finance at all. It + is a thing that has grown up and elaborated itself out of very simple + beginnings in the course of a century or so. Three hundred years ago the + edifice had hardly begun to rise from the ground, most property was real, + most people lived directly on the land, most business was on a cash basis, + oversea trade was a proportionately small affair, labour was locally + fixed. Most of the world was at the level at which much of China remains + to-day—able to get along without even coinage. It was a rudimentary + world from the point of view of the modern financier and industrial + organiser. Well, on that rude, secure basis there has now been piled the + most chancy and insecurely experimental system of conventions and + assumptions about money and credit it is possible to imagine. There has + grown up a vast system of lending and borrowing, a world-wide extension of + joint-stock enterprises that involve at last the most fantastic + relationships. I find myself, for example, owning (partially, at least) a + bank in New Zealand, a railway in Cuba, another in Canada, several in + Brazil, an electric power plant in the City of Westminster, and so on, and + I use these stocks and shares as a sort of interest-bearing money. If I + want money to spend, I sell a railway share much as one might change a + hundred-pound banknote; if I have more cash than I need immediately I buy + a few shares. I perceive that the value of these shares oscillates, + sometimes rather gravely, and that the value of the alleged money on the + cheques I get also oscillates as compared with the things I want to buy; + that, indeed, the whole system (which has only existed for a couple of + centuries or so, and which keeps on getting higher and giddier) is + perpetually swaying and quivering and bending and sagging; but it is only + when such a great crisis occurs as that of 1907 that it enters my mind + that possibly there is no limit to these oscillations, that possibly the + whole vast accidental edifice will presently come smashing down. + </p> + <p> + Why shouldn't it? + </p> + <p> + I defy any economist or financial expert to prove that it cannot. That it + hasn't done so in the little time for which it has existed is no reply at + all. It is like arguing that a man cannot die because he has never been + known to do so. Previous men have died, previous civilisations have + collapsed, if not of acute, then of chronic financial disorders. + </p> + <p> + The experience of 1907 indicated very clearly how a collapse might occur. + A panic, like an avalanche, is a thing much easier to start than stop. + Previous panics have been arrested by good luck; this last one in America, + for example, found Europe strong and prosperous and helpful. In every + panic period there is a huge dislocation of business enterprises, vast + multitudes of men are thrown out of employment, there is grave social and + political disorder; but in the end, so far, things have an air of having + recovered. But now, suppose the panic wave a little more universal—and + panic waves tend to be more extensive than they used to be. Suppose that + when securities fall all round, and gold appreciates in New York, and + frightened people begin to sell investments and hoard gold, the same thing + happens in other parts of the world. Increase the scale of the trouble + only two or three times, and would our system recover? Imagine great + masses of men coming out of employment, and angry and savage, in all our + great towns; imagine the railways working with reduced staffs on reduced + salaries or blocked by strikers; imagine provision dealers stopping + consignments to retailers, and retailers hesitating to give credit. A + phase would arrive when the police and militia keeping order in the + streets would find themselves on short rations and without their weekly + pay. + </p> + <p> + What we moderns, with our little three hundred years or so of security, do + not recognise is that things that go up and down may, given a certain + combination of chances, go down steadily, down and down. + </p> + <p> + What would you do, dear reader—what should I do—if a slump + went on continually? + </p> + <p> + And that brings me to the second great danger to our modern civilisation, + and that is War. We have over-developed war. While we have left our peace + organisation to the niggling, slow, self-seeking methods of private + enterprise; while we have left the breeding of our peoples to chance, + their minds to the halfpenny press and their wealth to the drug + manufacturer, we have pushed forward the art of war on severely scientific + and Socialist lines; we have put all the collective resources of the + community and an enormous proportion of its intelligence and invention + ungrudgingly into the improvement and manufacture of the apparatus of + destruction. Great Britain, for example, is content with the railways and + fireplaces and types of housing she had fifty years ago; she still uses + telephones and the electric light in the most tentative spirit; but every + ironclad she had five-and-twenty years ago is old iron now and abandoned. + Everything crawls forward but the science of war; that rushes on. Of what + will happen if presently the guns begin to go off I have no shadow of + doubt. Every year has seen the disproportionate increase until now. Every + modern European state is more or less like a cranky, ill-built steamboat + in which some idiot has mounted and loaded a monstrous gun with no + apparatus to damp its recoil. Whether that gun hits or misses when it is + fired, of one thing we may be absolutely certain—it will send the + steamboat to the bottom of the sea. + </p> + <p> + Modern warfare is an insanity, not a sane business proposition. Its + preparation eats more and more into the resources which should be + furnishing a developing civilisation; its possibilities of destruction are + incalculable. A new epoch has opened with the coming of the navigable + balloon and the flying machine. To begin with, these things open new gulfs + for expenditure; in the end they mean possibilities of destruction beyond + all precedent. Such things as the <i>Zeppelin</i> and the <i>Ville de + Paris</i> are only the first pigmy essays of the aeronaut. It is clear + that to be effective, capable of carrying guns and comparatively + insensitive to perforation by shot and shell, these things will have to be + very much larger and as costly, perhaps, as a first-class cruiser. Imagine + such monsters of the air, and wild financial panic below! + </p> + <p> + Here, then, are two associated possibilities with which to modify our + expectation of an America advancing steadily on the road to an organised + civilisation, of New York rebuilding herself in marble, spreading like a + garden city over New Jersey and Long Island and New York State, becoming a + new and greater Venice, queen of the earth. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps, after all, the twentieth century isn't going to be so prosperous + as the nineteenth. Perhaps, instead of going resistlessly onward, we are + going to have a set-back. Perhaps we are going to be put back to learn + over again under simpler conditions some of those necessary fundamental + lessons our race has learnt as yet insufficiently well—honesty and + brotherhood, social collectivism, and the need of some common + peace-preserving council for the whole world. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE IDEAL CITIZEN + </h2> + <p> + Our conceptions of what a good citizen should be are all at sixes and + sevens. No two people will be found to agree in every particular of such + an ideal, and the extreme divergences upon what is necessary, what is + permissible, what is unforgivable in him, will span nearly the whole range + of human possibility and conduct. As a consequence, we bring up our + children in a mist of vague intimations, in a confusion of warring voices, + perplexed as to what they must do, uncertain as to what they may do, + doomed to lives of compromise and fluctuating and inoperative opinion. + Ideals and suggestions come and go before their eyes like figures in a + fog. The commonest pattern, perhaps—the commonest pattern certainly + in Sunday schools and edifying books, and on all those places and + occasions when morality is sought as an end—is a clean and + able-bodied person, truthful to the extent that he does not tell lies, + temperate so far as abstinence is concerned, honest without pedantry, and + active in his own affairs, steadfastly law-abiding and respectful to + custom and usage, though aloof from the tumult of politics, brave but not + adventurous, punctual in some form of religious exercise, devoted to his + wife and children, and kind without extravagance to all men. Everyone + feels that this is not enough, everyone feels that something more is + wanted and something different; most people are a little interested in + what that difference can be, and it is a business that much of what is + more than trivial in our art, our literature and our drama must do to fill + in bit by bit and shade by shade the subtle, the permanent detail of the + answer. + </p> + <p> + It does very greatly help in this question to bear in mind the conflict of + our origins. Every age is an age of transition, of minglings, of the + breaking up of old, narrow cultures, and the breaking down of barriers, of + spiritual and often of actual interbreeding. Not only is the physical but + the moral and intellectual ancestry of everyone more mixed than ever it + was before. We blend in our blood, everyone of us, and we blend in our + ideas and purposes, craftsmen, warriors, savages, peasants, and a score of + races, and an endless multitude of social expedients and rules. Go back + but a hundred generations in the lineage of the most delicate girl you + know, and you will find a dozen murderers. You will find liars and cheats, + lascivious sinners, women who have sold themselves, slaves, imbeciles, + devotees, saints, men of fantastic courage, discreet and watchful persons, + usurers, savages, criminals and kings, and every one of this miscellany, + not simply fathering or mothering on the way to her, but teaching urgently + and with every grade of intensity, views and habits for which they stand. + Something of it all has come to her, albeit much may seem forgotten. In + every human birth, with a new little variation, a fresh slight novelty of + arrangement the old issues rise again. Our ideas, even more than our + blood, flow from multitudinous sources. + </p> + <p> + Certain groups of ideas come to us distinctively associated with certain + marked ways of life. Many, and for a majority of us, it may be, most of + our ancestors were serfs or slaves. And men and women who have had, + generation after generation, to adapt themselves to slavery and the rule + of a master, develop an idea of goodness very different from that of + princes. From our slave ancestry, says Lester Ward, we learnt to work, and + certainly it is from slavery we derive the conception that industry, even + though it be purposeless industry, is a virtue in itself. The good slave, + too, has a morality of restraints; he abstains from the food he handles + and hungers for, and he denies himself pride and initiative of every sort. + He is honest in not taking, but he is unscrupulous about adequate service. + He makes no virtue of frankness, but much of kindly helpfulness and + charity to the weak. He has no sense of duty in planning or economising. + He is polite and soft-spoken, and disposed to irony rather than + denunciation, ready to admire cuteness and condone deception. Not so the + rebel. That tradition is working in us also. It has been the lot of vast + masses of population in every age to be living in successful or + unsuccessful resistance to mastery, to be dreading oppression or to be + just escaped from it. Resentment becomes a virtue then, and any peace with + the oppressor a crime. It is from rebel origins so many of us get the idea + that disrespectfulness is something of a duty and obstinacy a fine thing. + And under the force of this tradition we idealise the rugged and + unmanageable, we find something heroic in rough clothes and hands, in bad + manners, insensitive behaviour, and unsociableness. And a community of + settlers, again, in a rough country, fighting for a bare existence, makes + a virtue of vehemence, of a hasty rapidity of execution. Hurried and + driven men glorify "push" and impatience, and despise finish and fine + discriminations as weak and demoralising things. These three, the Serf, + the Rebel, and the Squatter, are three out of a thousand types and aspects + that have gone to our making. In the American composition they are + dominant. But all those thousand different standards and traditions are + our material, each with something fine, and each with something evil. They + have all provided the atmosphere of upbringing for men in the past. Out of + them and out of unprecedented occasions, we in this newer age, in which + there are no slaves, in which every man is a citizen, in which the + conveniences of a great and growing civilisation makes the frantic avidity + of the squatter a nuisance, have to set ourselves to frame the standard of + our children's children, to abandon what the slave or the squatter or the + rebel found necessary and that we find unnecessary, to fit fresh + requirements to our new needs. So we have to develop our figure of the + fine man, our desirable citizen in that great and noble civilised state we + who have a "sense of the state" would build out of the confusions of our + world. + </p> + <p> + To describe that ideal modern citizen now is at best to make a guess and a + suggestion of what must be built in reality by the efforts of a thousand + minds. But he will be a very different creature from that indifferent, + well-behaved business man who passes for a good citizen to-day. He will be + neither under the slave tradition nor a rebel nor a vehement elemental + man. Essentially he will be aristocratic, aristocratic not in the sense + that he has slaves or class inferiors, because probably he will have + nothing of the sort, but aristocratic in the sense that he will feel the + State belongs to him and he to the State. He will probably be a public + servant; at any rate, he will be a man doing some work in the complicated + machinery of the modern community for a salary and not for speculative + gain. Typically, he will be a professional man. I do not think the ideal + modern citizen can be a person living chiefly by buying for as little as + he can give and selling for as much as he can get; indeed, most of what we + idolise to-day as business enterprise I think he will regard with + considerable contempt. But, then, I am a Socialist, and look forward to + the time when the economic machinery of the community will be a field not + for private enrichment but for public service. + </p> + <p> + He will be good to his wife and children as he will be good to his friend, + but he will be no partisan for wife and family against the common welfare. + His solicitude will be for the welfare of all the children of the + community; he will have got beyond blind instinct; he will have the + intelligence to understand that almost any child in the world may have as + large a share as his own offspring in the parentage of his + great-great-grandchildren His wife he will treat as his equal; he will not + be "kind" to her, but fair and frank and loving, as one equal should be + with another; he will no more have the impertinence to pet and pamper her, + to keep painful and laborious things out of her knowledge to "shield" her + from the responsibility of political and social work, than he will to make + a Chinese toy of her and bind her feet. He and she will love that they may + enlarge and not limit one another. + </p> + <p> + Consciously and deliberately the ideal citizen will seek beauty in himself + and in his way of living. He will be temperate rather than harshly + abstinent, and he will keep himself fit and in training as an elementary + duty. He will not be a fat or emaciated person. Fat, panting men, and + thin, enfeebled ones cannot possibly be considered good citizens any more + than dirty or verminous people. He will be just as fine and seemly in his + person as he can be, not from vanity and self-assertion but to be pleasing + and agreeable to his fellows. The ugly dress and ugly bearing of the "good + man" of to-day will be as incomprehensible to him as the filth of a + palaeolithic savage is to us. He will not speak of his "frame," and hang + clothes like sacks over it; he will know and feel that he and the people + about him have wonderful, delightful and beautiful bodies. + </p> + <p> + And—I speak of the ideal common citizen—he will be a student + and a philosopher. To understand will be one of his necessary duties. His + mind, like his body, will be fit and well clothed. He will not be too busy + to read and think, though he may be too busy to rush about to get + ignorantly and blatantly rich. It follows that, since he will have a mind + exercised finely and flexible and alert, he will not be a secretive man. + Secretiveness and secret planning are vulgarity; men and women need to be + educated, and he will be educated out of these vices. He will be intensely + truthful, not simply in the vulgar sense of not misstating facts when + pressed, but truthful in the manner of the scientific man or the artist, + and as scornful of concealment as they; truthful, that is to say, as the + expression of a ruling desire to have things made plain and clear, because + that so they are most beautiful and life is at its finest.... + </p> + <p> + And all that I have written of him is equally true and applies word for + word, with only such changes of gender as are needed, to the woman citizen + also. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SOME POSSIBLE DISCOVERIES + </h2> + <p> + The present time is harvest home for the prophets. The happy speculator in + future sits on the piled-up wain, singing "I told you so," with the + submarine and the flying machine and the Marconigram and the North Pole + successfully achieved. In the tumult of realisations it perhaps escapes + attention that the prophetic output of new hopes is by no means keeping + pace with the crop of consummations. The present trend of scientific + development is not nearly so obvious as it was a score of years ago; its + promises lack the elementary breadth of that simpler time. Once you have + flown, you have flown. Once you have steamed about under water, you have + steamed about under water. There seem no more big things of that kind + available—so that I almost regret the precipitance of Commander + Peary and Captain Amundsen. No one expects to go beyond that atmosphere + for some centuries at least; all the elements are now invaded. Conceivably + man may presently contrive some sort of earthworm apparatus, so that he + could go through the rocks prospecting very much as an earthworm goes + through the soil, excavating in front and dumping behind, but, to put it + moderately, there are considerable difficulties. And I doubt the + imaginative effect. On the whole, I think material science has got samples + now of all its crops at this level, and that what lies before it in the + coming years is chiefly to work them out in detail and realise them on the + larger scale. No doubt science will still yield all sorts of big + surprising effects, but nothing, I think, to equal the dramatic novelty, + the demonstration of man having got to something altogether new and + strange, of Montgolfier, or the Wright Brothers, of Columbus, or the Polar + conquest. There remains, of course, the tapping of atomic energy, but I + give two hundred years yet before that.... + </p> + <p> + So far, then, as mechanical science goes I am inclined to think the coming + period will be, from the point of view of the common man, almost without + sensational interest. There will be an immense amount of enrichment and + filling-in, but of the sort that does not get prominently into the daily + papers. At every point there will be economies and simplifications of + method, discoveries of new artificial substances with new capabilities, + and of new methods of utilising power. There will be a progressive change + in the apparatus and quality of human life—the sort of alteration of + the percentages that causes no intellectual shock. Electric heating, for + example, will become practicable in our houses, and then cheaper, and at + last so cheap and good that nobody will burn coal any more. Little + electric contrivances will dispense with menial service in more and more + directions. The builder will introduce new, more convenient, healthier and + prettier substances, and the young architect will become increasingly the + intelligent student of novelty. The steam engine, the coal yard, and the + tail chimney, and indeed all chimneys, will vanish quietly from our urban + landscape. The speeding up and cheapening of travel, and the increase in + its swiftness and comfort will go on steadily—widening experience. A + more systematic and understanding social science will be estimating the + probable growth and movement of population, and planning town and country + on lines that would seem to-day almost inconceivably wise and generous. + All this means a quiet broadening and aeration and beautifying of life. + Utopian requirements, so far as the material side of things goes, will be + executed and delivered with at last the utmost promptness.... + </p> + <p> + It is in quite other directions that the scientific achievements to + astonish our children will probably be achieved. Progress never appears to + be uniform in human affairs. There are intricate correlations between + department and department. One field must mark time until another can come + up to it with results sufficiently arranged and conclusions sufficiently + simplified for application Medicine waits on organic chemistry, geology on + mineralogy, and both on the chemistry of high pressures and temperature. + And subtle variations in method and the prevailing mental temperament of + the type of writer engaged, produce remarkable differences in the quality + and quantity of the stated result. Moreover, there are in the history of + every scientific province periods of seed-time, when there is great + activity without immediate apparent fruition, and periods, as, for + example, the last two decades of electrical application, of prolific + realisation. It is highly probable that the physiologist and the organic + chemist are working towards co-operations that may make the physician's + sphere the new scientific wonderland. + </p> + <p> + At present dietary and regimen are the happy hunting ground of the quack + and that sort of volunteer specialist, half-expert, half-impostor, who + flourishes in the absence of worked out and definite knowledge. The + general mass of the medical profession, equipped with a little experience + and a muddled training, and preposterously impeded by the private + adventure conditions under which it lives, goes about pretending to the + possession of precise knowledge which simply does not exist in the world. + Medical research is under-endowed and stupidly endowed, not for systematic + scientific inquiry so much as for the unscientific seeking of remedies for + specific evils—for cancer, consumption, and the like. Yet masked, + misrepresented limited and hampered, the work of establishing a sound + science of vital processes in health and disease is probably going on now, + similar to the clarification of physics and chemistry that went on in the + later part of the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth + centuries. It is not unreasonable to suppose that medicine may presently + arrive at far-reaching generalised convictions, and proceed to take over + this great hinterland of human interests which legitimately belongs to it. + </p> + <p> + But medicine is not the only field to which we may reasonably look for a + sudden development of wonders. Compared with the sciences of matter, + psychology and social science have as yet given the world remarkably + little cause for amazement. Not only is our medicine feeble and + fragmentary, but our educational science is the poorest miscellany of + aphorisms and dodges. Indeed, directly one goes beyond the range of + measurement and weighing and classification, one finds a sort of + unprogressive floundering going on, which throws the strongest doubts upon + the practical applicability of the current logical and metaphysical + conceptions in those fields. We have emerged only partially from the age + of the schoolmen In these directions we have not emerged at all. It is + quite possible that in university lecture rooms and forbidding volumes of + metaphysical discussion a new emancipation of the human intellect and will + is even now going on. Presently men may be attacking the problems of the + self-control of human life and of human destiny in new phrases and an + altogether novel spirit. + </p> + <p> + Guesses at the undiscovered must necessarily be vague, but my + anticipations fall into two groups, and first I am disposed to expect a + great systematic increment in individual human power. We probably have no + suspicion as yet of what may be done with the human body and mind by way + of enhancing its effectiveness I remember talking to the late Sir Michael + Foster upon the possibilities of modern surgery, and how he confessed that + he did not dare for his reputation's sake tell ordinary people the things + he believed would some day become matter-of-fact operations. In that + respect I think he spoke for very many of his colleagues. It is already + possible to remove almost any portion of the human body, including, if + needful, large sections of the brain; it is possible to graft living flesh + on living flesh, make new connections, mould, displace, and rearrange. It + is also not impossible to provoke local hypertrophy, and not only by knife + and physical treatment but by the subtler methods of hypnotism, profound + changes can be wrought in the essential structure of a human being. If + only our knowledge of function and value were at all adequate, we could + correct and develop ourselves in the most extraordinary way. Our knowledge + is not adequate, but it may not always remain inadequate. + </p> + <p> + We have already had some very astonishing suggestions in this direction + from Doctor Metchnikoff. He regards the human stomach and large intestine + as not only vestigial and superfluous in the human economy, but as + positively dangerous on account of the harbour they afford for those + bacteria that accelerate the decay of age. He proposes that these viscera + should be removed. To a layman like myself this is an altogether + astounding and horrifying idea, but Doctor Metchnikoff is a man of the + very greatest scientific reputation, and it does not give him any qualm of + horror or absurdity to advance it. I am quite sure that if a gentleman + called upon me "done up" in the way I am dimly suggesting, with most of + the contents of his abdomen excavated, his lungs and heart probably + enlarged and improved, parts of his brain removed to eliminate harmful + tendencies and make room for the expansion of the remainder, his mind and + sensibilities increased, and his liability to fatigue and the need of + sleep abolished, I should conceal with the utmost difficulty my + inexpressible disgust and terror. But, then, if M. Bliriot, with his + flying machine, ear-flaps and goggles, had soared down in the year 54 + B.C., let us say, upon my woad-adorned ancestors—every family man in + Britain was my ancestor in those days—at Dover, they would have had + entirely similar emotions. And at present I am not discussing what is + beautiful in humanity, but what is possible—and what, being + possible, is likely to be attempted. + </p> + <p> + It does not follow that because men will some day have this enormous power + over themselves, physically and mentally, that they will necessarily make + themselves horrible—even by our present standards quite a lot of us + would be all the slenderer and more active and graceful for + "Metchnikoffing"—nor does surgery exhaust the available methods. We + are still in the barbaric age, so far as our use of food and drugs is + concerned. We stuff all sorts of substances into our unfortunate interiors + and blunder upon the most various consequences. Few people of three score + and ten but have spent in the aggregate the best part of a year in a state + of indigestion, stupid, angry or painful indigestion as the case may be. + No one would be so careless and ignorant about the fuel he burnt in his + motor-car as most of us are about the fuel we burn in our bodies. And + there are all sort of stimulating and exhilarating things, digesting + things, fatigue-suppressing things, exercise economising things, we dare + not use because we are afraid of our ignorance of their precise working. + There seems no reason to suppose that human life, properly understood and + controlled, could not be a constant succession of delightful and for the + most part active bodily and mental phases. It is sheer ignorance and bad + management that keep the majority of people in that disagreeable system of + states which we indicate by saying we are "a bit off colour" or a little + "out of training." It may seem madly Utopian now to suggest that + practically everyone in the community might be clean, beautiful, + incessantly active, "fit," and long-lived, with the marks of all the + surgery they have undergone quite healed and hidden, but not more madly + Utopian than it would have seemed to King Alfred the Great if one had said + that practically everyone in this country, down to the very swineherds, + should be able to read and write. + </p> + <p> + Metchnikoff has speculated upon the possibility of delaying old age, and I + do not see why his method should not be applied to the diurnal need of + sleep. No vital process seems to be absolutely fated in itself; it is a + thing conditioned and capable of modification. If Metchnikoff is right—and + to a certain extent he must be right—the decay of age is due to + changing organic processes that may be checked and delayed and modified by + suitable food and regimen. He holds out hope of a new phase in the human + cycle, after the phase of struggle and passion, a phase of serene + intellectual activity, old age with all its experience and none of its + infirmities. Still more are fatigue and the need for repose dependent upon + chemical changes in the body. It would seem we are unable to maintain + exertion, partly through the exhaustion of our tissues, but far more by + the loading of our blood with fatigue products—a recuperative + interlude must ensue. But there is no reason to suppose that the usual + food of to-day is the most rapidly assimilable nurture possible, that a + rapidly digestible or injectable substance is not conceivable that would + vastly accelerate repair, nor that the elimination and neutralisation of + fatigue products might not also be enormously hastened. There is no + inherent impossibility in the idea not only of various glands being + induced to function in a modified manner, but even in the insertion upon + the circulation of interceptors and artificial glandular structures. No + doubt that may strike even an adventurous surgeon as chimerical, but + consider what people, even authoritative people, were saying of flying and + electric traction twenty years ago. At present a man probably does not get + more than three or four hours of maximum mental and physical efficiency in + the day. Few men can keep at their best in either physical or intellectual + work for so long as that. The rest of the time goes in feeding, digesting, + sleeping, sitting about, relaxation of various kinds. It is quite possible + that science may set itself presently to extend systematically that + proportion of efficient time. The area of maximum efficiency may invade + the periods now demanded by digestion, sleep, exercise, so that at last + nearly the whole of a man's twenty-four hours will be concentrated on his + primary interests instead of dispersed among these secondary necessary + matters. + </p> + <p> + Please understand I do not consider this concentration of activity and + these vast "artificialisations" of the human body as attractive or + desirable things. At the first proposal much of this tampering with the + natural stuff of life will strike anyone, I think, as ugly and horrible, + just as seeing a little child, green-white and still under an anaesthetic, + gripped my heart much more dreadfully than the sight of the same child + actively bawling with pain. But the business of this paper is to discuss + things that may happen, and not to evolve dreams of loveliness. Perhaps + things of this kind will be manageable without dreadfulness. Perhaps man + will come to such wisdom that neither the knife nor the drugs nor any of + the powers which science thrusts into his hand will slay the beauty of + life for him. Suppose we assume that he is not such a fool as to let that + happen, and that ultimately he will emerge triumphant with all these + powers utilised and controlled. + </p> + <p> + It is not only that an amplifying science may give mankind happier bodies + and far more active and eventful lives, but that psychology and + educational and social science, reinforcing literature and working through + literature and art, may dare to establish serenities in his soul. For + surely no one who has lived, no one who has watched sin and crime and + punishment, but must have come to realise the enormous amount of + misbehaviour that is mere ignorance and want of mental scope. For my own + part I have never believed in the devil. And it may be a greater + undertaking but no more impossible to make ways to goodwill and a good + heart in men than it is to tunnel mountains and dyke back the sea. The way + that led from the darkness of the cave to the electric light is the way + that will lead to light in the souls of men, that is to say, the way of + free and fearless thinking, free and fearless experiment, organised + exchange of thoughts and results, and patience and persistence and a sort + of intellectual civility. + </p> + <p> + And with the development of philosophical and scientific method that will + go on with this great increase in man's control over himself, another + issue that is now a mere pious aspiration above abysses of ignorance and + difficulty, will come to be a manageable matter. It has been the perpetual + wonder of philosophers from Plato onward that men have bred their dogs and + horses and left any man or woman, however vile, free to bear offspring in + the next generation of men. Still that goes on. Beautiful and wonderful + people die childless and bury their treasure in the grave, and we rest + content with a system of matrimony that seems designed to perpetuate + mediocrity. A day will come when men will be in possession of knowledge + and opportunity that will enable them to master this position, and then + certainly will it be assured that every generation shall be born better + than was the one before it. And with that the history of humanity will + enter upon a new phase, a phase which will be to our lives as daylight is + to the dreaming of a child as yet unborn. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE HUMAN ADVENTURE + </h2> + <p> + Alone among all the living things this globe has borne, man reckons with + destiny. All other living things obey the forces that created them; and + when the mood of the power changes, submit themselves passively to + extinction Man only looks upon those forces in the face, anticipates the + exhaustion of Nature's kindliness, seeks weapons to defend himself. Last + of the children of Saturn, he escapes their general doom. He dispossesses + his begetter of all possibility of replacement, and grasps the sceptre of + the world. Before man the great and prevalent creatures followed one + another processionally to extinction; the early monsters of the ancient + seas, the clumsy amphibians struggling breathless to the land, the + reptiles, the theriomorpha and the dinosaurs, the bat-winged reptiles of + the Mesozoic forests, the colossal grotesque first mammals, the giant + sloths, the mastodons and mammoths; it is as if some idle dreamer moulded + them and broke them and cast them aside, until at last comes man and + seizes the creative wrist that would wipe him out of being again. + </p> + <p> + There is nothing else in all the world that so turns against the powers + that have made it, unless it be man's follower fire. But fire is witless; + a little stream, a changing breeze can stop it. Man circumvents. If fire + were human it would build boats across the rivers and outmanoeuvre the + wind. It would lie in wait in sheltered places, smouldering, husbanding + its fuel until the grass was yellow and the forests sere. But fire is a + mere creature of man's; our world before his coming knew nothing of it in + any of its habitable places, never saw it except in the lightning flash or + remotely on some volcanic coronet. Man brought it into the commerce of + life, a shining, resentful slave, to hound off the startled beasts from + his sleeping-place and serve him like a dog. + </p> + <p> + Suppose that some enduring intelligence watched through the ages the + successions of life upon this planet, marked the spreading first of this + species and then that, the conflicts, the adaptations, the predominances, + the dyings away, and conceive how it would have witnessed this strange + dramatic emergence of a rare great ape to manhood. To such a mind the + creature would have seemed at first no more than one of several varieties + of clambering frugivorous mammals, a little distinguished by a disposition + to help his clumsy walking with a stake and reinforce his fist with a + stone. The foreground of the picture would have been filled by the + rhinoceros and mammoth, the great herds of ruminants, the sabre-toothed + lion and the big bears. Then presently the observer would have noted a + peculiar increasing handiness about the obscurer type, an unwonted + intelligence growing behind its eyes. He would have perceived a + disposition in this creature no beast had shown before, a disposition to + make itself independent of the conditions of climate and the chances of + the seasons. Did shelter fail among the trees and rocks, this curious new + thing-began to make itself harbours of its own; was food irregular, it + multiplied food. It began to spread out from its original circumstances, + fitting itself to novel needs, leaving the forests, invading the plains, + following the watercourses upward and downward, presently carrying the + smoke of its fires like a banner of conquest into wintry desolations and + the high places of the earth. + </p> + <p> + The first onset of man must have been comparatively slow, the first + advances needed long ages. By small degrees it gathered pace. The stride + from the scattered savagery of the earlier stone period to the first + cities, historically a vast interval, would have seemed to that still + watcher, measuring by the standards of astronomy and the rise and decline + of races and genera and orders, a, step almost abrupt. It took, perhaps, a + thousand generations or so to make it. In that interval man passed from an + animal-like obedience to the climate and the weather and his own + instincts, from living in small family parties of a score or so over + restricted areas of indulgent country, to permanent settlements, to the + life of tribal and national communities and the beginnings of cities. He + had spread in that fragment of time over great areas of the earth's + surface, and now he was adapting himself to the Arctic circle on the one + hand and to the life of the tropics on the other; he had invented the + plough and the ship, and subjugated most of the domestic animals; he was + beginning to think of the origin of the world and the mysteries of being. + Writing had added its enduring records to oral tradition, and he was + already making roads. Another five or six hundred generations at most + bring him to ourselves. We sweep into the field of that looker-on, the + momentary incarnations of this sempiternal being, Man. And after us there + comes— + </p> + <p> + A curtain falls. + </p> + <p> + The time in which we, whose minds meet here in this writing, were born and + live and die, would be to that imagined observer a mere instant's phase in + the swarming liberation of our kind from ancient imperatives. It would + seem to him a phase of unprecedented swift change and expansion and + achievement. In this last handful of years, electricity has ceased to be a + curious toy, and now carries half mankind upon their daily journeys, it + lights our cities till they outshine the moon and stars, and reduces to + our service a score of hitherto unsuspected metals; we clamber to the pole + of our globe, scale every mountain, soar into the air, learn how to + overcome the malaria that barred our white races from the tropics, and how + to draw the sting from a hundred such agents of death. Our old cities are + being rebuilt in towering marble; great new cities rise to vie with them. + Never, it would seem, has man been so various and busy and persistent, and + there is no intimation of any check to the expansion of his energies. + </p> + <p> + And all this continually accelerated advance has come through the + quickening and increase of man's intelligence and its reinforcement + through speech and writing. All this has come in spite of fierce instincts + that make him the most combatant and destructive of animals, and in spite + of the revenge Nature has attempted time after time for his rebellion + against her routines, in the form of strange diseases and nearly universal + pestilences. All this has come as a necessary consequence of the first + obscure gleaming of deliberate thought and reason through the veil of his + animal being. To begin with, he did not know what he was doing. He sought + his more immediate satisfaction and safety and security. He still + apprehends imperfectly the change that comes upon him. The illusion of + separation that makes animal life, that is to say, passionate competing + and breeding and dying, possible, the blinkers Nature has put upon us that + we may clash against and sharpen one another, still darken our eyes. We + live not life as yet, but in millions of separated lives, still unaware + except in rare moods of illumination that we are more than those fellow + beasts of ours who drop off from the tree of life and perish alone. It is + only in the last three or four thousand years, and through weak and + tentative methods of expression, through clumsy cosmogonies and + theologies, and with incalculable confusion and discoloration, that the + human mind has felt its way towards its undying being in the race. Man + still goes to war against himself, prepares fleets and armies and + fortresses, like a sleep-walker who wounds himself, like some infatuated + barbarian who hacks his own limbs with a knife. + </p> + <p> + But he awakens. The nightmares of empire and racial conflict and war, the + grotesques of trade jealousy and tariffs, the primordial dream-stuff of + lewdness and jealousy and cruelty, pale before the daylight which filters + between his eyelids. In a little while we individuals will know ourselves + surely for corpuscles in his being, for thoughts that come together out of + strange wanderings into the coherence of a waking mind. A few score + generations ago all living things were in our ancestry. A few score + generations ahead, and all mankind will be in sober fact descendants from + our blood. In physical as in mental fact we separate persons, with all our + difference and individuality, are but fragments, set apart for a little + while in order that we may return to the general life again with fresh + experiences and fresh acquirements, as bees return with pollen and + nourishment to the fellowship of the hive. + </p> + <p> + And this Man, this wonderful child of old earth, who is ourselves in the + measure of our hearts and minds, does but begin his adventure now. Through + all time henceforth he does but begin his adventure. This planet and its + subjugation is but the dawn of his existence. In a little while he will + reach out to the other planets, and take that greater fire, the sun, into + his service. He will bring his solvent intelligence to bear upon the + riddles of his individual interaction, transmute jealousy and every + passion, control his own increase, select and breed for his embodiment a + continually finer and stronger and wiser race. What none of us can think + or will, save in a disconnected partiality, he will think and will + collectively. Already some of us feel our merger with that greater life. + There come moments when the thing shines out upon our thoughts. Sometimes + in the dark sleepless solitudes of night, one ceases to be so-and-so, one + ceases to bear a proper name, forgets one's quarrels and vanities, + forgives and understands one's enemies and oneself, as one forgives and + understands the quarrels of little children, knowing oneself indeed to be + a being greater than one's personal accidents, knowing oneself for Man on + his planet, flying swiftly to unmeasured destinies through the starry + stillnesses of space. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11502 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/11502-h/11502-h.htm~ b/11502-h/11502-h.htm~ new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5484a58 --- /dev/null +++ b/11502-h/11502-h.htm~ @@ -0,0 +1,10965 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta content="pg2html (binary v0.17)" name="linkgenerator" /> + <title> + An Englishman Looks at the World, by H.g. Wells + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;} + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + .xx-small {font-size: 60%;} + .x-small {font-size: 75%;} + .small {font-size: 85%;} + .large {font-size: 115%;} + .x-large {font-size: 130%;} + .indent5 { margin-left: 5%;} + .indent10 { margin-left: 10%;} + .indent15 { margin-left: 15%;} + .indent20 { margin-left: 20%;} + .indent25 { margin-left: 25%;} + .indent30 { margin-left: 30%;} + .indent35 { margin-left: 35%;} + .indent40 { margin-left: 40%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; right: 1%; font-size: 0.6em; + font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; + text-align: right; background-color: #FFFACD; + border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;} + .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 15%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + .head { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} + span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 } + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, An Englishman Looks at the World, by H. G. +Wells + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: An Englishman Looks at the World + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Release Date: March 16, 2004 [eBook #11502] +Last Updated: October 30, 2018 + + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD*** + + +E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Gene Smethers, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD + </h1> + <h3> + Being a Series of Unrestrained Remarks upon Contemporary Matters + </h3> + <h2> + By H.G. Wells + </h2> + <h3> + 1914 + </h3> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE COMING OF BLIRIOT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> MY FIRST FLIGHT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> OFF THE CHAIN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> OF THE NEW REIGN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> WILL THE EMPIRE LIVE? </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE LABOUR UNREST </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> SOCIAL PANACEAS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> SYNDICALISM OR CITIZENSHIP </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> THE GREAT STATE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> THE NORMAL SOCIAL LIFE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> THE COMMON SENSE OF WARFARE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUBLIC LIBRARY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> ABOUT CHESTERTON AND BELLOC </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> ABOUT SIR THOMAS MORE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> TRAFFIC AND REBUILDING </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> THE SO-CALLED SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> DIVORCE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE EMPIRE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> THE ENDOWMENT OF MOTHERHOOD </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> DOCTORS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> AN AGE OF SPECIALISATION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> IS THERE A PEOPLE? </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> THE DISEASE OF PARLIAMENTS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> THE AMERICAN POPULATION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> THE POSSIBLE COLLAPSE OF CIVILISATION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> THE IDEAL CITIZEN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> SOME POSSIBLE DISCOVERIES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> THE HUMAN ADVENTURE </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE COMING OF BLIRIOT + </h2> + <h3> + (<i>July, 1909</i>.) + </h3> + <p> + The telephone bell rings with the petulant persistence that marks a trunk + call, and I go in from some ineffectual gymnastics on the lawn to deal + with the irruption. There is the usual trouble in connecting up, minute + voices in Folkestone and Dover and London call to one another and are + submerged by buzzings and throbbings. Then in elfin tones the real message + comes through: "Bliriot has crossed the Channel.... An article ... about + what it means." + </p> + <p> + I make a hasty promise and go out and tell my friends. + </p> + <p> + From my garden I look straight upon the Channel, and there are white caps + upon the water, and the iris and tamarisk are all asway with the + south-west wind that was also blowing yesterday. M. Bliriot has done very + well, and Mr. Latham, his rival, had jolly bad luck. That is what it means + to us first of all. It also, I reflect privately, means that I have + under-estimated the possible stability of aeroplanes. I did not expect + anything of the sort so soon. This is a good five years before my + reckoning of the year before last. + </p> + <p> + We all, I think, regret that being so near we were not among the fortunate + ones who saw that little flat shape skim landward out of the blue; surely + they have an enviable memory; and then we fell talking and disputing about + what that swift arrival may signify. It starts a swarm of questions. + </p> + <p> + First one remarks that here is a thing done, and done with an astonishing + effect of ease, that was incredible not simply to ignorant people but to + men well informed in these matters. It cannot be fifteen years ago since + Sir Hiram Maxim made the first machine that could lift its weight from the + ground, and I well remember how the clumsy quality of that success + confirmed the universal doubt that men could ever in any effectual manner + fly. + </p> + <p> + Since then a conspiracy of accidents has changed the whole problem; the + bicycle and its vibrations developed the pneumatic tyre, the pneumatic + tyre rendered a comfortable mechanically driven road vehicle possible, the + motor-car set an enormous premium on the development of very light, very + efficient engines, and at last the engineer was able to offer the + experimentalists in gliding one strong enough and light enough for the new + purpose. And here we are! Or, rather, M. Bliriot is! + </p> + <p> + What does it mean for us? + </p> + <p> + One meaning, I think, stands out plainly enough, unpalatable enough to our + national pride. This thing from first to last was made abroad. Of all that + made it possible we can only claim so much as is due to the improvement of + the bicycle. Gliding began abroad while our young men of muscle and + courage were braving the dangers of the cricket field. The motor-car and + its engine was being worked out "over there," while in this country the + mechanically propelled road vehicle, lest it should frighten the carriage + horses of the gentry, was going meticulously at four miles an hour behind + a man with a red flag. Over there, where the prosperous classes have some + regard for education and some freedom of imaginative play, where people + discuss all sorts of things fearlessly, and have a respect for science, + this has been achieved. + </p> + <p> + And now our insularity is breached by the foreigner who has got ahead with + flying. + </p> + <p> + It means, I take it, first and foremost for us, that the world cannot wait + for the English. + </p> + <p> + It is not the first warning we have had. It has been raining warnings upon + us; never was a slacking, dull people so liberally served with warnings of + what was in store for them. But this event—this foreigner-invented, + foreigner-built, foreigner-steered thing, taking our silver streak as a + bird soars across a rivulet—puts the case dramatically. We have + fallen behind in the quality of our manhood. In the men of means and + leisure in this island there was neither enterprise enough, imagination + enough, knowledge nor skill enough to lead in this matter. I do not see + how one can go into the history of this development and arrive at any + other conclusion. The French and Americans can laugh at our aeroplanes, + the Germans are ten years ahead of our poor navigables. We are displayed a + soft, rather backward people. Either we are a people essentially and + incurably inferior, or there is something wrong in our training, something + benumbing in our atmosphere and circumstances. That is the first and + gravest intimation in M. Bliriot's feat. + </p> + <p> + The second is that, in spite of our fleet, this is no longer, from the + military point of view, an inaccessible island. + </p> + <p> + So long as one had to consider the navigable balloon the aerial side of + warfare remained unimportant. A Zeppelin is little good for any purpose + but scouting and espionage. It can carry very little weight in proportion + to its vast size, and, what is more important, it cannot drop things + without sending itself up like a bubble in soda water. An armada of + navigables sent against this island would end in a dispersed, deflated + state, chiefly in the seas between Orkney and Norway—though I say it + who should not. But these aeroplanes can fly all round the fastest + navigable that ever drove before the wind; they can drop weights, take up + weights, and do all sorts of able, inconvenient things. They are birds. As + for the birds, so for aeroplanes; there is an upward limit of size. They + are not going to be very big, but they are going to be very able and + active. Within a year we shall have—or rather <i>they</i> will have—aeroplanes + capable of starting from Calais, let us say, circling over London, + dropping a hundredweight or so of explosive upon the printing machines of + <i>The Times</i>, and returning securely to Calais for another similar + parcel. They are things neither difficult nor costly to make. For the + price of a Dreadnought one might have hundreds. They will be extremely + hard to hit with any sort of missile. I do not think a large army of + under-educated, under-trained, extremely unwilling conscripts is going to + be any good against this sort of thing. + </p> + <p> + I do not think that the arrival of M. Bliriot means a panic resort to + conscription. It is extremely desirable that people should realise that + these foreign machines are not a temporary and incidental advantage that + we can make good by fussing and demanding eight, and saying we won't wait, + and so on, and then subsiding into indolence again. They are just the + first-fruits of a steady, enduring lead that the foreigner has won. The + foreigner is ahead of us in education, and this is especially true of the + middle and upper classes, from which invention and enterprise come—or, + in our own case, do not come. He makes a better class of man than we do. + His science is better than ours. His training is better than ours. His + imagination is livelier. His mind is more active. His requirements in a + novel, for example, are not kindly, sedative pap; his uncensored plays + deal with reality. His schools are places for vigorous education instead + of genteel athleticism, and his home has books in it, and thought and + conversation. Our homes and schools are relatively dull and uninspiring; + there is no intellectual guide or stir in them; and to that we owe this + new generation of nicely behaved, unenterprising sons, who play golf and + dominate the tailoring of the world, while Brazilians, Frenchmen, + Americans and Germans fly. + </p> + <p> + That we are hopelessly behindhand in aeronautics is not a fact by itself. + It is merely an indication that we are behindhand in our mechanical + knowledge and invention M. Bliriot's aeroplane points also to the fleet. + </p> + <p> + The struggle for naval supremacy is not merely a struggle in shipbuilding + and expenditure. Much more is it a struggle in knowledge and invention. It + is not the Power that has the most ships or the biggest ships that is + going to win in a naval conflict. It is the Power that thinks quickest of + what to do, is most resourceful and inventive. Eighty Dreadnoughts manned + by dull men are only eighty targets for a quicker adversary. Well, is + there any reason to suppose that our Navy is going to keep above the + general national level in these things? Is the Navy <i>bright</i>? + </p> + <p> + The arrival of M. Bliriot suggests most horribly to me how far behind we + must be in all matters of ingenuity, device, and mechanical contrivance. I + am reminded again of the days during the Boer war, when one realised that + it had never occurred to our happy-go-lucky Army that it was possible to + make a military use of barbed wire or construct a trench to defy shrapnel. + Suppose in the North Sea we got a surprise like that, and fished out a + parboiled, half-drowned admiral explaining what a confoundedly slim, + unexpected, almost ungentlemanly thing the enemy had done to him. + </p> + <p> + Very probably the Navy is the exception to the British system; its + officers are rescued from the dull homes and dull schools of their class + while still of tender years, and shaped after a fashion of their own. But + M. Bliriot reminds us that we may no longer shelter and degenerate behind + these blue backs. And the keenest men at sea are none the worse for having + keen men on land behind them. + </p> + <p> + Are we an awakening people? + </p> + <p> + It is the vital riddle of our time. I look out upon the windy Channel and + think of all those millions just over there, who seem to get busier and + keener every hour. I could imagine the day of reckoning coming like a + swarm of birds. + </p> + <p> + Here the air is full of the clamour of rich and prosperous people invited + to pay taxes, and beyond measure bitter. They are going to live abroad, + cut their charities, dismiss old servants, and do all sorts of silly, + vindictive things. We seem to be doing feeble next-to-nothings in the + endowment of research. Not one in twenty of the boys of the middle and + upper classes learns German or gets more than a misleading smattering of + physical science. Most of them never learn to speak French. Heaven alone + knows what they do with their brains! The British reading and thinking + public probably does not number fifty thousand people all told. It is + difficult to see whence the necessary impetus for a national renascence is + to come.... The universities are poor and spiritless, with no ambition to + lead the country. I met a Boy Scout recently. He was hopeful in his way, + but a little inadequate, I thought, as a basis for confidence in the + future of the Empire. + </p> + <p> + We have still our Derby Day, of course.... + </p> + <p> + Apart from these patriotic solicitudes, M. Bliriot has set quite another + train of thought going in my mind. The age of natural democracy is surely + at an end through these machines. There comes a time when men will be + sorted out into those who will have the knowledge, nerve, and courage to + do these splendid, dangerous things, and those who will prefer the humbler + level. I do not think numbers are going to matter so much in the warfare + of the future, and that when organised intelligence differs from the + majority, the majority will have no adequate power of retort. The common + man with a pike, being only sufficiently indignant and abundant, could + chase the eighteenth century gentleman as he chose, but I fail to see what + he can do in the way of mischief to an elusive chevalier with wings. But + that opens too wide a discussion for me to enter upon now. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + MY FIRST FLIGHT + </h2> + <h3> + (EASTBOURNE, <i>August 5, 1912—three years later</i>.) + </h3> + <p> + Hitherto my only flights have been flights of imagination but this morning + I flew. I spent about ten or fifteen minutes in the air; we went out to + sea, soared up, came back over the land, circled higher, planed steeply + down to the water, and I landed with the conviction that I had had only + the foretaste of a great store of hitherto unsuspected pleasures. At the + first chance I will go up again, and I will go higher and further. + </p> + <p> + This experience has restored all the keenness of my ancient interest in + flying, which had become a little fagged and flat by too much hearing and + reading about the thing and not enough participation. Sixteen years ago, + in the days of Langley and Lilienthal, I was one of the few journalists + who believed and wrote that flying was possible; it affected my reputation + unfavourably, and produced in the few discouraged pioneers of those days a + quite touching gratitude. Over my mantel as I write hangs a very blurred + and bad but interesting photograph that Professor Langley sent me sixteen + years ago. It shows the flight of the first piece of human machinery + heavier than air that ever kept itself up for any length of time. It was a + model, a little affair that would not have lifted a cat; it went up in a + spiral and came down unsmashed, bringing back, like Noah's dove, the + promise of tremendous things. + </p> + <p> + That was only sixteen years ago, and it is amusing to recall how + cautiously even we out-and-out believers did our prophesying. I was quite + a desperate fellow; I said outright that in my lifetime we should see men + flying. But I qualified that by repeating that for many years to come it + would be an enterprise only for quite fantastic daring and skill. We + conjured up stupendous difficulties and risks. I was deeply impressed and + greatly discouraged by a paper a distinguished Cambridge mathematician + produced to show that a flying machine was bound to pitch fearfully, that + as it flew on its pitching <i>must</i> increase until up went its nose, + down went its tail, and it fell like a knife. We exaggerated every + possibility of instability. We imagined that when the aeroplane wasn't + "kicking up ahind and afore" it would be heeling over to the lightest side + wind. A sneeze might upset it. We contrasted our poor human equipment with + the instinctive balance of a bird, which has had ten million years of + evolution by way of a start.... + </p> + <p> + The waterplane in which I soared over Eastbourne this morning with Mr. + Grahame-White was as steady as a motor-car running on asphalt. + </p> + <p> + Then we went on from those anticipations of swaying insecurity to + speculations about the psychological and physiological effects of flying. + Most people who look down from the top of a cliff or high tower feel some + slight qualms of dread, many feel a quite sickening dread. Even if men + struggled high into the air, we asked, wouldn't they be smitten up there + by such a lonely and reeling dismay as to lose all self-control? And, + above all, wouldn't the pitching and tossing make them quite horribly + sea-sick? + </p> + <p> + I have always been a little haunted by that last dread. It gave a little + undertow of funk to the mood of lively curiosity with which I got aboard + the waterplane this morning—that sort of faint, thin funk that so + readily invades one on the verge of any new experience; when one tries + one's first dive, for example, or pushes off for the first time down an + ice run. I thought I should very probably be sea-sick—or, to be more + precise, air-sick; I thought also that I might be very giddy, and that I + might get thoroughly cold and uncomfortable None of those things happened. + </p> + <p> + I am still in a state of amazement at the smooth steadfastness of the + motion. There is nothing on earth to compare with that, unless—and + that I can't judge—it is an ice yacht travelling on perfect ice. The + finest motor-car in the world on the best road would be a joggling, + quivering thing beside it. + </p> + <p> + To begin with, we went out to sea before the wind, and the plane would not + readily rise. We went with an undulating movement, leaping with a light + splashing pat upon the water, from wave to wave. Then we came about into + the wind and rose, and looking over I saw that there were no longer those + periodic flashes of white foam. I was flying. And it was as still and + steady as dreaming. I watched the widening distance between our floats and + the waves. It wasn't by any means a windless day; there was a brisk, + fluctuating breeze blowing out of the north over the downs. It seemed + hardly to affect our flight at all. + </p> + <p> + And as for the giddiness of looking down, one does not feel it at all. It + is difficult to explain why this should be so, but it is so. I suppose in + such matters I am neither exceptionally steady-headed nor is my head + exceptionally given to swimming. I can stand on the edge of cliffs of a + thousand feet or so and look down, but I can never bring myself right up + to the edge nor crane over to look to the very bottom. I should want to + lie down to do that. And the other day I was on that Belvedere place at + the top of the Rotterdam sky-scraper, a rather high wind was blowing, and + one looks down through the chinks between the boards one stands on upon + the heads of the people in the streets below; I didn't like it. But this + morning I looked directly down on a little fleet of fishing boats over + which we passed, and on the crowds assembling on the beach, and on the + bathers who stared up at us from the breaking surf, with an entirely + agreeable exaltation. And Eastbourne, in the early morning sunshine, had + all the brightly detailed littleness of a town viewed from high up on the + side of a great mountain. + </p> + <p> + When Mr. Grahame-White told me we were going to plane down I will confess + I tightened my hold on the sides of the car and prepared for something + like the down-going sensation of a switchback railway on a larger scale. + Just for a moment there was that familiar feeling of something pressing + one's heart up towards one's shoulders, and one's lower jaw up into its + socket and of grinding one's lower teeth against the upper, and then it + passed. The nose of the car and all the machine was slanting downwards, we + were gliding quickly down, and yet there was no feeling that one rushed, + not even as one rushes in coasting a hill on a bicycle. It wasn't a tithe + of the thrill of those three descents one gets on the great mountain + railway in the White City. There one gets a disagreeable quiver up one's + backbone from the wheels, and a real sense of falling. + </p> + <p> + It is quite peculiar to flying that one is incredulous of any collision. + Some time ago I was in a motor-car that ran over and killed a small dog, + and this wretched little incident has left an open wound upon my nerves. I + am never quite happy in a car now; I can't help keeping an apprehensive + eye ahead. But you fly with an exhilarating assurance that you cannot + possibly run over anything or run into anything—except the land or + the sea, and even those large essentials seem a beautifully safe distance + away. + </p> + <p> + I had heard a great deal of talk about the deafening uproar of the engine. + I counted a headache among my chances. There again reason reinforced + conjecture. When in the early morning Mr. Travers came from Brighton in + this Farman in which I flew I could hear the hum of the great insect when + it still seemed abreast of Beachy Head, and a good two miles away. If one + can hear a thing at two miles, how much the more will one not hear it at a + distance of two yards? But at the risk of seeming too contented for + anything I will assert I heard that noise no more than one hears the drone + of an electric ventilator upon one's table. It was only when I came to + speak to Mr. Grahame-White, or he to me, that I discovered that our voices + had become almost infinitesimally small. + </p> + <p> + And so it was I went up into the air at Eastbourne with the impression + that flying was still an uncomfortable experimental, and slightly heroic + thing to do, and came down to the cheerful gathering crowd upon the sands + again with the knowledge that it is a thing achieved for everyone. It will + get much cheaper, no doubt, and much swifter, and be improved in a dozen + ways—we <i>must</i> get self-starting engines, for example, for both + our aeroplanes and motor-cars—but it is available to-day for anyone + who can reach it. An invalid lady of seventy could have enjoyed all that I + did if only one could have got her into the passenger's seat. Getting + there was a little difficult, it is true; the waterplane was out in the + surf, and I was carried to it on a boatman's back, and then had to clamber + carefully through the wires, but that is a matter of detail. This flying + is indeed so certain to become a general experience that I am sure that + this description will in a few years seem almost as quaint as if I had set + myself to record the fears and sensations of my First Ride in a Wheeled + Vehicle. And I suspect that learning to control a Farman waterplane now is + probably not much more difficult than, let us say, twice the difficulty in + learning the control and management of a motor-bicycle. I cannot + understand the sort of young man who won't learn how to do it if he gets + half a chance. + </p> + <p> + The development of these waterplanes is an important step towards the huge + and swarming popularisation of flying which is now certainly imminent. We + ancient survivors of those who believed in and wrote about flying before + there was any flying used to make a great fuss about the dangers and + difficulties of landing and getting up. We wrote with vast gravity about + "starting rails" and "landing stages," and it is still true that landing + an aeroplane, except upon a well-known and quite level expanse, is a risky + and uncomfortable business. But getting up and landing upon fairly smooth + water is easier than getting into bed. This alone is likely to determine + the aeroplane routes along the line of the world's coastlines and lake + groups and waterways. The airmen will go to and fro over water as the + midges do. Wherever there is a square mile of water the waterplanes will + come and go like hornets at the mouth of their nest. But there are much + stronger reasons than this convenience for keeping over water. Over water + the air, it seems, lies in great level expanses; even when there are gales + it moves in uniform masses like the swift, still rush of a deep river. The + airman, in Mr. Grahame-White's phrase, can go to sleep on it. But over the + land, and for thousands of feet up into the sky, the air is more irregular + than a torrent among rocks; it is—if only we could see it—a + waving, whirling, eddying, flamboyant confusion. A slight hill, a ploughed + field, the streets of a town, create riotous, rolling, invisible streams + and cataracts of air that catch the airman unawares, make him drop + disconcertingly, try his nerves. With a powerful enough engine he climbs + at once again, but these sudden downfalls are the least pleasant and most + dangerous experience in aviation. They exact a tiring vigilance. + </p> + <p> + Over lake or sea, in sunshine, within sight of land, this is the perfect + way of the flying tourist. Gladly would I have set out for France this + morning instead of returning to Eastbourne. And then coasted round to + Spain and into the Mediterranean. And so by leisurely stages to India. And + the East Indies.... + </p> + <p> + I find my study unattractive to-day. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + OFF THE CHAIN + </h2> + <h3> + (<i>December, 1910</i>) + </h3> + <p> + I was ill in bed, reading Samuel Warren's "Ten Thousand a Year," and + noting how much the world can change in seventy years. + </p> + <p> + I had just got to the journey of Titmouse from London to Yorkshire in that + ex-sheriff's coach he bought in Long Acre—where now the motor-cars + are sold—when there came a telegram to bid me note how a certain Mr. + Holt was upon the ocean, coming back to England from a little excursion. + He had left London last Saturday week at midday; he hoped to be back by + Thursday; and he had talked to the President in Washington, visited + Philadelphia, and had a comparatively loitering afternoon in New York. + What had I to say about it? + </p> + <p> + Firstly, that I wish this article could be written by Samuel Warren. And + failing that, I wish that Charles Dickens, who wrote in his "American + Notes" with such passionate disgust and hostility about the first + Cunarder, retailing all the discomfort and misery of crossing the Atlantic + by steamship, could have shared Mr. Holt's experience. + </p> + <p> + Because I am chiefly impressed by the fact not that Mr. Holt has taken + days where weeks were needed fifty years ago, but that he has done it very + comfortably, without undue physical exertion, and at no greater expense, I + suppose, than it cost Dickens, whom the journey nearly killed. + </p> + <p> + If Mr. Holt's expenses were higher, it was for the special trains and the + sake of the record. Anyone taking ordinary trains and ordinary passages + may do what he has done in eighteen or twenty days. + </p> + <p> + When I was a boy, "Around the World in Eighty Days" was still a brilliant + piece of imaginative fiction. Now that is almost an invalid's pace. It + will not be very long before a man will be able to go round the world if + he wishes to do so ten times in a year. And it is perhaps forgivable if + those who, like Jules Verne, saw all these increments in speed, + motor-cars, and airships aeroplanes, and submarines, wireless telegraphy + and what not, as plain and necessary deductions from the promises of + physical science, should turn upon a world that read and doubted and + jeered with "I told you so. <i>Now</i> will you respect a prophet?" + </p> + <p> + It was not that the prophets professed any mystical and inexplicable + illumination at which a sceptic might reasonably mock; they were prepared + with ample reasons for the things they foretold. Now, quite as + confidently, they point on to a new series of consequences, high + probabilities that follow on all this tremendous development of swift, + secure, and cheapened locomotion, just as they followed almost necessarily + upon the mechanical developments of the last century. + </p> + <p> + Briefly, the ties that bind men to place are being severed; we are in the + beginning of a new phase in human experience. + </p> + <p> + For endless ages man led the hunting life, migrating after his food, + camping, homeless, as to this day are many of the Indians and Esquimaux in + the Hudson Bay Territory. Then began agriculture, and for the sake of + securer food man tethered himself to a place. The history of man's + progress from savagery to civilisation is essentially a story of settling + down. It begins in caves and shelters; it culminates in a wide spectacle + of farms and peasant villages, and little towns among the farms. There + were wars, crusades, barbarous invasions, set-backs, but to that state all + Asia, Europe, North Africa worked its way with an indomitable pertinacity. + The enormous majority of human beings stayed at home at last; from the + cradle to the grave they lived, married, died in the same district, + usually in the same village; and to that condition, law, custom, habits, + morals, have adapted themselves. The whole plan and conception of human + society is based on the rustic home and the needs and characteristics of + the agricultural family. There have been gipsies, wanderers, knaves, + knights-errant and adventurers, no doubt, but the settled permanent rustic + home and the tenure of land about it, and the hens and the cow, have + constituted the fundamental reality of the whole scene. Now, the really + wonderful thing in this astonishing development of cheap, abundant, swift + locomotion we have seen in the last seventy years—in the development + of which Mauretanias, aeroplanes, mile-a-minute expresses, tubes, + motor-buses and motor cars are just the bright, remarkable points—is + this: that it dissolves almost all the reason and necessity why men should + go on living permanently in any one place or rigidly disciplined to one + set of conditions. The former attachment to the soil ceases to be an + advantage. The human spirit has never quite subdued itself to the + laborious and established life; it achieves its best with variety and + occasional vigorous exertion under the stimulus of novelty rather than by + constant toil, and this revolution in human locomotion that brings nearly + all the globe within a few days of any man is the most striking aspect of + the unfettering again of the old restless, wandering, adventurous + tendencies in man's composition. + </p> + <p> + Already one can note remarkable developments of migration. There is, for + example, that flow to and fro across the Atlantic of labourers from the + Mediterranean. Italian workmen by the hundred thousand go to the United + States in the spring and return in the autumn. Again, there is a stream of + thousands of prosperous Americans to summer in Europe. Compared with any + European country, the whole population of the United States is fluid. + Equally notable is the enormous proportion of the British prosperous which + winters either in the high Alps or along the Riviera. England is rapidly + developing the former Irish grievance of an absentee propertied class. It + is only now by the most strenuous artificial banking back that migrations + on a far huger scale from India into Africa, and from China and Japan into + Australia and America are prevented. + </p> + <p> + All the indications point to a time when it will be an altogether + exceptional thing for a man to follow one occupation in one place all his + life, and still rarer for a son to follow in his father's footsteps or die + in his father's house. + </p> + <p> + The thing is as simple as the rule of three. We are off the chain of + locality for good and all. It was necessary heretofore for a man to live + in immediate contact with his occupation, because the only way for him to + reach it was to have it at his door, and the cost and delay of transport + were relatively too enormous for him to shift once he was settled. <i>Now</i> + he may live twenty or thirty miles away from his occupation; and it often + pays him to spend the small amount of time and money needed to move—it + may be half-way round the world—to healthier conditions or more + profitable employment. + </p> + <p> + And with every diminution in the cost and duration of transport it becomes + more and more possible, and more and more likely, to be profitable to move + great multitudes of workers seasonally between regions where work is + needed in this season and regions where work is needed in that. They can + go out to the agricultural lands at one time and come back into towns for + artistic work and organised work in factories at another. They can move + from rain and darkness into sunshine, and from heat into the coolness of + mountain forests. Children can be sent for education to sea beaches and + healthy mountains. + </p> + <p> + Men will harvest in Saskatchewan and come down in great liners to spend + the winter working in the forests of Yucatan. + </p> + <p> + People have hardly begun to speculate about the consequences of the return + of humanity from a closely tethered to a migratory existence. It is here + that the prophet finds his chief opportunity. Obviously, these great + forces of transport are already straining against the limits of existing + political areas. Every country contains now an increasing ingredient of + unenfranchised Uitlanders. Every country finds a growing section of its + home-born people either living largely abroad, drawing the bulk of their + income from the exterior, and having their essential interests wholly or + partially across the frontier. + </p> + <p> + In every locality of a Western European country countless people are found + delocalised, uninterested in the affairs of that particular locality, and + capable of moving themselves with a minimum of loss and a maximum of + facility into any other region that proves more attractive. In America + political life, especially State life as distinguished from national + political life, is degraded because of the natural and inevitable apathy + of a large portion of the population whose interests go beyond the State. + </p> + <p> + Politicians and statesmen, being the last people in the world to notice + what is going on in it, are making no attempt whatever to re-adapt this + hugely growing floating population of delocalised people to the public + service. As Mr. Marriott puts it in his novel, "<i>Now,"</i> they "drop + out" from politics as we understand politics at present. Local + administration falls almost entirely—and the decision of Imperial + affairs tends more and more to fall—into the hands of that dwindling + and adventurous moiety which sits tight in one place from the cradle to + the grave. No one has yet invented any method for the political expression + and collective direction of a migratory population, and nobody is + attempting to do so. It is a new problem.... + </p> + <p> + Here, then, is a curious prospect, the prospect of a new kind of people, a + floating population going about the world, uprooted, delocalised, and + even, it may be, denationalised, with wide interests and wide views, + developing no doubt, customs and habits of its own, a morality of its own, + a philosophy of its own, and yet from the point of view of current + politics and legislation unorganised and ineffective. + </p> + <p> + Most of the forces of international finance and international business + enterprise will be with it. It will develop its own characteristic + standards of art and literature and conduct in accordance with its new + necessities. It is, I believe, the mankind of the future. And the last + thing it will be able to do will be to legislate. The history of the + immediate future will, I am convinced, be very largely the history of the + conflict of the needs of this new population with the institutions, the + boundaries the laws, prejudices, and deep-rooted traditions established + during the home-keeping, localised era of mankind's career. + </p> + <p> + This conflict follows as inevitably upon these new gigantic facilities of + locomotion as the <i>Mauretania</i> followed from the discoveries of steam + and steel. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + OF THE NEW REIGN + </h2> + <h3> + (<i>June, 1911</i>.) + </h3> + <p> + The bunting and the crimson vanish from the streets. Already the vast army + of improvised carpenters that the Coronation has created set themselves to + the work of demolition, and soon every road that converges upon Central + London will be choked again with great loads of timber—but this time + going outward—as our capital emerges from this unprecedented + inundation of loyalty. The most elaborately conceived, the most stately of + all recorded British Coronations is past. + </p> + <p> + What new phase in the life of our nation and our Empire does this + tremendous ceremony inaugurate? The question is inevitable. There is + nothing in all the social existence of men so full of challenge as the + crowning of a king. It is the end of the overture; the curtain rises. This + is a new beginning-place for histories. + </p> + <p> + To us, the great mass of common Englishmen, who have no place in the + hierarchy of our land, who do not attend Courts nor encounter uniforms, + whose function is at most spectacular, who stand in the street and watch + the dignitaries and the liveries pass by, this sense of critical + expectation is perhaps greater than it is for those more immediately + concerned in the spectacle. They have had their parts to play, their + symbolic acts to perform, they have sat in their privileged places, and we + have waited at the barriers until their comfort and dignity was assured. I + can conceive many of them, a little fatigued, preparing now for social + dispersal, relaxing comfortably into gossip, discussing the detail of + these events with an air of things accomplished. They will decide whether + the Coronation has been a success and whether everything has or has not + passed off very well. For us in the great crowd nothing has as yet + succeeded or passed off well or ill. We are intent upon a King newly + anointed and crowned, a King of whom we know as yet very little, but who + has, nevertheless, roused such expectation as no King before him has done + since Tudor times, in the presence of gigantic opportunities. + </p> + <p> + There is a conviction widespread among us—his own words, perhaps, + have done most to create it—that King George is inspired, as no + recent predecessor has been inspired, by the conception of kingship, that + his is to be no rtle of almost indifferent abstinence from the broad + processes of our national and imperial development. That greater public + life which is above party and above creed and sect has, we are told, taken + hold of his imagination; he is to be no crowned image of unity and + correlation, a layer of foundation-stones and a signature to documents, + but an actor in our drama, a living Prince. + </p> + <p> + Time will test these hopes, but certainly we, the innumerable democracy of + individually unimportant men, have felt the need for such a Prince. Our + consciousness of defects, of fields of effort untilled, of vast + possibilities neglected and slipping away from us for ever, has never + really slumbered again since the chastening experiences of the Boer War. + Since then the national spirit, hampered though it is by the traditions of + party government and a legacy of intellectual and social heaviness, has + been in uneasy and ineffectual revolt against deadness, against stupidity + and slackness, against waste and hypocrisy in every department of life. We + have come to see more and more clearly how little we can hope for from + politicians, societies and organised movements in these essential things. + It is this that has invested the energy and manhood, the untried + possibilities of the new King with so radiant a light of hope for us. + </p> + <p> + Think what it may mean for us all—I write as one of that great + ill-informed multitude, sincerely and gravely patriotic, outside the + echoes of Court gossip and the easy knowledge of exalted society—if + our King does indeed care for these wider and profounder things! Suppose + we have a King at last who cares for the advancement of science, who is + willing to do the hundred things that are so easy in his position to + increase research, to honour and to share in scientific thought. Suppose + we have a King whose head rises above the level of the Court artist, and + who not only can but will appeal to the latent and discouraged power of + artistic creation in our race. Suppose we have a King who understands the + need for incessant, acute criticism to keep our collective activities + intelligent and efficient, and for a flow of bold, unhampered thought + through every department of the national life, a King liberal without + laxity and patriotic without pettiness or vulgarity. Such, it seems to us + who wait at present almost inexpressively outside the immediate clamours + of a mere artificial loyalty, are the splendid possibilities of the time. + </p> + <p> + For England is no exhausted or decaying country. It is rich with an + unmeasured capacity for generous responses. It is a country burthened + indeed, but not overwhelmed, by the gigantic responsibilities of Empire, a + little relaxed by wealth, and hampered rather than enslaved by a certain + shyness of temperament, a certain habitual timidity, slovenliness and + insincerity of mind. It is a little distrustful of intellectual power and + enterprise, a little awkward and ungracious to brave and beautiful things, + a little too tolerant of dull, well-meaning and industrious men and + arrogant old women. It suffers hypocrites gladly, because its criticism is + poor, and it is wastefully harsh to frank unorthodoxy. But its heart is + sound if its judgments fall short of acuteness and if its standards of + achievement are low. It needs but a quickening spirit upon the throne, + always the traditional centre of its respect, to rise from even the + appearance of decadence. There is a new quality seeking expression in + England like the rising of sap in the spring, a new generation asking only + for such leadership and such emancipation from restricted scope and + ungenerous hostility as a King alone can give it.... + </p> + <p> + When in its turn this latest reign comes at last to its reckoning, what + will the sum of its achievement be? What will it leave of things visible? + Will it leave a London preserved and beautified, or will it but add + abundantly to the lumps of dishonest statuary, the scars and masses of + ill-conceived rebuilding which testify to the aesthetic degradation of the + Victorian period? Will a great constellation of artists redeem the + ambitious sentimentalities and genteel skilfulness that find their fitting + mausoleum in the Tate Gallery? Will our literature escape at last from + pretentiousness and timidity, our philosophy from the foolish cerebrations + of university "characters" and eminent politicians at leisure, and our + starved science find scope and resources adequate to its gigantic needs? + Will our universities, our teaching, our national training, our public + services, gain a new health from the reviving vigour of the national + brain? Or is all this a mere wild hope, and shall we, after perhaps some + small flutterings of effort, the foundation of some ridiculous little + academy of literary busybodies and hangers-on, the public recognition of + this or that sociological pretender or financial "scientist," and a little + polite jobbery with picture-buying, relapse into lassitude and a contented + acquiescence in the rivalry of Germany and the United States for the + moral, intellectual and material leadership of the world? + </p> + <p> + The deaths and accessions of Kings, the changing of names and coins and + symbols and persons, a little force our minds in the marking off of + epochs. We are brought to weigh one generation against another, to reckon + up our position and note the characteristics of a new phase. What lies + before us in the next decades? Is England going on to fresh achievements, + to a renewed and increased predominance, or is she falling into a + secondary position among the peoples of the world? + </p> + <p> + The answer to that depends upon ourselves. Have we pride enough to attempt + still to lead mankind, and if we have, have we the wisdom and the quality? + Or are we just the children of Good Luck, who are being found out? + </p> + <p> + Some years ago our present King exhorted this island to "wake up" in one + of the most remarkable of British royal utterances, and Mr. Owen Seaman + assures him in verse of an altogether laureate quality that we are now + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Free of the snare of slumber's silken bands," +</pre> + <p> + though I have not myself observed it. It is interesting to ask, Is England + really waking up? and if she is, what sort of awakening is she likely to + have? + </p> + <p> + It is possible, of course, to wake up in various different ways. There is + the clear and beautiful dawn of new and balanced effort, easy, unresting, + planned, assured, and there is also the blundering-up of a still + half-somnolent man, irascible, clumsy, quarrelsome, who stubs his toe in + his first walk across the room, smashes his too persistent alarum clock in + a fit of nerves, and cuts his throat while shaving. All patriotic + vehemence does not serve one's country. Exertion is a more critical and + dangerous thing than inaction, and the essence of success is in the + ability to develop those qualities which make action effective, and + without which strenuousness is merely a clumsy and noisy protest against + inevitable defeat. These necessary qualities, without which no community + may hope for pre-eminence to-day, are a passion for fine and brilliant + achievement, relentless veracity of thought and method, and richly + imaginative fearlessness of enterprise. Have we English those qualities, + and are we doing our utmost to select and develop them? + </p> + <p> + I doubt very much if we are. Let me give some of the impressions that + qualify my assurance in the future of our race. + </p> + <p> + I have watched a great deal of patriotic effort during the last decade, I + have seen enormous expenditures of will, emotion and material for the sake + of our future, and I am deeply impressed, not indeed by any effect of + lethargy, but by the second-rate quality and the shortness and weakness of + aim in very much that has been done. I miss continually that sharply + critical imaginativeness which distinguishes all excellent work, which + shines out supremely in Cromwell's creation of the New Model, or Nelson's + plan of action at Trafalgar, as brightly as it does in Newton's + investigation of gravitation, Turner's rendering of landscape, or + Shakespeare's choice of words, but which cannot be absent altogether if + any achievement is to endure. We seem to have busy, energetic people, no + doubt, in abundance, patient and industrious administrators and + legislators; but have we any adequate supply of really creative ability? + </p> + <p> + Let me apply this question to one matter upon which England has certainly + been profoundly in earnest during the last decade. We have been almost + frantically resolved to keep the empire of the sea. But have we really + done all that could have been done? I ask it with all diffidence, but has + our naval preparation been free from a sort of noisy violence, a certain + massive dullness of conception? Have we really made anything like a sane + use of our resources? I do not mean of our resources in money or stuff. It + is manifest that the next naval war will be beyond all precedent a war of + mechanisms, giving such scope for invention and scientifically equipped + wit and courage as the world has never had before. Now, have we really + developed any considerable proportion of the potential human quality + available to meet the demand for wits? What are we doing to discover, + encourage and develop those supreme qualities of personal genius that + become more and more decisive with every new weapon and every new + complication and unsuspected possibility it introduces? Suppose, for + example, there was among us to-day a one-eyed, one-armed adulterer, rather + fragile, prone to sea-sickness, and with just that one supreme quality of + imaginative courage which made Nelson our starry admiral. Would he be + given the ghost of a chance now of putting that gift at his country's + disposal? I do not think he would, and I do not think he would because we + underrate gifts and exceptional qualities, because there is no quickening + appreciation for the exceptional best in a man, and because we overvalue + the good behaviour, the sound physique, the commonplace virtues of + mediocrity. + </p> + <p> + I have but the knowledge of the man in the street in these things, though + once or twice I have chanced on prophecy, and I am uneasily apprehensive + of the quality of all our naval preparations. We go on launching these + lumping great Dreadnoughts, and I cannot bring myself to believe in them. + They seem vulnerable from the air above and the deep below, vulnerable in + a shallow channel and in a fog (and the North Sea is both foggy and + shallow), and immensely costly. If I were Lord High Admiral of England at + war I would not fight the things. I would as soon put to sea in St. Paul's + Cathedral. If I were fighting Germany, I would stow half of them away in + the Clyde and half in the Bristol Channel, and take the good men out of + them and fight with mines and torpedoes and destroyers and airships and + submarines. + </p> + <p> + And when I come to military matters my persuasion that things are not all + right, that our current hostility to imaginative activity and our dull + acceptance of established methods and traditions is leading us towards + grave dangers, intensifies. In South Africa the Boers taught us in blood + and bitterness the obvious fact that barbed wire had its military uses, + and over the high passes on the way to Lhassa (though, luckily, it led to + no disaster) there was not a rifle in condition to use because we had not + thought to take glycerine. The perpetual novelty of modern conditions + demands an imaginative alertness we eliminate. I do not believe that the + Army Council or anyone in authority has worked out a tithe of the + essential problems of contemporary war. If they have, then it does not + show. Our military imagination is half-way back to bows and arrows. The + other day I saw a detachment of the Legion of Frontiersmen disporting + itself at Totteridge. I presume these young heroes consider they are + preparing for a possible conflict in England or Western Europe, and I + presume the authorities are satisfied with them. It is at any rate the + only serious war of which there is any manifest probability. Western + Europe is now a network of railways, tramways, high roads, wires of all + sorts; its chief beasts of burthen are the railway train and the motor car + and the bicycle; towns and hypertrophied villages are often practically + continuous over large areas; there is abundant water and food, and the + commonest form of cover is the house. But the Legion of Frontiersmen is + equipped for war, oh!—in Arizona in 1890, and so far as I am able to + judge the most modern sections of the army extant are organised for a + colonial war in (say) 1899 or 1900. There is, of course, a considerable + amount of vague energy demanding conscription and urging our youth towards + a familiarity with arms and the backwoodsman's life, but of any + thought-out purpose in our arming widely understood, of any realisation of + what would have to be done and where it would have to be done, and of any + attempts to create an instrument for that novel unprecedented undertaking, + I discover no trace. + </p> + <p> + In my capacity of devil's advocate pleading against national + over-confidence, I might go on to the quality of our social and political + movements. One hears nowadays a vast amount of chatter about efficiency—that + magic word—and social organisation, and there is no doubt a huge + expenditure of energy upon these things and a widespread desire to rush + about and make showy and startling changes. But it does not follow that + this involves progress if the enterprise itself is dully conceived and + most of it does seem to me to be dully conceived. In the absence of + penetrating criticism, any impudent industrious person may set up as an + "expert," organise and direct the confused good intentions at large, and + muddle disastrously with the problem in hand. The "expert" quack and the + bureaucratic intriguer increase and multiply in a dull-minded, uncritical, + strenuous period as disease germs multiply in darkness and heat. + </p> + <p> + I find the same doubts of our quality assail me when I turn to the supreme + business of education. It is true we all seem alive nowadays to the need + of education, are all prepared for more expenditure upon it and more, but + it does not follow necessarily in a period of stagnating imagination that + we shall get what we pay for. The other day I discovered my little boy + doing a subtraction sum, and I found he was doing it in a slower, + clumsier, less businesslike way than the one I was taught in an + old-fashioned "Commercial Academy" thirty odd years ago. The educational + "expert," it seems, has been at work substituting a bad method for a good + one in our schools because it is easier of exposition. The educational + "expert," in the lack of a lively public intelligence, develops all the + vices of the second-rate energetic, and he is, I am only too disposed to + believe, making a terrible mess of a great deal of our science teaching + and of the teaching of mathematics and English.... + </p> + <p> + I have written enough to make clear the quality of my doubts. I think the + English mind cuts at life with a dulled edge, and that its energy may be + worse than its somnolence. I think it undervalues gifts and fine + achievement, and overvalues the commonplace virtues of mediocre men. One + of the greatest Liberal statesmen in the time of Queen Victoria never held + office because he was associated with a divorce case a quarter of a + century ago. For him to have taken office would have been regarded as a + scandal. But it is not regarded as a scandal that our Government includes + men of no more ability than any average assistant behind a grocer's + counter. These are your gods, O England!—and with every desire to be + optimistic I find it hard under the circumstances to anticipate that the + New Epoch is likely to be a blindingly brilliant time for our Empire and + our race. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + WILL THE EMPIRE LIVE? + </h2> + <p> + What will hold such an Empire as the British together, this great, laxly + scattered, sea-linked association of ancient states and new-formed + countries, Oriental nations, and continental colonies? What will enable it + to resist the endless internal strains, the inevitable external pressures + and attacks to which it must be subjected This is the primary question for + British Imperialism; everything else is secondary or subordinated to that. + </p> + <p> + There is a multitude of answers. But I suppose most of them will prove + under examination either to be, or to lead to, or to imply very distinctly + this generalisation that if most of the intelligent and active people in + the Empire want it to continue it will, and that if a large proportion of + such active and intelligent people are discontented and estranged, nothing + can save it from disintegration. I do not suppose that a navy ten times + larger than ours, or conscription of the most irksome thoroughness, could + oblige Canada to remain in the Empire if the general will and feeling of + Canada were against it, or coerce India into a sustained submission if + India presented a united and resistant front. Our Empire, for all its roll + of battles, was not created by force; colonisation and diplomacy have + played a far larger share in its growth than conquest; and there is no + such strength in its sovereignty as the rule of pride and pressure demand. + It is to the free consent and participation of its constituent peoples + that we must look for its continuance. + </p> + <p> + A large and influential body of politicians considers that in preferential + trading between the parts of the Empire, and in the erection of a tariff + wall against exterior peoples, lies the secret of that deepened emotional + understanding we all desire. I have never belonged to that school. I am no + impassioned Free Trader—the sacred principle of Free Trade has + always impressed me as a piece of party claptrap; but I have never been + able to understand how an attempt to draw together dominions so scattered + and various as ours by a network of fiscal manipulation could end in + anything but mutual inconvenience mutual irritation, and disruption. + </p> + <p> + In an open drawer in my bureau there lies before me now a crumpled card on + which are the notes I made of a former discussion of this very issue, a + discussion between a number of prominent politicians in the days before + Mr. Chamberlain's return from South Africa and the adoption of Tariff + Reform by the Unionist Party; and I decipher again the same + considerations, unanswered and unanswerable, that leave me sceptical + to-day. + </p> + <p> + Take a map of the world and consider the extreme differences in position + and condition between our scattered states. Here is Canada, lying along + the United States, looking eastward to Japan and China, westward to all + Europe. See the great slashes of lake, bay, and mountain chain that cut it + meridianally. Obviously its main routes and trades and relations lie + naturally north and south; obviously its full development can only be + attained with those ways free, open, and active. Conceivably, you may + build a fiscal wall across the continent; conceivably, you may shut off + the east and half the west by impossible tariffs, and narrow its trade to + one artificial duct to England, but only at the price of a hampered + development It will be like nourishing the growing body of a man with the + heart and arteries of a mouse. + </p> + <p> + Then here, again, are New Zealand and Australia, facing South America and + the teeming countries of Eastern Asia; surely it is in relation to these + vast proximities that their economic future lies. Is it possible to + believe that shipping mutton to London is anything but the mere beginning + of their commercial development Look at India, again, and South Africa. Is + it not manifest that from the economic and business points of view each of + these is an entirely separate entity, a system apart, under distinct + necessities, needing entire freedom to make its own bargains and control + its trade in its own way in order to achieve its fullest material + possibilities? + </p> + <p> + Nor can I believe that financial entanglements greatly strengthen the + bonds of an empire in any case. We lost the American colonies because we + interfered with their fiscal arrangements, and it was Napoleon's attempt + to strangle the Continental trade with Great Britain that began his + downfall. + </p> + <p> + I do not find in the ordinary relations of life that business relations + necessarily sustain intercourse. The relations of buyer and seller are + ticklish relations, very liable to strains and conflicts. I do not find + people grow fond of their butchers and plumbers, and I doubt whether if + one were obliged by some special taxation to deal only with one butcher or + one plumber, it would greatly endear the relationship. Forced buying is + irritated buying, and it is the forbidden shop that contains the coveted + goods. Nor do I find, to take another instance, among the hotel staffs of + Switzerland and the Riviera—who live almost entirely upon British + gold—those impassioned British imperialist views the economic link + theory would lead me to expect. + </p> + <p> + And another link, too, upon which much stress is laid but about which I + have very grave doubts, is the possibility of a unified organisation of + the Empire for military defence. We are to have, it is suggested, an + imperial Army and an imperial Navy, and so far, no doubt, as the + guaranteeing of a general peace goes, we may develop a sense of + participation in that way. But it is well in these islands to remember + that our extraordinary Empire has no common enemy to weld it together from + without. + </p> + <p> + It is too usual to regard Germany as the common enemy. We in Great Britain + are now intensely jealous of Germany. We are intensely jealous of Germany + not only because the Germans outnumber us, and have a much larger and more + diversified country than ours, and lie in the very heart and body of + Europe, but because in the last hundred years, while we have fed on + platitudes and vanity, they have had the energy and humility to develop a + splendid system of national education, to toil at science and art and + literature, to develop social organisation, to master and better our + methods of business and industry, and to clamber above us in the scale of + civilisation. This has humiliated and irritated rather than chastened us, + and our irritation has been greatly exacerbated by the swaggering bad + manners, the talk of "Blood and Iron" and Mailed Fists, the Welt-Politik + rubbish that inaugurated the new German phase. + </p> + <p> + The British middle-class, therefore, is full of an angry, vague + disposition to thwart that expansion which Germans regard very reasonably + as their natural destiny; there are all the possibilities of a huge + conflict in that disposition, and it is perhaps well to remember how + insular—or, at least, how European—the essentials of this + quarrel are. We have lost our tempers, but Canada has not. There is + nothing in Germany to make Canada envious and ashamed of wasted years. + Canada has no natural quarrel with Germany, nor has India, nor South + Africa, nor Australasia. They have no reason to share our insular + exasperation. On the other hand, all these states have other special + preoccupations. New Zealand, for example, having spent half a century and + more in sheep-farming, land legislation, suppressing its drink traffic, + lowering its birth-rate, and, in short, the achievement of an ideal + preventive materialism, is chiefly consumed by hate and fear of Japan, + which in the same interval has made a stride from the thirteenth to the + twentieth century, and which teems with art and life and enterprise and + offspring. Now Japan in Welt-Politik is our ally. + </p> + <p> + You see, the British Empire has no common economic interests and no + natural common enemy. It is not adapted to any form of Zollverein or any + form of united aggression. Visibly, on the map of the world it has a + likeness to open hands, while the German Empire—except for a few + ill-advised and imitative colonies—is clenched into a central + European unity. + </p> + <p> + Physically, our Empire is incurably scattered, various, and divided, and + it is to quite other links and forces, it seems to me, than fiscal or + military unification that we who desire its continuance must look to hold + it together. There never was anything like it before. Essentially it is an + adventure of the British spirit, sanguine, discursive, and beyond + comparison insubordinate, adaptable, and originating. It has been made by + odd and irregular means by trading companies, pioneers, explorers, + unauthorised seamen, adventurers like Clive, eccentrics like Gordon, + invalids like Rhodes. It has been made, in spite of authority and + officialdom, as no other empire was ever made. The nominal rulers of + Britain never planned it. It happened almost in spite of them. Their chief + contribution to its history has been the loss of the United States. It is + a living thing that has arisen, not a dead thing put together. Beneath the + thin legal and administrative ties that hold it together lies the far more + vital bond of a traditional free spontaneous activity. It has a common + medium of expression in the English tongue, a unity of liberal and + tolerant purpose amidst its enormous variety of localised life and colour. + And it is in the development and strengthening, the enrichment the + rendering more conscious and more purposeful, of that broad creative + spirit of the British that the true cement and continuance of our Empire + is to be found. + </p> + <p> + The Empire must live by the forces that begot it. It cannot hope to give + any such exclusive prosperity as a Zollverein might afford; it can hold + out no hopes of collective conquests and triumphs—its utmost + military rtle must be the guaranteeing of a common inaggressive security; + but it can, if it is to survive, it must, give all its constituent parts + such a civilisation as none of them could achieve alone, a civilisation, a + wealth and fullness of life increasing and developing with the years. + Through that, and that alone, can it be made worth having and worth + serving. + </p> + <p> + And in the first place the whole Empire must use the English language. I + do not mean that any language must be stamped out, that a thousand + languages may not flourish by board and cradle and in folk-songs and + village gossip—Erse, the Taal, a hundred Indian and other Eastern + tongues, Canadian French—but I mean that also English must be + available, that everywhere there must be English teaching. And everyone + who wants to read science or history or philosophy, to come out of the + village life into wider thoughts and broader horizons, to gain + appreciation in art, must find ready to hand, easily attainable in + English, all there is to know and all that has been said thereon. It is + worth a hundred Dreadnoughts and a million soldiers to the Empire, that + wherever the imperial posts reach, wherever there is a curious or + receptive mind, there in English and by the imperial connection the full + thought of the race should come. To the lonely youth upon the New Zealand + sheep farm, to the young Hindu, to the trapper under a Labrador tilt, to + the half-breed assistant at a Burmese oil-well, to the self-educating + Scottish miner or the Egyptian clerk, the Empire and the English language + should exist, visibly and certainly, as the media by which his spirit + escapes from his immediate surroundings and all the urgencies of every + day, into a limitless fellowship of thought and beauty. + </p> + <p> + Now I am not writing this in any vague rhetorical way; I mean specifically + that our Empire has to become the medium of knowledge and thought to every + intelligent person in it, or that it is bound to go to pieces. It has no + economic, no military, no racial, no religious unity. Its only conceivable + unity is a unity of language and purpose and outlook. If it is not held + together by thought and spirit, it cannot be held together. No other + cement exists that can hold it together indefinitely. + </p> + <p> + Not only English literature, but all other literatures well translated + into English, and all science and all philosophy, have to be brought + within the reach of everyone capable of availing himself of such reading. + And this must be done, not by private enterprise or for gain, but as an + Imperial function. Wherever the Empire extends there its presence must + signify all that breadth of thought and outlook no localised life can + supply. + </p> + <p> + Only so is it possible to establish and maintain the wide understandings, + the common sympathy necessary to our continued association. The Empire, + mediately or immediately, must become the universal educator, news-agent, + book-distributor, civiliser-general, and vehicle of imaginative + inspiration for its peoples, or else it must submit to the gravitation of + its various parts to new and more invigorating associations. + </p> + <p> + No empire, it may be urged, has ever attempted anything of this sort, but + no empire like the British has ever yet existed. Its conditions and needs + are unprecedented, its consolidation is a new problem, to be solved, if it + is solved at all, by untried means. And in the English language as a + vehicle of thought and civilisation alone is that means to be found. + </p> + <p> + Now it is idle to pretend that at the present time the British Empire is + giving its constituent peoples any such high and rewarding civilisation as + I am here suggesting. It gives them a certain immunity from warfare, a + penny post, an occasional spectacular coronation, a few knighthoods and + peerages, and the services of an honest, unsympathetic, narrow-minded, and + unattractive officialism. No adequate effort is being made to render the + English language universal throughout its limits, none at all to use it as + a medium of thought and enlightenment. Half the good things of the human + mind are outside English altogether, and there is not sufficient + intelligence among us to desire to bring them in. If one would read honest + and able criticism, one must learn French; if one would be abreast of + scientific knowledge and philosophical thought, or see many good plays or + understand the contemporary European mind, German. + </p> + <p> + And yet it would cost amazingly little to get every good foreign thing + done into English as it appeared. It needs only a little understanding and + a little organisation to ensure the immediate translation of every + significant article, every scientific paper of the slightest value. The + effort and arrangement needed to make books, facilities for research, and + all forms of art accessible throughout the Empire, would be altogether + trivial in proportion to the consolidation it would effect. + </p> + <p> + But English people do not understand these things. Their Empire is an + accident. It was made for them by their exceptional and outcast men, and + in the end it will be lost, I fear, by the intellectual inertness of their + commonplace and dull-minded leaders. Empire has happened to them and + civilisation has happened to them as fresh lettuces come to tame rabbits. + They do not understand how they got, and they will not understand how to + keep. Art, thought, literature, all indeed that raises men above locality + and habit, all that can justify and consolidate the Empire, is nothing to + them. They are provincials mocked by a world-wide opportunity, the stupid + legatees of a great generation of exiles. They go out of town for the + "shootin'," and come back for the fooleries of Parliament, and to see what + the Censor has left of our playwrights and Sir Jesse Boot of our writers, + and to dine in restaurants and wear clothes. + </p> + <p> + Mostly they call themselves Imperialists, which is just their harmless way + of expressing their satisfaction with things as they are. In practice + their Imperialism resolves itself into a vigorous resistance to taxation + and an ill-concealed hostility to education. It matters nothing to them + that the whole next generation of Canadians has drawn its ideas mainly + from American publications, that India and Egypt, in despite of sounder + mental nourishment, have developed their own vernacular Press, that + Australia and New Zealand even now gravitate to America for books and + thought. It matters nothing to them that the poverty and insularity of our + intellectual life has turned American art to France and Italy, and the + American universities towards Germany. The slow starvation and decline of + our philosophy and science, the decadence of British invention and + enterprise, troubles them not at all, because they fail to connect these + things with the tangible facts of empire. "The world cannot wait for the + English." ... And the sands of our Imperial opportunity twirl through the + neck of the hour-glass. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE LABOUR UNREST + </h2> + <h3> + (<i>May, 1912</i>.) + </h3> + <p> + Sec. 1 + </p> + <p> + Our country is, I think, in a dangerous state of social disturbance. The + discontent of the labouring mass of the community is deep and increasing. + It may be that we are in the opening phase of a real and irreparable class + war. + </p> + <p> + Since the Coronation we have moved very rapidly indeed from an assurance + of extreme social stability towards the recognition of a spreading + disorganisation. It is idle to pretend any longer that these Labour + troubles are the mere give and take of economic adjustment. No adjustment + is in progress. New and strange urgencies are at work in our midst, forces + for which the word "revolutionary" is only too faithfully appropriate. + Nothing is being done to allay these forces; everything conspires to + exasperate them. + </p> + <p> + Whither are these forces taking us? What can still be done and what has to + be done to avoid the phase of social destruction to which we seem to be + drifting? + </p> + <p> + Hitherto, in Great Britain at any rate, the working man has shown himself + a being of the most limited and practical outlook. His narrowness of + imagination, his lack of general ideas, has been the despair of the + Socialist and of every sort of revolutionary theorist. He may have struck + before, but only for definite increments of wages or definite limitations + of toil; his acceptance of the industrial system and its methods has been + as complete and unquestioning as his acceptance of earth and sky. Now, + with an effect of suddenness, this ceases to be the case. A new generation + of workers is seen replacing the old, workers of a quality unfamiliar to + the middle-aged and elderly men who still manage our great businesses and + political affairs. The worker is beginning now to strike for unprecedented + ends—against the system, against the fundamental conditions of + labour, to strike for no defined ends at all, perplexingly and + disconcertingly. The old-fashioned strike was a method of bargaining, + clumsy and violent perhaps, but bargaining still; the new-fashioned strike + is far less of a haggle, far more of a display of temper. The first thing + that has to be realised if the Labour question is to be understood at all + is this, that the temper of Labour has changed altogether in the last + twenty or thirty years. Essentially that is a change due to intelligence + not merely increased but greatly stimulated, to the work, that is, of the + board schools and of the cheap Press. The outlook of the workman has + passed beyond the works and his beer and his dog. He has become—or, + rather, he has been replaced by—a being of eyes, however imperfect, + and of criticism, however hasty and unjust. The working man of to-day + reads, talks, has general ideas and a sense of the round world; he is far + nearer to the ruler of to-day in knowledge and intellectual range than he + is to the working man of fifty years ago. The politician or business + magnate of to-day is no better educated and very little better informed + than his equals were fifty years ago. The chief difference is golf. The + working man questions a thousand things his father accepted as in the very + nature of the world, and among others he begins to ask with the utmost + alertness and persistence why it is that he in particular is expected to + toil. The answer, the only justifiable answer, should be that that is the + work for which he is fitted by his inferior capacity and culture, that + these others are a special and select sort, very specially trained and + prepared for their responsibilities, and that at once brings this new fact + of a working-class criticism of social values into play. The old workman + might and did quarrel very vigorously with his specific employer, but he + never set out to arraign all employers; he took the law and the Church and + Statecraft and politics for the higher and noble things they claimed to + be. He wanted an extra shilling or he wanted an hour of leisure, and that + was as much as he wanted. The young workman, on the other hand, has put + the whole social system upon its trial, and seems quite disposed to give + an adverse verdict. He looks far beyond the older conflict of interests + between employer and employed. He criticises the good intentions of the + whole system of governing and influential people, and not only their good + intentions, but their ability. These are the new conditions, and the + middle-aged and elderly gentlemen who are dealing with the crisis on the + supposition that their vast experience of Labour questions in the + 'seventies and 'eighties furnishes valuable guidance in this present issue + are merely bringing the gunpowder of misapprehension to the revolutionary + fort. + </p> + <p> + The workman of the new generation is full of distrust the most + demoralising of social influences. He is like a sailor who believes no + longer either in the good faith or seamanship of his captain, and, between + desperation and contempt, contemplates vaguely but persistently the + assumption of control by a collective forecastle. He is like a private + soldier obsessed with the idea that nothing can save the situation but the + death of an incompetent officer. His distrust is so profound that he + ceases not only to believe in the employer, but he ceases to believe in + the law, ceases to believe in Parliament, as a means to that tolerable + life he desires; and he falls back steadily upon his last resource of a + strike, and—if by repressive tactics we make it so—a criminal + strike. The central fact of all this present trouble is that distrust. + There is only one way in which our present drift towards revolution or + revolutionary disorder can be arrested, and that is by restoring the + confidence of these alienated millions, who visibly now are changing from + loyalty to the Crown, from a simple patriotism, from habitual industry, to + the more and more effective expression of a deepening resentment. + </p> + <p> + This is a psychological question, a matter of mental states. Feats of + legal subtlety are inopportune, arithmetical exploits still more so. To + emerge with the sum of 4s. 6-1/2d. as a minimum, by calculating on the + basis of the mine's present earnings, from a conference which the miners + and everybody else imagined was to give a minimum of 5s., may be clever, + but it is certainly not politic in the present stage of Labour feeling. To + stamp violently upon obscure newspapers nobody had heard of before and + send a printer to prison, and to give thereby a flaming advertisement to + the possible use of soldiers in civil conflicts and set every barrack-room + talking, may be permissible, but it is certainly very ill-advised. The + distrust deepens. + </p> + <p> + The real task before a governing class that means to go on governing is + not just at present to get the better of an argument or the best of a + bargain, but to lay hold of the imaginations of this drifting, sullen and + suspicious multitude, which is the working body of the country. What we + prosperous people, who have nearly all the good things of life and most of + the opportunity, have to do now is to justify ourselves. We have to show + that we are indeed responsible and serviceable, willing to give ourselves, + and to give ourselves generously for what we have and what we have had. We + have to meet the challenge of this distrust. + </p> + <p> + The slack days for rulers and owners are over. If there are still to be + rulers and owners and managing and governing people, then in the face of + the new masses, sensitive, intelligent, critical, irritable, as no common + people have ever been before, these rulers and owners must be prepared to + make themselves and display themselves wise, capable and heroic—beyond + any aristocratic precedent. The alternative, if it is an alternative, is + resignation—to the Social Democracy. + </p> + <p> + And it is just because we are all beginning to realise the immense need + for this heroic quality in those who rule and are rich and powerful, as + the response and corrective to these distrusts and jealousies that are + threatening to disintegrate our social order, that we have all followed + the details of this great catastrophe in the Atlantic with such intense + solicitude. It was one of those accidents that happen with a precision of + time and circumstance that outdoes art; not an incident in it all that was + not supremely typical. It was the penetrating comment of chance upon our + entire social situation. Beneath a surface of magnificent efficiency was—slap-dash. + The third-class passengers had placed themselves on board with an infinite + confidence in the care that was to be taken of them, and they went down, + and most of their women and children went down with the cry of those who + find themselves cheated out of life. + </p> + <p> + In the unfolding record of behaviour it is the stewardesses and bandsmen + and engineers—persons of the trade-union class—who shine as + brightly as any. And by the supreme artistry of Chance it fell to the lot + of that tragic and unhappy gentleman, Mr. Bruce Ismay, to be aboard and to + be caught by the urgent vacancy in the boat and the snare of the moment. + No untried man dare say that he would have behaved better in his place. He + escaped. He thought it natural to escape. His class thinks it was right + and proper that he did escape. It is not the man I would criticise, but + the manifest absence of any such sense of the supreme dignity of his + position as would have sustained him in that crisis. He was a rich man and + a ruling man, but in the test he was not a proud man. In the common man's + realisation that such is indeed the case with most of those who dominate + our world, lies the true cause and danger of our social indiscipline. And + the remedy in the first place lies not in social legislation and so forth, + but in the consciences of the wealthy. Heroism and a generous devotion to + the common good are the only effective answer to distrust. If such + dominating people cannot produce these qualities there will have to be an + end to them, and the world must turn to some entirely different method of + direction. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 2 + </p> + <p> + The essential trouble in our growing Labour disorder is the profound + distrust which has grown up in the minds of the new generation of workers + of either the ability or the good faith of the property owning, ruling and + directing class. I do not attempt to judge the justice or not of this + distrust; I merely point to its existence as one of the striking and + essential factors in the contemporary Labour situation. + </p> + <p> + This distrust is not, perhaps, the proximate cause of the strikes that now + follow each other so disconcertingly, but it embitters their spirit, it + prevents their settlement, and leads to their renewal. I have tried to + suggest that, whatever immediate devices for pacification might be + employed, the only way to a better understanding and co-operation, the + only escape from a social slide towards the unknown possibilities of + Social Democracy, lies in an exaltation of the standard of achievement and + of the sense of responsibility in the possessing and governing classes. It + is not so much "Wake up, England!" that I would say as "Wake up, + gentlemen!"—for the new generation of the workers is beyond all + question quite alarmingly awake and critical and angry. And they have not + merely to wake up, they have to wake up visibly and ostentatiously if + those old class reliances on which our system is based are to be preserved + and restored. + </p> + <p> + We need before anything else a restoration of class confidence. It is a + time when class should speak with class very frankly. + </p> + <p> + There is too much facile misrepresentation, too ready a disposition on + either side to accept caricatures as portraits and charges as facts. + However tacit our understandings were in the past, with this new kind of + Labour, this young, restive Labour of the twentieth century, which can + read, discuss and combine, we need something in the nature of a social + contract. And it is when one comes to consider by what possible means + these suspicious third-class passengers in our leaking and imperilled + social liner can be brought into generous co-operation with the second and + the first that one discovers just how lamentably out of date and out of + order our political institutions, which should supply the means for just + this inter-class discussion, have become. Between the busy and preoccupied + owning and employing class on the one hand, and the distressed, uneasy + masses on the other, intervenes the professional politician, not as a + mediator, but as an obstacle, who must be propitiated before any dealings + are possible. Our national politics no longer express the realities of the + national life; they are a mere impediment in the speech of the community. + With our whole social order in danger, our Legislature is busy over the + trivial little affairs of the Welsh Established Church, whose endowment + probably is not equal to the fortune of any one of half a dozen <i>Titanic</i> + passengers or a tithe of the probable loss of another strike among the + miners. We have a Legislature almost antiquarian, compiling a museum of + Gladstonian legacies rather than governing our world to-day. + </p> + <p> + Law is the basis of civilisation, but the lawyer is the law's consequence, + and, with us at least, the legal profession is the political profession. + It delights in false issues and merely technical politics. Steadily with + the ascendancy of the House of Commons the barristers have ousted other + types of men from political power. The decline of the House of Lords has + been the last triumph of the House of Lawyers, and we are governed now to + a large extent not so much by the people for the people as by the + barristers for the barristers. They set the tone of political life. And + since they are the most specialised, the most specifically trained of all + the professions, since their training is absolutely antagonistic to the + creative impulses of the constructive artist and the controlled + experiments of the scientific man, since the business is with evidence and + advantages and the skilful use of evidence and advantages, and not with + understanding, they are the least statesmanlike of all educated men, and + they give our public life a tone as hopelessly discordant with our very + great and urgent social needs as one could well imagine. They do not want + to deal at all with great and urgent social needs. They play a game, a + long and interesting game, with parties as sides, a game that rewards the + industrious player with prominence, place, power and great rewards, and + the less that game involves the passionate interests of other men, the + less it draws them into participation and angry interference, the better + for the steady development of the politician's career. A distinguished and + active fruitlessness, leaving the world at last as he found it, is the + political barrister's ideal career. To achieve that, he must maintain + legal and political monopolies, and prevent the invasion of political life + by living interests. And so far as he has any views about Labour beyond + the margin of his brief, the barrister politician seems to regard getting + men back to work on any terms and as soon as possible as the highest good. + </p> + <p> + And it is with such men that our insurgent modern Labour, with its vaguely + apprehended wants, its large occasions and its rapid emotional reactions, + comes into contact directly it attempts to adjust itself in the social + body. It is one of the main factors in the progressive embitterment of the + Labour situation that whatever business is afoot—arbitration, + conciliation, inquiry—our contemporary system presents itself to + Labour almost invariably in a legal guise. The natural infirmities of + humanity rebel against an unimaginative legality of attitude, and the + common workaday man has no more love for this great and necessary + profession to-day than he had in the time of Jack Cade. Little reasonable + things from the lawyers' point of view—the rejection, for example, + of certain evidence in the <i>Titanic</i> inquiry because it might amount + to a charge of manslaughter, the constant interruption and checking of a + Labour representative at the same tribunal upon trivial points—irritate + quite disproportionately. + </p> + <p> + Lawyer and working man are antipathetic types, and it is a very grave + national misfortune that at this time, when our situation calls aloud for + statecraft and a certain greatness of treatment, our public life should be + dominated as it has never been dominated before by this most able and + illiberal profession. + </p> + <p> + Now for that great multitude of prosperous people who find themselves at + once deeply concerned in our present social and economic crisis, and + either helplessly entangled in party organisation or helplessly outside + politics, the elimination and cure of this disease of statecraft, the + professional politician, has become a very urgent matter. To destroy him, + to get him back to his law courts and keep him there, it is necessary to + destroy the machinery of the party system that sustains him, and to adopt + some electoral method that will no longer put the independent + representative man at a hopeless disadvantage against the party nominee. + Such a method is to be found in proportional representation with large + constituencies, and to that we must look for our ultimate liberation from + our present masters, these politician barristers. But the Labour situation + cannot wait for this millennial release, and for the current issue it + seems to me patent that every reasonable prosperous man will, even at the + cost to himself of some trouble and hard thinking, do his best to keep as + much of this great and acute controversy as he possibly can out of the + lawyer's and mere politician's hands and in his own. Leave Labour to the + lawyers, and we shall go very deeply into trouble indeed before this + business is over. They will score their points, they will achieve + remarkable agreements full of the possibility of subsequent surprises, + they will make reputations, and do everything Heaven and their + professional training have made them to do, and they will exasperate and + exasperate! + </p> + <p> + Lawyers made the first French Revolution, and now, on a different side, + they may yet bring about an English one. These men below there are still, + as a class, wonderfully patient and reasonable, quite prepared to take + orders and recognise superior knowledge, wisdom and nobility. They make + the most reasonable claims for a tolerable life, for certain assurances + and certain latitudes. Implicit rather than expressed is their demand for + wisdom and right direction from those to whom the great surplus and + freedom of civilisation are given. It is an entirely reasonable demand if + man is indeed a social animal. But we have got to treat them fairly and + openly. This patience and reasonableness and willingness for leadership is + not limitless. It is no good scoring our mean little points, for example, + and accusing them of breach of contract and all sorts of theoretical + wrongs because they won't abide by agreements to accept a certain scale of + wages when the purchasing power of money has declined. When they made that + agreement they did not think of that possibility. When they said a pound + they thought of what was then a poundsworth of living. The Mint has since + been increasing its annual output of gold coins to two or three times the + former amount, and we have, as it were, debased the coinage with + extraordinary quantities of gold. But we who know and own did nothing to + adjust that; we did not tell the working man of that; we have let him find + it out slowly and indirectly at the grocer's shop. That may be permissible + from the lawyer's point of view, but it certainly isn't from the + gentleman's, and it is only by the plea that its inequalities give society + a gentleman that our present social system can claim to endure. + </p> + <p> + I would like to accentuate that, because if we are to emerge again from + these acute social dissensions a reunited and powerful people, there has + to be a change of tone, a new generosity on the part of those who deal + with Labour speeches, Labour literature, Labour representatives, and + Labour claims. Labour is necessarily at an enormous disadvantage in + discussion; in spite of a tremendous inferiority in training and education + it is trying to tell the community its conception of its needs and + purposes. It is not only young as a participator in the discussion of + affairs; it is actually young. The average working man is not half the age + of the ripe politicians and judges and lawyers and wealthy organisers who + trip him up legally, accuse him of bad faith, mark his every + inconsistency. It isn't becoming so to use our forensic advantages. It + isn't—if that has no appeal to you—wise. + </p> + <p> + The thing our society has most to fear from Labour is not organised + resistance, not victorious strikes and raised conditions, but the black + resentment that follows defeat. Meet Labour half-way, and you will find a + new co-operation in government; stick to your legal rights, draw the net + of repressive legislation tighter, then you will presently have to deal + with Labour enraged. If the anger burns free, that means revolution; if + you crush out the hope of that, then sabotage and a sullen general + sympathy for anarchistic crime. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 3 + </p> + <p> + In the preceding pages I have discussed certain aspects of the present + Labour situation. I have tried to show the profound significance in this + discussion of the distrust which has grown up in the minds of the workers, + and how this distrust is being exacerbated by our entirely too forensic + method of treating their claims. I want now to point out a still more + powerful set of influences which is steadily turning our Labour struggles + from mere attempts to adjust hours and wages into movements that are + gravely and deliberately revolutionary. + </p> + <p> + This is the obvious devotion of a large and growing proportion of the time + and energy of the owning and ruling classes to pleasure and excitement, + and the way in which this spectacle of amusement and adventure is now + being brought before the eyes and into the imagination of the working man. + </p> + <p> + The intimate psychology of work is a thing altogether too little + considered and discussed. One asks: "What keeps a workman working properly + at his work?" and it seems a sufficient answer to say that it is the need + of getting a living. But that is not the complete answer. Work must to + some extent interest; if it bores, no power on earth will keep a man doing + it properly. And the tendency of modern industrialism has been to + subdivide processes and make work more boring and irksome. Also the + workman must be satisfied with the living he is getting, and the tendency + of newspaper, theatre, cinematograph show and so forth is to fill his mind + with ideas of ways of living infinitely more agreeable and interesting + than his own. Habit also counts very largely in the regular return of the + man to his job, and the fluctuations of employment, the failure of the + employing class to provide any alternative to idleness during slack time, + break that habit of industry. And then, last but not least, there is + self-respect. Men and women are capable of wonders of self-discipline and + effort if they feel that theirs is a meritorious service, if they imagine + the thing they are doing is the thing they ought to do. A miner will cut + coal in a different spirit and with a fading zest if he knows his day's + output is to be burnt to waste secretly by a lunatic. Man is a social + animal; few men are naturally social rebels, and most will toil very + cheerfully in subordination if they feel that the collective end is a fine + thing and a great thing. + </p> + <p> + Now, this force of self-respect is much more acutely present in the mind + of the modern worker than it was in the thought of his fathers. He is + intellectually more active than his predecessors, his imagination is + relatively stimulated, he asks wide questions. The worker of a former + generation took himself for granted; it is a new phase when the toilers + begin to ask, not one man here or there, but in masses, in battalions, in + trades: "Why, then, are <i>we</i> toilers, and for what is it that we + toil?" + </p> + <p> + What answer do we give them? + </p> + <p> + I ask the reader to put himself in the place of a good workman, a young, + capable miner, let us say, in search of an answer to that question. He is, + we will suppose, temporarily unemployed through the production of a glut + of coal, and he goes about the world trying to see the fine and noble + collective achievements that justify the devotion of his whole life to + humble toil. I ask the reader: What have we got to show that man? What are + we doing up in the light and air that justifies our demand that he should + go on hewing in narrow seams and cramped corners until he can hew no more? + Where is he to be taken to see these crowning fruits of our release from + toil? Shall we take him to the House of Commons to note which of the + barristers is making most headway over Welsh Disestablishment, or shall we + take him to the <i>Titanic</i> inquiry to hear the latest about those + fifty-five third-class children (out of eighty-three) who were drowned? + Shall we give him an hour or so among the portraits at the Royal Academy, + or shall we make an enthusiastic tour of London sculpture and architecture + and saturate his soul with the beauty he makes possible? The new + Automobile Club, for example. "Without you and your subordination we could + not have had that." Or suppose we took him the round of the West-End clubs + and restaurants and made him estimate how many dinners London can produce + at a pinch at the price of his local daily minimum, say, and upward; or + borrow an aeroplane at Hendon and soar about counting all the golfers in + the Home Counties on any week-day afternoon. "You suffer at the roots of + things, far below there, but see all this nobility and splendour, these + sweet, bright flowers to which your rootlet life contributes." Or we might + spend a pleasant morning trying to get a passable woman's hat for the + price of his average weekly wages in some West-End shop.... + </p> + <p> + But indeed this thing is actually happening. The older type of miner was + illiterate, incurious; he read nothing, lived his own life, and if he had + any intellectual and spiritual urgencies in him beyond eating and drinking + and dog-fighting, the local little Bethel shunted them away from any + effective social criticism. The new generation of miners is on an + altogether different basis. It is at once less brutal and less spiritual; + it is alert, informed, sceptical, and the Press, with photographic + illustrations, the cinema, and a score of collateral forces, are giving it + precisely that spectacular view of luxury, amusement, aimlessness and + excitement, taunting it with just that suggestion that it is for that, and + that alone, that the worker's back aches and his muscles strain. Whatever + gravity and spaciousness of aim there may be in our prosperous social life + does not appear to him. He sees, and he sees all the more brightly because + he is looking at it out of toil and darkness, the glitter, the delight for + delight's sake, the show and the pride and the folly. Cannot you + understand how it is that these young men down there in the hot and + dangerous and toilsome and inglorious places of life are beginning to cry + out, "We are being made fools of," and to fling down their tools, and + cannot you see how futile it is to dream that Mr. Asquith or some other + politician by some trick of a Conciliation Act or some claptrap of + Compulsory Arbitration, or that any belated suppression of discussion and + strike organisations by the law, will avert this gathering storm? The + Spectacle of Pleasure, the parade of clothes, estates, motor-cars, luxury + and vanity in the sight of the workers is the culminating irritant of + Labour. So long as that goes on, this sombre resolve to which we are all + awakening, this sombre resolve rather to wreck the whole fabric than to + continue patiently at work, will gather strength. It does not matter that + such a resolve is hopeless and unseasonable; we are dealing here with the + profounder impulses that underlie reason. Crush this resentment; it will + recur with accumulated strength. + </p> + <p> + It does not matter that there is no plan in existence for any kind of + social order that could be set up in the place of our present system; no + plan, that is, that will endure half an hour's practical criticism. The + cardinal fact before us is that the workers do not intend to stand things + as they are, and that no clever arguments, no expert handling of legal + points, no ingenious appearances of concession, will stay that progressive + embitterment. + </p> + <p> + But I think I have said enough to express and perhaps convey my conviction + that our present Labour troubles are unprecedented, and that they mean the + end of an epoch. The supply of good-tempered, cheap labour—upon + which the fabric of our contemporary ease and comfort is erected—is + giving out. The spread of information and the means of presentation in + every class and the increase of luxury and self-indulgence in the + prosperous classes are the chief cause of that. In the place of that old + convenient labour comes a new sort of labour, reluctant, resentful, + critical, and suspicious. The replacement has already gone so far that I + am certain that attempts to baffle and coerce the workers back to their + old conditions must inevitably lead to a series of increasingly + destructive outbreaks, to stresses and disorder culminating in revolution. + It is useless to dream of going on now for much longer upon the old lines; + our civilisation, if it is not to enter upon a phase of conflict and + decay, must begin to adapt itself to the new conditions of which the first + and foremost is that the wages-earning labouring class as a distinctive + class, consenting to a distinctive treatment and accepting life at a + disadvantage is going to disappear. Whether we do it soon as the result of + our reflections upon the present situation, or whether we do it presently + through the impoverishment that must necessarily result from a lengthening + period of industrial unrest, there can be little doubt that we are going + to curtail very considerably the current extravagance of the spending and + directing classes upon food, clothing, display, and all the luxuries of + life. The phase of affluence is over. And unless we are to be the mere + passive spectators of an unprecedented reduction of our lives, all of us + who have leisure and opportunity have to set ourselves very strenuously to + the problem not of reconciling ourselves to the wage-earners, for that + possibility is over, but of establishing a new method of co-operation with + those who seem to be definitely decided not to remain wage-earners for + very much longer. We have, as sensible people, to realise that the old + arrangement which has given us of the fortunate minority so much leisure, + luxury, and abundance, advantages we have as a class put to so vulgar and + unprofitable a use, is breaking down, and that we have to discover a new, + more equable way of getting the world's work done. + </p> + <p> + Certain things stand out pretty obviously. It is clear that in the times + ahead of us there must be more economy in giving trouble and causing work, + a greater willingness to do work for ourselves, a great economy of labour + through machinery and skilful management. So much is unavoidable if we are + to meet these enlarged requirements upon which the insurgent worker + insists. If we, who have at least some experience of affairs, who own + property, manage businesses, and discuss and influence public + organisation, if we are not prepared to undertake this work of discipline + and adaptation for ourselves, then a time is not far distant when + insurrectionary leaders, calling themselves Socialists or Syndicalists, or + what not, men with none of our experience, little of our knowledge, and + far less hope of success, will take that task out of our hands.<a + href="#linknote-1" name="linknoteref-1" id="linknoteref-1"><small>1</small></a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="linknote-1" id="linknote-1"> Note--></a> + </p> + <p class="foot"> + 1 (<a href="#linknoteref-1">return</a>)<br /> [ Larkinism comes to endorse + me since this was written.] + </p> + <p> + We have, in fact, to "pull ourselves together," as the phrase goes, and + make an end to all this slack, extravagant living, this spectacle of + pleasure, that has been spreading and intensifying in every civilised + community for the last three or four decades. What is happening to Labour + is indeed, from one point of view, little else than the correlative of + what has been happening to the more prosperous classes in the community. + They have lost their self-discipline, their gravity, their sense of high + aims, they have become the victims of their advantages and Labour, grown + observant and intelligent, has discovered itself and declares itself no + longer subordinate. Just what powers of recovery and reconstruction our + system may have under these circumstances the decades immediately before + us will show. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 4 + </p> + <p> + Let us try to anticipate some of the social developments that are likely + to spring out of the present Labour situation. + </p> + <p> + It is quite conceivable, of course, that what lies before us is not + development but disorder. Given sufficient suspicion on one side and + sufficient obstinacy and trickery on the other, it may be impossible to + restore social peace in any form, and industrialism may degenerate into a + wasteful and incurable conflict. But that distressful possibility is the + worst and perhaps the least probable of many. It is much more acceptable + to suppose that our social order will be able to adjust itself to the new + outlook and temper and quality of the labour stratum that elementary + education, a Press very cheap and free, and a period of great general + affluence have brought about. + </p> + <p> + One almost inevitable feature of any such adaptation will be a changed + spirit in the general body of society. We have come to a serious condition + of our affairs, and we shall not get them into order again without a + thorough bracing-up of ourselves in the process. There can be no doubt + that for a large portion of our comfortable classes existence has been + altogether too easy for the last lifetime or so. The great bulk of the + world's work has been done out of their sight and knowledge; it has seemed + unnecessary to trouble much about the general conduct of things, + unnecessary, as they say, to "take life too seriously." This has not made + them so much vicious as slack, lazy, and over-confident; there has been an + elaboration of trivial things and a neglect of troublesome and important + things. The one grave shock of the Boer War has long been explained and + sentimentalised away. But it will not be so easy to explain away a + dislocated train service and an empty coal cellar as it was to get a + favourable interpretation upon some demonstration of national incompetence + half the world away. + </p> + <p> + It is indeed no disaster, but a matter for sincere congratulation that the + British prosperous and the British successful, to whom warning after + warning has rained in vain from the days of Ruskin, Carlyle, Matthew + Arnold, should be called to account at last in their own household. They + will grumble, they will be very angry, but in the end, I believe, they + will rise to the opportunities of their inconvenience. They will shake off + their intellectual lassitude, take over again the public and private + affairs they have come to leave so largely in the hands of the political + barrister and the family solicitor, become keen and critical and + constructive, bring themselves up to date again. + </p> + <p> + That is not, of course, inevitable, but I am taking now the more hopeful + view. + </p> + <p> + And then? What sort of working arrangements are our renascent owning and + directing classes likely to make with the new labouring class? How is the + work going to be done in the harder, cleaner, more equalised, and better + managed State that, in one's hopeful mood, one sees ahead of us? + </p> + <p> + Now after the experiences of the past twelve months it is obvious that the + days when most of the directed and inferior work of the community will be + done by intermittently employed and impecunious wage-earners is drawing to + an end. A large part of the task of reconstruction ahead of us will + consist in the working out of schemes for a more permanent type of + employment and for a direct participation of the worker in the pride, + profits, and direction of the work. Such schemes admit of wide variations + between a mere bonus system, a periodic tipping of the employees to + prevent their striking and a real and honest co-partnery. + </p> + <p> + In the latter case a great enterprise, forced to consider its "hands" as + being also in their degree "heads," would include a department of + technical and business instruction for its own people. From such ideas one + passes very readily to the conception of guild-managed businesses in which + the factor of capital would no longer stand out as an element distinct + from and contrasted with the proprietorship of the workers. One sees the + worker as an active and intelligent helper during the great portion of his + participation, and as an annuitant and perhaps, if he has devised + economies and improvements, a receiver of royalties during his declining + years. + </p> + <p> + And concurrently with the systematic reconstruction of a large portion of + our industries upon these lines there will have to be a vigorous + development of the attempts that are already being made, in garden cities, + garden suburbs, and the like, to re-house the mass of our population in a + more civilised and more agreeable manner. Probably that is not going to + pay from the point of view of the money-making business man, but we + prosperous people have to understand that there are things more important + and more profitable than money-making, and we have to tax ourselves not + merely in money, but in time, care, and effort in the matter. Half the + money that goes out of England to Switzerland and the Riviera ought to go + to the extremely amusing business of clearing up ugly corners and building + jolly and convenient workmen's cottages—even if we do it at a loss. + It is part of our discharge for the leisure and advantages the system has + given us, part of that just give and take, over and above the solicitor's + and bargain-hunter's and money-lender's conception of justice, upon which + social order ultimately rests. We have to do it not in a mood of + patronage, but in a mood of attentive solicitude. If not on high grounds, + then on low grounds our class has to set to work and make those other + classes more interested and comfortable and contented. It is what we are + for. It is quite impossible for workmen and poor people generally to plan + estates and arrange their own homes; they are entirely at the mercy of the + wealthy in this matter. There is not a slum, not a hovel, not an eyesore + upon the English landscape for which some well-off owner is not ultimately + to be blamed or excused, and the less we leave of such things about the + better for us in that day of reckoning between class and class which now + draws so near. + </p> + <p> + It is as plain now as the way from Calais to Paris that if the owning + class does not attend to these amenities the mass of the people, doing its + best to manage the thing through the politicians, presently will. They may + make a frightful mess of it, but that will never bring back things again + into the hands that hold them and neglect them. Their time will have + passed for ever. + </p> + <p> + But these are the mere opening requirements of this hope of mine of a + quickened social consciousness among the more fortunate and leisurely + section of the community I believe that much profounder changes in the + conditions of labour are possible than those I have suggested I am + beginning to suspect that scarcely any of our preconceptions about the way + work must be done, about the hours of work and the habits of work, will + stand an exhaustive scientific analysis. It is at least conceivable that + we could get much of the work that has to be done to keep our community + going in far more toil-saving and life-saving ways than we follow at the + present time. So far scientific men have done scarcely anything to + estimate under what conditions a man works best, does most work, works + more happily. Suppose it turns out to be the case that a man always + following one occupation throughout his lifetime, working regularly day + after day for so many hours, as most wage-earners do at the present time, + does not do nearly so much or nearly so well as he would do if he followed + first one occupation and then another, or if he worked as hard as he + possibly could for a definite period and then took holiday? I suspect very + strongly, indeed I am convinced, that in certain occupations, teaching, + for example, or surgery, a man begins by working clumsily and awkwardly, + that his interest and skill rise rapidly, that if he is really well suited + in his profession he may presently become intensely interested and capable + of enormous quantities of his very best work, and that then his interest + and vigour rapidly decline I am disposed to believe that this is true of + most occupations, of coal-mining or engineering, or brick-laying or + cotton-spinning. The thing has never been properly thought about. Our + civilisation has grown up in a haphazard kind of way, and it has been + convenient to specialise workers and employ them piecemeal. But if it is + true that in respect of any occupation a man has his period of maximum + efficiency, then we open up a whole world of new social possibilities. + What we really want from a man for our social welfare in that case is not + regular continuing work, but a few strenuous years of high-pressure + service. We can as a community afford to keep him longer at education and + training before he begins, and we can release him with a pension while he + is still full of life and the capacity for enjoying freedom. But obviously + this is impossible upon any basis of weekly wages and intermittent + employment; we must be handling affairs in some much more comprehensive + way than that before we can take and deal with the working life of a man + as one complete whole. + </p> + <p> + That is one possibility that is frequently in my thoughts about the + present labour crisis. There is another, and that is the great + desirability of every class in the community having a practical knowledge + of what labour means. There is a vast amount of work which either is now + or is likely to be in the future within the domain of the public + administration—road-making, mining, railway work, post-office and + telephone work, medical work, nursing, a considerable amount of building + for example. Why should we employ people to do the bulk of these things at + all? Why should we not as a community do them ourselves? Why, in other + words, should we not have a labour conscription and take a year or so of + service from everyone in the community, high or low? I believe this would + be of enormous moral benefit to our strained and relaxed community. I + believe that in making labour a part of everyone's life and the whole of + nobody's life lies the ultimate solution of these industrial difficulties. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 5 + </p> + <p> + It is almost a national boast that we "muddle through" our troubles, and I + suppose it is true and to our credit that by virtue of a certain + kindliness of temper, a humorous willingness to make the best of things, + and an entirely amiable forgetfulness, we do come out of pressures and + extremities that would smash a harder, more brittle people only a little + chipped and damaged. And it is quite conceivable that our country will, in + a measure, survive the enormous stresses of labour adjustment that are now + upon us, even if it never rises to any heroic struggle against these + difficulties. But it may survive as a lesser country, as an impoverished + and second-rate country. It will certainly do no more than that, if in any + part of the world there is to be found a people capable of taking up this + gigantic question in a greater spirit. Perhaps there is no such people, + and the conflicts and muddles before us will be world-wide. Or suppose + that it falls to our country in some strange way to develop a new courage + and enterprise, and to be the first to go forward into this new phase of + civilisation I foresee, from which a distinctive labouring class, a class + that is of expropriated wage-earners, will have almost completely + disappeared. + </p> + <p> + Now hitherto the utmost that any State, overtaken by social and economic + stresses, has ever achieved in the way of adapting itself to them has been + no more than patching. + </p> + <p> + Individuals and groups and trades have found themselves in imperfectly + apprehended and difficult times, and have reluctantly altered their ways + and ideas piecemeal under pressure. Sometimes they have succeeded in + rubbing along upon the new lines, and sometimes the struggle has submerged + them, but no community has ever yet had the will and the imagination to + recast and radically alter its social methods as a whole. The idea of such + a reconstruction has never been absent from human thought since the days + of Plato, and it has been enormously reinforced by the spreading material + successes of modern science, successes due always to the substitution of + analysis and reasoned planning for trial and the rule of thumb. But it has + never yet been so believed in and understood as to render any real + endeavour to reconstruct possible. The experiment has always been + altogether too gigantic for the available faith behind it, and there have + been against it the fear of presumption, the interests of all advantaged + people, and the natural sloth of humanity. We do but emerge now from a + period of deliberate happy-go-lucky and the influence of Herbert Spencer, + who came near raising public shiftlessness to the dignity of a national + philosophy. Everything would adjust itself—if only it was left + alone. + </p> + <p> + Yet some things there are that cannot be done by small adjustments, such + as leaping chasms or killing an ox or escaping from the roof of a burning + house. You have to decide upon a certain course on such occasions and + maintain a continuous movement. If you wait on the burning house until you + scorch and then turn round a bit or move away a yard or so, or if on the + verge of a chasm you move a little in the way in which you wish to go, + disaster will punish your moderation. And it seems to me that the + establishment of the world's work upon a new basis—and that and no + less is what this Labour Unrest demands for its pacification—is just + one of those large alterations which will never be made by the + collectively unconscious activities of men, by competitions and survival + and the higgling of the market. Humanity is rebelling against the + continuing existence of a labour class as such, and I can see no way by + which our present method of weekly wages employment can change by + imperceptible increments into a method of salary and pension—for it + is quite evident that only by reaching that shall we reach the end of + these present discontents. The change has to be made on a comprehensive + scale or not at all. We need nothing less than a national plan of social + development if the thing is to be achieved. + </p> + <p> + Now that, I admit, is, as the Americans say, a large proposition. But we + are living in a time of more and more comprehensive plans, and the mere + fact that no scheme so extensive has ever been tried before is no reason + at all why we should not consider one. We think nowadays quite serenely of + schemes for the treatment of the nation's health as one whole, where our + fathers considered illness as a blend of accident with special + providences; we have systematised the community's water supply, education, + and all sorts of once chaotic services, and Germany and our own infinite + higgledy-piggledy discomfort and ugliness have brought home to us at last + even the possibility of planning the extension of our towns and cities. It + is only another step upward in scale to plan out new, more tolerable + conditions of employment for every sort of worker and to organise the + transition from our present disorder. + </p> + <p> + The essential difficulty between the employer and the statesman in the + consideration of this problem is the difference in the scope of their + view. The employer's concern with the man who does his work is day-long or + week-long; the statesman's is life-long. The conditions of private + enterprise and modern competition oblige the employer to think only of the + worker as a hand, who appears and does his work and draws his wages and + vanishes again. Only such strikes as we have had during the past year will + rouse him from that attitude of mind. The statesman at the other extremity + has to consider the worker as a being with a beginning, a middle, an end—and + offspring. He can consider all these possibilities of deferring employment + and making the toil of one period of life provide for the leisure and + freedom of another, which are necessarily entirely out of the purview of + an employer pure and simple. And I find it hard to see how we can + reconcile the intermittency of competitive employment with the unremitting + demands of a civilised life except by the intervention of the State or of + some public organisation capable of taking very wide views between the + business organiser on the one hand and the subordinate worker on the + other. On the one hand we need some broader handling of business than is + possible in the private adventure of the solitary proprietor or the single + company, and on the other some more completely organised development of + the collective bargain. We have to bring the directive intelligence of a + concern into an organic relation with the conception of the national + output as a whole, and either through a trade union or a guild, or some + expansion of a trade union, we have to arrange a secure, continuous income + for the worker, to be received not directly as wages from an employer but + intermediately through the organisation. We need a census of our national + production, a more exhaustive estimate of our resources, and an entirely + more scientific knowledge of the conditions of maximum labour efficiency. + One turns to the State.... And it is at this point that the heart of the + patriotic Englishman sinks, because it is our national misfortune that all + the accidents of public life have conspired to retard the development of + just that body of knowledge, just that scientific breadth of imagination + which is becoming a vital necessity for the welfare of a modern civilised + community. + </p> + <p> + We are caught short of scientific men just as in the event of a war with + Germany we shall almost certainly be caught short of scientific sailors + and soldiers. You cannot make that sort of thing to order in a crisis. + Scientific education—and more particularly the scientific education + of our owning and responsible classes—has been crippled by the + bitter jealousy of the classical teachers who dominate our universities, + by the fear and hatred of the Established Church, which still so largely + controls our upper-class schools, and by the entire lack of understanding + and support on the part of those able barristers and financiers who rule + our political life. Science has been left more and more to men of modest + origin and narrow outlook, and now we are beginning to pay in internal + dissensions, and presently we may have to pay in national humiliation for + this almost organised rejection of stimulus and power. + </p> + <p> + But however thwarted and crippled our public imagination may be, we have + still got to do the best we can with this situation; we have to take as + comprehensive views as we can, and to attempt as comprehensive a method of + handling as our party-ridden State permits. In theory I am a Socialist, + and were I theorising about some nation in the air I would say that all + the great productive activities and all the means of communication should + be national concerns and be run as national services. But our State is + peculiarly incapable of such functions; at the present time it cannot even + produce a postage stamp that will stick; and the type of official it would + probably evolve for industrial organisation, slowly but unsurely, would be + a maddening combination of the district visitor and the boy clerk. It is + to the independent people of some leisure and resource in the community + that one has at last to appeal for such large efforts and understandings + as our present situation demands. In the default of our public services, + there opens an immense opportunity for voluntary effort. Deference to our + official leaders is absurd; it is a time when men must, as the phrase + goes, "come forward." + </p> + <p> + We want a National Plan for our social and economic development which + everyone may understand and which will serve as a unifying basis for all + our social and political activities. Such a plan is not to be flung out + hastily by an irresponsible writer. It can only come into existence as the + outcome of a wide movement of inquiry and discussion. My business in these + pages has been not prescription but diagnosis. I hold it to be the clear + duty of every intelligent person in the country to do his utmost to learn + about these questions of economic and social organisation and to work them + out to conclusions and a purpose. We have come to a phase in our affairs + when the only alternative to a great, deliberate renascence of will and + understanding is national disorder and decay. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 6 + </p> + <p> + I have attempted a diagnosis of this aspect of our national situation. I + have pointed out that nearly all the social forces of our time seem to be + in conspiracy to bring about the disappearance of a labour class as such + and the rearrangement of our work and industry upon a new basis. That + rearrangement demands an unprecedented national effort and the production + of an adequate National Plan. Failing that, we seem doomed to a period of + chronic social conflict and possibly even of frankly revolutionary + outbreaks that may destroy us altogether or leave us only a dwarfed and + enfeebled nation.... + </p> + <p> + And before we can develop that National Plan and the effective realisation + of such a plan that is needed to save us from that fate, two things stand + immediately before us to be done, unavoidable preliminaries to that more + comprehensive work. The first of these is the restoration of + representative government, and the second a renascence of our public + thought about political and social things. + </p> + <p> + As I have already suggested, a main factor in our present national + inability to deal with this profound and increasing social disturbance is + the entirely unrepresentative and unbusinesslike nature of our + parliamentary government. + </p> + <p> + It is to a quite extraordinary extent a thing apart from our national + life. It becomes more and more so. To go into the House of Commons is to + go aside out of the general stream of the community's vitality into a + corner where little is learnt and much is concocted, into a specialised + Assembly which is at once inattentive to and monstrously influential in + our affairs. There was a period when the debates in the House of Commons + were an integral, almost a dominant, part of our national thought, when + its speeches were read over in tens of thousands of homes, and a large and + sympathetic public followed the details of every contested issue. Now a + newspaper that dared to fill its columns mainly with parliamentary + debates, with a full report of the trivialities the academic points, the + little familiar jokes, and entirely insincere pleadings which occupy that + gathering would court bankruptcy. + </p> + <p> + This diminishing actuality of our political life is a matter of almost + universal comment to-day. But it is extraordinary how much of that comment + is made in a tone of hopeless dissatisfaction, how rarely it is associated + with any will to change a state of affairs that so largely stultifies our + national purpose. And yet the causes of our present political ineptitude + are fairly manifest, and a radical and effective reconstruction is well + within the wit of man. + </p> + <p> + All causes and all effects in our complex modern State are complex, but in + this particular matter there can be little doubt that the key to the + difficulty lies in the crudity and simplicity of our method of election, a + method which reduces our apparent free choice of rulers to a ridiculous + selection between undesirable alternatives, and hands our whole public + life over to the specialised manipulator. Our House of Commons could + scarcely misrepresent us more if it was appointed haphazard by the Lord + Chamberlain or selected by lot from among the inhabitants of Netting Hill. + Election of representatives in one-member local constituencies by a single + vote gives a citizen practically no choice beyond the candidates appointed + by the two great party organisations in the State. It is an electoral + system that forbids absolutely any vote splitting or any indication of + shades of opinion. The presence of more than two candidates introduces an + altogether unmanageable complication, and the voter is at once reduced to + voting not to secure the return of the perhaps less hopeful candidate he + likes, but to ensure the rejection of the candidate he most dislikes. So + the nimble wire-puller slips in. In Great Britain we do not have Elections + any more; we have Rejections. What really happens at a general election is + that the party organisations—obscure and secretive conclaves with + entirely mysterious funds—appoint about 1,200 men to be our rulers, + and all that we, we so-called self-governing people, are permitted to do + is, in a muddled, angry way, to strike off the names of about half of + these selected gentlemen. + </p> + <p> + Take almost any member of the present Government and consider his case. + You may credit him with a lifelong industrious intention to get there, but + ask yourself what is this man's distinction, and for what great thing in + our national life does he stand? By the complaisance of our party + machinery he was able to present himself to a perplexed constituency as + the only possible alternative to Conservatism and Tariff Reform, and so we + have him. And so we have most of his colleagues. + </p> + <p> + Now such a system of representation is surely a system to be destroyed at + any cost, because it stifles our national discussion and thwarts our + national will. And we can leave no possible method of alteration untried. + It is not rational that a great people should be baffled by the mere + mechanical degeneration of an electoral method too crudely conceived. + There exist alternatives, and to these alternatives we must resort. Since + John Stuart Mill first called attention to the importance of the matter + there has been a systematic study of the possible working of electoral + methods, and it is now fairly proved that in proportional representation, + with large constituencies returning each many members, there is to be + found a way of escape from this disastrous embarrassment of our public + business by the party wire-puller and the party nominee. + </p> + <p> + I will not dwell upon the particulars of the proportional representation + system here. There exists an active society which has organised the + education of the public in the details of the proposal. Suffice it that it + does give a method by which a voter may vote with confidence for the + particular man he prefers, with no fear whatever that his vote will be + wasted in the event of that man's chance being hopeless. There is a method + by which the order of the voter's subsequent preference is effectively + indicated. That is all, but see how completely it modifies the nature of + an election. Instead of a hampered choice between two, you have a free + choice between many. Such a change means a complete alteration in the + quality of public life. + </p> + <p> + The present immense advantage of the party nominee—which is the root + cause, which is almost the sole cause of all our present political + ineptitude—would disappear. He would be quite unable to oust any + well-known and representative independent candidate who chose to stand + against him. There would be an immediate alteration in type in the House + of Commons. In the place of these specialists in political getting-on + there would be few men who had not already gained some intellectual and + moral hold upon the community; they would already be outstanding and + distinguished men before they came to the work of government. Great + sections of our national life, science, art, literature, education, + engineering, manufacture would cease to be under-represented, or + misrepresented by the energetic barrister and political specialist, and + our Legislature would begin to serve, as we have now such urgent need of + its serving, as the means and instrument of that national conference upon + the social outlook of which we stand in need. + </p> + <p> + And it is to the need and nature of that Conference that I would devote + myself. I do not mean by the word Conference any gathering of dull and + formal and inattentive people in this dusty hall or that, with a jaded + audience and intermittently active reporters, such as this word may + conjure up to some imaginations. I mean an earnest direction of attention + in all parts of the country to this necessity for a studied and elaborated + project of conciliation and social co-operation We cannot afford to leave + such things to specialised politicians and self-appointed, self-seeking + "experts" any longer. A modern community has to think out its problems as + a whole and co-operate as a whole in their solution. We have to bring all + our national life into this discussion of the National Plan before us, and + not simply newspapers and periodicals and books, but pulpit and college + and school have to bear their part in it. And in that particular I would + appeal to the schools, because there more than anywhere else is the + permanent quickening of our national imagination to be achieved. + </p> + <p> + We want to have our young people filled with a new realisation that + History is not over, that nothing is settled, and that the supreme + dramatic phase in the story of England has still to come. It was not in + the Norman Conquest, not in the flight of King James II, nor the overthrow + of Napoleon; it is here and now. It falls to them to be actors not in a + reminiscent pageant but a living conflict, and the sooner they are + prepared to take their part in that the better our Empire will acquit + itself. How absurd is the preoccupation of our schools and colleges with + the little provincialisms of our past history before A.D. 1800! "No + current politics," whispers the schoolmaster, "no religion—except + the coldest formalities <i>Some parent might object</i>." And he pours + into our country every year a fresh supply of gentlemanly cricketing + youths, gapingly unprepared—unless they have picked up a broad + generalisation or so from some surreptitious Socialist pamphlet—for + the immense issues they must control, and that are altogether + uncontrollable if they fail to control them. The universities do scarcely + more for our young men. All this has to be altered, and altered vigorously + and soon, if our country is to accomplish its destinies. Our schools and + colleges exist for no other purpose than to give our youths a vision of + the world and of their duties and possibilities in the world. We can no + longer afford to have them the last preserves of an elderly orthodoxy and + the last repository of a decaying gift of superseded tongues. They are + needed too urgently to make our leaders leader-like and to sustain the + active understandings of the race. + </p> + <p> + And from the labour class itself we are also justified in demanding a far + more effectual contribution to the National Conference than it is making + at the present time. Mere eloquent apologies for distrust, mere + denunciations of Capitalism and appeals for a Socialism as featureless as + smoke, are unsatisfactory when one regards them as the entire contribution + of the ascendant worker to the discussion of the national future. The + labour thinker has to become definite in his demands and clearer upon the + give and take that will be necessary before they can be satisfied. He has + to realise rather more generously than he has done so far the enormous + moral difficulty there is in bringing people who have been prosperous and + at an advantage all their lives to the pitch of even contemplating a + social reorganisation that may minimise or destroy their precedence. We + have all to think, to think hard and think generously, and there is not a + man in England to-day, even though his hands are busy at work, whose brain + may not be helping in this great task of social rearrangement which lies + before us all. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SOCIAL PANACEAS + </h2> + <h3> + (<i>June, 1912</i>.) + </h3> + <p> + To have followed the frequent discussions of the Labour Unrest in the + Press is to have learnt quite a lot about the methods of popular thought. + And among other things I see now much better than I did why patent + medicines are so popular. It is clear that as a community we are far too + impatient of detail and complexity, we want overmuch to simplify, we + clamour for panaceas, we are a collective invitation to quacks. + </p> + <p> + Our situation is an intricate one, it does not admit of a solution neatly + done up in a word or a phrase. Yet so powerful is this wish to simplify + that it is difficult to make it clear that one is not oneself a + panacea-monger. One writes and people read a little inattentively and more + than a little impatiently, until one makes a positive proposal Then they + jump. "So <i>that's</i> your Remedy!" they say. "How absurdly inadequate!" + I was privileged to take part in one such discussion in 1912, and among + other things in my diagnosis of the situation I pointed out the extreme + mischief done to our public life by the futility of our electoral methods. + They make our whole public life forensic and ineffectual, and I pointed + out that this evil effect, which vitiates our whole national life, could + be largely remedied by an infinitely better voting system known as + Proportional Representation. Thereupon the <i>Westminster Gazette</i> + declared in tones of pity and contempt that it was no Remedy—and + dismissed me. It would be as intelligent to charge a doctor who pushed + back the crowd about a broken-legged man in the street with wanting to + heal the limb by giving the sufferer air. + </p> + <p> + The task before our community, the task of reorganising labour on a basis + broader than that of employment for daily or weekly wages, is one of huge + complexity, and it is as entirely reasonable as it is entirely preliminary + to clean and modernise to the utmost our representative and legislative + machinery. + </p> + <p> + It is remarkable how dominant is this disposition to get a phrase, a word, + a simple recipe, for an undertaking so vast in reality that for all the + rest of our lives a large part of the activities of us, forty million + people, will be devoted to its partial accomplishment. In the presence of + very great issues people become impatient and irritated, as they would not + allow themselves to be irritated by far more limited problems. Nobody in + his senses expects a panacea for the comparatively simple and trivial + business of playing chess. Nobody wants to be told to "rely wholly upon + your pawns," or "never, never move your rook"; nobody clamours "give me a + third knight and all will be well"; but that is exactly what everybody + seems to be doing in our present discussion And as another aspect of the + same impatience, I note the disposition to clamour against all sorts of + necessary processes in the development of a civilisation. For example, I + read over and over again of the failure of representative government, and + in nine cases out of ten I find that this amounts to a cry against any + sort of representative government. It is perfectly true that our + representative institutions do not work well and need a vigorous + overhauling, but while I find scarcely any support for such a revision, + the air is full of vague dangerous demands for aristocracy, for oligarchy, + for autocracy. It is like a man who jumps out of his automobile because he + has burst a tyre, refuses a proffered Stepney, and bawls passionately for + anything—for a four-wheeler, or a donkey, as long as he can be free + from that exploded mechanism. There are evidently quite a considerable + number of people in this country who would welcome a tyrant at the present + time, a strong, silent, cruel, imprisoning, executing, melodramatic sort + of person, who would somehow manage everything while they went on—being + silly. I find that form of impatience cropping up everywhere. I hear + echoes of Mr. Blatchford's "Wanted, a Man," and we may yet see a General + Boulanger prancing in our streets. There never was a more foolish cry. It + is not a man we want, but just exactly as many million men as there are in + Great Britain at the present time, and it is you, the reader, and I, and + the rest of us who must together go on with the perennial task of saving + the country by <i>firstly</i>, doing our own jobs just as well as ever we + can, and <i>secondly</i>—and this is really just as important as + firstly—doing our utmost to grasp our national purpose, doing our + utmost, that is, to develop and carry out our National Plan. It is + Everyman who must be the saviour of the State in a modern community; we + cannot shift our share in the burthen; and here again, I think, is + something that may well be underlined and emphasised. At present our + "secondly" is unduly subordinated to our "firstly"; our game is better + individually than collectively; we are like a football team that passes + badly, and our need is not nearly so much to change the players as to + broaden their style. And this brings me, in a spirit entirely + antagonistic, up against Mr. Galsworthy's suggestion of an autocratic + revolution in the methods of our public schools. + </p> + <p> + But before I go on to that, let me first notice a still more comprehensive + cry that has been heard again and again in this discussion, and that is + the alleged failure of education generally. There is never any remedial + suggestion made with this particular outcry; it is merely a gust of abuse + and insult for schools, and more particularly board schools, carrying with + it a half-hearted implication that they should be closed, and then the + contribution concludes. Now there is no outcry at the present time more + unjust or—except for the "Wanted, a Man" clamour—more foolish. + No doubt our educational resources, like most other things, fall far short + of perfection, but of all this imperfection the elementary schools are + least imperfect; and I would almost go so far as to say that, considering + the badness of their material, the huge, clumsy classes they have to deal + with, the poorness of their directive administration, their bad pay and + uncertain outlook, the elementary teachers of this country are amazingly + efficient. And it is not simply that they are good under their existing + conditions, but that this service has been made out of nothing whatever in + the course of scarcely forty years. An educational system to cover an + Empire is not a thing that can be got for the asking, it is not even to be + got for the paying; it has to be grown; and in the beginning it is bound + to be thin, ragged, forced, crammy, text-bookish, superficial, and all the + rest of it. As reasonable to complain that the children born last year + were immature. A little army of teachers does not flash into being at the + passing of an Education Act. Not even an organisation for training those + teachers comes to anything like satisfactory working order for many years, + without considering the delays and obstructions that have been caused by + the bickerings and bitterness of the various Christian Churches. So that + it is not the failure of elementary education we have really to consider, + but the continuance and extension of its already almost miraculous + results. + </p> + <p> + And when it comes to the education of the ruling and directing classes, + there is kindred, if lesser reason, for tempering zeal with patience. This + upper portion of our educational organisation needs urgently to be + bettered, but it is not to be bettered by trying to find an archangel who + will better it dictatorially. For the good of our souls there are no such + beings to relieve us of our collective responsibility. It is clear that + appointments in this field need not only far more care and far more + insistence upon creative power than has been shown in the past, but for + the rest we have to do with the men we have and the schools we have. We + cannot have an educational purge, if only because we have not the new men + waiting. Here again the need is not impatience, not revolution, but a + sustained and penetrating criticism, a steadfast, continuous urgency + towards effort and well-planned reconstruction and efficiency. + </p> + <p> + And as a last example of the present hysterical disposition to scrap + things before they have been fairly tried is the outcry against + examinations, which has done so much to take the keenness off the edge of + school work in the last few years. Because a great number of examiners + chosen haphazard turned out to be negligent and incompetent as examiners, + because their incapacity created a cynical trade in cramming, a great + number of people have come to the conclusion, just as examinations are + being improved into efficiency, that all examinations are bad. In + particular that excellent method of bringing new blood and new energy into + the public services and breaking up official gangs and cliques, the + competitive examination system, has been discredited, and the wire-puller + and the influential person are back again tampering with a steadily + increasing proportion of appointments.... + </p> + <p> + But I have written enough of this impatience, which is, as it were, merely + the passion for reconstruction losing its head and defeating its own ends. + There is no hope for us outside ourselves. No violent changes, no + Napoleonic saviours can carry on the task of building the Great State, the + civilised State that rises out of our disorders That is for us to do, all + of us and each one of us. We have to think clearly, and study and consider + and reconsider our ideas about public things to the very utmost of our + possibilities. We have to clarify our views and express them and do all we + can to stir up thinking and effort in those about us. + </p> + <p> + I know it would be more agreeable for all of us if we could have some + small pill-like remedy for all the troubles of the State, and take it and + go on just as we are going now. But, indeed, to say a word for that idea + would be a treason. We are the State, and there is no other way to make it + better than to give it the service of our lives. Just in the measure of + the aggregate of our devotions and the elaborated and criticised sanity of + our public proceedings will the world mend. + </p> + <p> + I gather from a valuable publication called "Secret Remedies," which + analyses many popular cures, that this hasty passion for simplicity, for + just one thing that will settle the whole trouble, can carry people to a + level beyond an undivided trust in something warranted in a bottle. They + are ready to put their faith in what amounts to practically nothing in a + bottle. And just at present, while a number of excellent people of the + middle class think that only a "man" is wanted and all will be well with + us, there is a considerable wave of hopefulness among the working class in + favour of a weak solution of nothing, which is offered under the + attractive label of Syndicalism. So far I have been able to discuss the + present labour situation without any use of this empty word, but when one + finds it cropping up in every other article on the subject, it becomes + advisable to point out what Syndicalism is not. And incidentally it may + enable me to make clear what Socialism in the broader sense, constructive + Socialism, that is to say, is. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SYNDICALISM OR CITIZENSHIP + </h2> + <p> + "Is a railway porter a railway porter first and a man afterwards, or is he + a man first and incidentally a railway porter?" + </p> + <p> + That is the issue between this tawdrification of trade unionism which is + called Syndicalism, and the ideals of that Great State, that great + commonweal, towards which the constructive forces in our civilisation + tend. Are we to drift on to a disastrous intensification of our present + specialisation of labour as labour, or are we to set to work steadfastly + upon a vast social reconstruction which will close this widening breach + and rescue our community from its present dependence upon the reluctant + and presently insurgent toil of a wages-earning proletariat? Regarded as a + project of social development, Syndicalism is ridiculous; regarded as an + illuminating and unintentionally ironical complement to the implicit + theories of our present social order, it is worthy of close attention. The + dream of the Syndicalist is an impossible social fragmentation. The + transport service is to be a democratic republic, the mines are to be a + democratic republic, every great industry is to be a democratic republic + within the State; our community is to become a conflict of inter-woven + governments of workers, incapable of progressive changes of method or of + extension or transmutation of function, the whole being of a man is to lie + within his industrial specialisation, and, upon lines of causation not + made clear, wages are to go on rising and hours of work are to go on + falling.... There the mind halts, blinded by the too dazzling vistas of an + unimaginative millennium And the way to this, one gathers, is by striking—persistent, + destructive striking—until it comes about. + </p> + <p> + Such is Syndicalism, the cheap Labour Panacea, to which the more + passionate and less intelligent portion of the younger workers, impatient + of the large constructive developments of modern Socialism, drifts + steadily. It is the direct and logical reaction to our present economic + system, which has counted our workers neither as souls nor as heads, but + as hands. They are beginning to accept the suggestions of that method. It + is the culmination in aggression of that, at first, entirely protective + trade unionism which the individual selfishness and collective + short-sightedness and State blindness of our owning and directing and + ruling classes forced upon the working man. At first trade unionism was + essentially defensive; it was the only possible defence of the workers, + who were being steadily pressed over the margin of subsistence. It was a + nearly involuntary resistance to class debasement. Mr. Vernon Hartshorn + has expressed it as that in a recent article. But his paper, if one read + it from beginning to end, displayed, compactly and completely, the + unavoidable psychological development of the specialised labour case. He + began in the mildest tones with those now respectable words, a "guaranteed + minimum" of wages, housing, and so forth, and ended with a very clear + intimation of an all-labour community. + </p> + <p> + If anything is certain in this world, it is that the mass of the community + will not rest satisfied with these guaranteed minima. All those possible + legislative increments in the general standard of living are not going to + diminish the labour unrest; they are going to increase it. A starving man + may think he wants nothing in the world but bread, but when he has eaten + you will find he wants all sorts of things beyond. Mr. Hartshorn assures + us that the worker is "not out for a theory." So much the worse for the + worker and all of us when, like the mere hand we have made him, he shows + himself unable to define or even forecast his ultimate intentions. He will + in that case merely clutch. And the obvious immediate next objective of + that clutch directly its imagination passes beyond the "guaranteed minima" + phase is the industry as a whole. + </p> + <p> + I do not see how anyone who desires the continuing development of + civilisation can regard a trade union as anything but a necessary evil, a + pressure-relieving contrivance an arresting and delaying organisation + begotten by just that class separation of labour which in the commonweal + of the Great State will be altogether destroyed. It leads nowhither; it is + a shelter hut on the road. The wider movement of modern civilisation is + against class organisation and caste feeling. These are forces + antagonistic to progress, continually springing up and endeavouring to + stereotype the transitory organisation, and continually being defeated. + </p> + <p> + Of all the solemn imbecilities one hears, surely the most foolish is this, + that we are in "an age of specialisation." The comparative fruitfulness + and hopefulness of our social order, in comparison with any other social + system, lies in its flat contradiction of that absurdity. Our medical and + surgical advances, for example, are almost entirely due to the invasion of + medical research by the chemist; our naval development to the supersession + of the sailor by the engineer; we sweep away the coachman with the + railway, beat the suburban line with the electric tramway, and attack that + again with the petrol omnibus, oust brick and stonework in substantial + fabrics by steel frames, replace the skilled maker of woodcuts by a + photographer, and so on through the whole range of our activities. Change + of function, arrest of specialisation by innovations in method and + appliance, progress by the infringement of professional boundaries and the + defiance of rule: these are the commonplaces of our time. The trained man, + the specialised man, is the most unfortunate of men; the world leaves him + behind, and he has lost his power of overtaking it. Versatility, alert + adaptability, these are our urgent needs. In peace and war alike the + unimaginative, uninventive man is a burthen and a retardation, as he never + was before in the world's history. The modern community, therefore, that + succeeds most rapidly and most completely in converting both its labourers + and its leisure class into a population of active, able, unhurried, + educated, and physically well-developed people will be inevitably the + dominant community in the world. That lies on the face of things about us; + a man who cannot see that must be blind to the traffic in our streets. + </p> + <p> + Syndicalism is not a plan of social development. It is a spirit of + conflict. That conflict lies ahead of us, the open war of strikes, or—if + the forces of law and order crush that down—then sabotage and that + black revolt of the human spirit into crime which we speak of nowadays as + anarchism, unless we can discover a broad and promising way from the + present condition of things to nothing less than the complete abolition of + the labour class. + </p> + <p> + That, I know, sounds a vast proposal, but this is a gigantic business + altogether, and we can do nothing with it unless we are prepared to deal + with large ideas. If St. Paul's begins to totter it is no good propping it + up with half a dozen walking-sticks, and small palliatives have no + legitimate place at all in this discussion. Our generation has to take up + this tremendous necessity of a social reconstruction in a great way; its + broad lines have to be thought out by thousands of minds, and it is for + that reason that I have put the stress upon our need of discussion, of a + wide intellectual and moral stimulation of a stirring up in our schools + and pulpits, and upon the modernisation and clarification of what should + be the deliberative assembly of the nation. + </p> + <p> + It would be presumptuous to anticipate the National Plan that must emerge + from so vast a debate, but certain conclusions I feel in my bones will + stand the test of an exhaustive criticism. The first is that a distinction + will be drawn between what I would call "interesting work" and what I + would call "mere labour." The two things, I admit, pass by insensible + gradations into one another, but while on the one hand such work as being + a master gardener and growing roses, or a master cabinet maker and making + fine pieces, or an artist of almost any sort, or a story writer, or a + consulting physician, or a scientific investigator, or a keeper of wild + animals, or a forester, or a librarian, or a good printer, or many sorts + of engineer, is work that will always find men of a certain temperament + enthusiastically glad to do it, if they can only do it for comfortable pay—for + such work is in itself <i>living</i>—there is, on the other hand, + work so irksome and toilsome, such as coal mining, or being a private + soldier during a peace, or attending upon lunatics, or stoking, or doing + over and over again, almost mechanically, little bits of a modern + industrial process, or being a cash desk clerk in a busy shop, that few + people would undertake if they could avoid it. + </p> + <p> + And the whole strength of our collective intelligence will be directed + first to reducing the amount of such irksome work by labour-saving + machinery, by ingenuity of management, and by the systematic avoidance of + giving trouble as a duty, and then to so distributing the residuum of it + that it will become the whole life of no class whatever in our population. + I have already quoted the idea of Professor William James of a universal + conscription for such irksome labour, and while he would have instituted + that mainly for its immense moral effect upon the community, I would point + out that, combined with a nationalisation of transport, mining, and so + forth, it is also a way to a partial solution of this difficulty of "mere + toil." + </p> + <p> + And the mention of a compulsory period of labour service for everyone—a + year or so with the pickaxe as well as with the rifle—leads me to + another idea that I believe will stand the test of unlimited criticism, + and that is a total condemnation of all these eight-hour-a-day, + early-closing, guaranteed-weekly-half-holiday notions that are now so + prevalent in Liberal circles. Under existing conditions, in our system of + private enterprise and competition, these restrictions are no doubt + necessary to save a large portion of our population from lives of + continuous toil, but, like trade unionism, they are a necessity of our + present conditions, and not a way to a better social state. If we rescue + ourselves as a community from poverty and discomfort, we must take care + not to fling ourselves into something far more infuriating to a normal + human being—and that is boredom. The prospect of a carefully + inspected sanitary life, tethered to some light, little, uninteresting + daily job, six or eight hours of it, seems to me—and I am sure I + write here for most normal, healthy, active people—more awful than + hunger and death. It is far more in the quality of the human spirit, and + still more what we all in our hearts want the human spirit to be, to fling + itself with its utmost power at a job and do it with passion. + </p> + <p> + For my own part, if I was sentenced to hew a thousand tons of coal, I + should want to get at it at once and work furiously at it, with the + shortest intervals for rest and refreshment and an occasional night + holiday, until I hewed my way out, and if some interfering person with a + benevolent air wanted to restrict me to hewing five hundredweight, and no + more and no less, each day and every day, I should be strongly disposed to + go for that benevolent person with my pick. That is surely what every + natural man would want to do, and it is only the clumsy imperfection of + our social organisation that will not enable a man to do his stint of + labour in a few vigorous years and then come up into the sunlight for good + and all. + </p> + <p> + It is along that line that I feel a large part of our labour + reorganisation, over and beyond that conscription, must ultimately go. The + community as a whole would, I believe, get far more out of a man if he had + such a comparatively brief passion of toil than if he worked, with + occasional lapses into unemployment, drearily all his life. But at + present, with our existing system of employment, one cannot arrange so + comprehensive a treatment of a man's life. There is needed some State or + quasi-public organisation which shall stand between the man and the + employer, act as his banker and guarantor, and exact his proper price. + Then, with his toil over, he would have an adequate pension and be free to + do nothing or anything else as he chose. In a Socialistic order of + society, where the State would also be largely the employer, such a method + would be, of course, far more easily contrived. + </p> + <p> + The more modern statements of Socialism do not contemplate making the + State the sole employer; it is chiefly in transport, mining, fisheries, + forestry, the cultivation of the food staples, and the manufacture of a + few such articles as bricks and steel, and possibly in housing in what one + might call the standardisable industries, that the State is imagined as + the direct owner and employer and it is just in these departments that the + bulk of the irksome toil is to be found. There remain large regions of + more specialised and individualised production that many Socialists + nowadays are quite prepared to leave to the freer initiatives of private + enterprise. Most of these are occupations involving a greater element of + interest, less direction and more co-operation, and it is just here that + the success of co-partnery and a sustained life participation becomes + possible.... + </p> + <p> + This complete civilised system without a specialised, property-less labour + class is not simply a possibility, it is necessary; the whole social + movement of the time, the stars in their courses, war against the + permanence of the present state of affairs. The alternative to this + gigantic effort to rearrange our world is not a continuation of muddling + along, but social war. The Syndicalist and his folly will be the avenger + of lost opportunities. Not a Labour State do we want, nor a Servile State, + but a powerful Leisure State of free men. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE GREAT STATE + </h2> + <p> + Sec. 1 + </p> + <p> + For many years now I have taken a part in the discussion of Socialism. + During that time Socialism has become a more and more ambiguous term. It + has seemed to me desirable to clear up my own ideas of social progress and + the public side of my life by restating them, and this I have attempted in + this essay. + </p> + <p> + In order to do so it has been convenient to coin two expressions, and to + employ them with a certain defined intention. They are firstly: The Normal + Social Life, and secondly: The Great State. Throughout this essay these + expressions will be used in accordance with the definitions presently to + be given, and the fact that they are so used will be emphasised by the + employment of capitals. It will be possible for anyone to argue that what + is here defined as the Normal Social Life is not the normal social life, + and that the Great State is indeed no state at all. That will be an + argument outside the range delimited by these definitions. + </p> + <p> + Now what is intended by the Normal Social Life here is a type of human + association and employment, of extreme prevalence and antiquity, which + appears to have been the lot of the enormous majority of human beings as + far back as history or tradition or the vestiges of material that supply + our conceptions of the neolithic period can carry us. It has never been + the lot of all humanity at any time, to-day it is perhaps less predominant + than it has ever been, yet even to-day it is probably the lot of the + greater moiety of mankind. + </p> + <p> + Essentially this type of association presents a localised community, a + community of which the greater proportion of the individuals are engaged + more or less directly in the cultivation of the land. With this there is + also associated the grazing or herding over wider or more restricted + areas, belonging either collectively or discretely to the community, of + sheep, cattle, goats, or swine, and almost always the domestic fowl is + commensal with man in this life. The cultivated land at least is usually + assigned, temporarily or inalienably, as property to specific individuals, + and the individuals are grouped in generally monogamic families of which + the father is the head. Essentially the social unit is the Family, and + even where, as in Mohammedan countries, there is no legal or customary + restriction upon polygamy, monogamy still prevails as the ordinary way of + living. Unmarried women are not esteemed, and children are desired. + According to the dangers or securities of the region, the nature of the + cultivation and the temperament of the people, this community is scattered + either widely in separate steadings or drawn together into villages. At + one extreme, over large areas of thin pasture this agricultural community + may verge on the nomadic; at another, in proximity to consuming markets, + it may present the concentration of intensive culture. There may be an + adjacent Wild supplying wood, and perhaps controlled by a simple forestry. + The law that holds this community together is largely traditional and + customary and almost always as its primordial bond there is some sort of + temple and some sort of priest. Typically, the temple is devoted to a + local god or a localised saint, and its position indicates the central + point of the locality, its assembly place and its market. Associated with + the agriculture there are usually a few imperfectly specialised tradesmen, + a smith, a garment-maker perhaps, a basket-maker or potter, who group + about the church or temple. The community may maintain itself in a state + of complete isolation, but more usually there are tracks or roads to the + centres of adjacent communities, and a certain drift of travel, a certain + trade in non-essential things. In the fundamentals of life this normal + community is independent and self-subsisting, and where it is not + beginning to be modified by the novel forces of the new times it produces + its own food and drink, its own clothing, and largely intermarries within + its limits. + </p> + <p> + This in general terms is what is here intended by the phrase the Normal + Social Life. It is still the substantial part of the rural life of all + Europe and most Asia and Africa, and it has been the life of the great + majority of human beings for immemorial years. It is the root life. It + rests upon the soil, and from that soil below and its reaction to the + seasons and the moods of the sky overhead have grown most of the + traditions, institutions, sentiments, beliefs, superstitions, and + fundamental songs and stories of mankind. + </p> + <p> + But since the very dawn of history at least this Normal Social Life has + never been the whole complete life of mankind. Quite apart from the + marginal life of the savage hunter, there have been a number of forces and + influences within men and women and without, that have produced abnormal + and surplus ways of living, supplemental, additional, and even + antagonistic to this normal scheme. + </p> + <p> + And first as to the forces within men and women. Long as it has lasted, + almost universal as it has been, the human being has never yet achieved a + perfect adaptation to the needs of the Normal Social Life. He has attained + nothing of that frictionless fitting to the needs of association one finds + in the bee or the ant. Curiosity, deep stirrings to wander, the still more + ancient inheritance of the hunter, a recurrent distaste for labour, and + resentment against the necessary subjugations of family life have always + been a straining force within the agricultural community. The increase of + population during periods of prosperity has led at the touch of bad + seasons and adversity to the desperate reliefs of war and the invasion of + alien localities. And the nomadic and adventurous spirit of man found + reliefs and opportunities more particularly along the shores of great + rivers and inland seas. Trade and travel began, at first only a trade in + adventitious things, in metals and rare objects and luxuries and slaves. + With trade came writing and money; the inventions of debt and rent, usury + and tribute. History finds already in its beginnings a thin network of + trading and slaving flung over the world of the Normal Social Life, a + network whose strands are the early roads, whose knots are the first towns + and the first courts. + </p> + <p> + Indeed, all recorded history is in a sense the history of these surplus + and supplemental activities of mankind. The Normal Social Life flowed on + in its immemorial fashion, using no letters, needing no records, leaving + no history. Then, a little minority, bulking disproportionately in the + record, come the trader, the sailor, the slave, the landlord and the + tax-compeller, the townsman and the king. + </p> + <p> + All written history is the story of a minority and their peculiar and + abnormal affairs. Save in so far as it notes great natural catastrophes + and tells of the spreading or retrocession of human life through changes + of climate and physical conditions it resolves itself into an account of a + series of attacks and modifications and supplements made by excessive and + superfluous forces engendered within the community upon the Normal Social + Life. The very invention of writing is a part of those modifying + developments. The Normal Social Life is essentially illiterate and + traditional. The Normal Social Life is as mute as the standing crops; it + is as seasonal and cyclic as nature herself, and reaches towards the + future only an intimation of continual repetitions. + </p> + <p> + Now this human over-life may take either beneficent or maleficent or + neutral aspects towards the general life of humanity. It may present + itself as law and pacification, as a positive addition and superstructure + to the Normal Social Life, as roads and markets and cities, as courts and + unifying monarchies, as helpful and directing religious organisations, as + literature and art and science and philosophy, reflecting back upon the + individual in the Normal Social Life from which it arose, a gilding and + refreshment of new and wider interests and added pleasures and resources. + One may define certain phases in the history of various countries when + this was the state of affairs, when a countryside of prosperous + communities with a healthy family life and a wide distribution of + property, animated by roads and towns and unified by a generally + intelligible religious belief, lived in a transitory but satisfactory + harmony under a sympathetic government. I take it that this is the + condition to which the minds of such original and vigorous reactionary + thinkers as Mr. G.K. Chesterton and Mr. Hilaire Belloc for example turn, + as being the most desirable state of mankind. + </p> + <p> + But the general effect of history is to present these phases as phases of + exceptional good luck, and to show the surplus forces of humanity as on + the whole antagonistic to any such equilibrium with the Normal Social + Life. To open the book of history haphazard is, most commonly, to open it + at a page where the surplus forces appear to be in more or less + destructive conflict with the Normal Social Life. One opens at the + depopulation of Italy by the aggressive great estates of the Roman Empire, + at the impoverishment of the French peasantry by a too centralised + monarchy before the revolution, or at the huge degenerative growth of the + great industrial towns of western Europe in the nineteenth century. Or + again one opens at destructive wars. One sees these surplus forces over + and above the Normal Social Life working towards unstable concentrations + of population, to centralisation of government, to migrations and + conflicts upon a large scale; one discovers the process developing into a + phase of social fragmentation and destruction and then, unless the whole + country has been wasted down to its very soil, the Normal Social Life + returns as the heath and furze and grass return after the burning of a + common. But it never returns in precisely its old form. The surplus forces + have always produced some traceable change; the rhythm is a little + altered. As between the Gallic peasant before the Roman conquest, the + peasant of the Gallic province, the Carlovingian peasant, the French + peasant of the thirteenth, the seventeenth, and the twentieth centuries, + there is, in spite of a general uniformity of life, of a common atmosphere + of cows, hens, dung, toil, ploughing, economy, and domestic intimacy, an + effect of accumulating generalising influences and of wider relevancies. + And the oscillations of empires and kingdoms, religious movements, wars, + invasions, settlements leave upon the mind an impression that the surplus + life of mankind, the less-localised life of mankind, that life of mankind + which is not directly connected with the soil but which has become more or + less detached from and independent of it, is becoming proportionately more + important in relation to the Normal Social Life. It is as if a different + way of living was emerging from the Normal Social Life and freeing itself + from its traditions and limitations. + </p> + <p> + And this is more particularly the effect upon the mind of a review of the + history of the past two hundred years. The little speculative activities + of the alchemist and natural philosopher, the little economic experiments + of the acquisitive and enterprising landed proprietor, favoured by + unprecedented periods of security and freedom, have passed into a new + phase of extraordinary productivity. They had added preposterously and + continue to add on a gigantic scale and without any evident limits to the + continuation of their additions, to the resources of humanity. To the + strength of horses and men and slaves has been added the power of machines + and the possibility of economies that were once incredible The Normal + Social Life has been overshadowed as it has never been overshadowed before + by the concentrations and achievements of the surplus life. Vast new + possibilities open to the race; the traditional life of mankind, its + traditional systems of association, are challenged and threatened; and all + the social thought, all the political activity of our time turns in + reality upon the conflict of this ancient system whose essentials we have + here defined and termed the Normal Social Life with the still vague and + formless impulses that seem destined either to involve it and the race in + a final destruction or to replace it by some new and probably more + elaborate method of human association. + </p> + <p> + Because there is the following difference between the action of the + surplus forces as we see them to-day and as they appeared before the + outbreak of physical science and mechanism. Then it seemed clearly + necessary that whatever social and political organisation developed, it + must needs; rest ultimately on the tiller of the soil, the agricultural + holding, and the Normal Social Life. But now even in agriculture huge + wholesale methods have appeared. They are declared to be destructive; but + it is quite conceivable that they may be made ultimately as recuperative + as that small agriculture which has hitherto been the inevitable social + basis. If that is so, then the new ways of living may not simply impose + themselves in a growing proportion upon the Normal Social Life, but they + may even oust it and replace it altogether. Or they may oust it and fail + to replace it. In the newer countries the Normal Social Life does not + appear to establish itself at all rapidly. No real peasantry appears in + either America or Australia; and in the older countries, unless there is + the most elaborate legislative and fiscal protection, the peasant + population wanes before the large farm, the estate, and overseas + production. + </p> + <p> + Now most of the political and social discussion of the last hundred years + may be regarded and rephrased as an attempt to apprehend this defensive + struggle of the Normal Social Life against waxing novelty and innovation + and to give a direction and guidance to all of us who participate. And it + is very largely a matter of temperament and free choice still, just where + we shall decide to place ourselves. Let us consider some of the key words + of contemporary thought, such as Liberalism, Individualism, Socialism, in + the light of this broad generalisation we have made; and then we shall + find it easier to explain our intention in employing as a second + technicality the phrase of The Great State as an opposite to the Normal + Social Life, which we have already defined. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 2 + </p> + <p> + The Normal Social Life has been defined as one based on agriculture, + traditional and essentially unchanging. It has needed no toleration and + displayed no toleration for novelty and strangeness. Its beliefs have been + on such a nature as to justify and sustain itself, and it has had an + intrinsic hostility to any other beliefs. The God of its community has + been a jealous god even when he was only a tribal and local god. Only very + occasionally in history until the coming of the modern period do we find + any human community relaxing from this ancient and more normal state of + entire intolerance towards ideas or practices other than its own. When + toleration and a receptive attitude towards alien ideas was manifested in + the Old World, it was at some trading centre or political centre; new + ideas and new religions came by water along the trade routes. And such + toleration as there was rarely extended to active teaching and propaganda. + Even in liberal Athens the hemlock was in the last resort at the service + of the ancient gods and the ancient morals against the sceptical critic. + </p> + <p> + But with the steady development of innovating forces in human affairs + there has actually grown up a cult of receptivity, a readiness for new + ideas, a faith in the probable truth of novelties. Liberalism—I do + not, of course, refer in any way to the political party which makes this + profession—is essentially anti-traditionalism; its tendency is to + commit for trial any institution or belief that is brought before it. It + is the accuser and antagonist of all the fixed and ancient values and + imperatives and prohibitions of the Normal Social Life. And growing up in + relation to Liberalism and sustained by it is the great body of scientific + knowledge, which professes at least to be absolutely undogmatic and + perpetually on its trial and under assay and re-examination. + </p> + <p> + Now a very large part of the advanced thought of the past century is no + more than the confused negation of the broad beliefs and institutions + which have been the heritage and social basis of humanity for immemorial + years. This is as true of the extremest Individualism as of the extremest + Socialism. The former denies that element of legal and customary control + which has always subdued the individual to the needs of the Normal Social + Life, and the latter that qualified independence of distributed property + which is the basis of family autonomy. Both are movements against the + ancient life, and nothing is more absurd than the misrepresentation which + presents either as a conservative force. They are two divergent schools + with a common disposition to reject the old and turn towards the new. The + Individualist professes a faith for which he has no rational evidence, + that the mere abandonment of traditions and controls must ultimately + produce a new and beautiful social order; while the Socialist, with an + equal liberalism, regards the outlook with a kind of hopeful dread, and + insists upon an elaborate readjustment, a new and untried scheme of social + organisation to replace the shattered and weakening Normal Social Life. + </p> + <p> + Both these movements, and, indeed, all movements that are not movements + for the subjugation of innovation and the restoration of tradition, are + vague in the prospect they contemplate. They produce no definite forecasts + of the quality of the future towards which they so confidently indicate + the way. But this is less true of modern socialism than of its antithesis, + and it becomes less and less true as socialism, under an enormous torrent + of criticism, slowly washes itself clean from the mass of partial + statement, hasty misstatement, sheer error and presumption that obscured + its first emergence. + </p> + <p> + But it is well to be very clear upon one point at this stage, and that is, + that this present time is not a battle-ground between individualism and + socialism; it is a battle-ground between the Normal Social Life on the one + hand and a complex of forces on the other which seek a form of replacement + and seem partially to find it in these and other doctrines. + </p> + <p> + Nearly all contemporary thinkers who are not too muddled to be assignable + fall into one of three classes, of which the third we shall distinguish is + the largest and most various and divergent. It will be convenient to say a + little of each of these classes before proceeding to a more particular + account of the third. Our analysis will cut across many accepted + classifications, but there will be ample justification for this + rearrangement. All of them may be dealt with quite justly as accepting the + general account of the historical process which is here given. + </p> + <p> + Then first we must distinguish a series of writers and thinkers which one + may call—the word conservative being already politically assigned—the + Conservators. + </p> + <p> + These are people who really do consider the Normal Social Life as the only + proper and desirable life for the great mass of humanity, and they are + fully prepared to subordinate all exceptional and surplus lives to the + moral standards and limitations that arise naturally out of the Normal + Social Life. They desire a state in which property is widely distributed, + a community of independent families protected by law and an intelligent + democratic statecraft from the economic aggressions of large accumulations + and linked by a common religion. Their attitude to the forces of change is + necessarily a hostile attitude. They are disposed to regard innovations in + transit and machinery as undesirable, and even mischievous disturbances of + a wholesome equilibrium. They are at least unfriendly to any organisation + of scientific research, and scornful of the pretensions of science. + Criticisms of the methods of logic, scepticism of the more widely diffused + human beliefs, they would classify as insanity. Two able English writers, + Mr. G.K. Chesterton and Mr. Belloc, have given the clearest expression to + this system of ideals, and stated an admirable case for it. They present a + conception of vinous, loudly singing, earthy, toiling, custom-ruled, + wholesome, and insanitary men; they are pagan in the sense that their + hearts are with the villagers and not with the townsmen, Christian in the + spirit of the parish priest. There are no other Conservators so + clear-headed and consistent. But their teaching is merely the logical + expression of an enormous amount of conservative feeling. Vast multitudes + of less lucid minds share their hostility to novelty and research; hate, + dread, and are eager to despise science, and glow responsive to the warm, + familiar expressions of primordial feelings and immemorial prejudices The + rural conservative, the liberal of the allotments and small-holdings type, + Mr. Roosevelt—in his Western-farmer, philoprogenitive phase as + distinguished from the phase of his more imperialist moments—all + present themselves as essentially Conservators as seekers after and + preservers of the Normal Social Life. + </p> + <p> + So, too, do Socialists of the William Morris type. The mind of William + Morris was profoundly reactionary He hated the whole trend of later + nineteenth-century modernism with the hatred natural to a man of + considerable scholarship and intense aesthetic sensibilities. His mind + turned, exactly as Mr. Belloc's turns, to the finished and enriched Normal + Social Life of western Europe in the middle ages, but, unlike Mr. Belloc, + he believed that, given private ownership of land and the ordinary + materials of life, there must necessarily be an aggregatory process, + usury, expropriation, the development of an exploiting wealthy class. He + believed profit was the devil. His "News from Nowhere" pictures a + communism that amounted in fact to little more than a system of private + ownership of farms and trades without money or any buying and selling, in + an atmosphere of geniality, generosity, and mutual helpfulness. Mr. + Belloc, with a harder grip upon the realities of life, would have the + widest distribution of proprietorship, with an alert democratic government + continually legislating against the protean reappearances of usury and + accumulation and attacking, breaking up, and redistributing any large + unanticipated bodies of wealth that appeared. But both men are equally set + towards the Normal Social Life, and equally enemies of the New. The + so-called "socialist" land legislation of New Zealand again is a tentative + towards the realisation of the same school of ideas: great estates are to + be automatically broken up, property is to be kept disseminated; a vast + amount of political speaking and writing in America and throughout the + world enforces one's impression of the widespread influence of Conservator + ideals. + </p> + <p> + Of course, it is inevitable that phases of prosperity for the Normal + Social Life will lead to phases of over-population and scarcity, there + will be occasional famines and occasional pestilences and plethoras of + vitality leading to the blood-letting of war. I suppose Mr. Chesterton and + Mr. Belloc at least have the courage of their opinions, and are prepared + to say that such things always have been and always must be; they are part + of the jolly rhythms of the human lot under the sun, and are to be taken + with the harvest home and love-making and the peaceful ending of honoured + lives as an integral part of the unending drama of mankind. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 3 + </p> + <p> + Now opposed to the Conservators are all those who do not regard + contemporary humanity as a final thing nor the Normal Social Life as the + inevitable basis of human continuity. They believe in secular change, in + Progress, in a future for our species differing continually more from its + past. On the whole, they are prepared for the gradual disentanglement of + men from the Normal Social Life altogether, and they look for new ways of + living and new methods of human association with a certain adventurous + hopefulness. + </p> + <p> + Now, this second large class does not so much admit of subdivision into + two as present a great variety of intermediaries between two extremes. I + propose to give distinctive names to these extremes, with the very clear + proviso that they are not antagonised, and that the great multitude of + this second, anti-conservator class, this liberal, more novel class modern + conditions have produced falls between them, and is neither the one nor + the other, but partaking in various degrees of both. On the one hand, + then, we have that type of mind which is irritated by and distrustful of + all collective proceedings which is profoundly distrustful of churches and + states, which is expressed essentially by Individualism. The Individualist + appears to regard the extensive disintegrations of the Normal Social Life + that are going on to-day with an extreme hopefulness. Whatever is ugly or + harsh in modern industrialism or in the novel social development of our + time he seems to consider as a necessary aspect of a process of selection + and survival, whose tendencies are on the whole inevitably satisfactory. + The future welfare of man he believes in effect may be trusted to the + spontaneous and planless activities of people of goodwill, and nothing but + state intervention can effectively impede its attainment. And curiously + close to this extreme optimistic school in its moral quality and logical + consequences, though contrasting widely in the sinister gloom of its + spirit, is the socialism of Karl Marx. He declared the contemporary world + to be a great process of financial aggrandisement and general + expropriation, of increasing power for the few and of increasing hardship + and misery for the many, a process that would go on until at last a crisis + of unendurable tension would be reached and the social revolution ensue. + The world had, in fact, to be worse before it could hope to be better. He + contemplated a continually exacerbated Class War, with a millennium of + extraordinary vagueness beyond as the reward of the victorious workers. + His common quality with the Individualist lies in his repudiation of and + antagonism to plans and arrangements, in his belief in the overriding + power of Law. Their common influence is the discouragement of collective + understandings upon the basis of the existing state. Both converge in + practice upon <i>laissez faire</i>. I would therefore lump them together + under the term of Planless Progressives, and I would contrast with them + those types which believe supremely in systematised purpose. + </p> + <p> + The purposeful and systematic types, in common with the Individualist and + Marxist, regard the Normal Social Life, for all the many thousands of + years behind it, as a phase, and as a phase which is now passing, in human + experience; and they are prepared for a future society that may be + ultimately different right down to its essential relationships from the + human past. But they also believe that the forces that have been assailing + and disintegrating the Normal Social Life, which have been, on the one + hand, producing great accumulations of wealth, private freedom, and + ill-defined, irresponsible and socially dangerous power, and, on the + other, labour hordes, for the most part urban, without any property or + outlook except continuous toil and anxiety, which in England have + substituted a dischargeable agricultural labourer for the independent + peasant almost completely, and in America seem to be arresting any general + development of the Normal Social Life at all, are forces of wide and + indefinite possibility that need to be controlled by a collective effort + implying a collective design, deflected from merely injurious consequences + and organised for a new human welfare upon new lines. They agree with that + class of thinking I have distinguished as the Conservators in their + recognition of vast contemporary disorders and their denial of the + essential beneficence of change. But while the former seem to regard all + novelty and innovation as a mere inundation to be met, banked back, + defeated and survived, these more hopeful and adventurous minds would + rather regard contemporary change as amounting on the whole to the + tumultuous and almost catastrophic opening-up of possible new channels, + the violent opportunity of vast, deep, new ways to great unprecedented + human ends, ends that are neither feared nor evaded. + </p> + <p> + Now while the Conservators are continually talking of the "eternal facts" + of human life and human nature and falling back upon a conception of + permanence that is continually less true as our perspectives extend, these + others are full of the conception of adaptation, of deliberate change in + relationship and institution to meet changing needs. I would suggest for + them, therefore, as opposed to the Conservators and contrasted with the + Planless Progressives, the name of Constructors. They are the extreme + right, as it were, while the Planless Progressives are the extreme left of + Anti-Conservator thought. + </p> + <p> + I believe that these distinctions I have made cover practically every + clear form of contemporary thinking, and are a better and more helpful + classification than any now current. But, of course, nearly every + individual nowadays is at least a little confused, and will be found to + wobble in the course even of a brief discussion between one attitude and + the other. This is a separation of opinions rather than of persons. And + particularly that word Socialism has become so vague and incoherent that + for a man to call himself a socialist nowadays is to give no indication + whatever whether he is a Conservator like William Morris, a + non-Constructor like Karl Marx, or a Constructor of any of half a dozen + different schools. On the whole, however, modern socialism tends to fall + towards the Constructor wing. So, too, do those various movements in + England and Germany and France called variously nationalist and + imperialist, and so do the American civic and social reformers. Under the + same heading must come such attempts to give the vague impulses of + Syndicalism a concrete definition as the "Guild Socialism" of Mr. Orage. + All these movements are agreed that the world is progressive towards a + novel and unprecedented social order, not necessarily and fatally better, + and that it needs organised and even institutional guidance thither, + however much they differ as to the form that order should assume. + </p> + <p> + For the greater portion of a century socialism has been before the world, + and it is not perhaps premature to attempt a word or so of analysis of + that great movement in the new terms we are here employing. The origins of + the socialist idea were complex and multifarious never at any time has it + succeeded in separating out a statement of itself that was at once simple, + complete and acceptable to any large proportion of those who call + themselves socialists. But always it has pointed to two or three definite + things. The first of these is that unlimited freedoms of private property, + with increasing facilities of exchange, combination, and aggrandisement, + become more and more dangerous to human liberty by the expropriation and + reduction to private wages slavery of larger and larger proportions of the + population. Every school of socialism states this in some more or less + complete form, however divergent the remedial methods suggested by the + different schools. And, next, every school of socialism accepts the + concentration of management and property as necessary, and declines to + contemplate what is the typical Conservator remedy, its re-fragmentation. + Accordingly it sets up not only against the large private owner, but + against owners generally, the idea of a public proprietor, the State, + which shall hold in the collective interest. But where the earlier + socialisms stopped short, and where to this day socialism is vague, + divided, and unprepared, is upon the psychological problems involved in + that new and largely unprecedented form of proprietorship, and upon the + still more subtle problems of its attainment. These are vast, and + profoundly, widely, and multitudinously difficult problems, and it was + natural and inevitable that the earlier socialists in the first enthusiasm + of their idea should minimise these difficulties, pretend in the fullness + of their faith that partial answers to objections were complete answers, + and display the common weaknesses of honest propaganda the whole world + over. Socialism is now old enough to know better. Few modern socialists + present their faith as a complete panacea, and most are now setting to + work in earnest upon these long-shirked preliminary problems of human + interaction through which the vital problem of a collective head and brain + can alone be approached. + </p> + <p> + A considerable proportion of the socialist movement remains, as it has + been from the first, vaguely democratic. It points to collective ownership + with no indication of the administrative scheme it contemplates to realise + that intention. Necessarily it remains a formless claim without hands to + take hold of the thing it desires. Indeed in a large number of cases it is + scarcely more than a resentful consciousness in the expropriated masses of + social disintegration. It spends its force very largely in mere revenges + upon property as such, attacks simply destructive by reason of the absence + of any definite ulterior scheme. It is an ill-equipped and planless + belligerent who must destroy whatever he captures because he can neither + use nor take away. A council of democratic socialists in possession of + London would be as capable of an orderly and sustained administration as + the Anabaptists in Munster. But the discomforts and disorders of our + present planless system do tend steadily to the development of this crude + socialistic spirit in the mass of the proletariat; merely vindictive + attacks upon property, sabotage, and the general strike are the logical + and inevitable consequences of an uncontrolled concentration of property + in a few hands, and such things must and will go on, the deep undertow in + the deliquescence of the Normal Social Life, until a new justice, a new + scheme of compensations and satisfactions is attained, or the Normal + Social Life re-emerges. + </p> + <p> + Fabian socialism was the first systematic attempt to meet the fatal + absence of administrative schemes in the earlier socialisms. It can + scarcely be regarded now as anything but an interesting failure, but a + failure that has all the educational value of a first reconnaissance into + unexplored territory. Starting from that attack on aggregating property, + which is the common starting-point of all socialist projects, the Fabians, + appalled at the obvious difficulties of honest confiscation and an open + transfer from private to public hands, conceived the extraordinary idea of + <i>filching</i> property for the state. A small body of people of extreme + astuteness were to bring about the municipalisation and nationalisation + first of this great system of property and then of that, in a manner so + artful that the millionaires were to wake up one morning at last, and + behold, they would find themselves poor men! For a decade or more Mr. + Pease, Mr. Bernard Shaw, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb, Mrs. Besant, Dr. Lawson + Dodd, and their associates of the London Fabian Society, did pit their + wits and ability, or at any rate the wits and ability of their leisure + moments, against the embattled capitalists of England and the world, in + this complicated and delicate enterprise, without any apparent diminution + of the larger accumulations of wealth. But in addition they developed + another side of Fabianism, still more subtle, which professed to be a kind + of restoration in kind of property to the proletariat and in this + direction they were more successful. A dexterous use, they decided, was to + be made of the Poor Law, the public health authority, the education + authority, and building regulations and so forth, to create, so to speak, + a communism of the lower levels. The mass of people whom the forces of + change had expropriated were to be given a certain minimum of food, + shelter, education, and sanitation, and this, the socialists were assured, + could be used as the thin end of the wedge towards a complete communism. + The minimum, once established, could obviously be raised continually until + either everybody had what they needed, or the resources of society gave + out and set a limit to the process. + </p> + <p> + This second method of attack brought the Fabian movement into co-operation + with a large amount of benevolent and constructive influence outside the + socialist ranks altogether. Few wealthy people really grudge the poor a + share of the necessities of life, and most are quite willing to assist in + projects for such a distribution. But while these schemes naturally + involved a very great amount of regulation and regimentation of the + affairs of the poor, the Fabian Society fell away more and more from its + associated proposals for the socialisation of the rich. The Fabian project + changed steadily in character until at last it ceased to be in any sense + antagonistic to wealth as such. If the lion did not exactly lie down with + the lamb, at any rate the man with the gun and the alleged social mad dog + returned very peaceably together. The Fabian hunt was up. + </p> + <p> + Great financiers contributed generously to a School of Economics that had + been founded with moneys left to the Fabian Society by earlier enthusiasts + for socialist propaganda and education. It remained for Mr. Belloc to + point the moral of the whole development with a phrase, to note that + Fabianism no longer aimed at the socialisation of the whole community, but + only at the socialisation of the poor. The first really complete project + for a new social order to replace the Normal Social Life was before the + world, and this project was the compulsory regimentation of the workers + and the complete state control of labour under a new plutocracy. Our + present chaos was to be organised into a Servile State. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 4 + </p> + <p> + Now to many of us who found the general spirit of the socialist movement + at least hopeful and attractive and sympathetic, this would be an almost + tragic conclusion, did we believe that Fabianism was anything more than + the first experiment in planning—and one almost inevitably shallow + and presumptuous—of the long series that may be necessary before a + clear light breaks upon the road humanity must follow. But we decline to + be forced by this one intellectual fiasco towards the <i>laissez faire</i> + of the Individualist and the Marxist, or to accept the Normal Social Life + with its atmosphere of hens and cows and dung, its incessant toil, its + servitude of women, and its endless repetitions as the only tolerable life + conceivable for the bulk of mankind—as the ultimate life, that is, + of mankind. With less arrogance and confidence, but it may be with a + firmer faith, we declare that we believe a more spacious social order than + any that exists or ever has existed, a Peace of the World in which there + is an almost universal freedom, health, happiness, and well-being and + which contains the seeds of a still greater future, is possible to + mankind. We propose to begin again with the recognition of those same + difficulties the Fabians first realised. But we do not propose to organise + a society, form a group for the control of the two chief political + parties, bring about "socialism" in twenty-five years, or do anything + beyond contributing in our place and measure to that constructive + discussion whose real magnitude we now begin to realise. + </p> + <p> + We have faith in a possible future, but it is a faith that makes the + quality of that future entirely dependent upon the strength and clearness + of purpose that this present time can produce. We do not believe the + greater social state is inevitable. + </p> + <p> + Yet there is, we hold, a certain qualified inevitability about this + greater social state because we believe any social state not affording a + general contentment, a general freedom, and a general and increasing + fullness of life, must sooner or later collapse and disintegrate again, + and revert more or less completely to the Normal Social Life, and because + we believe the Normal Social Life is itself thick-sown with the seeds of + fresh beginnings. The Normal Social Life has never at any time been + absolutely permanent, always it has carried within itself the germs of + enterprise and adventure and exchanges that finally attack its stability. + The superimposed social order of to-day, such as it is, with its huge + development of expropriated labour, and the schemes of the later Fabians + to fix this state of affairs in an organised form and render it plausibly + tolerable, seem also doomed to accumulate catastrophic tensions. + Bureaucratic schemes for establishing the regular lifelong subordination + of a labouring class, enlivened though they may be by frequent inspection, + disciplinary treatment during seasons of unemployment, compulsory + temperance, free medical attendance, and a cheap and shallow elementary + education fail to satisfy the restless cravings in the heart of man. They + are cravings that even the baffling methods of the most ingeniously worked + Conciliation Boards cannot permanently restrain. The drift of any Servile + State must be towards a class revolt, paralysing sabotage and a general + strike. The more rigid and complete the Servile State becomes, the more + thorough will be its ultimate failure. Its fate is decay or explosion. + From its dibris we shall either revert to the Normal Social Life and begin + again the long struggle towards that ampler, happier, juster arrangement + of human affairs which we of this book, at any rate, believe to be + possible, or we shall pass into the twilight of mankind. + </p> + <p> + This greater social life we put, then, as the only real alternative to the + Normal Social Life from which man is continually escaping. For it we do + not propose to use the expressions the "socialist state" or "socialism," + because we believe those terms have now by constant confused use become so + battered and bent and discoloured by irrelevant associations as to be + rather misleading than expressive. We propose to use the term The Great + State to express this ideal of a social system no longer localised, no + longer immediately tied to and conditioned by the cultivation of the land, + world-wide in its interests and outlook and catholic in its tolerance and + sympathy, a system of great individual freedom with a universal + understanding among its citizens of a collective thought and purpose. + </p> + <p> + Now, the difficulties that lie in the way of humanity in its complex and + toilsome journey through the coming centuries towards this Great State are + fundamentally difficulties of adaptation and adjustment. To no conceivable + social state is man inherently fitted: he is a creature of jealousy and + suspicion, unstable, restless, acquisitive, aggressive, intractable, and + of a most subtle and nimble dishonesty. Moreover, he is imaginative, + adventurous, and inventive. His nature and instincts are as much in + conflict with the necessary restrictions and subjugation of the Normal + Social Life as they are likely to be with any other social net that + necessity may weave about him. But the Normal Social Life has this + advantage that it has a vast accumulated moral tradition and a minutely + worked-out material method. All the fundamental institutions have arisen + in relation to it and are adapted to its conditions. To revert to it after + any phase of social chaos and distress is and will continue for many years + to be the path of least resistance for perplexed humanity. + </p> + <p> + This conception of the Great State, on the other hand, is still altogether + unsubstantial. It is a project as dream-like to-day as electric lighting, + electric traction, or aviation would have been in the year 1850. In 1850 a + man reasonably conversant with the physical science of his time could have + declared with a very considerable confidence that, given a certain measure + of persistence and social security, these things were more likely to be + attained than not in the course of the next century. But such a prophecy + was conditional on the preliminary accumulation of a considerable amount + of knowledge, on many experiments and failures. Had the world of 1850, by + some wave of impulse, placed all its resources in the hands of the ablest + scientific man alive, and asked him to produce a practicable paying + electric vehicle before 1852, at best he would have produced some clumsy, + curious toy, more probably he would have failed altogether; and, + similarly, if the whole population of the world came to the present writer + and promised meekly to do whatever it was told, we should find ourselves + still very largely at a loss in our project for a millennium. Yet just as + nearly every man at work upon Voltaic electricity in 1850 knew that he was + preparing for electric traction, so do I know quite certainly, in spite of + a whole row of unsolved problems before me, that I am working towards the + Great State. + </p> + <p> + Let me briefly recapitulate the main problems which have to be attacked in + the attempt to realise the outline of the Great State. At the base of the + whole order there must be some method of agricultural production, and if + the agricultural labourer and cottager and the ancient life of the small + householder on the holding, a life laborious, prolific, illiterate, + limited, and in immediate contact with the land used, is to recede and + disappear it must recede and disappear before methods upon a much larger + scale, employing wholesale machinery and involving great economies. It is + alleged by modern writers that the permanent residence of the cultivator + in close relation to his ground is a legacy from the days of cumbrous and + expensive transit, that the great proportion of farm work is seasonal, and + that a migration to and fro between rural and urban conditions would be + entirely practicable in a largely planned community. The agricultural + population could move out of town into an open-air life as the spring + approached, and return for spending, pleasure, and education as the days + shortened. Already something of this sort occurs under extremely + unfavourable conditions in the movement of the fruit and hop pickers from + the east end of London into Kent, but that is a mere hint of the extended + picnic which a broadly planned cultivation might afford. A fully developed + civilisation, employing machines in the hands of highly skilled men, will + minimise toil to the very utmost, no man will shove where a machine can + shove, or carry where a machine can carry; but there will remain, more + particularly in the summer, a vast amount of hand operations, invigorating + and even attractive to the urban population Given short hours, good pay, + and all the jolly amusement in the evening camp that a free, happy, and + intelligent people will develop for themselves, and there will be little + difficulty about this particular class of work to differentiate it from + any other sort of necessary labour. + </p> + <p> + One passes, therefore, with no definite transition from the root problem + of agricultural production in the Great State to the wider problem of + labour in general. + </p> + <p> + A glance at the countryside conjures up a picture of extensive tracts + being cultivated on a wholesale scale, of skilled men directing great + ploughing, sowing, and reaping plants, steering cattle and sheep about + carefully designed enclosures, constructing channels and guiding sewage + towards its proper destination on the fields, and then of added crowds of + genial people coming out to spray trees and plants, pick and sort and pack + fruits. But who are these people? Why are they in particular doing this + for the community? Is our Great State still to have a majority of people + glad to do commonplace work for mediocre wages, and will there be other + individuals who will ride by on the roads, sympathetically, no doubt, but + with a secret sense of superiority? So one opens the general problem of + the organisation for labour. + </p> + <p> + I am careful here to write "for labour" and not "of Labour," because it is + entirely against the spirit of the Great State that any section of the + people should be set aside as a class to do most of the monotonous, + laborious, and uneventful things for the community. That is practically + the present arrangement, and that, with a quickened sense of the need of + breaking people in to such a life, is the ideal of the bureaucratic + Servile State to which, in common with the Conservators, we are bitterly + opposed. And here I know I am at my most difficult, most speculative, and + most revolutionary point. We who look to the Great State as the present + aim of human progress believe a state may solve its economic problem + without any section whatever of the community being condemned to lifelong + labour. And contemporary events, the phenomena of recent strikes, the + phenomena of sabotage, carry out the suggestion that in a community where + nearly everyone reads extensively travels about, sees the charm and + variety in the lives of prosperous and leisurely people, no class is going + to submit permanently to modern labour conditions without extreme + resistance, even after the most elaborate Labour Conciliation schemes and + social minima are established Things are altogether too stimulating to the + imagination nowadays. Of all impossible social dreams that belief in + tranquillised and submissive and virtuous Labour is the wildest of all. No + sort of modern men will stand it. They will as a class do any vivid and + disastrous thing rather than stand it. Even the illiterate peasant will + only endure lifelong toil under the stimulus of private ownership and with + the consolations of religion; and the typical modern worker has neither + the one nor the other. For a time, indeed, for a generation or so even, a + labour mass may be fooled or coerced, but in the end it will break out + against its subjection, even if it breaks out to a general social + catastrophe. + </p> + <p> + We have, in fact, to invent for the Great State, if we are to suppose any + Great State at all, an economic method without any specific labour class. + If we cannot do so, we had better throw ourselves in with the Conservators + forthwith, for they are right and we are absurd. Adhesion to the + conception of the Great State involves adhesion to the belief that the + amount of regular labour, skilled and unskilled, required to produce + everything necessary for everyone living in its highly elaborate + civilisation may, under modern conditions, with the help of scientific + economy and power-producing machinery, be reduced to so small a number of + working hours per head in proportion to the average life of the citizen, + as to be met as regards the greater moiety of it by the payment of wages + over and above the gratuitous share of each individual in the general + output; and as regards the residue, a residue of rough, disagreeable, and + monotonous operations, by some form of conscription, which will demand a + year or so, let us say, of each person's life for the public service. If + we reflect that in the contemporary state there is already food, shelter, + and clothing of a sort for everyone, in spite of the fact that enormous + numbers of people do no productive work at all because they are too well + off, that great numbers are out of work, great numbers by bad nutrition + and training incapable of work, and that an enormous amount of the work + actually done is the overlapping production of competitive trade and work + upon such politically necessary but socially useless things as + Dreadnoughts, it becomes clear that the absolutely unavoidable labour in a + modern community and its ratio to the available vitality must be of very + small account indeed. But all this has still to be worked out even in the + most general terms. An intelligent science of economics should afford + standards and technicalities and systematised facts upon which to base an + estimate. The point was raised a quarter of a century ago by Morris in his + "News from Nowhere," and indeed it was already discussed by More in his + "Utopia." Our contemporary economics is, however, still a foolish, + pretentious pseudo-science, a festering mass of assumptions about buying + and selling and wages-paying, and one would as soon consult Bradshaw or + the works of Dumas as our orthodox professors of economics for any light + upon this fundamental matter. + </p> + <p> + Moreover, we believe that there is a real disposition to work in human + beings, and that in a well-equipped community, in which no one was under + an unavoidable urgency to work, the greater proportion of productive + operations could be made sufficiently attractive to make them desirable + occupations. As for the irreducible residue of undesirable toil, I owe to + my friend the late Professor William James this suggestion of a general + conscription and a period of public service for everyone, a suggestion + which greatly occupied his thoughts during the last years of his life. He + was profoundly convinced of the high educational and disciplinary value of + universal compulsory military service, and of the need of something more + than a sentimental ideal of duty in public life. He would have had the + whole population taught in the schools and prepared for this year (or + whatever period it had to be) of patient and heroic labour, the men for + the mines, the fisheries, the sanitary services, railway routine, the + women for hospital, and perhaps educational work, and so forth. He + believed such a service would permeate the whole state with a sense of + civic obligation.... + </p> + <p> + But behind all these conceivable triumphs of scientific adjustment and + direction lies the infinitely greater difficulty on our way to the Great + State, the difficulty of direction. What sort of people are going to + distribute the work of the community, decide what is or is not to be done, + determine wages, initiate enterprises; and under what sort of criticism, + checks, and controls are they going to do this delicate and extensive + work? With this we open the whole problem of government, administration + and officialdom. + </p> + <p> + The Marxist and the democratic socialist generally shirk this riddle + altogether; the Fabian conception of a bureaucracy, official to the extent + of being a distinct class and cult, exists only as a starting-point for + healthy repudiations. Whatever else may be worked out in the subtler + answers our later time prepares, nothing can be clearer than that the + necessary machinery of government must be elaborately organised to prevent + the development of a managing caste in permanent conspiracy, tacit or + expressed, against the normal man. Quite apart from the danger of + unsympathetic and fatally irritating government there can be little or no + doubt that the method of making men officials for life is quite the worst + way of getting official duties done. Officialdom is a species of + incompetence. This rather priggish, teachable, and well-behaved sort of + boy, who is attracted by the prospect of assured income and a pension to + win his way into the Civil Service, and who then by varied assiduities + rises to a sort of timidly vindictive importance, is the last person to + whom we would willingly entrust the vital interests of a nation. We want + people who know about life at large, who will come to the public service + seasoned by experience, not people who have specialised and acquired that + sort of knowledge which is called, in much the same spirit of + qualification as one speaks of German Silver, Expert Knowledge. It is + clear our public servants and officials must be so only for their periods + of service. They must be taught by life, and not "trained" by pedagogues. + In every continuing job there is a time when one is crude and blundering, + a time, the best time, when one is full of the freshness and happiness of + doing well, and a time when routine has largely replaced the stimulus of + novelty. The Great State will, I feel convinced, regard changes in + occupation as a proper circumstance in the life of every citizen; it will + value a certain amateurishness in its service, and prefer it to the trite + omniscience of the stale official. On that score of the necessity or + versatility, if on no other score, I am flatly antagonistic to the + conceptions of "Guild Socialism" which have arisen recently out of the + impact of Mr. Penty and Syndicalism upon the uneasy intelligence of Mr. + Orage. + </p> + <p> + And since the Fabian socialists have created a widespread belief that in + their projected state every man will be necessarily a public servant or a + public pupil because the state will be the only employer and the only + educator, it is necessary to point out that the Great State presupposes + neither the one nor the other. It is a form of liberty and not a form of + enslavement. We agree with the older forms of socialism in supposing an + initial proprietary independence in every citizen. The citizen is a + shareholder in the state. Above that and after that, he works if he + chooses. But if he likes to live on his minimum and do nothing—though + such a type of character is scarcely conceivable—he can. His earning + is his own surplus. Above the basal economics of the Great State we assume + with confidence there will be a huge surplus of free spending upon + extra-collective ends. Public organisations, for example, may distribute + impartially and possibly even print and make ink and paper for the + newspapers in the Great State, but they will certainly not own them. Only + doctrine-driven men have ever ventured to think they would. Nor will the + state control writers and artists, for example, nor the stage—though + it may build and own theatres—the tailor, the dressmaker, the + restaurant cook, an enormous multitude of other busy + workers-for-preferences. In the Great State of the future, as in the life + of the more prosperous classes of to-day, the greater proportion of + occupations and activities will be private and free. + </p> + <p> + I would like to underline in the most emphatic way that it is possible to + have this Great State, essentially socialistic, owning and running the + land and all the great public services, sustaining everybody in absolute + freedom at a certain minimum of comfort and well-being, and still leaving + most of the interests, amusements, and adornments of the individual life, + and all sorts of collective concerns, social and political discussion, + religious worship, philosophy, and the like to the free personal + initiatives of entirely unofficial people. + </p> + <p> + This still leaves the problem of systematic knowledge and research, and + all the associated problems of aesthetic, moral, and intellectual + initiative to be worked out in detail; but at least it dispels the + nightmare of a collective mind organised as a branch of the civil service, + with authors, critics, artists, scientific investigators appointed in a + phrensy of wire-pulling—as nowadays the British state appoints its + bishops for the care of its collective soul. + </p> + <p> + Let me now indicate how these general views affect the problem of family + organisation and the problem of women's freedom. In the Normal Social Life + the position of women is easily defined. They are subordinated but + important. The citizenship rests with the man, and the woman's relation to + the community as a whole is through a man. But within that limitation her + functions as mother, wife, and home-maker are cardinal. It is one of the + entirely unforeseen consequences that have arisen from the decay of the + Normal Social Life and its autonomous home that great numbers of women + while still subordinate have become profoundly unimportant They have + ceased to a very large extent to bear children, they have dropped most of + their home-making arts, they no longer nurse nor educate such children as + they have, and they have taken on no new functions that compensate for + these dwindling activities of the domestic interior. That subjugation + which is a vital condition to the Normal Social Life does not seem to be + necessary to the Great State. It may or it may not be necessary. And here + we enter upon the most difficult of all our problems. The whole spirit of + the Great State is against any avoidable subjugation; but the whole spirit + of that science which will animate the Great State forbids us to ignore + woman's functional and temperamental differences. A new status has still + to be invented for women, a Feminine Citizenship differing in certain + respects from the normal masculine citizenship. Its conditions remain to + be worked out. We have indeed to work out an entire new system of + relations between men and women, that will be free from servitude, + aggression, provocation, or parasitism. The public Endowment of Motherhood + as such may perhaps be the first broad suggestion of the quality of this + new status. A new type of family, a mutual alliance in the place of a + subjugation, is perhaps the most startling of all the conceptions which + confront us directly we turn ourselves definitely towards the Great State. + </p> + <p> + And as our conception of the Great State grows, so we shall begin to + realise the nature of the problem of transition, the problem of what we + may best do in the confusion of the present time to elucidate and render + practicable this new phase of human organisation. Of one thing there can + be no doubt, that whatever increases thought and knowledge moves towards + our goal; and equally certain is it that nothing leads thither that + tampers with the freedom of spirit, the independence of soul in common men + and women. In many directions, therefore, the believer in the Great State + will display a jealous watchfulness of contemporary developments rather + than a premature constructiveness. We must watch wealth; but quite as + necessary it is to watch the legislator, who mistakes propaganda for + progress and class exasperation to satisfy class vindictiveness for + construction. Supremely important is it to keep discussion open, to + tolerate no limitation on the freedom of speech, writing, art and book + distribution, and to sustain the utmost liberty of criticism upon all + contemporary institutions and processes. + </p> + <p> + This briefly is the programme of problems and effort to which my idea of + the Great State, as the goal of contemporary progress, leads me. + </p> + <p> + The diagram on p. 131 shows compactly the gist of the preceding + discussion; it gives the view of social development upon which I base all + my political conceptions. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE NORMAL SOCIAL LIFE + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +produces an increasing surplus of energy and opportunity, more +particularly under modern conditions of scientific organisation and +power production; and this through the operation of rent and of usury +tends to + | + |———————————————| + (a) release and (b) expropriate + | | + an increasing proportion of the population to become: + | | + (<i>a</i>) A LEISURE CLASS and (<i>b</i>) A LABOUR CLASS + under no urgent compulsion divorced from the land and + to work living upon uncertain wages + |3 |2 |1 |1 2 3| + | | which may degenerate degenerate | | + | | into a waster class into a sweated, | | + | | \ overworked, | | + | | \ violently | | + | | \ resentful | | + | | \ and destructive | | + | | \ rebel class | | + | | \ / | | + | | and produce a | | + | | SOCIAL DEBACLE | | + | | | | + | which may become which may become | + | a Governing the controlled | + | Class (with waster regimented | + | elements) in and disciplined | + | an unprogressive Labour Class of | + | Bureaucratic <————————-> an unprogressive | + | SERVILE STATE Bureaucratic | + | SERVILE STATE | + | | + which may become which may be + the whole community rendered needless + of the GREAT STATE by a universal + working under various compulsory year + motives and inducements or so of labour + but not constantly, service together + nor permanently with a scientific + nor unwillingly organisation + of production, + and so reabsorbed + by re-endowment + into the Leisure + Class of the + GREAT STATE +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE COMMON SENSE OF WARFARE + </h2> + <p> + Sec. 1 + </p> + <h3> + CONSCRIPTION + </h3> + <p> + I want to say as compactly as possible why I do not believe that + conscription would increase the military efficiency of this country, and + why I think it might be a disastrous step for this country to take. + </p> + <p> + By conscription I mean the compulsory enlistment for a term of service in + the Army of the whole manhood of the country. And I am writing now from + the point of view merely of military effectiveness. The educational value + of a universal national service, the idea which as a Socialist I support + very heartily, of making every citizen give a year or so of his life to + our public needs, are matters quite outside my present discussion. What I + am writing about now is this idea that the country can be strengthened for + war by making every man in it a bit of a soldier. + </p> + <p> + And I want the reader to be perfectly clear about the position I assume + with regard to war preparations generally. I am not pleading for peace + when there is no peace; this country has been constantly threatened during + the past decade, and is threatened now by gigantic hostile preparations; + it is our common interest to be and to keep at the maximum of military + efficiency possible to us. My case is not merely that conscription will + not contribute to that, but that it would be a monstrous diversion of our + energy and emotion and material resources from the things that need + urgently to be done. It would be like a boxer filling his arms with empty + boxing-gloves and then rushing—his face protruding over the armful—into + the fray. + </p> + <p> + Let me make my attack on this prevalent and increasing superstition of the + British need for conscription in two lines, one following the other. For, + firstly, it is true that Britain at the present time is no more capable of + creating such a conscript army as France or Germany possesses in the next + ten years than she is of covering her soil with a tropical forest, and, + secondly, it is equally true that if she had such an army it would not be + of the slightest use to her. For the conscript armies in which Europe + still so largely believes are only of use against conscript armies and + adversaries who will consent to play the rules of the German war game; + they are, if we chose to determine they shall be, if we chose to deal with + them as they should be dealt with, as out of date as a Roman legion or a + Zulu impi. + </p> + <p> + Now, first, as to the impossibility of getting our great army into + existence. All those people who write and talk so glibly in favour of + conscription seem to forget that to take a common man, and more + particularly a townsman, clap him into a uniform and put a rifle in his + hand does not make a soldier. He has to be taught not only the use of his + weapons, but the methods of a strange and unfamiliar life out of doors; he + has to be not simply drilled, but accustomed to the difficult modern + necessities of open order fighting, of taking cover, of entrenchment, and + he has to have created within him, so that it will stand the shock of + seeing men killed round about him, confidence in himself, in his officers, + and the methods and weapons of his side. Body, mind, and imagination have + all to be trained—and they need trainers. The conversion of a + thousand citizens into anything better than a sheep-like militia demands + the enthusiastic services of scores of able and experienced instructors + who know what war is; the creation of a universal army demands the + services of many scores of thousands of not simply "old soldiers," but + keen, expert, modern-minded <i>officers</i>. + </p> + <p> + Without these officers our citizen army would be a hydra without heads. + And we haven't these officers. We haven't a tithe of them. + </p> + <p> + We haven't these officers, and we can't make them in a hurry. It takes at + least five years to make an officer who knows his trade. It needs a + special gift, in addition to that knowledge, to make a man able to impart + it. And our Empire is at a peculiar disadvantage in the matter, because + India and our other vast areas of service and opportunity overseas drain + away a large proportion of just those able and educated men who would in + other countries gravitate towards the army. Such small wealth of officers + as we have—and I am quite prepared to believe that the officers we + have are among the very best in the world—are scarcely enough to go + round our present supply of private soldiers. And the best and most + brilliant among this scanty supply are being drawn upon more and more for + aerial work, and for all that increasing quantity of highly specialised + services which are manifestly destined to be the real fighting forces of + the future. We cannot spare the best of our officers for training + conscripts; we shall get the dismallest results from the worst of them; + and so even if it were a vital necessity for our country to have an army + of all its manhood now, we could not have it, and it would be a mere last + convulsion to attempt to make it with the means at our disposal. + </p> + <p> + But that brings me to my second contention, which is that we do not want + such an army. I believe that the vast masses of men in uniform maintained + by the Continental Powers at the present time are enormously overrated as + fighting machines. I see Germany in the likeness of a boxer with a mailed + fist as big as and rather heavier than its body, and I am convinced that + when the moment comes for that mailed fist to be lifted, the whole + disproportionate system will topple over. The military ascendancy of the + future lies with the country that dares to experiment most, that + experiments best, and meanwhile keeps its actual fighting force fit and + admirable and small and flexible. The experience of war during the last + fifteen years has been to show repeatedly the enormous defensive power of + small, scientifically handled bodies of men. These huge conscript armies + are made up not of masses of military muscle, but of a huge proportion of + military fat. Their one way of fighting will be to fall upon an antagonist + with all their available weight, and if he is mobile and dexterous enough + to decline that issue of adiposity they will become a mere embarrassment + to their own people. Modern weapons and modern contrivance are continually + decreasing the number of men who can be employed efficiently upon a length + of front. I doubt if there is any use for more than 400,000 men upon the + whole Franco-Belgian frontier at the present time. Such an army, properly + supplied, could—so far as terrestrial forces are concerned—hold + that frontier against any number of assailants. The bigger the forces + brought against it the sooner the exhaustion of the attacking power. Now, + it is for employment upon that frontier, and for no other conceivable + purpose in the world, that Great Britain is asked to create a gigantic + conscript army. + </p> + <p> + And if too big an army is likely to be a mere encumbrance in war, it is + perhaps even a still graver blunder to maintain one during that conflict + of preparation which is at present the European substitute for actual + hostilities. It consumes. It produces nothing. It not only eats and drinks + and wears out its clothes and withdraws men from industry, but under the + stress of invention it needs constantly to be re-armed and freshly + equipped at an expenditure proportionate to its size. So long as the + conflict of preparation goes on, then the bigger the army your adversary + maintains under arms the bigger is his expenditure and the less his + earning power. The less the force you employ to keep your adversary + over-armed, and the longer you remain at peace with him while he is + over-armed, the greater is your advantage. There is only one profitable + use for any army, and that is victorious conflict. Every army that is not + engaged in victorious conflict is an organ of national expenditure, an + exhausting growth in the national body. And for Great Britain an attempt + to create a conscript army would involve the very maximum of moral and + material exhaustion with the minimum of military efficiency. It would be a + disastrous waste of resources that we need most urgently for other things. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 2 + </p> + <p> + In the popular imagination the Dreadnought is still the one instrument of + naval war. We count our strength in Dreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts, + and so long as we are spending our national resources upon them faster + than any other country, if we sink at least #160 for every #100 sunk in + these obsolescent monsters by Germany, we have a reassuring sense of + keeping ahead and being thoroughly safe. This confidence in big, very + expensive battleships is, I believe and hope, shared by the German + Government and by Europe generally, but it is, nevertheless, a very + unreasonable confidence, and it may easily lead us into the most tragic of + national disillusionments. + </p> + <p> + We of the general public are led to suppose that the next naval war—if + ever we engage in another naval war—will begin with a decisive fleet + action. The plan of action is presented with an alluring simplicity. Our + adversary will come out to us, in a ratio of 10 to 16, or in some ratio + still more advantageous to us, according as our adversary happens to be + this Power or that Power, there will be some tremendous business with guns + and torpedoes, and our admirals will return victorious to discuss the + discipline and details of the battle and each other's little weaknesses in + the monthly magazines. This is a desirable but improbable anticipation. No + hostile Power is in the least likely to send out any battleships at all + against our invincible Dreadnoughts. They will promenade the seas, always + in the ratio of 16 or more to 10, looking for fleets securely tucked away + out of reach. They will not, of course, go too near the enemy's coast, on + account of mines, and, meanwhile, our cruisers will hunt the enemy's + commerce into port. + </p> + <p> + Then other things will happen. + </p> + <p> + The enemy we shall discover using unsportsmanlike devices against our + capital ships. Unless he is a lunatic, he will prove to be much stronger + in reality than he is on paper in the matter of submarines, torpedo-boats, + waterplanes and aeroplanes. These are things cheap to make and easy to + conceal. He will be richly stocked with ingenious devices for getting + explosives up to these two million pound triumphs of our naval + engineering. On the cloudy and foggy nights so frequent about these + islands he will have extraordinary chances, and sooner or later, unless we + beat him thoroughly in the air above and in the waters beneath, for + neither of which proceedings we are prepared, some of these chances will + come off, and we shall lose a Dreadnought. + </p> + <p> + It will be a poor consolation if an ill-advised and stranded Zeppelin or + so enlivens the quiet of the English countryside by coming down and + capitulating. It will be a trifling countershock to wing an aeroplane or + so, or blow a torpedo-boat out of the water. Our Dreadnoughts will cease + to be a source of unmitigated confidence A second battleship disaster will + excite the Press extremely. A third will probably lead to a retirement of + the battle fleet to some east coast harbour, a refuge liable to + aeroplanes, or to the west coast of Ireland—and the real naval war, + which, as I have argued in an earlier chapter, will be a war of + destroyers, submarines and hydroplanes, will begin. Incidentally a + commerce destroyer may take advantage of the retirement of our fleet to + raid our trade routes. + </p> + <p> + We shall then realise that the actual naval weapons are these smaller + weapons, and especially the destroyer, the submarine, and the waterplane—the + waterplane most of all, because of its possibilities of a comparative + bigness—in the hands of competent and daring men. And I find myself, + as a patriotic Englishman, more and more troubled by doubts whether we are + as certainly superior to any possible adversary in these essential things + as we are in the matter of Dreadnoughts. I find myself awake at nights, + after a day much agitated by a belligerent Press, wondering whether the + real Empire of the Sea may not even now have slipped out of our hands + while our attention has been fixed on our stately procession of giant + warships, while our country has been in a dream, hypnotised by the + Dreadnought idea. + </p> + <p> + For some years there seems to have been a complete arrest of the British + imagination in naval and military matters. That declining faculty, never a + very active or well-exercised one, staggered up to the conception of a + Dreadnought, and seems now to have sat down for good. Its reply to every + demand upon it has been "more Dreadnoughts." The future, as we British + seem to see it, is an avenue of Dreadnoughts and Super-Dreadnoughts and + Super-Super-Dreadnoughts, getting bigger and bigger in a kind of inverted + perspective. But the ascendancy of fleets of great battleships in naval + warfare, like the phase of huge conscript armies upon land, draws to its + close. The progress of invention makes both the big ship and the army + crowd more and more vulnerable and less and less effective. A new phase of + warfare opens beyond the vista of our current programmes. Smaller, more + numerous and various and mobile weapons and craft and contrivances, manned + by daring and highly skilled men, must ultimately take the place of those + massivenesses. We are entering upon a period in which the invention of + methods and material for war is likely to be more rapid and diversified + than it has ever been before, and the question of what we have been doing + behind the splendid line of our Dreadnoughts to meet the demands of this + new phase is one of supreme importance. Knowing, as I do, the imaginative + indolence of my countrymen, it is a question I face with something very + near to dismay. + </p> + <p> + But it is one that has to be faced. The question that should occupy our + directing minds now is no longer "How can we get more Dreadnoughts?" but + "What have we to follow the Dreadnought?" + </p> + <p> + To the Power that has most nearly guessed the answer to that riddle + belongs the future Empire of the Seas. It is interesting to guess for + oneself and to speculate upon the possibility of a kind of armoured + mother-ship for waterplanes and submarines and torpedo craft, but + necessarily that would be a mere journalistic and amateurish guessing. I + am not guessing, but asking urgent questions. What force, what council, + how many imaginative and inventive men has the country got at the present + time employed not casually but professionally in anticipating the new + strategy, the new tactics, the new material, the new training that + invention is so rapidly rendering necessary? I have the gravest doubts + whether we are doing anything systematic at all in this way. + </p> + <p> + Now, it is the tremendous seriousness of this deficiency to which I want + to call attention. Great Britain has in her armour a gap more dangerous + and vital than any mere numerical insufficiency of men or ships. She is + short of minds. Behind its strength of current armaments to-day, a + strength that begins to evaporate and grow obsolete from the very moment + it comes into being, a country needs more and more this profounder + strength of intellectual and creative activity. + </p> + <p> + This country most of all, which was left so far behind in the production + of submarines, airships and aeroplanes, must be made to realise the folly + of its trust in established things. Each new thing we take up more + belatedly and reluctantly than its predecessor. The time is not far + distant when we shall be "caught" lagging unless we change all this. + </p> + <p> + We need a new arm to our service; we need it urgently, and we shall need + it more and more, and that arm is Research. We need to place inquiry and + experiment upon a new footing altogether, to enlist for them and organise + them, to secure the pick of our young chemists and physicists and + engineers, and to get them to work systematically upon the anticipation + and preparation of our future war equipment. We need a service of + invention to recover our lost lead in these matters. + </p> + <p> + And it is because I feel so keenly the want of such a service, and the + want of great sums of money for it, that I deplore the disposition to + waste millions upon the hasty creation of a universal service army and + upon excessive Dreadnoughting. I am convinced that we are spending upon + the things of yesterday the money that is sorely needed for the things of + to-morrow. + </p> + <p> + With our eyes averted obstinately from the future we are backing towards + disaster. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 3 + </p> + <p> + In the present armament competition there are certain considerations that + appear to be almost universally overlooked, and which tend to modify our + views profoundly of what should be done. Ultimately they will affect our + entire expenditure upon war preparation. + </p> + <p> + Expenditure upon preparation for war falls, roughly, into two classes: + there is expenditure upon things that have a diminishing value, things + that grow old-fashioned and wear out, such as fortifications, ships, guns, + and ammunition, and expenditure upon things that have a permanent and even + growing value, such as organised technical research, military and naval + experiment, and the education and increase of a highly trained class of + war experts. + </p> + <p> + I want to suggest that we are spending too much money in the former and + not enough in the latter direction We are buying enormous quantities of + stuff that will be old iron in twenty years' time, and we are starving + ourselves of that which cannot be bought or made in a hurry, and upon + which the strength of nations ultimately rests altogether; we are failing + to get and maintain a sufficiency of highly educated and developed men + inspired by a tradition of service and efficiency. + </p> + <p> + No doubt we must be armed to-day, but every penny we divert from + men-making and knowledge-making to armament beyond the margin of bare + safety is a sacrifice of the future to the present. Every penny we divert + from national wealth-making to national weapons means so much less in + resources, so much more strain in the years ahead. But a great system of + laboratories and experimental stations, a systematic, industrious increase + of men of the officer-aviator type, of the research student type, of the + engineer type, of the naval-officer type, of the skilled + sergeant-instructor type, a methodical development of a common sentiment + and a common zeal among such a body of men, is an added strength that + grows greater from the moment you call it into being. In our schools and + military and naval colleges lies the proper field for expenditure upon + preparation for our ultimate triumph in war. All other war preparation is + temporary but that. + </p> + <p> + This would be obvious in any case, but what makes insistence upon it + peculiarly urgent is the manifestly temporary nature of the present + European situation and the fact that within quite a small number of years + our war front will be turned in a direction quite other than that to which + it faces now. + </p> + <p> + For a decade and more all Western Europe has been threatened by German + truculence; the German, inflamed by the victories of 1870 and 1871, has + poured out his energy in preparation for war by sea and land, and it has + been the difficult task of France and England to keep the peace with him. + The German has been the provocator and leader of all modern armaments. But + that is not going on. It is already more than half over. If we can avert + war with Germany for twenty years, we shall never have to fight Germany. + In twenty years' time we shall be talking no more of sending troops to + fight side by side on the frontier of France; we shall be talking of + sending troops to fight side by side with French and Germans on the + frontiers of Poland. + </p> + <p> + And the justification of that prophecy is a perfectly plain one. The + German has filled up his country, his birth-rate falls, and the very + vigour of his military and naval preparations, by raising the cost of + living, hurries it down. His birth-rate falls as ours and the Frenchman's + falls, because he is nearing his maximum of population It is an inevitable + consequence of his geographical conditions. But eastward of him, from his + eastern boundaries to the Pacific, is a country already too populous to + conquer, but with possibilities of further expansion that are gigantic. + The Slav will be free to increase and multiply for another hundred years. + Eastward and southward bristle the Slavs, and behind the Slavs are the + colossal possibilities of Asia. + </p> + <p> + Even German vanity, even the preposterous ambitions that spring from that + brief triumph of Sedan, must awaken at last to these manifest facts, and + on the day when Germany is fully awake we may count the Western European + Armageddon as "off" and turn our eyes to the greater needs that will arise + beyond Germany. The old game will be over and a quite different new game + will begin in international relations. + </p> + <p> + During these last few years of worry and bluster across the North Sea we + have a little forgotten India in our calculations. As Germany faces round + eastward again, as she must do before very long, we shall find India + resuming its former central position in our ideas of international + politics. With India we may pursue one of two policies: we may keep her + divided and inefficient for war, as she is at present, and hold her and + own her and defend her as a prize, or we may arm her and assist her + development into a group of quasi-independent English-speaking States—in + which case she will become our partner and possibly at last even our + senior partner. But that is by the way. What I am pointing out now is that + whether we fight Germany or not, a time is drawing near when Germany will + cease to be our war objective and we shall cease to be Germany's war + objective, and when there will have to be a complete revision of our + military and naval equipment in relation to those remoter, vaster Asiatic + possibilities. + </p> + <p> + Now that possible campaign away there, whatever its particular nature may + be, which will be shaping our military and naval policy in the year 1933 + or thereabouts, will certainly be quite different in its conditions from + the possible campaign in Europe and the narrow seas which determines all + our preparations now. We cannot contemplate throwing an army of a million + British conscripts on to the North-West Frontier of India, and a fleet of + Super-Dreadnoughts will be ineffective either in Thibet or the Baltic + shallows. All our present stuff, indeed, will be on the scrap-heap then. + What will not be on the scrap-heap will be such enterprise and special + science and inventive power as we have got together. That is versatile. + That is good to have now and that will be good to have then. + </p> + <p> + Everyone nowadays seems demanding increased expenditure upon war + preparation. I will follow the fashion. I will suggest that we have the + courage to restrain and even to curtail our monstrous outlay upon war + material and that we begin to spend lavishly upon military and naval + education and training, upon laboratories and experimental stations, upon + chemical and physical research and all that makes knowledge and leading, + and that we increase our expenditure upon these things as fast as we can + up to ten or twelve millions a year. At present we spend about eighteen + and a half millions a year upon education out of our national funds, but + fourteen and a half of this, supplemented by about as much again from + local sources, is consumed in merely elementary teaching. So that we spend + only about four millions a year of public money on every sort of research + and education above the simple democratic level. Nearly thirty millions + for the foundations and only a seventh for the edifice of will and + science! Is it any marvel that we are a badly organised nation, a nation + of very widely diffused intelligence and very second-rate guidance and + achievement? Is it any marvel that directly we are tested by such a new + development as that of aeroplanes or airships we show ourselves in + comparison with the more braced-up nations of the Continent backward, + unorganised unimaginative, unenterprising? + </p> + <p> + Our supreme want to-day, if we are to continue a belligerent people, is a + greater supply of able educated men, versatile men capable of engines, of + aviation, of invention, of leading and initiative. We need more + laboratories, more scholarships out of the general mass of elementary + scholars, a quasi-military discipline in our colleges and a great array of + new colleges, a much readier access to instruction in aviation and + military and naval practice. And if we are to have national service let us + begin with it where it is needed most and where it is least likely to + disorganise our social and economic life; let us begin at the top. Let us + begin with the educated and propertied classes and exact a couple of + years' service in a destroyer or a waterplane, or an airship, or a, + research laboratory, or a training camp, from the sons of everybody who, + let us say, pays income tax without deductions. Let us mix with these a + big proportion—a proportion we may increase steadily—of keen + scholarship men from the elementary schools. Such a braced-up class as we + should create in this way would give us the realities of military power, + which are enterprise, knowledge, and invention; and at the same time it + would add to and not subtract from the economic wealth of the community + Make men; that is the only sane, permanent preparation for war. So we + should develop a strength and create a tradition that would not rust nor + grow old-fashioned in all the years to come. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL + </h2> + <p> + Circumstances have made me think a good deal at different times about the + business of writing novels, and what it means, and is, and may be; and I + was a professional critic of novels long before I wrote them. I have been + writing novels, or writing about novels, for the last twenty years. It + seems only yesterday that I wrote a review—the first long and + appreciative review he had—of Mr. Joseph Conrad's "Almayer's Folly" + in the <i>Saturday Review</i>. When a man has focussed so much of his life + upon the novel, it is not reasonable to expect him to take too modest or + apologetic a view of it. I consider the novel an important and necessary + thing indeed in that complicated system of uneasy adjustments and + readjustments which is modern civilisation I make very high and wide + claims for it. In many directions I do not think we can get along without + it. + </p> + <p> + Now this, I know, is not the usually received opinion. There is, I am + aware, the theory that the novel is wholly and solely a means of + relaxation. In spite of manifest facts, that was the dominant view of the + great period that we now in our retrospective way speak of as the + Victorian, and it still survives to this day. It is the man's theory of + the novel rather than the woman's. One may call it the Weary Giant theory. + The reader is represented as a man, burthened, toiling, worn. He has been + in his office from ten to four, with perhaps only two hours' interval at + his club for lunch; or he has been playing golf; or he has been waiting + about and voting in the House; or he has been fishing; or he has been + disputing a point of law; or writing a sermon; or doing one of a thousand + other of the grave important things which constitute the substance of a + prosperous man's life. Now at last comes the little precious interval of + leisure, and the Weary Giant takes up a book. Perhaps he is vexed: he may + have been bunkered, his line may have been entangled in the trees, his + favourite investment may have slumped, or the judge have had indigestion + and been extremely rude to him. He wants to forget the troublesome + realities of life. He wants to be taken out of himself, to be cheered, + consoled, amused—above all, amused. He doesn't want ideas, he + doesn't want facts; above all, he doesn't want—<i>Problems</i>. He + wants to dream of the bright, thin, gay excitements of a phantom world—in + which he can be hero—of horses ridden and lace worn and princesses + rescued and won. He wants pictures of funny slums, and entertaining + paupers, and laughable longshoremen, and kindly impulses making life + sweet. He wants romance without its defiance, and humour without its + sting; and the business of the novelist, he holds, is to supply this + cooling refreshment. That is the Weary Giant theory of the novel. It ruled + British criticism up to the period of the Boer war—and then + something happened to quite a lot of us, and it has never completely + recovered its old predominance. Perhaps it will; perhaps something else + may happen to prevent its ever doing so. + </p> + <p> + Both fiction and criticism to-day are in revolt against that tired giant, + the prosperous Englishman. I cannot think of a single writer of any + distinction to-day, unless it is Mr. W.W. Jacobs, who is content merely to + serve the purpose of those slippered hours. So far from the weary reader + being a decently tired giant, we realise that he is only an inexpressibly + lax, slovenly and under-trained giant, and we are all out with one accord + resolved to exercise his higher ganglia in every possible way. And so I + will say no more of the idea that the novel is merely a harmless opiate + for the vacant hours of prosperous men. As a matter of fact, it never has + been, and by its nature I doubt if it ever can be. + </p> + <p> + I do not think that women have ever quite succumbed to the tired giant + attitude in their reading. Women are more serious, not only about life, + but about books. No type or kind of woman is capable of that lounging, + defensive stupidity which is the basis of the tired giant attitude, and + all through the early 'nineties, during which the respectable frivolity of + Great Britain left its most enduring marks upon our literature, there was + a rebel undertow of earnest and aggressive writing and reading, supported + chiefly by women and supplied very largely by women, which gave the lie to + the prevailing trivial estimate of fiction. Among readers, women and girls + and young men at least will insist upon having their novels significant + and real, and it is to these perpetually renewed elements in the public + that the novelist must look for his continuing emancipation from the + wearier and more massive influences at work in contemporary British life. + </p> + <p> + And if the novel is to be recognised as something more than a relaxation, + it has also, I think, to be kept free from the restrictions imposed upon + it by the fierce pedantries of those who would define a general form for + it. Every art nowadays must steer its way between the rocks of trivial and + degrading standards and the whirlpool of arbitrary and irrational + criticism. Whenever criticism of any art becomes specialised and + professional whenever a class of adjudicators is brought into existence, + those adjudicators are apt to become as a class distrustful of their + immediate impressions, and anxious for methods of comparison between work + and work, they begin to emulate the classifications and exact measurements + of a science, and to set up ideals and rules as data for such + classification and measurements. They develop an alleged sense of + technique, which is too often no more than the attempt to exact a + laboriousness of method, or to insist upon peculiarities of method which + impress the professional critic not so much as being merits as being + meritorious. This sort of thing has gone very far with the critical + discussion both of the novel and the play. You have all heard that + impressive dictum that some particular theatrical display, although + moving, interesting, and continually entertaining from start to finish, + was for occult technical reasons "not a play," and in the same way you are + continually having your appreciation of fiction dashed by the mysterious + parallel condemnation, that the story you like "isn't a novel." The novel + has been treated as though its form was as well-defined as the sonnet. + Some year or so ago, for example, there was a quite serious discussion, + which began, I believe, in a weekly paper devoted to the interests of + various nonconformist religious organisations, about the proper length for + a novel. The critic was to begin his painful duties with a yard measure. + The matter was taken up with profound gravity by the <i>Westminster + Gazette</i>, and a considerable number of literary men and women were + circularised and asked to state, in the face of "Tom Jones," "The Vicar of + Wakefield," "The Shabby-Genteel Story," and "Bleak House," just exactly + how long the novel ought to be. Our replies varied according to the + civility of our natures, but the mere attempt to raise the question shows, + I think, how widespread among the editorial, paragraph-writing, + opinion-making sort of people is this notion of prescribing a definite + length and a definite form for the novel. In the newspaper correspondence + that followed, our friend the weary giant made a transitory appearance + again. We were told the novel ought to be long enough for him to take up + after dinner and finish before his whisky at eleven. + </p> + <p> + That was obviously a half-forgotten echo of Edgar Allan Poe's discussion + of the short story. Edgar Allan Poe was very definite upon the point that + the short story should be finished at a sitting. But the novel and short + story are two entirely different things, and the train of reasoning that + made the American master limit the short story to about an hour of reading + as a maximum, does not apply to the longer work. A short story is, or + should be, a simple thing; it aims at producing one single, vivid effect; + it has to seize the attention at the outset, and never relaxing, gather it + together more and more until the climax is reached. The limits of the + human capacity to attend closely therefore set a limit to it; it must + explode and finish before interruption occurs or fatigue sets in. But the + novel I hold to be a discursive thing; it is not a single interest, but a + woven tapestry of interests; one is drawn on first by this affection and + curiosity, and then by that; it is something to return to, and I do not + see that we can possibly set any limit to its extent. The distinctive + value of the novel among written works of art is in characterisation, and + the charm of a well-conceived character lies, not in knowing its destiny, + but in watching its proceedings. For my own part, I will confess that I + find all the novels of Dickens, long as they are, too short for me. I am + sorry they do not flow into one another more than they do. I wish Micawber + and Dick Swiveller and Sairey Gamp turned up again in other novels than + their own, just as Shakespeare ran the glorious glow of Falstaff through a + group of plays. But Dickens tried this once when he carried on the + Pickwick Club into "Master Humphrey's Clock." That experiment was + unsatisfactory, and he did not attempt anything of the sort again. + Following on the days of Dickens, the novel began to contract, to + subordinate characterisation to story and description to drama; + considerations of a sordid nature, I am told, had to do with that; + something about a guinea and a half and six shillings with which we will + not concern ourselves—but I rejoice to see many signs to-day that + that phase of narrowing and restriction is over, and that there is every + encouragement for a return towards a laxer, more spacious form of + novel-writing. The movement is partly of English origin, a revolt against + those more exacting and cramping conceptions of artistic perfection to + which I will recur in a moment, and a return to the lax freedom of form, + the rambling discursiveness, the right to roam, of the earlier English + novel, of "Tristram Shandy" and of "Tom Jones"; and partly it comes from + abroad, and derives a stimulus from such bold and original enterprises as + that of Monsieur Rolland in his "Jean Christophe." Its double origin + involves a double nature; for while the English spirit is towards + discursiveness and variety, the new French movement is rather towards + exhaustiveness. Mr. Arnold Bennett has experimented in both forms of + amplitude. His superb "Old Wives' Tale," wandering from person to person + and from scene to scene, is by far the finest "long novel" that has been + written in English in the English fashion in this generation, and now in + "Clayhanger" and its promised collaterals, he undertakes that complete, + minute, abundant presentation of the growth and modification of one or two + individual minds, which is the essential characteristic of the Continental + movement towards the novel of amplitude. While the "Old Wives' Tale" is + discursive, "Clayhanger" is exhaustive; he gives us both types of the new + movement in perfection. + </p> + <p> + I name "Jean Christophe" as a sort of archetype in this connection, + because it is just at present very much in our thoughts by reason of the + admirable translation Mr. Cannan is giving us; but there is a greater + predecessor to this comprehensive and spectacular treatment of a single + mind and its impressions and ideas, or of one or two associated minds, + that comes to us now <i>via</i> Mr. Bennett and Mr. Cannan from France. + The great original of all this work is that colossal last unfinished book + of Flaubert, "Bouvard et Picuchet." Flaubert, the bulk of whose life was + spent upon the most austere and restrained fiction—Turgenev was not + more austere and restrained—broke out at last into this gay, sad + miracle of intellectual abundance. It is not extensively read in this + country; it is not yet, I believe, translated into English; but there it + is—and if it is new to the reader I make him this present of the + secret of a book that is a precious wilderness of wonderful reading. But + if Flaubert is really the Continental emancipator of the novel from the + restrictions of form, the master to whom we of the English persuasion, we + of the discursive school, must for ever recur is he, whom I will maintain + against all comers to be the subtlest and greatest <i>artist</i>—I + lay stress upon that word artist—that Great Britain has ever + produced in all that is essentially the novel, Laurence Sterne.... + </p> + <p> + The confusion between the standards of a short story and the standards of + the novel which leads at last to these—what shall I call them?—<i>Westminster + Gazettisms?</i>—about the correct length to which the novelist + should aspire, leads also to all kinds of absurd condemnations and + exactions upon matters of method and style. The underlying fallacy is + always this: the assumption that the novel, like the story, aims at a + single, concentrated impression. From that comes a fertile growth of + error. Constantly one finds in the reviews of works of fiction the + complaint that this, that or the other thing in a novel is irrelevant. Now + it is the easiest thing, and most fatal thing, to become irrelevant in a + short story. A short story should go to its point as a man flies from a + pursuing tiger: he pauses not for the daisies in his path, or to note the + pretty moss on the tree he climbs for safety. But the novel by comparison + is like breakfasting in the open air on a summer morning; nothing is + irrelevant if the waiter's mood is happy, and the tapping of the thrush + upon the garden path, or the petal of apple-blossom that floats down into + my coffee, is as relevant as the egg I open or the bread and butter I + bite. And all sorts of things that inevitably mar the tense illusion which + is the aim of the short story—the introduction, for example, of the + author's personality—any comment that seems to admit that, after + all, fiction is fiction, a change in manner between part and part, + burlesque, parody, invective, all such thing's are not necessarily wrong + in the novel. Of course, all these things may fail in their effect; they + may jar, hinder, irritate, and all are difficult to do well; but it is no + artistic merit to evade a difficulty any more than it is a merit in a + hunter to refuse even the highest of fences. Nearly all the novels that + have, by the lapse of time, reached an assured position of recognised + greatness, are not only saturated in the personality of the author, but + have in addition quite unaffected personal outbreaks. The least successful + instance the one that is made the text against all such first-personal + interventions, is, of course, Thackeray. But I think the trouble with + Thackeray is not that he makes first-personal interventions, but that he + does so with a curious touch of dishonesty. I agree with the late Mrs. + Craigie that there was something profoundly vulgar about Thackeray. It was + a sham thoughtful, sham man-of-the-world pose he assumed; it is an + aggressive, conscious, challenging person astride before a fire, and a + little distended by dinner and a sense of social and literary precedences, + who uses the first person in Thackeray's novels. It isn't the real + Thackeray; it isn't a frank man who looks you in the eyes and bares his + soul and demands your sympathy. That is a criticism of Thackeray, but it + isn't a condemnation of intervention. + </p> + <p> + I admit that for a novelist to come in person in this way before his + readers involves grave risks; but when it is done without affectations, + starkly as a man comes in out of the darkness to tell of perplexing things + without—as, for instance, Mr. Joseph Conrad does for all practical + purposes in his "Lord Jim"—then it gives a sort of depth, a sort of + subjective reality, that no such cold, almost affectedly ironical + detachment as that which distinguishes the work of Mr. John Galsworthy, + for example, can ever attain. And in some cases the whole art and delight + of a novel may lie in the author's personal interventions; let such novels + as "Elizabeth and her German Garden," and the same writer's "Elizabeth in + R|gen," bear witness. + </p> + <p> + Now, all this time I have been hacking away at certain hampering and + limiting beliefs about the novel, letting it loose, as it were, in form + and purpose; I have still to say just what I think the novel is, and + where, if anywhere, its boundary-line ought to be drawn. It is by no means + an easy task to define the novel. It is not a thing premeditated. It is a + thing that has grown up into modern life, and taken upon itself uses and + produced results that could not have been foreseen by its originators. Few + of the important things in the collective life of man started out to be + what they are. Consider, for example, all the unexpected aesthetic values, + the inspiration and variety of emotional result which arises out of the + cross-shaped plan of the Gothic cathedral, and the undesigned delight and + wonder of white marble that has ensued, as I have been told, through the + ageing and whitening of the realistically coloured statuary of the Greeks + and Romans. Much of the charm of the old furniture and needlework, again, + upon which the present time sets so much store, lies in acquired and + unpremeditated qualities. And no doubt the novel grew up out of simple + story-telling, and the universal desire of children, old and young alike, + for a story. It is only slowly that we have developed the distinction of + the novel from the romance, as being a story of human beings, absolutely + credible and conceivable as distinguished from human beings frankly + endowed with the glamour, the wonder, the brightness, of a less exacting + and more vividly eventful world. The novel is a story that demands, or + professes to demand, no make-believe. The novelist undertakes to present + you people and things as real as any that you can meet in an omnibus. And + I suppose it is conceivable that a novel might exist which was just purely + a story of that kind and nothing more. It might amuse you as one is amused + by looking out of a window into a street, or listening to a piece of + agreeable music, and that might be the limit of its effect. But almost + always the novel is something more than that, and produces more effect + than that. The novel has inseparable moral consequences. It leaves + impressions, not simply of things seen, but of acts judged and made + attractive or unattractive. They may prove very slight moral consequences, + and very shallow moral impressions in the long run, but there they are, + none the less, its inevitable accompaniments. It is unavoidable that this + should be so. Even if the novelist attempts or affects to be impartial, he + still cannot prevent his characters setting examples; he still cannot + avoid, as people say, putting ideas into his readers' heads. The greater + his skill, the more convincing his treatment the more vivid his power of + suggestion. And it is equally impossible for him not to betray his sense + that the proceedings of this person are rather jolly and admirable, and of + that, rather ugly and detestable. I suppose Mr. Bennett, for example, + would say that he should not do so; but it is as manifest to any + disinterested observer that he greatly loves and admires his Card, as that + Richardson admired his Sir Charles Grandison, or that Mrs. Humphry Ward + considers her Marcella a very fine and estimable young woman. And I think + it is just in this, that the novel is not simply a fictitious record of + conduct, but also a study and judgment of conduct, and through that of the + ideas that lead to conduct, that the real and increasing value—or + perhaps to avoid controversy I had better say the real and increasing + importance—of the novel and of the novelist in modern life comes in. + </p> + <p> + It is no new discovery that the novel, like the drama, is a powerful + instrument of moral suggestion. This has been understood in England ever + since there has been such a thing as a novel in England. This has been + recognised equally by novelists, novel-readers, and the people who + wouldn't read novels under any condition whatever. Richardson wrote + deliberately for edification, and "Tom Jones" is a powerful and effective + appeal for a charitable, and even indulgent, attitude towards loose-living + men. But excepting Fielding and one or two other of those partial + exceptions that always occur in the case of critical generalisations, + there is a definable difference between the novel of the past and what I + may call the modern novel. It is a difference that is reflected upon the + novel from a difference in the general way of thinking. It lies in the + fact that formerly there was a feeling of certitude about moral values and + standards of conduct that is altogether absent to-day. It wasn't so much + that men were agreed upon these things—about these things there have + always been enormous divergences of opinion—as that men were + emphatic, cocksure, and unteachable about whatever they did happen to + believe to a degree that no longer obtains. This is the Balfourian age, + and even religion seeks to establish itself on doubt. There were, perhaps, + just as many differences in the past as there are now, but the outlines + were harder—they were, indeed, so hard as to be almost, to our + sense, savage. You might be a Roman Catholic, and in that case you did not + want to hear about Protestants, Turks, Infidels, except in tones of horror + and hatred. You knew exactly what was good and what was evil. Your priest + informed you upon these points, and all you needed in any novel you read + was a confirmation, implicit or explicit, of these vivid, rather than + charming, prejudices. If you were a Protestant you were equally clear and + unshakable. Your sect, whichever sect you belonged to, knew the whole of + truth and included all the nice people. It had nothing to learn in the + world, and it wanted to learn nothing outside its sectarian convictions. + The unbelievers you know, were just as bad, and said their creeds with an + equal fury—merely interpolating <i>nots</i>. People of every sort—Catholic, + Protestant, Infidel, or what not—were equally clear that good was + good and bad was bad, that the world was made up of good characters whom + you had to love, help and admire, and of bad characters to whom one might, + in the interests of goodness, even lie, and whom one had to foil, defeat + and triumph over shamelessly at every opportunity. That was the quality of + the times. The novel reflected this quality of assurance, and its utmost + charity was to unmask an apparent villain and show that he or she was + really profoundly and correctly good, or to unmask an apparent saint and + show the hypocrite. There was no such penetrating and pervading element of + doubt and curiosity—and charity, about the rightfulness and beauty + of conduct, such as one meets on every hand to-day. + </p> + <p> + The novel-reader of the past, therefore, like the novel-reader of the more + provincial parts of England to-day, judged a novel by the convictions that + had been built up in him by his training and his priest or his pastor. If + it agreed with these convictions he approved; if it did not agree he + disapproved—often with great energy. The novel, where it was not + unconditionally banned altogether as a thing disturbing and unnecessary, + was regarded as a thing subordinated to the teaching of the priest or + pastor, or whatever director and dogma was followed. Its modest moral + confirmations began when authority had completed its direction. The novel + was good—if it seemed to harmonise with the graver exercises + conducted by Mr. Chadband—and it was bad and outcast if Mr. Chadband + said so. And it is over the bodies of discredited and disgruntled + Chadbands that the novel escapes from its servitude and inferiority. + </p> + <p> + Now the conflict of authority against criticism is one of the eternal + conflicts of humanity. It is the conflict of organisation against + initiative, of discipline against freedom. It was the conflict of the + </p> + <p> + priest against the prophet in ancient Judaea, of the Pharisee against the + Nazarene, of the Realist against the Nominalist, of the Church against the + Franciscan and the Lollard, of the Respectable Person against the Artist, + of the hedge-clippers of mankind against the shooting buds. And to-day, + while we live in a period of tightening and extending social organisation, + we live also in a period of adventurous and insurgent thought, in an + intellectual spring unprecedented in the world's history. There is an + enormous criticism going on of the faiths upon which men's lives and + associations are based, and of every standard and rule of conduct. And it + is inevitable that the novel, just in the measure of its sincerity and + ability, should reflect and co-operate in the atmosphere and uncertainties + and changing variety of this seething and creative time. + </p> + <p> + And I do not mean merely that the novel is unavoidably charged with the + representation of this wide and wonderful conflict. It is a necessary part + of the conflict. The essential characteristic of this great intellectual + revolution amidst which we are living to-day, that revolution of which the + revival and restatement of nominalism under the name of pragmatism is the + philosophical aspect, consists in the reassertion of the importance of the + individual instance as against the generalisation. All our social, + political, moral problems are being approached in a new spirit, in an + inquiring and experimental spirit, which has small respect for abstract + principles and deductive rules. We perceive more and more clearly, for + example, that the study of social organisation is an empty and + unprofitable study until we approach it as a study of the association and + inter-reaction of individualised human beings inspired by diversified + motives, ruled by traditions, and swayed by the suggestions of a complex + intellectual atmosphere. And all our conceptions of the relationships + between man and man, and of justice and rightfulness and social + desirableness, remain something misfitting and inappropriate, something + uncomfortable and potentially injurious, as if we were trying to wear + sharp-edged clothes made for a giant out of tin, until we bring them to + the test and measure of realised individualities. + </p> + <p> + And this is where the value and opportunity of the modern novel comes in. + So far as I can see, it is the only medium through which we can discuss + the great majority of the problems which are being raised in such + bristling multitude by our contemporary social development Nearly every + one of those problems has at its core a psychological problem, and not + merely a psychological problem, but one in which the idea of individuality + is an essential factor. Dealing with most of these questions by a rule or + a generalisation is like putting a cordon round a jungle full of the most + diversified sort of game. The hunting only begins when you leave the + cordon behind you and push into the thickets. + </p> + <p> + Take, for example, the immense cluster of difficulties that arises out of + the increasing complexity of our state. On every hand we are creating + officials, and compared with only a few years ago the private life in a + dozen fresh directions comes into contact with officialdom. But we still + do practically nothing to work out the interesting changes that occur in + this sort of man and that, when you withdraw him as it were from the + common crowd of humanity, put his mind if not his body into uniform and + endow him with powers and functions and rules. It is manifestly a study of + the profoundest public and personal importance. It is manifestly a study + of increasing importance. The process of social and political organisation + that has been going on for the last quarter of a century is pretty clearly + going on now if anything with increasing vigour—and for the most + part the entire dependence of the consequences of the whole problem upon + the reaction between the office on the one hand and the weak, uncertain, + various human beings who take office on the other, doesn't seem even to be + suspected by the energetic, virtuous and more or less amiable people whose + activities in politics and upon the backstairs of politics bring about + these developments. They assume that the sort of official they need, a + combination of god-like virtue and intelligence with unfailing mechanical + obedience, can be made out of just any young nephew. And I know of no + means of persuading people that this is a rather unjustifiable assumption, + and of creating an intelligent controlling criticism of officials and of + assisting conscientious officials to an effective self-examination, and + generally of keeping the atmosphere of official life sweet and healthy, + except the novel. Yet so far the novel has scarcely begun its attack upon + this particular field of human life, and all the attractive varied play of + motive it contains. + </p> + <p> + Of course we have one supreme and devastating study of the illiterate + minor official in Bumble. That one figure lit up and still lights the + whole problem of Poor Law administration for the English reading + community. It was a translation of well-meant regulations and + pseudo-scientific conceptions of social order into blundering, arrogant, + ill-bred flesh and blood. It was worth a hundred Royal Commissions. You + may make your regulations as you please, said Dickens in effect; this is + one sample of the stuff that will carry them out. But Bumble stands almost + alone. Instead of realising that he is only one aspect of officialdom, we + are all too apt to make him the type of all officials, and not an urban + district council can get into a dispute about its electric light without + being denounced as a Bumbledom by some whirling enemy or other. The + burthen upon Bumble's shoulders is too heavy to be borne, and we want the + contemporary novel to give us a score of other figures to put beside him, + other aspects and reflections upon this great problem of officialism made + flesh. Bumble is a magnificent figure of the follies and cruelties of + ignorance in office—I would have every candidate for the post of + workhouse master pass a severe examination upon "Oliver Twist"—but + it is not only caricature and satire I demand. We must have not only the + fullest treatment of the temptations, vanities, abuses, and absurdities of + office, but all its dreams, its sense of constructive order, its + consolations, its sense of service, and its nobler satisfactions. You may + say that is demanding more insight and power in our novels and novelists + than we can possibly hope to find in them. So much the worse for us. I + stick to my thesis that the complicated social organisation of to-day + cannot get along without the amount of mutual understanding and mutual + explanation such a range of characterisation in our novels implies. The + success of civilisation amounts ultimately to a success of sympathy and + understanding. If people cannot be brought to an interest in one another + greater than they feel to-day, to curiosities and criticisms far keener, + and co-operations far subtler, than we have now; if class cannot be + brought to measure itself against, and interchange experience and sympathy + with class, and temperament with temperament then we shall never struggle + very far beyond the confused discomforts and uneasiness of to-day, and the + changes and complications of human life will remain as they are now, very + like the crumplings and separations and complications of an immense + avalanche that is sliding down a hill. And in this tremendous work of + human reconciliation and elucidation, it seems to me it is the novel that + must attempt most and achieve most. + </p> + <p> + You may feel disposed to say to all this: We grant the major premises, but + why look to the work of prose fiction as the main instrument in this + necessary process of, so to speak, sympathising humanity together? Cannot + this be done far more effectively through biography and autobiography, for + example? Isn't there the lyric; and, above all, isn't there the play? + Well, so far as the stage goes, I think it is a very charming and exciting + form of human activity, a display of actions and surprises of the most + moving and impressive sort; but beyond the opportunity it affords for + saying startling and thought-provoking things—opportunities Mr. + Shaw, for example, has worked to the utmost limit—I do not see that + the drama does much to enlarge our sympathies and add to our stock of + motive ideas. And regarded as a medium for startling and thought-provoking + things, the stage seems to me an extremely clumsy and costly affair. One + might just as well go about with a pencil writing up the thought-provoking + phrase, whatever it is, on walls. The drama excites our sympathies + intensely, but it seems to me it is far too objective a medium to widen + them appreciably, and it is that widening, that increase in the range of + understanding, at which I think civilisation is aiming. The case for + biography, and more particularly autobiography, as against the novel, is, + I admit, at the first blush stronger. You may say: Why give us these + creatures of a novelist's imagination, these phantom and fantastic + thinkings and doings, when we may have the stories of real lives, really + lived—the intimate record of actual men and women? To which one + answers: "Ah, if one could!" But it is just because biography does deal + with actual lives, actual facts, because it radiates out to touch + continuing interests and sensitive survivors, that it is so + unsatisfactory, so untruthful. Its inseparable falsehood is the worst of + all kinds of falsehood—the falsehood of omission. Think what an + abounding, astonishing, perplexing person Gladstone must have been in + life, and consider Lord Morley's "Life of Gladstone," cold, dignified—not + a life at all, indeed, so much as embalmed remains; the fire gone, the + passions gone, the bowels carefully removed. All biography has something + of that post-mortem coldness and respect, and as for autobiography—a + man may show his soul in a thousand half-conscious ways, but to turn upon + oneself and explain oneself is given to no one. It is the natural liars + and braggarts, your Cellinis and Casanovas, men with a habit of regarding + themselves with a kind of objective admiration, who do best in + autobiography. And, on the other hand, the novel has neither the intense + self-consciousness of autobiography nor the paralysing responsibilities of + the biographer. It is by comparison irresponsible and free. Because its + characters are figments and phantoms, they can be made entirely + transparent. Because they are fictions, and you know they are fictions, so + that they cannot hold you for an instant so soon as they cease to be true, + they have a power of veracity quite beyond that of actual records. Every + novel carries its own justification and its own condemnation in its + success or failure to convince you that <i>the thing was so</i>. Now + history, biography, blue-book and so forth, can hardly ever get beyond the + statement that the superficial fact was so. + </p> + <p> + You see now the scope of the claim I am making for the novel; it is to be + the social mediator, the vehicle of understanding, the instrument of + self-examination, the parade of morals and the exchange of manners, the + factory of customs, the criticism of laws and institutions and of social + dogmas and ideas. It is to be the home confessional, the initiator of + knowledge, the seed of fruitful self-questioning. Let me be very clear + here. I do not mean for a moment that the novelist is going to set up as a + teacher, as a sort of priest with a pen, who will make men and women + believe and do this and that. The novel is not a new sort of pulpit; + humanity is passing out of the phase when men <i>sit under</i> preachers + and dogmatic influences. But the novelist is going to be the most potent + of artists, because he is going to present conduct, devise beautiful + conduct, discuss conduct analyse conduct, suggest conduct, illuminate it + through and through. He will not teach, but discuss, point out, plead, and + display. And this being my view you will be prepared for the demand I am + now about to make for an absolutely free hand for the novelist in his + choice of topic and incident and in his method of treatment; or rather, if + I may presume to speak for other novelists, I would say it is not so much + a demand we make as an intention we proclaim. We are going to write, + subject only to our limitations, about the whole of human life. We are + going to deal with political questions and religious questions and social + questions. We cannot present people unless we have this free hand, this + unrestricted field. What is the good of telling stories about people's + lives if one may not deal freely with the religious beliefs and + organisations that have controlled or failed to control them? What is the + good of pretending to write about love, and the loyalties and treacheries + and quarrels of men and women, if one must not glance at those varieties + of physical temperament and organic quality, those deeply passionate needs + and distresses from which half the storms of human life are brewed? We + mean to deal with all these things, and it will need very much more than + the disapproval of provincial librarians, the hostility of a few + influential people in London, the scurrility of one paper, and the deep + and obstinate silences of another, to stop the incoming tide of aggressive + novel-writing. We are going to write about it all. We are going to write + about business and finance and politics and precedence and pretentiousness + and decorum and indecorum, until a thousand pretences and ten thousand + impostures shrivel in the cold, clear air of our elucidations. We are + going to write of wasted opportunities and latent beauties until a + thousand new ways of living open to men and women. We are going to appeal + to the young and the hopeful and the curious, against the established, the + dignified, and defensive. Before we have done, we will have all life + within the scope of the novel. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUBLIC LIBRARY + </h2> + <p> + Suppose a philosopher had a great deal of money to spend—though this + is not in accordance with experience, it is not inherently impossible—and + suppose he thought, as any philosopher does think, that the British public + ought to read much more and better books than they do, and that founding + public libraries was the way to induce them to do so, what sort of public + libraries would he found? That, I submit, is a suitable topic for a + disinterested speculator. + </p> + <p> + He would, I suppose, being a philosopher, begin by asking himself what a + library essentially was, and he would probably come to the eccentric + conclusion that it was essentially a collection of books. He would, in his + unworldliness, entirely overlook the fact that it might be a job for a + municipally influential builder, a costly but conspicuous monument to + opulent generosity, a news-room, an employment bureau, or a meeting-place + for the glowing young; he would never think for a moment of a library as a + thing one might build, it would present itself to him with astonishing + simplicity as a thing one would collect. Bricks ceased to be literature + after Babylon. + </p> + <p> + His first proceeding would be, I suppose, to make a list of that + collection. What books, he would say, have all my libraries to possess + anyhow? And he would begin to jot down—with the assistance of a few + friends, perhaps—this essential list. + </p> + <p> + He would, being a philosopher, insist on good editions, and he would also + take great pains with the selection. It would not be a limited or an + exclusive list—when in doubt he would include. He would disregard + modern fiction very largely, because any book that has any success can + always be bought for sixpence, and modern poetry, because, with an + exception or so, it does not signify at all. He would set almost all the + Greek and Roman literature in well-printed translations and with luminous + introductions—and if there were no good translations he would give + some good man #500 or so to make one—translations of all that is + good in modern European literatures, and, last but largest portion of his + list, editions of all that is worthy of our own. He would make a very + careful list of thoroughly modern encyclopaedias, atlases, and volumes of + information, and a particularly complete catalogue of all literature that + is still copyright; and then—with perhaps a secretary or so—he + would revise all his lists and mark against every book whether he would + have two, five or ten or twenty copies, or whatever number of copies of it + he thought proper in each library. + </p> + <p> + Then next, being a philosopher, he would decide that if he was going to + buy a great number of libraries in this way, he was going to make an + absolutely new sort of demand for these books, and that he was entitled to + a special sort of supply. + </p> + <p> + He would not expect the machinery of retail book-selling to meet the needs + of wholesale buying. So he would go either to wholesale booksellers, or + directly to the various publishers of the books and editions he had + chosen, and ask for reasonable special prices for the two thousand or + seven thousand or fifty thousand of each book he required. And the + publishers would, of course, give him very special prices, more especially + in the case of the out-of-copyright books. He would probably find it best + to buy whole editions in sheets and bind them himself in strong bindings. + And he would emerge from these negotiations in possession of a number of + complete libraries each of—how many books? Less than twenty thousand + ought to do it, I think, though that is a matter for separate discussion, + and that should cost him, buying in this wholesale way, under rather than + over #2,000 a library. + </p> + <p> + And next he would bethink himself of the readers of these books. "These + people," he would say, "do not know very much about books, which, indeed, + is why I am giving them this library." + </p> + <p> + Accordingly, he would get a number of able and learned people to write him + guides to his twenty thousand books, and, in fact, to the whole world of + reading, a guide, for example, to the books on history in general, a + special guide to books on English history, or French or German history, a + guide to the books on geology, a guide to poetry and poetical criticisms, + and so forth. + </p> + <p> + Some such books our philosopher would find already done—the + "Bibliography of American History," of the American Libraries' + Association, for example, and Mr. Nield's "Guide to Historical Fiction"—and + what are not done he would commission good men to do for him. Suppose he + had to commission forty such guides altogether and that they cost him on + the average #500 each, for he would take care not to sweat their makers, + then that would add another #20,000 to his expenditure. But if he was + going to found 400 libraries, let us say, that would only be #50 a library—a + very trivial addition to his expenditure. + </p> + <p> + The rarer books mentioned in these various guides would remind him, + however, of the many even his ample limit of twenty thousand forced him to + exclude, and he would, perhaps, consider the need of having two or three + libraries each for the storage of a hundred thousand books or so not kept + at the local libraries, but which could be sent to them at a day's notice + at the request of any reader. And then, and only then, would he give his + attention to the housing and staffing that this reality of books would + demand. + </p> + <p> + Being a philosopher and no fool, he would draw a very clear, hard + distinction between the reckless endowment of the building trade and the + dissemination of books. He would distinguish, too, between a library and a + news-room, and would find no great attraction in the prospect of supplying + the national youth with free but thumby copies of the sixpenny magazines. + He would consider that all that was needed for his library was, first, + easily accessible fireproof shelving for his collection, with ample space + for his additions, an efficient distributing office, a cloak-room, and so + forth, and eight or nine not too large, well lit, well carpeted, well + warmed and well ventilated rooms radiating from that office, in which the + guides and so forth could be consulted, and where those who had no + convenient, quiet room at home could read. + </p> + <p> + He would find that, by avoiding architectural vulgarities, a simple, well + proportioned building satisfying all these requirements and containing + housing for the librarian, assistant, custodian and staff could be built + for between #4,000 and #5,000, excluding the cost of site, and his sites, + which he would not choose for their conspicuousness, might average + something under another #1,000. + </p> + <p> + He would try to make a bargain with the local people for their + co-operation in his enterprise, though he would, as a philosopher, + understand that where a public library is least wanted it is generally + most needed. But in most cases he would succeed in stipulating for a + certain standard of maintenance by the local authority. Since moderately + prosperous illiterate men undervalue education and most town councillors + are moderately illiterate men, he would do his best to keep the salary and + appointment of the librarian out of such hands. He would stipulate for a + salary of at least #400, in addition to housing, light and heat, and he + would probably find it advisable to appoint a little committee of visitors + who would have the power to examine qualifications, endorse the + appointment, and recommend the dismissal of all his four hundred + librarians. He would probably try to make the assistantship at #100 a year + or thereabout a sort of local scholarship to be won by competition, and + only the cleaner and caretaker's place would be left to the local + politician. And, of course, our philosopher would stipulate that, apart + from all other expenditure, a sum of at least #200 a year should be set + aside for buying new books. + </p> + <p> + So our rich philosopher would secure at the minimum cost a number of + efficiently equipped libraries throughout the country. Eight thousand + pounds down and #900 a year is about as cheap as a public library can be. + Below that level, it would be cheaper to have no public library. Above + that level, a public library that is not efficient is either dishonestly + or incapably organised or managed, or it is serving too large a district + and needs duplication, or it is trying to do too much. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ABOUT CHESTERTON AND BELLOC + </h2> + <p> + It has been one of the less possible dreams of my life to be a painted + Pagan God and live upon a ceiling. I crown myself becomingly in stars or + tendrils or with electric coruscations (as the mood takes me), and wear an + easy costume free from complications and appropriate to the climate of + those agreeable spaces. The company about me on the clouds varies greatly + with the mood of the vision, but always it is in some way, if not always a + very obvious way, beautiful. One frequent presence is G.K. Chesterton, a + joyous whirl of brush work, appropriately garmented and crowned. When he + is there, I remark, the whole ceiling is by a sort of radiation convivial. + We drink limitless old October from handsome flagons, and we argue + mightily about Pride (his weak point) and the nature of Deity. A hygienic, + attentive, and essentially anaesthetic Eagle checks, in the absence of + exercise, any undue enlargement of our Promethean livers.... Chesterton + often—but never by any chance Belloc. Belloc I admire beyond + measure, but there is a sort of partisan viciousness about Belloc that + bars him from my celestial dreams. He never figures, no, not even in the + remotest corner, on my ceiling. And yet the divine artist, by some strange + skill that my ignorance of his technique saves me from the presumption of + explaining, does indicate exactly where Belloc is. A little quiver of the + paint, a faint aura, about the spectacular masses of Chesterton? I am not + certain. But no intelligent beholder can look up and miss the remarkable + fact that Belloc exists—and that he is away, safely away, away in + his heaven, which is, of course, the Park Lane Imperialist's hell. There + he presides.... + </p> + <p> + But in this life I do not meet Chesterton exalted upon clouds, and there + is but the mockery of that endless leisure for abstract discussion + afforded by my painted entertainments. I live in an urgent and incessant + world, which is at its best a wildly beautiful confusion of impressions + and at its worst a dingy uproar. It crowds upon us and jostles us, we get + our little interludes for thinking and talking between much rough + scuffling and laying about us with our fists. And I cannot afford to be + continually bickering with Chesterton and Belloc about forms of + expression. There are others for whom I want to save my knuckles. One may + be wasteful in peace and leisure, but economies are the soul of conflict. + </p> + <p> + In many ways we three are closely akin; we diverge not by necessity but + accident, because we speak in different dialects and have divergent + metaphysics. All that I can I shall persuade to my way of thinking about + thought and to the use of words in my loose, expressive manner, but Belloc + and Chesterton and I are too grown and set to change our languages now and + learn new ones; we are on different roads, and so we must needs shout to + one another across intervening abysses. These two say Socialism is a thing + they do not want for men, and I say Socialism is above all what I want for + men. We shall go on saying that now to the end of our days. But what we do + all three want is something very alike. Our different roads are parallel. + I aim at a growing collective life, a perpetually enhanced inheritance for + our race, through the fullest, freest development of the individual life. + What they aim at ultimately I do not understand, but it is manifest that + its immediate form is the fullest and freest development of the individual + life. We all three hate equally and sympathetically the spectacle of human + beings blown up with windy wealth and irresponsible power as cruelly and + absurdly as boys blow up frogs; we all three detest the complex causes + that dwarf and cripple lives from the moment of birth and starve and + debase great masses of mankind. We want as universally as possible the + jolly life, men and women warm-blooded and well-aired, acting freely and + joyously, gathering life as children gather corn-cockles in corn. We all + three want people to have property of a real and personal sort, to have + the son, as Chesterton put it, bringing up the port his father laid down, + and pride in the pears one has grown in one's own garden. And I agree with + Chesterton that giving—giving oneself out of love and fellowship—is + the salt of life. + </p> + <p> + But there I diverge from him, less in spirit, I think, than in the manner + of his expression. There is a base because impersonal way of giving. + "Standing drink," which he praises as noble, is just the thing I cannot + stand, the ultimate mockery and vulgarisation of that fine act of bringing + out the cherished thing saved for the heaven-sent guest. It is a mere + commercial transaction, essentially of the evil of our time. Think of it! + Two temporarily homeless beings agree to drink together, and they turn in + and face the public supply of drink (a little vitiated by private + commercial necessities) in the public-house. (It is horrible that life + should be so wholesale and heartless.) And Jones, with a sudden effusion + of manner, thrusts twopence or ninepence (got God knows how) into the + economic mysteries and personal delicacy of Brown. I'd as soon a man + slipped sixpence down my neck. If Jones has used love and sympathy to + detect a certain real thirst and need in Brown and knowledge and power in + its assuaging by some specially appropriate fluid, then we have an + altogether different matter; but the common business of "standing treat" + and giving presents and entertainments is as proud and unspiritual as + cock-crowing, as foolish and inhuman as that sorry compendium of + mercantile vices, the game of poker, and I am amazed to find Chesterton + commend it. + </p> + <p> + But that is a criticism by the way. Chesterton and Belloc agree with the + Socialist that the present world does not give at all what they want. They + agree that it fails to do so through a wild derangement of our property + relations. They are in agreement with the common contemporary man (whose + creed is stated, I think, not unfairly, but with the omission of certain + important articles by Chesterton), that the derangements of our property + relations are to be remedied by concerted action and in part by altered + laws. The land and all sorts of great common interests must be, if not + owned, then at least controlled, managed, checked, redistributed by the + State. Our real difference is only about a little more or a little less + owning. I do not see how Belloc and Chesterton can stand for anything but + a strong State as against those wild monsters of property, the strong, big + private owners. The State must be complex and powerful enough to prevent + them. State or plutocrat there is really no other practical alternative + before the world at the present time. Either we have to let the big + financial adventurers, the aggregating capitalist and his Press, in a + loose, informal combination, rule the earth, either we have got to stand + aside from preventive legislation and leave things to work out on their + present lines, or we have to construct a collective organisation + sufficiently strong for the protection of the liberties of the + some-day-to-be-jolly common man. So far we go in common. If Belloc and + Chesterton are not Socialists, they are at any rate not anti-Socialists. + If they say they want an organised Christian State (which involves + practically seven-tenths of the Socialist desire), then, in the face of + our big common enemies, of adventurous capital, of alien Imperialism, base + ambition, base intelligence, and common prejudice and ignorance, I do not + mean to quarrel with them politically, so long as they force no quarrel on + me. Their organised Christian State is nearer the organised State I want + than our present plutocracy. Our ideals will fight some day, and it will + be, I know, a first-rate fight, but to fight now is to let the enemy in. + When we have got all we want in common, then and only then can we afford + to differ. I have never believed that a Socialist Party could hope to form + a Government in this country in my lifetime; I believe it less now than + ever I did. I don't know if any of my Fabian colleagues entertain so + remarkable a hope. But if they do not, then unless their political aim is + pure cantankerousness, they must contemplate a working political + combination between the Socialist members in Parliament and just that + non-capitalist section of the Liberal Party for which Chesterton and + Belloc speak. Perpetual opposition is a dishonourable aim in politics; and + a man who mingles in political development with no intention of taking on + responsible tasks unless he gets all his particular formulae accepted is a + pervert, a victim of Irish bad example, and unfit far decent democratic + institutions ... + </p> + <p> + I digress again, I see, but my drift I hope is clear. Differ as we may, + Belloc and Chesterton are with all Socialists in being on the same side of + the great political and social cleavage that opens at the present time. We + and they are with the interests of the mass of common men as against that + growing organisation of great owners who have common interests directly + antagonistic to those of the community and State. We Socialists are only + secondarily politicians. Our primary business is not to impose upon, but + to ram right into the substance of that object of Chesterton's solicitude, + the circle of ideas of the common man, the idea of the State as his own, + as a thing he serves and is served by. We want to add to his sense of + property rather than offend it. If I had my way I would do that at the + street corners and on the trams, I would take down that alien-looking and + detestable inscription "L.C.C.," and put up, "This Tram, this Street, + belongs to the People of London." Would Chesterton or Belloc quarrel with + that? Suppose that Chesterton is right, and that there are incurable + things in the mind of the common man flatly hostile to our ideals; so much + of our ideals will fail. But we are doing our best by our lights, and all + we can. What are Chesterton and Belloc doing? If our ideal is partly right + and partly wrong, are they trying to build up a better ideal? Will they + state a Utopia and how they propose it shall be managed? If they lend + their weight only to such fine old propositions as that a man wants + freedom, that he has a right to do as he likes with his own, and so on, + they won't help the common man much. All that fine talk, without some + further exposition, goes to sustain Mr. Rockefeller's simple human love of + property, and the woman and child sweating manufacturer in his fight for + the inspector-free home industry. I bought on a bookstall the other day a + pamphlet full of misrepresentation and bad argument against Socialism by + an Australian Jew, published by the Single-Tax people apparently in a + disinterested attempt to free the land from the landowner by the simple + expedient of abusing anyone else who wanted to do as much but did not hold + Henry George to be God and Lord; and I know Socialists who will protest + with tears in their eyes against association with any human being who + sings any song but the "Red Flag" and doubts whether Marx had much + experience of affairs. Well, there is no reason why Chesterton and Belloc + should at their level do the same sort of thing. When we talk on a ceiling + or at a dinner-party with any touch of the celestial in its composition, + Chesterton and I, Belloc and I, are antagonists with an undying feud, but + in the fight against human selfishness and narrowness and for a finer, + juster law, we are brothers—at the remotest, half-brothers. + </p> + <p> + Chesterton isn't a Socialist—agreed! But now, as between us and the + Master of Elibank or Sir Hugh Bell or any other Free Trade Liberal + capitalist or landlord, which side is he on? You cannot have more than one + fight going on in the political arena at the same time, because only one + party or group of parties can win. + </p> + <p> + And going back for a moment to that point about a Utopia, I want one from + Chesterton. Purely unhelpful criticism isn't enough from a man of his + size. It isn't justifiable for him to go about sitting on other people's + Utopias. I appeal to his sense of fair play. I have done my best to + reconcile the conception of a free and generous style of personal living + with a social organisation that will save the world from the harsh + predominance of dull, persistent, energetic, unscrupulous grabbers + tempered only by the vulgar extravagance of their wives and sons. It isn't + an adequate reply to say that nobody stood treat there, and that the + simple, generous people like to beat their own wives and children on + occasion in a loving and intimate manner, and that they won't endure the + spirit of Mr. Sidney Webb. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ABOUT SIR THOMAS MORE + </h2> + <p> + There are some writers who are chiefly interesting in themselves, and some + whom chance and the agreement of men have picked out as symbols and + convenient indications of some particular group or temperament of + opinions. To the latter it is that Sir Thomas More belongs. An age and a + type of mind have found in him and his Utopia a figurehead and a token; + and pleasant and honourable as his personality and household present + themselves to the modern reader, it is doubtful if they would by this time + have retained any peculiar distinction among the many other contemporaries + of whom we have chance glimpses in letters and suchlike documents, were it + not that he happened to be the first man of affairs in England to imitate + the "Republic" of Plato. By that chance it fell to him to give the world a + noun and an adjective of abuse, "Utopian," and to record how under the + stimulus of Plato's releasing influence the opening problems of our modern + world presented themselves to the English mind of his time. For the most + part the problems that exercised him are the problems that exercise us + to-day, some of them, it may be, have grown up and intermarried, new ones + have joined their company, but few, if any, have disappeared, and it is + alike in his resemblances to and differences from the modern speculative + mind that his essential interest lies. + </p> + <p> + The portrait presented by contemporary mention and his own intentional and + unintentional admissions, is of an active-minded and agreeable-mannered + man, a hard worker, very markedly prone to quips and whimsical sayings and + plays upon words, and aware of a double reputation as a man of erudition + and a wit. This latter quality it was that won him advancement at court, + and it may have been his too clearly confessed reluctance to play the part + of an informal table jester to his king that laid the grounds of that + deepening royal resentment that ended only with his execution. But he was + also valued by the king for more solid merits, he was needed by the king, + and it was more than a table scorned or a clash of opinion upon the + validity of divorce; it was a more general estrangement and avoidance of + service that caused that fit of regal petulance by which he died. + </p> + <p> + It would seem that he began and ended his career in the orthodox religion + and a general acquiescence in the ideas and customs of his time, and he + played an honourable and acceptable part in that time; but his permanent + interest lies not in his general conformity but in his incidental + scepticism, in the fact that underlying the observances and recognised + rules and limitations that give the texture of his life were the + profoundest doubts, and that, stirred and disturbed by Plato, he saw fit + to write them down. One may question if such scepticism is in itself + unusual, whether any large proportion of great statesmen, great + ecclesiastics and administrators have escaped phases of destructive + self-criticism of destructive criticism of the principles upon which their + general careers were framed. But few have made so public an admission as + Sir Thomas More. A good Catholic undoubtedly he was, and yet we find him + capable of conceiving a non-Christian community excelling all Christendom + in wisdom and virtue; in practice his sense of conformity and orthodoxy + was manifest enough, but in his "Utopia" he ventures to contemplate, and + that not merely wistfully, but with some confidence, the possibility of an + absolute religious toleration. + </p> + <p> + The "Utopia" is none the less interesting because it is one of the most + inconsistent of books. Never were the forms of Socialism and Communism + animated by so entirely an Individualist soul. The hands are the hands of + Plato, the wide-thinking Greek, but the voice is the voice of a humane, + public-spirited, but limited and very practical English gentleman who + takes the inferiority of his inferiors for granted, dislikes friars and + tramps and loafers and all undisciplined and unproductive people, and is + ruler in his own household. He abounds in sound practical ideas, for the + migration of harvesters, for the universality of gardens and the + artificial incubation of eggs, and he sweeps aside all Plato's suggestion + of the citizen woman as though it had never entered his mind. He had + indeed the Whig temperament, and it manifested itself down even to the + practice of reading aloud in company, which still prevails among the more + representative survivors of the Whig tradition. He argues ably against + private property, but no thought of any such radicalism as the admission + of those poor peons of his, with head half-shaved and glaring uniform + against escape, to participation in ownership appears in his proposals. + His communism is all for the convenience of his Syphogrants and + Tranibores, those gentlemen of gravity and experience, lest one should + swell up above the others. So too is the essential Whiggery of the + limitation of the Prince's revenues. It is the very spirit of eighteenth + century Constitutionalism. And his Whiggery bears Utilitarianism instead + of the vanity of a flower. Among his cities, all of a size, so that "he + that knoweth one knoweth all," the Benthamite would have revised his + sceptical theology and admitted the possibility of heaven. + </p> + <p> + Like any Whig, More exalted reason above the imagination at every point, + and so he fails to understand the magic prestige of gold, making that + beautiful metal into vessels of dishonour to urge his case against it, nor + had he any perception of the charm of extravagance, for example, or the + desirability of various clothing. The Utopians went all in coarse linen + and undyed wool—why should the world be coloured?—and all the + economy of labour and shortening of the working day was to no other end + than to prolong the years of study and the joys of reading aloud, the + simple satisfactions of the good boy at his lessons, to the very end of + life. "In the institution of that weal publique this end is only and + chiefly pretended and minded, that what time may possibly be spared from + the necessary occupations and affairs of the commonwealth, all that the + citizens should withdraw from the bodily service to the free liberty of + the mind and garnishing of the same. For herein they suppose the felicity + of this life to consist." + </p> + <p> + Indeed, it is no paradox to say that "Utopia," which has by a conspiracy + of accidents become a proverb for undisciplined fancifulness in social and + political matters, is in reality a very unimaginative work. In that, next + to the accident of its priority, lies the secret of its continuing + interest. In some respects it is like one of those precious and delightful + scrapbooks people disinter in old country houses; its very poverty of + synthetic power leaves its ingredients, the cuttings from and imitations + of Plato, the recipe for the hatching of eggs, the stern resolutions + against scoundrels and rough fellows, all the sharper and brighter. There + will always be found people to read in it, over and above the countless + multitudes who will continue ignorantly to use its name for everything + most alien to More's essential quality. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TRAFFIC AND REBUILDING + </h2> + <p> + The London traffic problem is just one of those questions that appeal very + strongly to the more prevalent and less charitable types of English mind. + It has a practical and constructive air, it deals with impressively + enormous amounts of tangible property, it rests with a comforting effect + of solidity upon assumptions that are at once doubtful and desirable. It + seems free from metaphysical considerations, and it has none of those + disconcerting personal applications, those penetrations towards intimate + qualities, that makes eugenics, for example, faintly but persistently + uncomfortable. It is indeed an ideal problem for a healthy, hopeful, and + progressive middle-aged public man. And, as I say, it deals with enormous + amounts of tangible property. + </p> + <p> + Like all really serious and respectable British problems it has to be + handled gently to prevent its coming to pieces in the gift. It is safest + in charge of the expert, that wonderful last gift of time. He will talk + rapidly about congestion, long-felt wants, low efficiency, economy, and + get you into his building and rebuilding schemes with the minimum of doubt + and head-swimming. He is like a good Hendon pilot. Unspecialised writers + have the destructive analytical touch. They pull the wrong levers. So far + as one can gather from the specialists on the question, there is very + considerable congestion in many of the London thoroughfares, delays that + seem to be avoidable occur in the delivery of goods, multitudes of empty + vans cumber the streets, we have hundreds of acres of idle trucks—there + are more acres of railway sidings than of public parks in Greater London—and + our Overseas cousins find it ticklish work crossing Regent Street and + Piccadilly. Regarding life simply as an affair of getting people and + things from where they are to where they appear to be wanted, this seems + all very muddled and wanton. So far it is quite easy to agree with the + expert. And some of the various and entirely incompatible schemes experts + are giving us by way of a remedy, appeal very strongly to the imagination. + For example, there is the railway clearing house, which, it is suggested, + should cover I do not know how many acres of what is now slumland in + Shoreditch. The position is particularly convenient for an underground + connection with every main line into London. Upon the underground level of + this great building every goods train into London will run. Its trucks and + vans will be unloaded, the goods passed into lifts, which will take every + parcel, large and small, at once to a huge, ingeniously contrived + sorting-floor above. There in a manner at once simple, ingenious and + effective, they will be sorted and returned, either into delivery vans at + the street level or to the trains emptied and now reloading on the train + level. Above and below these three floors will be extensive warehouse + accommodation. Such a scheme would not only release almost all the vast + area of London now under railway yards for parks and housing, but it would + give nearly every delivery van an effective load, and probably reduce the + number of standing and empty vans or half-empty vans on the streets of + London to a quarter or an eighth of the present number. Mostly these are + heavy horse vans, and their disappearance would greatly facilitate the + conversion of the road surfaces to the hard and even texture needed for + horseless traffic. + </p> + <p> + But that is a scheme too comprehensive and rational for the ordinary + student of the London traffic problem, whose mind runs for the most part + on costly and devastating rearrangements of the existing roadways. + Moreover, it would probably secure a maximum of effect with a minimum of + property manipulation; always an undesirable consideration in practical + politics. And it would commit London and England to goods transit by + railway for another century. Far more attractive to the expert advisers of + our various municipal authorities are such projects as a new Thames bridge + scheme, which will (with incalculable results) inject a new stream of + traffic into Saint Paul's Churchyard; and the removal of Charing Cross + Station to the south side of the river. Then, again, we have the + systematic widening of various thoroughfares, the shunting of tramways + into traffic streams, and many amusing, expensive, and interesting + tunnellings and clearances. Taken together, these huge reconstructions of + London are incoherent and conflicting; each is based on its own + assumptions and separate "expert" advice, and the resulting new opening + plays its part in the general circulation as duct or aspirator, often with + the most surprising results. The discussion of the London traffic problem + as we practise it in our clubs is essentially the sage turning over and + over again of such fragmentary schemes, headshakings over the vacant sites + about Aldwych and the Strand, brilliant petty suggestions and—dispersal. + Meanwhile the experts intrigue; one partial plan after another gets itself + accepted, this and that ancient landmark perish, builders grow rich, and + architects infamous, and some Tower Bridge horror, some vulgarity of the + Automobile Club type, some Buckingham Palace atrocity, some Regent Street + stupidity, some such cramped and thwarted thing as that new arch which + gives upon Charing Cross is added to the confusion. I do not see any + reason to suppose that this continuous muddle of partial destruction and + partial rebuilding is not to constitute the future history of London. + </p> + <p> + Let us, however, drop the expert methods and handle this question rather + more rudely. Do we want London rebuilt? If we do, is there, after all, any + reason why we should rebuild it on its present site? London is where it is + for reasons that have long ceased to be valid; it grew there, it has + accumulated associations, an immense tradition, that this constant mucking + about of builders and architects is destroying almost as effectually as + removal to a new site. The old sort of rebuilding was a natural and + picturesque process, house by house, and street by street, a thing as + pleasing and almost as natural in effect as the spreading and interlacing + of trees; as this new building, this clearance of areas, the piercing of + avenues, becomes more comprehensive, it becomes less reasonable. If we can + do such big things we may surely attempt bigger things, so that whether we + want to plan a new capital or preserve the old, it comes at last to the + same thing, that it is unreasonable to be constantly pulling down the + London we have and putting it up again. Let us drain away our heavy + traffic into tunnels, set up that clearing-house plan, and control the + growth at the periphery, which is still so witless and ugly, and, save for + the manifest tidying and preserving that is needed, begin to leave the + central parts of London, which are extremely interesting even where they + are not quite beautiful, in peace. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE SO-CALLED SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY + </h2> + <p> + It has long been generally recognised that there are two quite divergent + ways of attacking sociological and economic questions, one that is called + scientific and one that is not, and I claim no particular virtue in the + recognition of that; but I do claim a certain freshness in my analysis of + this difference, and it is to that analysis that your attention is now + called. When I claim freshness I do not make, you understand, any claim to + original discovery. What I have to say, and have been saying for some + time, is also more or less, and with certain differences to be found in + the thought of Professor Bosanquet, for example, in Alfred Sidgwick's "Use + of Words in Reasoning," in Sigwart's "Logic," in contemporary American + metaphysical speculation. I am only one incidental voice speaking in a + general movement of thought. My trend of thought leads me to deny that + sociology is a science, or only a science in the same loose sense that + modern history is a science, and to throw doubt upon the value of + sociology that follows too closely what is called the scientific method. + </p> + <p> + The drift of my argument is to dispute not only that sociology is a + science, but also to deny that Herbert Spencer and Comte are to be exalted + as the founders of a new and fruitful system of human inquiry. I find + myself forced to depreciate these modern idols, and to reinstate the Greek + social philosophers in their vacant niches, to ask you rather to go to + Plato for the proper method, the proper way of thinking sociologically. + </p> + <p> + We certainly owe the word Sociology to Comte, a man of exceptionally + methodical quality. I hold he developed the word logically from an + arbitrary assumption that the whole universe of being was reducible to + measurable and commeasurable and exact and consistent expressions. + </p> + <p> + In a very obvious way, sociology seemed to Comte to crown the edifice of + the sciences; it was to be to the statesman what pathology and physiology + were to the doctor; and one gathers that, for the most part, he regarded + it as an intellectual procedure in no way differing from physics. His + classification of the sciences shows pretty clearly that he thought of + them all as exact logical systematisations of fact arising out of each + other in a synthetic order, each lower one containing the elements of a + lucid explanation of those above it—physics explaining chemistry; + chemistry, physiology; physiology, sociology; and so forth. His actual + method was altogether unscientific; but through all his work runs the + assumption that in contrast with his predecessors he is really being as + exact and universally valid as mathematics. To Herbert Spencer—very + appropriately since his mental characteristics make him the English + parallel to Comte—we owe the naturalisation of the word in English. + His mind being of greater calibre than Comte's, the subject acquired in + his hands a far more progressive character. Herbert Spencer was less + unfamiliar with natural history than with any other branch of practical + scientific work; and it was natural he should turn to it for precedents in + sociological research. His mind was invaded by the idea of classification, + by memories of specimens and museums; and he initiated that accumulation + of desiccated anthropological anecdotes that still figures importantly in + current sociological work. On the lines he initiated sociological + investigation, what there is of it, still tends to go. + </p> + <p> + From these two sources mainly the work of contemporary sociologists + derives. But there persists about it a curious discursiveness that + reflects upon the power and value of the initial impetus. Mr. V.V. + Branford, the able secretary of the Sociological Society, recently + attempted a useful work in a classification of the methods of what he + calls "approach," a word that seems to me eminently judicious and + expressive. A review of the first volume the Sociological Society has + produced brings home the aptness of this image of exploratory operations, + of experiments in "taking a line." The names of Dr. Beattie Crozier and + Mr. Benjamin Kidd recall works that impress one as large-scale sketches of + a proposed science rather than concrete beginnings and achievements. The + search for an arrangement, a "method," continues as though they were not. + The desperate resort to the analogical method of Commenius is confessed by + Dr. Steinmetz, who talks of social morphology, physiology, pathology, and + so forth. There is also a less initiative disposition in the Vicomte + Combes de Lestrade and in the work of Professor Giddings. In other + directions sociological work is apt to lose its general reference + altogether, to lapse towards some department of activity not primarily + sociological at all. Examples of this are the works of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney + Webb, M. Ostrogorski and M. Gustave le Bon. From a contemplation of all + this diversity Professor Durkheim emerges, demanding a "synthetic + science," "certain synthetic conceptions"—and Professor Karl Pearson + endorses the demand—to fuse all these various activities into + something that will live and grow. What is it that tangles this question + so curiously that there is not only a failure to arrive at a conclusion, + but a failure to join issue? + </p> + <p> + Well, there is a certain not too clearly recognised order in the sciences + to which I wish to call your attention, and which forms the gist of my + case against this scientific pretension. There is a gradation in the + importance of the instance as one passes from mechanics and physics and + chemistry through the biological sciences to economics and sociology, a + gradation whose correlatives and implications have not yet received + adequate recognition, and which do profoundly affect the method of study + and research in each science. + </p> + <p> + Let me begin by pointing out that, in the more modern conceptions of + logic, it is recognised that there are no identically similar objective + experiences; the disposition is to conceive all real objective being as + individual and unique. This is not a singular eccentric idea of mine; it + is one for which ample support is to be found in the writings of + absolutely respectable contemporaries, who are quite untainted by + association with fiction. It is now understood that conceivably only in + the subjective world, and in theory and the imagination, do we deal with + identically similar units, and with absolutely commensurable quantities. + In the real world it is reasonable to suppose we deal at most with <i>practically</i> + similar units and <i>practically</i> commensurable quantities. But there + is a strong bias, a sort of labour-saving bias in the normal human mind to + ignore this, and not only to speak but to think of a thousand bricks or a + thousand sheep or a thousand sociologists as though they were all + absolutely true to sample. If it is brought before a thinker for a moment + that in any special case this is not so, he slips back to the old attitude + as soon as his attention is withdrawn. This source of error has, for + instance, caught nearly the whole race of chemists, with one or two + distinguished exceptions, and <i>atoms</i> and <i>ions</i> and so forth of + the same species are tacitly assumed to be similar one to another. Be it + noted that, so far as the practical results of chemistry and physics go, + it scarcely matters which assumption we adopt. For purposes of inquiry and + discussion the incorrect one is infinitely more convenient. + </p> + <p> + But this ceases to be true directly we emerge from the region of chemistry + and physics. In the biological sciences of the eighteenth century, + commonsense struggled hard to ignore individuality in shells and plants + and animals. There was an attempt to eliminate the more conspicuous + departures as abnormalities, as sports, nature's weak moments, and it was + only with the establishment of Darwin's great generalisation that the hard + and fast classificatory system broke down, and individuality came to its + own. Yet there had always been a clearly felt difference between the + conclusions of the biological sciences and those dealing with lifeless + substance, in the relative vagueness, the insubordinate looseness and + inaccuracy of the former. The naturalist accumulated facts and multiplied + names, but he did not go triumphantly from generalisation to + generalisation after the fashion of the chemist or physicist. It is easy + to see, therefore, how it came about that the inorganic sciences were + regarded as the true scientific bed-rock. It was scarcely suspected that + the biological sciences might perhaps, after all, be <i>truer</i> than the + experimental, in spite of the difference in practical value in favour of + the latter. It was, and is by the great majority of people to this day, + supposed to be the latter that are invincibly true; and the former are + regarded as a more complex set of problems merely, with obliquities and + refractions that presently will be explained away. Comte and Herbert + Spencer certainly seem to me to have taken that much for granted. Herbert + Spencer no doubt talked of the unknown and the unknowable, but not in this + sense, as an element of inexactness running through all things. He thought + of the unknown as the indefinable beyond to an immediate world that might + be quite clearly and exactly known. + </p> + <p> + Well, there is a growing body of people who are beginning to hold the + converse view—that counting, classification, measurement, the whole + fabric of mathematics, is subjective and deceitful, and that the + uniqueness of individuals is the objective truth. As the number of units + taken diminishes, the amount of variety and inexactness of generalisation + increases, because individuality tells more and more. Could you take men + by the thousand billion, you could generalise about them as you do about + atoms; could you take atoms singly, it may be you would find them as + individual as your aunts and cousins. That concisely is the minority + belief, and it is the belief on which this present paper is based. + </p> + <p> + Now, what is called the scientific method is the method of ignoring + individualities; and, like many mathematical conventions, its great + practical convenience is no proof whatever of its final truth. Let me + admit the enormous value, the wonder of its results in mechanics, in all + the physical sciences, in chemistry, even in physiology—but what is + its value beyond that? Is the scientific method of value in biology? The + great advances made by Darwin and his school in biology were not made, it + must be remembered, by the scientific method, as it is generally + conceived, at all. He conducted a research into pre-documentary history. + He collected information along the lines indicated by certain + interrogations; and the bulk of his work was the digesting and critical + analysis of that. For documents and monuments he had fossils and + anatomical structures and germinating eggs too innocent to lie, and so far + he was nearer simplicity. But, on the other hand, he had to correspond + with breeders and travellers of various sorts, classes entirely analogous, + from the point of view of evidence, to the writers of history and memoirs. + I question profoundly whether the word "science," in current usage anyhow, + ever means such patient disentanglement as Darwin pursued. It means the + attainment of something positive and emphatic in the way of a conclusion, + based on amply repeated experiments capable of infinite repetition, + "proved," as they say, "up to the hilt." + </p> + <p> + It would be, of course, possible to dispute whether the word "science" + should convey this quality of certitude; but to most people it certainly + does at the present time. So far as the movements of comets and electric + trams go, there is, no doubt, practically cocksure science; and + indisputably Comte and Herbert Spencer believed that cocksure could be + extended to every conceivable finite thing. The fact that Herbert Spencer + called a certain doctrine Individualism reflects nothing on the + non-individualising quality of his primary assumptions and of his mental + texture. He believed that individuality (heterogeneity) was and is an + evolutionary product from an original homogeneity. It seems to me that the + general usage is entirely for the limitation of the use of the word + "science" to knowledge and the search after knowledge of a high degree of + precision. And not simply the general usage: "Science is measurement," + Science is "organised common sense," proud, in fact, of its essential + error, scornful of any metaphysical analysis of its terms. + </p> + <p> + If we quite boldly face the fact that hard positive methods are less and + less successful just in proportion as our "ologies" deal with larger and + less numerous individuals; if we admit that we become less "scientific" as + we ascend the scale of the sciences, and that we do and must change our + method, then, it is humbly submitted we shall be in a much better position + to consider the question of "approaching" sociology. We shall realise that + all this talk of the organisation of sociology, as though presently the + sociologist would be going about the world with the authority of a + sanitary engineer, is and will remain nonsense. + </p> + <p> + In one respect we shall still be in accordance with the Positivist map of + the field of human knowledge; with us as with that, sociology stands at + the extreme end of the scale from the molecular sciences. In these latter + there is an infinitude of units; in sociology, as Comte perceived, there + is only one unit. It is true that Herbert Spencer, in order to get + classification somehow, did, as Professor Durkheim has pointed out, + separate human society into societies, and made believe they competed one + with another and died and reproduced just like animals, and that + economists, following List, have for the purposes of fiscal controversy + discovered economic types; but this is a transparent device, and one is + surprised to find thoughtful and reputable writers off their guard against + such bad analogy. But, indeed, it is impossible to isolate complete + communities of men, or to trace any but rude general resemblances between + group and group. These alleged units have as much individuality as pieces + of cloud; they come, they go, they fuse and separate. And we are forced to + conclude that not only is the method of observation, experiment, and + verification left far away down the scale, but that the method of + classification under types, which has served so useful a purpose in the + middle group of subjects, the subjects involving numerous but a finite + number of units, has also to be abandoned here. We cannot put Humanity + into a museum, or dry it for examination; our one single still living + specimen is all history, all anthropology, and the fluctuating world of + men. There is no satisfactory means of dividing it, and nothing else in + the real world with which to compare it. We have only the remotest ideas + of its "life-cycle" and a few relics of its origin and dreams of its + destiny ... + </p> + <p> + Sociology, it is evident, is, upon any hypothesis, no less than the + attempt to bring that vast, complex, unique Being, its subject, into + clear, true relations with the individual intelligence. Now, since + individual intelligences are individual, and each is a little differently + placed in regard to the subject under consideration, since the personal + angle of vision is much wider towards humanity than towards the + circumambient horizon of matter, it should be manifest that no sociology + of universal compulsion, of anything approaching the general validity of + the physical sciences, is ever to be hoped for—at least upon the + metaphysical assumptions of this paper. With that conceded, we may go on + to consider the more hopeful ways in which that great Being may be + presented in a comprehensible manner. Essentially this presentation must + involve an element of self-expression must partake quite as much of the + nature of art as of science. One finds in the first conference of the + Sociological Society, Professor Stein, speaking, indeed a very different + philosophical dialect from mine, but coming to the same practical + conclusion in the matter, and Mr. Osman Newland counting "evolving ideals + for the future" as part of the sociologist's work. Mr. Alfred Fouillie + also moves very interestingly in the region of this same idea; he concedes + an essential difference between sociology and all other sciences in the + fact of a "certain kind of liberty belonging to society in the exercise of + its higher functions." He says further: "If this view be correct, it will + not do for us to follow in the steps of Comte and Spencer, and transfer, + bodily and ready-made, the conceptions and the methods of the natural + sciences into the science of society. For here the fact of <i>consciousness</i> + entails a reaction of the whole assemblage of social phenomena upon + themselves, such as the natural sciences have no example of." And he + concludes: "Sociology ought, therefore, to guard carefully against the + tendency to crystallise that which is essentially fluid and moving, the + tendency to consider as given fact or dead data that which creates itself + and gives itself into the world of phenomena continually by force of its + own ideal conception." These opinions do, in their various keys, sound a + similar <i>motif</i> to mine. If, indeed, the tendency of these remarks is + justifiable, then unavoidably the subjective element, which is beauty, + must coalesce with the objective, which is truth; and sociology mast be + neither art simply, nor science in the narrow meaning of the word at all, + but knowledge rendered imaginatively, and with an element of personality + that is to say, in the highest sense of the term, literature. + </p> + <p> + If this contention is sound, if therefore we boldly set aside Comte and + Spencer altogether, as pseudo-scientific interlopers rather than the + authoritative parents of sociology, we shall have to substitute for the + classifications of the social sciences an inquiry into the chief literary + forms that subserve sociological purposes. Of these there are two, one + invariably recognised as valuable and one which, I think, under the + matter-of-fact scientific obsession, is altogether underrated and + neglected The first, which is the social side of history, makes up the + bulk of valid sociological work at the present time. Of history there is + the purely descriptive part, the detailed account of past or contemporary + social conditions, or of the sequence of such conditions; and, in + addition, there is the sort of historical literature that seeks to + elucidate and impose general interpretations upon the complex of + occurrences and institutions, to establish broad historical + generalisations, to eliminate the mass of irrelevant incident, to present + some great period of history, or all history, in the light of one dramatic + sequence, or as one process. This Dr. Beattie Crozier, for example, + attempts in his "History of Intellectual Development." Equally + comprehensive is Buckle's "History of Civilisation." Lecky's "History of + European Morals," during the onset of Christianity again, is essentially + sociology. Numerous works—Atkinson's "Primal Law," and Andrew Lang's + "Social Origins," for example—may be considered, as it were, to be + fragments to the same purport. In the great design of Gibbon's "Decline + and Fall of the Roman Empire," or Carlyle's "French Revolution," you have + a greater insistence upon the dramatic and picturesque elements in + history, but in other respects an altogether kindred endeavour to impose + upon the vast confusions of the past a scheme of interpretation, valuable + just to the extent of its literary value, of the success with which the + discrepant masses have been fused and cast into the shape the insight of + the writer has determined. The writing of great history is entirely + analogous to fine portraiture, in which fact is indeed material, but + material entirely subordinate to vision. + </p> + <p> + One main branch of the work of a Sociological Society therefore should + surely be to accept and render acceptable, to provide understanding, + criticism, and stimulus for such literary activities as restore the dead + bones of the past to a living participation in our lives. + </p> + <p> + But it is in the second and at present neglected direction that I believe + the predominant attack upon the problem implied by the word "sociology" + must lie; the attack that must be finally driven home. There is no such + thing in sociology as dispassionately considering what <i>is</i>, without + considering what is <i>intended to be</i>. In sociology, beyond any + possibility of evasion, ideas are facts. The history of civilisation is + really the history of the appearance and reappearance, the tentatives and + hesitations and alterations, the manifestations and reflections in this + mind and that, of a very complex, imperfect elusive idea, the Social Idea. + It is that idea struggling to exist and realise itself in a world of + egotisms, animalisms, and brute matter. Now, I submit it is not only a + legitimate form of approach, but altogether the most promising and hopeful + form of approach, to endeavour to disentangle and express one's personal + version of that idea, and to measure realities from the stand-point of + that idealisation. I think, in fact, that the creation of Utopias—and + their exhaustive criticism—is the proper and distinctive method of + sociology. + </p> + <p> + Suppose now the Sociological Society, or some considerable proportion of + it, were to adopt this view, that sociology is the description of the + Ideal Society and its relation to existing societies, would not this give + the synthetic framework Professor Durkheim, for example, has said to be + needed? + </p> + <p> + Almost all the sociological literature beyond the province of history that + has stood the test of time and established itself in the esteem of men is + frankly Utopian. Plato, when his mind turned to schemes of social + reconstruction thrust his habitual form of dialogue into a corner; both + the "Republic" and the "Laws" are practically Utopias in monologue; and + Aristotle found the criticism of the Utopian suggestions of his + predecessors richly profitable. Directly the mind of the world emerged + again at the Renascence from intellectual barbarism in the brief breathing + time before Sturm and the schoolmasters caught it and birched it into + scholarship and a new period of sterility, it went on from Plato to the + making of fresh Utopias. Not without profit did More discuss pauperism in + this form and Bacon the organisation of research; and the yeast of the + French Revolution was Utopias. Even Comte, all the while that he is + professing science, fact, precision, is adding detail after detail to the + intensely personal Utopia of a Western Republic that constitutes his one + meritorious gift to the world. Sociologists cannot help making Utopias; + though they avoid the word, though they deny the idea with passion, their + very silences shape a Utopia. Why should they not follow the precedent of + Aristotle, and accept Utopias as material? + </p> + <p> + There used to be in my student days, and probably still flourishes, a most + valuable summary of fact and theory in comparative anatomy, called + Rolleston's "Forms of Animal Life." I figure to myself a similar book, a + sort of dream book of huge dimensions, in reality perhaps dispersed in + many volumes by many hands, upon the Ideal Society. This book, this + picture of the perfect state, would be the backbone of sociology. It would + have great sections devoted to such questions as the extent of the Ideal + Society, its relation to racial differences, the relations of the sexes in + it, its economic organisations, its organisation for thought and + education, its "Bible"—as Dr. Beattie Crozier would say—its + housing and social atmosphere, and so forth. Almost all the divaricating + work at present roughly classed together as sociological could be brought + into relation in the simplest manner, either as new suggestions, as new + discussion or criticism, as newly ascertained facts bearing upon such + discussions and sustaining or eliminating suggestions. The institutions of + existing states would come into comparison with the institutions of the + Ideal State, their failures and defects would be criticised most + effectually in that relation, and the whole science of collective + psychology, the psychology of human association, would be brought to bear + upon the question of the practicability of this proposed ideal. + </p> + <p> + This method would give not only a boundary shape to all sociological + activities, but a scheme of arrangement for text books and lectures, and + points of direction and reference for the graduation and post graduate + work of sociological students. + </p> + <p> + Only one group of inquiries commonly classed as sociological would have to + be left out of direct relationship with this Ideal State; and that is + inquiries concerning the rough expedients to meet the failure of imperfect + institutions. Social emergency work of all sorts comes under this head. + What to do with the pariah dogs of Constantinople, what to do with the + tramps who sleep in the London parks, how to organise a soup kitchen or a + Bible coffee van, how to prevent ignorant people, who have nothing else to + do, getting drunk in beer-houses, are no doubt serious questions for the + practical administrator, questions of primary importance to the + politician; but they have no more to do with sociology than the erection + of a temporary hospital after the collision of two trains has to do with + railway engineering. + </p> + <p> + So much for my second and most central and essential portion of + sociological work. It should be evident that the former part, the + historical part, which conceivably will be much the bulkier and more + abundant of the two, will in effect amount to a history of the suggestions + in circumstance and experience of that Idea of Society of which the second + will consist, and of the instructive failures in attempting its incomplete + realisation. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + DIVORCE + </h2> + <p> + The time is fast approaching when it will be necessary for the general + citizen to form definite opinions upon proposals for probably quite + extensive alterations of our present divorce laws, arising out of the + recommendations of the recent Royal Commission on the subject. It may not + be out of place, therefore, to run through some of the chief points that + are likely to be raised, and to set out the main considerations affecting + these issues. + </p> + <p> + Divorce is not one of those things that stand alone, and neither divorce + law nor the general principles of divorce are to be discussed without a + reference to antecedent arrangements. Divorce is a sequel to marriage, and + a change in the divorce law is essentially a change in the marriage law. + There was a time in this country when our marriage was a practically + divorceless bond, soluble only under extraordinary circumstances by people + in situations of exceptional advantage for doing so. Now it is a bond + under conditions, and in the event of the adultery of the wife, or of the + adultery plus cruelty or plus desertion of the husband, and of one or two + other rarer and more dreadful offences, it can be broken at the instance + of the aggrieved party. A change in the divorce law is a change in the + dissolution clauses, so to speak, of the contract for the marriage + partnership. It is a change in the marriage law. + </p> + <p> + A great number of people object to divorce under any circumstances + whatever. This is the case with the orthodox Catholic and with the + orthodox Positivist. And many religious and orthodox people carry their + assertion of the indissolubility of marriage to the grave; they demand + that the widow or widower shall remain unmarried, faithful to the vows + made at the altar until death comes to the release of the lonely survivor + also. Re-marriage is regarded by such people as a posthumous bigamy. There + is certainly a very strong and logical case to be made out for a marriage + bond that is indissoluble even by death. It banishes step-parents from the + world. It confers a dignity of tragic inevitability upon the association + of husband and wife, and makes a love approach the gravest, most momentous + thing in life. It banishes for ever any dream of escape from the presence + and service of either party, or of any separation from the children of the + union. It affords no alternative to "making the best of it" for either + husband or wife; they have taken a step as irrevocable as suicide. And + some logical minds would even go further, and have no law as between the + members of a family, no rights, no private property within that limit. The + family would be the social unit and the father its public representative, + and though the law might intervene if he murdered or ill-used wife or + children, or they him, it would do so in just the same spirit that it + might prevent him from self-mutilation or attempted suicide, for the good + of the State simply, and not to defend any supposed independence of the + injured member. There is much, I assert, to be said for such a complete + shutting up of the family from the interference of the law, and not the + least among these reasons is the entire harmony of such a view with the + passionate instincts of the natural man and woman in these matters. All + unsophisticated human beings appear disposed to a fierce proprietorship in + their children and their sexual partners, and in no respect is the + ordinary mortal so easily induced to vehemence and violence. + </p> + <p> + For my own part, I do not think the maintenance of a marriage that is + indissoluble, that precludes the survivor from re-marriage, that gives + neither party an external refuge from the misbehaviour of the other, and + makes the children the absolute property of their parents until they grow + up, would cause any very general unhappiness Most people are reasonable + enough, good-tempered enough, and adaptable enough to shake down even in a + grip so rigid, and I would even go further and say that its very rigidity, + the entire absence of any way out at all, would oblige innumerable people + to accommodate themselves to its conditions and make a working success of + unions that, under laxer conditions, would be almost certainly dissolved. + We should have more people of what I may call the "broken-in" type than an + easier release would create, but to many thinkers the spectacle of a human + being thoroughly "broken-in" is in itself extremely satisfactory. A few + more crimes of desperation perhaps might occur, to balance against an + almost universal effort to achieve contentment and reconciliation. We + should hear more of the "natural law" permitting murder by the jealous + husband or by the jealous wife, and the traffic in poisons would need a + sedulous attention—but even there the impossibility of re-marriage + would operate to restrain the impatient. On the whole, I can imagine the + world rubbing along very well with marriage as unaccommodating as a + perfected steel trap. Exceptional people might suffer or sin wildly—to + the general amusement or indignation. + </p> + <p> + But when once we part from the idea of such a rigid and eternal marriage + bond—and the law of every civilised country and the general thought + and sentiment everywhere have long since done so—then the whole + question changes. If marriage is not so absolutely sacred a bond, if it is + not an eternal bond, but a bond we may break on this account or that, then + at once we put the question on a different footing. If we may terminate it + for adultery or cruelty, or any cause whatever, if we may suspend the + intimacy of husband and wife by separation orders and the like, if we + recognise their separate property and interfere between them and their + children to ensure the health and education of the latter, then we open at + once the whole question of a terminating agreement. Marriage ceases to be + an unlimited union and becomes a definite contract. We raise the whole + question of "What are the limits in marriage, and how and when may a + marriage terminate?" + </p> + <p> + Now, many answers are being given to that question at the present time. We + may take as the extremest opposite to the eternal marriage idea the + proposal of Mr. Bernard Shaw, that marriage should be terminable at the + instance of either party. You would give due and public notice that your + marriage was at an end, and it would be at an end. This is marriage at its + minimum, as the eternal indissoluble marriage is marriage at its maximum, + and the only conceivable next step would be to have a marriage makeable by + the oral declaration of both parties and terminable by the oral + declaration of either, which would be, indeed, no marriage at all, but an + encounter. You might marry a dozen times in that way in a day.... + Somewhere between these extremes lies the marriage law of a civilised + state. Let us, rather than working down from the eternal marriage of the + religious idealists, work up from Mr. Shaw. The former course is, perhaps, + inevitable for the legislator, but the latter is much more convenient for + our discussion. + </p> + <p> + Now, the idea of a divorce so easy and wilful as Mr. Shaw proposes arises + naturally out of an exclusive consideration of what I may call the amorous + sentimentalities of marriage. If you regard marriage as merely the union + of two people in love, then, clearly, it is intolerable, an outrage upon + human dignity, that they should remain intimately united when either + ceases to love. And in that world of Mr. Shaw's dreams, in which everybody + is to have an equal income and nobody is to have children, in that + culminating conversazione of humanity, his marriage law will, no doubt, + work with the most admirable results. But if we make a step towards + reality and consider a world in which incomes are unequal, and economic + difficulties abound—for the present we will ignore the complication + of offspring—we at once find it necessary to modify the first fine + simplicity of divorce at either partner's request. Marriage is almost + always a serious economic disturbance for both man and woman: work has to + be given up and rearranged, resources have to be pooled; only in the + rarest cases does it escape becoming an indefinite business partnership. + Accordingly, the withdrawal of one partner raises at once all sorts of + questions of financial adjustment, compensation for physical, mental, and + moral damage, division of furniture and effects and so forth. No doubt a + very large part of this could be met if there existed some sort of + marriage settlement providing for the dissolution of the partnership. + Otherwise the petitioner for a Shaw-esque divorce must be prepared for the + most exhaustive and penetrating examination before, say, a court of three + assessors—representing severally the husband, the wife, and justice—to + determine the distribution of the separation. This point, however, leads + me to note in passing the need that does exist even to-day for a more + precise business supplement to marriage as we know it in England and + America. I think there ought to be a very definite and elaborate treaty of + partnership drawn up by an impartial private tribunal for every couple + that marries, providing for most of the eventualities of life, taking + cognizance of the earning power, the property and prospects of either + party, insisting upon due insurances, ensuring private incomes for each + partner, securing the welfare of the children, and laying down equitable + conditions in the event of a divorce or separation. Such a treaty ought to + be a necessary prelude to the issue of a licence to marry. And given such + a basis to go upon, then I see no reason why, in the case of couples who + remain childless for five or six years, let us say, and seem likely to + remain childless, the Shaw-esque divorce at the instance of either party, + without reason assigned, should not be a very excellent thing indeed. + </p> + <p> + And I take up this position because I believe in the family as the + justification of marriage. Marriage to me is no mystical and eternal + union, but a practical affair, to be judged as all practical things are + judged—by its returns in happiness and human welfare. And directly + we pass from the mists and glamours of amorous passion to the warm + realities of the nursery, we pass into a new system of considerations + altogether. We are no longer considering A. in relation to Mrs. A., but A. + and Mrs. A. in relation to an indefinite number of little A.'s, who are + the very life of the State in which they live. Into the case of Mr. A. <i>v</i>. + Mrs. A. come Master A. and Miss A. intervening. They have the strongest + claim against both their parents for love, shelter and upbringing, and the + legislator and statesman, concerned as he is chiefly with the future of + the community, has the strongest reasons for seeing that they get these + things, even at the price of considerable vexation, boredom or indignity + to Mr. and Mrs. A. And here it is that there arises the rational case + against free and frequent divorce and the general unsettlement and + fluctuation of homes that would ensue. + </p> + <p> + At this point we come to the verge of a jungle of questions that would + demand a whole book for anything like a complete answer. Let us try as + swiftly and simply as possible to form a general idea at least of the way + through. Remember that we are working upward from Mr. Shaw's question of + "Why not separate at the choice of either party?" We have got thus far, + that no two people who do not love each other should be compelled to live + together, except where the welfare of their children comes in to override + their desire to separate, and now we have to consider what may or may not + be for the welfare of the children. Mr. Shaw, following the late Samuel + Butler, meets this difficulty by the most extravagant abuse of parents. He + would have us believe that the worst enemies a child can have are its + mother and father, and that the only civilised path to citizenship is by + the incubator, the crjche, and the mixed school and college. In these + matters he is not only ignorant, but unfeeling and unsympathetic, + extraordinarily so in view of his great capacity for pity and sweetness in + other directions and of his indignant hatred of cruelty and unfairness, + and it is not necessary to waste time in discussing what the common + experience confutes Neither is it necessary to fly to the other extreme, + and indulge in preposterous sentimentalities about the magic of fatherhood + and a mother's love. These are not magic and unlimited things, but + touchingly qualified and human things. The temperate truth of the matter + is that in most parents there are great stores of pride, interest, natural + sympathy, passionate love and devotion which can be tapped in the + interests of the children and the social future, and that it is the mere + commonsense of statecraft to use their resources to the utmost. It does + not follow that every parent contains these reservoirs, and that a + continual close association with the parents is always beneficial to + children. If it did, we should have to prosecute everyone who employed a + governess or sent away a little boy to a preparatory school. And our real + task is to establish a test that will gauge the desirability and benefit + of a parent's continued parentage. There are certainly parents and homes + from which the children might be taken with infinite benefit to themselves + and to society, and whose union it is ridiculous to save from the divorce + court shears. + </p> + <p> + Suppose, now, we made the willingness of a parent to give up his or her + children the measure of his beneficialness to them. There is no reason why + we should restrict divorce only to the relation of husband and wife. Let + us broaden the word and make it conceivable for a husband or wife to + divorce not only the partner, but the children. Then it might be possible + to meet the demands of the Shaw-esque extremist up to the point of + permitting a married parent, who desired freedom, to petition for a + divorce, not from his or her partner simply, but from his or her family, + and even for a widow or widower to divorce a family. Then would come the + task of the assessors. They would make arrangements for the dissolution of + the relationship, erring from justice rather in the direction of + liberality towards the divorced group, they would determine contributions, + exact securities appoint trustees and guardians.... On the whole, I do not + see why such a system should not work very well. It would break up many + loveless homes, quarrelling and bickering homes, and give a safety-valve + for that hate which is the sinister shadow of love. I do not think it + would separate one child from one parent who was really worthy of its + possession. + </p> + <p> + So far I have discussed only the possibility of divorce without offences, + the sort of divorce that arises out of estrangement and incompatibilities. + But divorce, as it is known in most Christian countries, has a punitive + element, and is obtained through the failure of one of the parties to + observe the conditions of the bond and the determination of the other to + exact suffering. Divorce as it exists at present is not a readjustment but + a revenge. It is the nasty exposure of a private wrong. In England a + husband may divorce his wife for a single act of infidelity, and there can + be little doubt that we are on the eve of an equalisation of the law in + this respect. I will confess I consider this an extreme concession to the + passion of jealousy, and one likely to tear off the roof from many a + family of innocent children. Only infidelity leading to supposititious + children in the case of the wife, or infidelity obstinately and + offensively persisted in or endangering health in the case of the husband, + really injure the home sufficiently to justify a divorce on the + assumptions of our present argument. If we are going to make the welfare + of the children our criterion in these matters, then our divorce law does + in this direction already go too far. A husband or wife may do far more + injury to the home by constantly neglecting it for the companionship of + some outside person with whom no "matrimonial offence" is ever committed. + Of course, if our divorce law exists mainly for the gratification of the + fiercer sexual resentments, well and good, but if that is so, let us + abandon our pretence that marriage is an institution for the establishment + and protection of homes. And while on the one hand existing divorce laws + appear to be obsessed by sexual offences, other things of far more evil + effect upon the home go without a remedy. There are, for example, + desertion, domestic neglect, cruelty to the children drunkenness or + harmful drug-taking, indecency of living and uncontrollable extravagance. + I cannot conceive how any logical mind, having once admitted the principle + of divorce, can hesitate at making these entirely home-wrecking things the + basis of effective pleas. But in another direction, some strain of + sentimentality in my nature makes me hesitate to go with the great + majority of divorce law reformers. I cannot bring myself to agree that + either a long term of imprisonment or the misfortune of insanity should in + itself justify a divorce. I admit the social convenience, but I wince at + the thought of those tragic returns of the dispossessed. So far as + insanity goes, I perceive that the cruelty of the law would but endorse + the cruelty of nature. But I do not like men to endorse the cruelty of + nature. + </p> + <p> + And, of course, there is no decent-minded person nowadays but wants to put + an end to that ugly blot upon our civilisation, the publication of + whatever is most spicy and painful in divorce court proceedings. It is an + outrage which falls even more heavily on the innocent than on the guilty, + and which has deterred hundreds of shy and delicate-minded people from + seeking legal remedies for nearly intolerable wrongs. The sort of person + who goes willingly to the divorce court to-day is the sort of person who + would love a screaming quarrel in a crowded street. The emotional breach + of the marriage bond is as private an affair as its consummation, and it + would be nearly as righteous to subject young couples about to marry to a + blustering cross-examination by some underbred bully of a barrister upon + their motives, and then to publish whatever chance phrases in their + answers appeared to be amusing in the press, as it is to publish + contemporary divorce proceedings. The thing is a nastiness, a stream of + social contagion and an extreme cruelty, and there can be no doubt that + whatever other result this British Royal Commission may have, there at + least will be many sweeping alterations. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE EMPIRE + </h2> + <p> + Sec. 1 + </p> + <p> + "If Youth but Knew" is the title of a book published some years ago, but + still with a quite living interest, by "Kappa"; it is the bitter complaint + of a distressed senior against our educational system. He is hugely + disappointed in the public-school boy, and more particularly in one + typical specimen. He is—if one might hazard a guess—an uncle + bereft of great expectations. He finds an echo in thousands of other + distressed uncles and parents. They use the most divergent and inadequate + forms of expression for this vague sense that the result has not come out + good enough; they put it contradictorily and often wrongly, but the sense + is widespread and real and justifiable and we owe a great debt to "Kappa" + for an accurate diagnosis of what in the aggregate amounts to a grave + national and social evil. + </p> + <p> + The trouble with "Kappa's" particular public-school boy is his unlit + imagination, the apathetic commonness of his attitude to life at large. He + is almost stupidly not interested in the mysteries of material fact, nor + in the riddles and great dramatic movements of history, indifferent to any + form of beauty, and pedantically devoted to the pettiness of games and + clothing and social conduct. It is, in fact, chiefly by his style in these + latter things, his extensive unilluminated knowledge of Greek and Latin, + and his greater costliness, that he differs from a young carpenter or + clerk. A young carpenter or clerk of the same temperament would have no + narrower prejudices nor outlook, no less capacity for the discussion of + broad questions and for imaginative thinking. And it has come to the mind + of "Kappa" as a discovery, as an exceedingly remarkable and moving thing, + a thing to cry aloud about, that this should be so, that this is all that + the best possible modern education has achieved. He makes it more than a + personal issue. He has come to the conclusion that this is not an + exceptional case at all, but a fair sample of what our upper-class + education does for the imagination of those who must presently take the + lead among us. He declares plainly that we are raising a generation of + rulers and of those with whom the duty of initiative should chiefly + reside, who have minds atrophied by dull studies and deadening + suggestions, and he thinks that this is a matter of the gravest concern + for the future of this land and Empire. It is difficult to avoid agreeing + with him either in his observation or in his conclusion. Anyone who has + seen much of undergraduates, or medical students, or Army candidates, and + also of their social subordinates, must be disposed to agree that the + difference between the two classes is mainly in unimportant things—in + polish, in manner, in superficialities of accent and vocabulary and social + habit—and that their minds, in range and power, are very much on a + level. With an invincibly aristocratic tradition we are failing altogether + to produce a leader class adequate to modern needs. The State is + light-headed. + </p> + <p> + But while one agrees with "Kappa" and shares his alarm, one must confess + the remedies he considers indicated do not seem quite so satisfactory as + his diagnosis of the disease. He attacks the curriculum and tells us we + must reduce or revolutionise instruction and exercise in the dead + languages, introduce a broader handling of history, a more inspiring + arrangement of scientific courses, and so forth. I wish, indeed, it were + possible to believe that substituting biology for Greek prose composition + or history with models and photographs and diagrams for Latin + versification, would make any considerable difference in this matter. For + so one might discuss this question and still give no offence to a most + amiable and influential class of men. But the roots of the evil, the + ultimate cause of that typical young man's deadness, lie not at all in + that direction. To indicate the direction in which it does lie is quite + unavoidably to give offence to an indiscriminatingly sensitive class. Yet + there is need to speak plainly. This deadening of soul comes not from the + omission or inclusion of this specific subject or that; it is the effect + of the general scholastic atmosphere. It is an atmosphere that admits of + no inspiration at all. It is an atmosphere from which living stimulating + influences have been excluded from which stimulating and vigorous + personalities are now being carefully eliminated, and in which dull, + prosaic men prevail invincibly. The explanation of the inert commonness of + "Kappa's" schoolboy lies not in his having learnt this or not learnt that, + but in the fact that from seven to twenty he has been in the intellectual + shadow of a number of good-hearted, sedulously respectable conscientiously + manly, conforming, well-behaved men, who never, to the knowledge of their + pupils and the public, at any rate, think strange thoughts do imaginative + or romantic things, pay tribute to beauty, laugh carelessly, or + countenance any irregularity in the world. All erratic and enterprising + tendencies in him have been checked by them and brought at last to + nothing; and so he emerges a mere residuum of decent minor dispositions. + The dullness of the scholastic atmosphere the grey, intolerant mediocrity + that is the natural or assumed quality of every upper-class schoolmaster, + is the true cause of the spiritual etiolation of "Kappa's" young friend. + </p> + <p> + Now, it is a very grave thing, I know, to bring this charge against a + great profession—to say, as I do say, that it is collectively and + individually dull. But someone has to do this sooner or later; we have + restrained ourselves and argued away from the question too long. There is, + I allege, a great lack of vigorous and inspiring minds in our schools. Our + upper-class schools are out of touch with the thought of the time, in a + backwater of intellectual apathy. We have no original or heroic + school-teachers. Let me ask the reader frankly what part our leading + headmasters play in his intellectual world; if when some prominent one + among them speaks or writes or talks, he expects anything more than + platitudes and little things? Has he ever turned aside to learn what this + headmaster or that thought of any question that interested him? Has he + ever found freshness or power in a schoolmaster's discourse; or found a + schoolmaster caring keenly for fine and beautiful things? Who does not + know the schoolmaster's trite, safe admirations, his thin, evasive + discussion, his sham enthusiasms for cricket, for fly-fishing, for + perpendicular architecture, for boyish traits; his timid refuge in "good + form," his deadly silences? + </p> + <p> + And if we do not find him a refreshing and inspiring person, and his mind + a fountain of thought in which we bathe and are restored, is it likely our + sons will? If the schoolmaster at large is grey and dull, shirking + interesting topics and emphatic speech, what must he be like in the + monotonous class-room? These may seem wanton charges to some, but I am not + speaking without my book. Monthly I am brought into close contact with the + pedagogic intelligence through the medium of three educational magazines. + A certain morbid habit against which I struggle in vain makes me read + everything I catch a schoolmaster writing. I am, indeed, one of the + faithful band who read the Educational Supplement of the <i>Times</i>. In + these papers schoolmasters write about their business, lectures upon the + questions of their calling are reported at length, and a sort of invalid + discussion moves with painful decorum through the correspondence column. + The scholastic mind so displayed in action fascinates me. It is like + watching a game of billiards with wooden cushes and beechwood balls. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 2 + </p> + <p> + But let me take one special instance. In a periodical, now no longer + living, called the <i>Independent Review</i>, there appeared some years + ago a very curious and typical contribution by the Headmaster of Dulwich, + which I may perhaps use as an illustration of the mental habits which seem + inseparably associated with modern scholastic work. It is called "English + Ideas on Education," and it begins—trite, imitative, undistinguished—thus: + </p> + <p> + "The most important question in a country is that of education, and the + most important people in a country are those who educate its inhabitants. + Others have most of the present in their hands: those who educate have all + the future. With the present is bound up all the happiness only of the + utterly selfish and the thoughtless among mankind; on the future rest all + the thoughts of every parent and every wise man and patriot." + </p> + <p> + It is the opening of a boy's essay. And from first to last this remarkable + composition is at or below that level. It is an entirely inconclusive + paper, it is impossible to understand why it was written; it quotes + nothing it says nothing about and was probably written in ignorance of + "Kappa" or any other modern contributor to English ideas, and it occupied + about six and a quarter of the large-type pages of this now vanished <i>Independent + Review</i>. "English Ideas on Education"!—this very brevity is + eloquent, the more so since the style is by no means succinct. It must be + read to be believed. It is quite extraordinarily non-prehensile in quality + and substance nothing is gripped and maintained and developed; it is like + the passing of a lax hand over the surfaces of disarranged things. It is + difficult to read, because one's mind slips over it and emerges too soon + at the end, mildly puzzled though incurious still as to what it is all + about. One perceives Mr. Gilkes through a fog dimly thinking that Greek + has something vital to do with "a knowledge of language and man," that the + classical master is in some mysterious way superior to the science man and + more imaginative, and that science men ought not to be worried with the + Greek that is too high for them; and he seems, too, to be under the odd + illusion that "on all this" Englishmen "seem now to be nearly in + agreement," and also on the opinion that games are a little overdone and + that civic duties and the use of the rifle ought to be taught. Statements + are made—the sort of statements that are suffered in an atmosphere + where there is no swift, fierce opposition to be feared; they frill out + into vague qualifications and butt gently against other partially + contradictory statements. There is a classification of minds—the + sort of classification dear to the Y.M.C.A. essayists, made for the + purposes of the essay and unknown to psychology. There are, we are told, + accurate unimaginative, ingenious minds capable of science and kindred + vulgar things (such was Archimedes), and vague, imaginative minds, with + the gift for language and for the treatment of passion and the higher + indefinable things (such as Homer and Mr. Gilkes), and, somehow, this + justifies those who are destined for "science" in dropping Greek. Certain + "considerations," however, loom inconclusively upon this issue—rather + like interested spectators of a street fight in a fog. For example, to + learn a language is valuable "in proportion as the nation speaking it is + great"—a most empty assertion; and "no languages are so good," for + the purpose of improving style, "as the exact and beautiful languages of + Rome and Greece." + </p> + <p> + Is it not time at least that this last, this favourite but threadbare + article of the schoolmaster's creed was put away for good? Everyone who + has given any attention to this question must be aware that the + intellectual gesture is entirely different in highly inflected languages + such as Greek and Latin and in so uninflected a language as English, that + learning Greek to improve one's English style is like learning to swim in + order to fence better, and that familiarity with Greek seems only too + often to render a man incapable of clear, strong expression in English at + all. Yet Mr. Gilkes can permit this old assertion, so dear to country + rectors and the classical scholar, to appear within a column's distance of + such style as this: + </p> + <p> + "It is now understood that every subject is valuable, if it is properly + taught; it will perform that which, as follows from the accounts given + above of the aim of education, is the work most important in the case of + boys—that is, it will draw out their faculties and make them useful + in the world, alert, trained in industry, and able to understand, so far + as their school lessons educated them, and make themselves master of any + subject set before them." + </p> + <p> + This quotation is conclusive. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 3 + </p> + <p> + I am haunted by a fear that the careless reader will think I am writing + against upper-class schoolmasters. I am, it is undeniable, writing against + their dullness, but it is, I hold, a dullness that is imposed upon them by + the conditions under which they live. Indeed, I believe, could I put the + thing directly to the profession—"Do you not yourselves feel + needlessly limited and dull?"—should receive a majority of + affirmative responses. We have, as a nation, a certain ideal of what a + schoolmaster must be; to that he must by art or nature approximate, and + there is no help for it but to alter our ideal. Nothing else of any wide + value can be done until that is done. + </p> + <p> + In the first place, the received ideal omits a most necessary condition. + We do not insist upon a headmaster or indeed any of our academic leaders + and dignitaries, being a man of marked intellectual character, a man of + intellectual distinction. It is assumed, rather lightly in many cases, + that he has done "good work," as they say—the sort of good work that + is usually no good at all, that increases nothing, changes nothing, + stimulates no one, leads no whither. That, surely, must be altered. We + must see to it that our leading schoolmasters at any rate must be men of + insight and creative intelligence, men who could at a pinch write a good + novel or produce illuminating criticism or take an original part in + theological or philosophical discussion, or do any of these minor things. + They must be authentic men, taking a line of their own and capable of + intellectual passion. They should be able to make their mark outside the + school, if only to show they carry a living soul into it. As things are, + nothing is so fatal to a schoolmaster's career as to do that. + </p> + <p> + And closely related to this omission is our extreme insistence upon what + we call high moral character, meaning, really, something very like an + entire absence of moral character. We insist upon tact, conformity, and an + unblemished record. Now, in these days, of warring opinion, these days of + gigantic, strange issues that cannot possibly be expressed in the formulae + of the smaller times that have gone before, tact is evasion, conformity + formality, and silence an unblemished record, mere evidence of the damning + burial of a talent of life. The sort of man into whose hands we give our + sons' minds must never have experimented morally or thought at all freely + or vigorously about, for example, God, Socialism, the Mosaic account of + the Creation, social procedure, Republicanism, beauty, love, or, indeed, + about anything likely to interest an intelligent adolescent. At the + approach of all such things he must have acquired the habit of the modest + cough, the infectious trick of the nice evasion. How can "Kappa" expect + inspiration from the decorous resultants who satisfy these conditions? + What brand can ever be lit at altars that have borne no fire? And you find + the secondary schoolmaster who complies with these restrictions becoming + the zealous and grateful agent of the tendencies that have made him what + he is, converting into a practice those vague dreads of idiosyncrasy, of + positive acts and new ideas, that dictated the choice of him and his rule + of life. His moral teaching amounts to this: to inculcate truth-telling + about small matters and evasion about large, and to cultivate a morbid + obsession in the necessary dawn of sexual consciousness. So far from + wanting to stimulate the imagination, he hates and dreads it. I find him + perpetually haunted by a ridiculous fear that boys will "do something," + and in his terror seeking whatever is dull and unstimulating and tiring in + intellectual work, clipping their reading, censoring their periodicals, + expurgating their classics, substituting the stupid grind of organised + "games" for natural, imaginative play, persecuting loafers—and so + achieving his end and turning out at last, clean-looking, passively + well-behaved, apathetic, obliterated young men, with the nicest manners + and no spark of initiative at all, quite safe not to "do anything" for + ever. + </p> + <p> + I submit this may be a very good training for polite servants, but it is + not the way to make masters in the world. If we English believe we are + indeed a masterful people, we must be prepared to expose our children to + more and more various stimulations than we do; they must grow up free, + bold, adventurous, initiated, even if they have to take more risks in the + doing of that. An able and stimulating teacher is as rare as a fine + artist, and is a thing worth having for your son, even at the price of + shocking your wife by his lack of respect for that magnificent compromise, + the Establishment, or you by his Socialism or by his Catholicism or + Darwinism, or even by his erroneous choice of ties and collars. Boys who + are to be free, masterly men must hear free men talking freely of + religion, of philosophy, of conduct. They must have heard men of this + opinion and that, putting what they believe before them with all the + courage of conviction. They must have an idea of will prevailing over + form. It is far more important that boys should learn from original, + intellectually keen men than they should learn from perfectly respectable + men, or perfectly orthodox men, or perfectly nice men. The vital thing to + consider about your son's schoolmaster is whether he talked lifeless + twaddle yesterday by way of a lesson, and not whether he loved unwisely or + was born of poor parents, or was seen wearing a frock-coat in combination + with a bowler, or confessed he doubted the Apostles' Creed, or called + himself a Socialist, or any disgraceful thing like that, so many years + ago. It is that sort of thing "Kappa" must invert if he wants a change in + our public schools. You may arrange and rearrange curricula, abolish + Greek, substitute "science"—it will not matter a rap. Even those + model canoes of yours, "Kappa," will be wasted if you still insist upon + model schoolmasters. So long as we require our schoolmasters to be + politic, conforming, undisturbing men, setting up Polonius as an ideal for + them, so long will their influence deaden the souls of our sons. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE ENDOWMENT OF MOTHERHOOD + </h2> + <p> + Some few years ago the Fabian Society, which has been so efficient in + keeping English Socialism to the lines of "artfulness and the 'eighties," + refused to have anything to do with the Endowment of Motherhood. + Subsequently it repented and produced a characteristic pamphlet in which + the idea was presented with a sort of minimising furtiveness as a mean + little extension of outdoor relief. These Fabian Socialists, instead of + being the daring advanced people they are supposed to be, are really in + many things twenty years behind the times. There need be nothing + shamefaced about the presentation of the Endowment of Motherhood. There is + nothing shameful about it. It is a plain and simple idea for which the + mind of the man in the street has now been very completely prepared. It + has already crept into social legislation to the extent of thirty + shillings. + </p> + <p> + I suppose if one fact has been hammered into us in the past two decades + more than any other it is this: that the supply of children is falling off + in the modern State; that births, and particularly good-quality births, + are not abundant enough; that the birth-rate, and particularly the + good-class birth-rate, falls steadily below the needs of our future. + </p> + <p> + If no one else has said a word about this important matter, ex-President + Roosevelt would have sufficed to shout it to the ends of the earth. Every + civilised community is drifting towards "race-suicide" as Rome drifted + into "race-suicide" at the climax of her empire. + </p> + <p> + Well, it is absurd to go on building up a civilisation with a dwindling + supply of babies in the cradles—and these not of the best possible + sort—and so I suppose there is hardly an intelligent person in the + English-speaking communities who has not thought of some possible remedy—from + the naive scoldings of Mr. Roosevelt and the more stolid of the + periodicals to sane and intelligible legislative projects. + </p> + <p> + The reasons for the fall in the birth-rate are obvious enough. It is a + necessary consequence of the individualistic competition of modern life. + People talk of modern women "shirking" motherhood, but it would be a silly + sort of universe in which a large proportion of women had any natural and + instinctive desire to shirk motherhood, and, I believe, a huge proportion + of modern women are as passionately predisposed towards motherhood as ever + women were. But modern conditions conspire to put a heavy handicap upon + parentage and an enormous premium upon the partial or complete evasion of + offspring, and that is where the clue to the trouble lies. Our social + arrangements discourage parentage very heavily, and the rational thing for + a statesman to do in the matter is not to grow eloquent, but to do + intelligent things to minimise that discouragement. + </p> + <p> + Consider the case of an energetic young man and an energetic young woman + in our modern world. So long as they remain "unencumbered" they can + subsist on a comparatively small income and find freedom and leisure to + watch for and follow opportunities of self-advancement; they can travel, + get knowledge and experience, make experiments, succeed. One might almost + say the conditions of success and self-development in the modern world are + to defer marriage as long as possible, and after that to defer parentage + as long as possible. And even when there is a family there is the + strongest temptation to limit it to three or four children at the outside. + Parents who can give three children any opportunity in life prefer to do + that than turn out, let us say, eight ill-trained children at a + disadvantage, to become the servants and unsuccessful competitors of the + offspring of the restrained. That fact bites us all; it does not require a + search. It is all very well to rant about "race-suicide," but there are + the clear, hard conditions of contemporary circumstances for all but the + really rich, and so patent are they that I doubt if all the eloquence of + Mr. Roosevelt and its myriad echoes has added a thousand babies to the + eugenic wealth of the English-speaking world. + </p> + <p> + Modern married people, and particularly those in just that capable middle + class from which children are most urgently desirable from the statesman's + point of view, are going to have one or two children to please themselves + but they are not going to have larger families under existing conditions, + though all the ex-Presidents and all the pulpits in the world clamour + together for them to do so. + </p> + <p> + If having and rearing children is a private affair, then no one has any + right to revile small families; if it is a public service, then the parent + is justified in looking to the State to recognise that service and offer + some compensation for the worldly disadvantages it entails. He is + justified in saying that while his unencumbered rival wins past him he is + doing the State the most precious service in the world by rearing and + educating a family, and that the State has become his debtor. + </p> + <p> + In other words, the modern State has got to pay for its children if it + really wants them—and more particularly it has to pay for the + children of good homes. + </p> + <p> + The alternative to that is racial replacement and social decay. That is + the essential idea conveyed by this phrase, the Endowment of Motherhood. + </p> + <p> + Now, how is the paying to be done? That needs a more elaborate answer, of + which I will give here only the roughest, crudest suggestion. + </p> + <p> + Probably it would be found best that the payment should be made to the + mother, as the administrator of the family budget, that its amount should + be made dependent upon the quality of the home in which the children are + being reared, upon their health and physical development, and upon their + educational success. Be it remembered, we do not want any children; we + want good-quality children. The amount to be paid, I would particularly + point out, should vary with the standing of the home. People of that + excellent class which spends over a hundred a year on each child ought to + get about that much from the State, and people of the class which spends + five shillings a week per head on them would get about that, and so on. + And if these payments were met by a special income tax there would be no + social injustice whatever in such an unequality of payment. Each social + stratum would pay according to its prosperity, and the only redistribution + that would in effect occur would be that the childless people of each + class would pay for the children of that class. The childless family and + the small family would pay equally with the large family, incomes being + equal, but they would receive in proportions varying with the health and + general quality of their children. That, I think, gives the broad + principles upon which the payments would be made. + </p> + <p> + Of course, if these subsidies resulted in too rapid a rise in the + birth-rate, it would be practicable to diminish the inducement; and if, on + the other hand, the birth-rate still fell, it would be easy to increase + the inducement until it sufficed. + </p> + <p> + That concisely is the idea of the Endowment of Motherhood. I believe + firmly that some such arrangement is absolutely necessary to the + continuous development of the modern State. These proposals arise so + obviously out of the needs of our time that I cannot understand any really + intelligent opposition to them. I can, however, understand a partial and + silly application of them. It is most important that our good-class + families should be endowed, but the whole tendency of the timid and + disingenuous progressivism of our time, which is all mixed up with ideas + of charity and aggressive benevolence to the poor, would be to apply this—as + that Fabian tract I mention does—only to the poor mother. To endow + poor and bad-class motherhood and leave other people severely alone would + be a proceeding so supremely idiotic, so harmful to our national quality, + as to be highly probable in the present state of our public intelligence. + It comes quite on a level with the policy of starving middle-class + education that has left us with nearly the worst educated middle class in + Western Europe. + </p> + <p> + The Endowment of Motherhood does not attract the bureaucratic type of + reformer because it offers a minimum chance of meddlesome interference + with people's lives. There would be no chance of "seeking out" anybody and + applying benevolent but grim compulsions on the strength of it. In spite + of its wide scope it would be much less of a public nuisance than that Wet + Children's Charter, which exasperates me every time I pass a public-house + on a rainy night. But, on the other hand, there would be an enormous + stimulus to people to raise the quality of their homes, study infantile + hygiene, seek out good schools for them—and do their duty as all + good parents naturally want to do now—if only economic forces were + not so pitilessly against them—thoroughly and well. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + DOCTORS + </h2> + <p> + In that extravagant world of which I dream, in which people will live in + delightful cottages and ground rents will serve instead of rates, and + everyone will have a chance of being happy—in that impossible world + all doctors will be members of one great organisation for the public + health, with all or most of their income guaranteed to them: I doubt if + there will be any private doctors at all. + </p> + <p> + Heaven forbid I should seem to write a word against doctors as they are. + Daily I marvel at the wonders the general practitioner achieves, having + regard to the difficulties of his position. + </p> + <p> + But I cannot hide from myself, and I do not intend to hide from anyone + else, my firm persuasion that the services the general practitioner is + able to render us are not one-tenth so effectual as they might be if, + instead of his being a private adventurer, he were a member of a sanely + organised public machine. Consider what his training and equipment are, + consider the peculiar difficulties of his work, and then consider for a + moment what better conditions might be invented, and perhaps you will not + think my estimate of one-tenth an excessive understatement in this matter. + </p> + <p> + Nearly the whole of our medical profession and most of our apparatus for + teaching and training doctors subsist on strictly commercial lines by + earning fees. This chief source of revenue is eked out by the wanton + charity of old women, and conspicuous subscriptions by popularity hunters, + and a small but growing contribution (in the salaries of medical officers + of health and so forth) from the public funds. But the fact remains that + for the great mass of the medical profession there is no living to be got + except at a salary for hospital practice or by earning fees in receiving + or attending upon private cases. + </p> + <p> + So long as a doctor is learning or adding to knowledge, he earns nothing, + and the common, unintelligent man does not see why he should earn + anything. So that a doctor who has no religious passion for poverty and + self-devotion gets through the minimum of training and learning as quickly + and as cheaply as possible, and does all he can to fill up the rest of his + time in passing rapidly from case to case. The busier he keeps, the less + his leisure for thought and learning, the richer he grows, and the more he + is esteemed. His four or five years of hasty, crowded study are supposed + to give him a complete and final knowledge of the treatment of every sort + of disease, and he goes on year after year, often without co-operation, + working mechanically in the common incidents of practice, births, cases of + measles and whooping cough, and so forth, and blundering more or less in + whatever else turns up. + </p> + <p> + There are no public specialists to whom he can conveniently refer the + difficulties he constantly encounters; only in the case of rich patients + is the specialist available; there are no properly organised information + bureaus for him, and no means whatever of keeping him informed upon + progress and discovery in medical science. He is not even required to set + apart a month or so in every two or three years in order to return to + lectures and hospitals and refresh his knowledge. Indeed, the income of + the average general practitioner would not permit of such a thing, and + almost the only means of contact between him and current thought lies in + the one or other of our two great medical weeklies to which he happens to + subscribe. + </p> + <p> + Now just as I have nothing but praise for the average general + practitioner, so I have nothing but praise and admiration for those + stalwart-looking publications. Without them I can imagine nothing but the + most terrible intellectual atrophy among our medical men. But since they + are private properties run for profit they have to pay, and half their + bulk consists of the brilliantly written advertisements of new drugs and + apparatus. They give much knowledge, they do much to ventilate perplexing + questions, but a broadly conceived and properly endowed weekly circular + could, I believe, do much more. At any rate, in my Utopia this duty of + feeding up the general practitioners will not be left to private + enterprise. + </p> + <p> + Behind the first line of my medical army will be a second line of able men + constantly digesting new research for its practical needs—correcting, + explaining, announcing; and, in addition, a force of public specialists to + whom every difficulty in diagnosis will be at once referred. And there + will be a properly organised system of reliefs that will allow the general + practitioner and his right hand, the nurse, to come back to the + refreshment of study before his knowledge and mind have got rusty. But + then my Utopia is a Socialistic system. Under our present system of + competitive scramble, under any system that reduces medical practice to + mere fee-hunting nothing of this sort is possible. + </p> + <p> + Then in my Utopia, for every medical man who was mainly occupied in + practice, I would have another who was mainly occupied in or about + research. People hear so much about modern research that they do not + realise how entirely inadequate it is in amount and equipment. Our general + public is still too stupid to understand the need and value of sustained + investigations in any branch of knowledge at all. In spite of all the + lessons of the last century, it still fails to realise how discovery and + invention enrich the community and how paying an investment is the public + employment of clever people to think and experiment for the benefit of + all. It still expects to get a Newton or a Joule for #800 a year, and + requires him to conduct his researches in the margin of time left over + when he has got through his annual eighty or ninety lectures. It imagines + discoveries are a sort of inspiration that comes when professors are + running to catch trains. It seems incapable of imagining how enormous are + the untried possibilities of research. Of course, if you will only pay a + handful of men salaries at which the cook of any large London hotel would + turn up his nose, you cannot expect to have the master minds of the world + at your service; and save for a few independent or devoted men, therefore, + it is not reasonable to suppose that such a poor little dribble of medical + research as is now going on is in the hands of persons of much more than + average mental equipment. How can it be? + </p> + <p> + One hears a lot of the rigorous research into the problem of cancer that + is now going on. Does the reader realise that all the men in the whole + world who are giving any considerable proportion of their time to this + cancer research would pack into a very small room, that they are working + in little groups without any properly organised system of + intercommunication, and that half of them are earning less than a quarter + of the salary of a Bond Street shopwalker by those vastly important + inquiries? Not one cancer case in twenty thousand is being properly + described and reported. And yet, in comparison with other diseases, cancer + is being particularly well attended to. + </p> + <p> + The general complacency with the progress in knowledge we have made and + are making is ridiculously unjustifiable. Enormous things were no doubt + done in the nineteenth century in many fields of knowledge, but all that + was done was out of all proportion petty in comparison with what might + have been done. I suppose the whole of the unprecedented progress in + material knowledge of the nineteenth century was the work of two or three + thousand men, who toiled against opposition, spite and endless + disadvantages, without proper means of intercommunication and with + wretched facilities for experiment. Such discoveries as were distinctively + medical were the work of only a few hundred men. Now, suppose instead of + that scattered band of un-co-ordinated workers a great army of hundreds of + thousands of well-paid men; suppose, for instance, the community had kept + as many scientific and medical investigators as it has bookmakers and + racing touts and men about town—should we not know a thousand times + as much as we do about disease and health and strength and power? + </p> + <p> + But these are Utopian questionings. The sane, practical man shakes his + head, smiles pityingly at my dreamy impracticability, and passes them by. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AN AGE OF SPECIALISATION + </h2> + <p> + There is something of the phonograph in all of us, but in the sort of + eminent person who makes public speeches about education and reading, and + who gives away prizes and opens educational institutions, there seems to + be little else but gramophone. + </p> + <p> + These people always say the same things, and say them in the same note. + And why should they do that if they are really individuals? + </p> + <p> + There is, I cannot but suspect, in the mysterious activities that underlie + life, some trade in records for these distinguished gramophones, and it is + a trade conducted upon cheap and wholesale lines. There must be in these + demiurgic profundities a rapid manufacture of innumerable thousands of + that particular speech about "scrappy reading," and that contrast of + "modern" with "serious" literature, that babbles about in the provinces so + incessantly. Gramophones thinly disguised as bishops, gramophones still + more thinly disguised as eminent statesmen, gramophones K.C.B. and + gramophones F.R.S. have brazened it at us time after time, and will + continue to brazen it to our grandchildren when we are dead and all our + poor protests forgotten. And almost equally popular in their shameless + mouths is the speech that declares this present age to be an age of + specialisation. We all know the profound droop of the eminent person's + eyelids as he produces that discovery, the edifying deductions or the + solemn warnings he unfolds from this proposition, and all the dignified, + inconclusive rigmarole of that cylinder. And it is nonsense from beginning + to end. + </p> + <p> + This is most distinctly <i>not</i> an age of specialisation. There has + hardly been an age in the whole course of history less so than the + present. A few moments of reflection will suffice to demonstrate that. + This is beyond any precedent an age of change, change in the appliances of + life, in the average length of life, in the general temper of life; and + the two things are incompatible. It is only under fixed conditions that + you can have men specialising. + </p> + <p> + They specialise extremely, for example, under such conditions as one had + in Hindustan up to the coming of the present generation. There the metal + worker or the cloth worker, the wheelwright or the druggist of yesterday + did his work under almost exactly the same conditions as his predecessor + did it five hundred years before. He had the same resources, the same + tools, the same materials; he made the same objects for the same ends. + Within the narrow limits thus set him he carried work to a fine + perfection; his hand, his mental character were subdued to his medium. His + dress and bearing even were distinctive; he was, in fact, a highly + specialised man. He transmitted his difference to his sons. Caste was the + logical expression in the social organisation of this state of high + specialisation, and, indeed, what else is caste or any definite class + distinctions but that? But the most obvious fact of the present time is + the disappearance of caste and the fluctuating uncertainty of all class + distinctions. + </p> + <p> + If one looks into the conditions of industrial employment specialisation + will be found to linger just in proportion as a trade has remained + unaffected by inventions and innovation. The building trade, for example, + is a fairly conservative one. A brick wall is made to-day much as it was + made two hundred years ago, and the bricklayer is in consequence a highly + skilled and inadaptable specialist. No one who has not passed through a + long and tedious training can lay bricks properly. And it needs a + specialist to plough a field with horses or to drive a cab through the + streets of London. Thatchers, old-fashioned cobblers, and hand workers are + all specialised to a degree no new modern calling requires. With machinery + skill disappears and unspecialised intelligence comes in. Any generally + intelligent man can learn in a day or two to drive an electric tram, fix + up an electric lighting installation, or guide a building machine or a + steam plough. He must be, of course, much more generally intelligent than + the average bricklayer, but he needs far less specialised skill. To repair + machinery requires, of course, a special sort of knowledge, but not a + special sort of training. + </p> + <p> + In no way is this disappearance of specialisation more marked than in + military and naval affairs. In the great days of Greece and Rome war was a + special calling, requiring a special type of man. In the Middle Ages war + had an elaborate technique, in which the footman played the part of an + unskilled labourer, and even within a period of a hundred years it took a + long period of training and discipline before the common discursive man + could be converted into the steady soldier. Even to-day traditions work + powerfully, through extravagance of uniform, and through survivals of that + mechanical discipline that was so important in the days of hand-to-hand + fighting, to keep the soldier something other than a man. For all the + lessons of the Boer war we are still inclined to believe that the soldier + has to be something severely parallel, carrying a rifle he fires under + orders, obedient to the pitch of absolute abnegation of his private + intelligence. We still think that our officers have, like some very + elaborate and noble sort of performing animal, to be "trained." They learn + to fight with certain specified "arms" and weapons, instead of developing + intelligence enough to use anything that comes to hand. + </p> + <p> + But, indeed, when a really great European war does come and lets loose + motor-cars, bicycles, wireless telegraphy, aeroplanes, new projectiles of + every size and shape, and a multitude of ingenious persons upon the + preposterously vast hosts of conscription, the military caste will be + missing within three months of the beginning, and the inventive, + versatile, intelligent man will have come to his own. + </p> + <p> + And what is true of a military caste is equally true of a special + governing class such as our public schools maintain. + </p> + <p> + The misunderstanding that has given rise to this proposition that this is + an age of specialisation, and through that no end of mischief in + misdirected technical education and the like, is essentially a confusion + between specialisation and the division of labour. No doubt this is an age + when everything makes for wider and wider co-operations. Work that was + once done by one highly specialised man—the making of a watch, for + example—is now turned out wholesale by elaborate machinery, or + effected in great quantities by the contributed efforts of a number of + people. Each of these people may bring a highly developed intelligence to + bear for a time upon the special problem in hand, but that is quite a + different thing from specialising to do that thing. + </p> + <p> + This is typically shown in scientific research. The problem or the parts + of problems upon which the inquiry of an individual man is concentrated + are often much narrower than the problems that occupied Faraday or Dalton, + and yet the hard and fast lines that once divided physicist from chemist, + or botanist from pathologist have long since gone. Professor Farmer, the + botanist, investigates cancer, and the ordinary educated man, familiar + though he is with their general results, would find it hard to say which + were the chemists and which the physicists among Professors Dewar and + Ramsey Lord Rayleigh and Curie. The classification of sciences that was + such a solemn business to our grandfathers is now merely a mental + obstruction. + </p> + <p> + It is interesting to glance for a moment at the possible source of this + mischievous confusion between specialisation and the division of labour. I + have already glanced at the possibility of a diabolical world + manufacturing gramophone records for our bishops and statesmen and + suchlike leaders of thought, but if we dismiss that as a merely elegant + trope, I must confess I think it is the influence of Herbert Spencer. His + philosophy is pervaded by an insistence which is, I think, entirely + without justification, that the universe, and every sort of thing in it, + moves from the simple and homogeneous to the complex and heterogeneous. An + unwary man obsessed with that idea would be very likely to assume without + consideration that men were less specialised in a barbaric state of + society than they are to-day. I think I have given reasons for believing + that the reverse of this is nearer the truth. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IS THERE A PEOPLE? + </h2> + <p> + Of all the great personifications that have dominated the mind of man, the + greatest, the most marvellous, the most impossible and the most + incredible, is surely the People, that impalpable monster to which the + world has consecrated its political institutions for the last hundred + years. + </p> + <p> + It is doubtful now whether this stupendous superstition has reached its + grand climacteric, and there can be little or no dispute that it is + destined to play a prominent part in the history of mankind for many years + to come. There is a practical as well as a philosophical interest, + therefore, in a note or so upon the attributes of this legendary being. I + write "legendary," but thereby I display myself a sceptic. To a very large + number of people the People is one of the profoundest realities in life. + They believe—what exactly do they believe about the people? + </p> + <p> + When they speak of the People they certainly mean something more than the + whole mass of individuals in a country lumped together. That is the + people, a mere varied aggregation of persons, moved by no common motive, a + complex interplay. The People, as the believer understands the word, is + something more mysterious than that. The People is something that + overrides and is added to the individualities that make up the people. It + is, as it were, itself an individuality of a higher order—as indeed, + its capital "P" displays. It has a will of its own which is not the will + of any particular person in it, it has a power of purpose and judgment of + a superior sort. It is supposed to be the underlying reality of all + national life and the real seat of all public religious emotion. + Unfortunately, it lacks powers of expression, and so there is need of + rulers and interpreters. If they express it well in law and fact, in book + and song, they prosper under its mysterious approval; if they do not, it + revolts or forgets or does something else of an equally annihilatory sort. + That, briefly, is the idea of the People. My modest thesis is that there + exists nothing of the sort, that the world of men is entirely made up of + the individuals that compose it, and that the collective action is just + the algebraic sum of all individual actions. + </p> + <p> + How far the opposite opinion may go, one must talk to intelligent + Americans or read the contemporary literature of the first French + Revolution to understand. I find, for example, so typical a young American + as the late Frank Norris roundly asserting that it is the People to whom + we are to ascribe the triumphant emergence of the name of Shakespeare from + the ruck of his contemporaries and the passage in which this assertion is + made is fairly representative of the general expression of this sort of + mysticism. "One must keep one's faith in the People—the Plain + People, the Burgesses, the Grocers—else of all men the artists are + most miserable and their teachings vain. Let us admit and concede that + this belief is ever so sorely tried at times.... But in the end, and at + last, they will listen to the true note and discriminate between it and + the false." And then he resorts to italics to emphasise: "<i>In the last + analysis the People are always right</i>." + </p> + <p> + And it was that still more typical American, Abraham Lincoln, who declared + his equal confidence in the political wisdom of this collective being. + "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all + the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." The thing is + in the very opening words of the American Constitution, and Theodore + Parker calls it "the American idea" and pitches a still higher note: "A + government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; a + government of all the principles of eternal justice, <i>the unchanging law + of God."</i> + </p> + <p> + It is unavoidable that a collective wisdom distinct from any individual + and personal one is intended in these passages. Mr. Norris, for example, + never figured to himself a great wave of critical discrimination sweeping + through the ranks of the various provision trades and a multitude of + simple, plain burgesses preferring Shakespeare and setting Marlowe aside. + Such a particularisation of his statement would have at once reduced it to + absurdity. Nor does any American see the people particularised in that + way. They believe in the People one and indivisible, a simple, mystical + being, which pervades and dominates the community and determines its final + collective consequences. + </p> + <p> + Now upon the belief that there is a People rests a large part of the + political organisation of the modern world. The idea was one of the chief + fruits of the speculations of the eighteenth century, and the American + Constitution is its most perfect expression. One turns, therefore, + inevitably to the American instance, not because it is the only one, but + because there is the thing in its least complicated form. We have there an + almost exactly logical realisation of this belief. The whole political + machine is designed and expressed to register the People's will, + literature is entirely rewarded and controlled by the effectual suffrages + of the bookseller's counter, science (until private endowment intervened) + was in the hands of the State Legislatures, and religion the concern of + the voluntary congregations. + </p> + <p> + On the assumption that there is a People there could be no better state of + affairs. You and I and everyone, except for a vote or a book, or a service + now and then, can go about our business, you to your grocery and I to + mine, and the direction of the general interests rests safe in the + People's hands. Now that is by no means a caricature of the attitude of + mind of many educated Americans. You find they have little or nothing to + do with actual politics, and are inclined to regard the professional + politician with a certain contempt; they trouble their heads hardly at all + about literature, and they contemplate the general religious condition of + the population with absolute unconcern. It is not that they are + unpatriotic or morally trivial that they stand thus disengaged; it is that + they have a fatalistic belief in this higher power. Whatever troubles and + abuses may arise they have an absolute faith that "in the last analysis" + the People will get it right. + </p> + <p> + And now suppose that I am right and that there is no People! Suppose that + the crowd is really no more than a crowd, a vast miscellaneous confusion + of persons which grows more miscellaneous every year. Suppose this + conception of the People arose out of a sentimental idealisation, Rousseau + fashion, of the ancient homogeneous peasant class—a class that is + rapidly being swept out of existence by modern industrial developments—and + that whatever slender basis of fact it had in the past is now altogether + gone. What consequences may be expected? + </p> + <p> + It does not follow that because the object of your reverence is a dead + word you will get no oracles from the shrine. If the sacred People remains + impassive, inarticulate, non-existent, there are always the keepers of the + shrine who will oblige. Professional politicians, venal and violent men, + will take over the derelict political control, people who live by the book + trade will alone have a care for letters, research and learning will be + subordinated to political expediency, and a great development of noisily + competitive religious enterprises will take the place of any common + religious formula. There will commence a secular decline in the quality of + public thought, emotion and activity. There will be no arrest or remedy + for this state of affairs so long as that superstitious faith in the + People as inevitably right "in the last analysis" remains. And if my + supposition is correct, it should be possible to find in the United + States, where faith in the people is indisputably dominant, some such + evidence of the error of this faith. Is there? + </p> + <p> + I write as one that listens from afar. But there come reports of + legislative and administrative corruption, of organised public blackmail, + that do seem to carry out my thesis. One thinks of Edgar Allan Poe, who + dreamt of founding a distinctive American literature, drugged and killed + almost as it were symbolically, amid electioneering and nearly lied out of + all posthumous respect by that scoundrel Griswold; one thinks of State + Universities that are no more than mints for bogus degrees; one thinks of + "Science" Christianity and Zion City. These things are quite insufficient + for a Q.E.D., but I submit they favour my proposition. + </p> + <p> + Suppose there is no People at all, but only enormous, differentiating + millions of men. All sorts of widely accepted generalisations will + collapse if that foundation is withdrawn. I submit it as worth + considering. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE DISEASE OF PARLIAMENTS + </h2> + <p> + Sec. 1 + </p> + <p> + There is a growing discord between governments and governed in the world. + </p> + <p> + There has always been discord between governments and governed since + States began; government has always been to some extent imposed, and + obedience to some extent reluctant. We have come to regard it as a matter + of course that under all absolutions and narrow oligarchies the community, + so soon as it became educated and as its social elaboration developed a + free class with private initiatives, so soon, indeed, as it attained to + any power of thought and expression at all, would express discontent. But + we English and Americans and Western Europeans generally had supposed + that, so far as our own communities were concerned, this discontent was + already anticipated and met by representative institutions. We had + supposed that, with various safeguards and elaborations, our communities + did, as a matter of fact, govern themselves. Our panacea for all + discontents was the franchise. Social and national dissatisfaction could + be given at the same time a voice and a remedy in the ballot box. Our + liberal intelligences could and do still understand Russians wanting + votes, Indians wanting votes, women wanting votes. The history of + nineteenth-century Liberalism in the world might almost be summed up in + the phrase "progressive enfranchisement." But these are the desires of a + closing phase in political history. The new discords go deeper than that. + The new situation which confronts our Liberal intelligence is the + discontent of the enfranchised, the contempt and hostility of the voters + for their elected delegates and governments. + </p> + <p> + This discontent, this resentment, this contempt even, and hostility to + duly elected representatives is no mere accident of this democratic + country or that; it is an almost world-wide movement. It is an almost + universal disappointment with so-called popular government, and in many + communities—in Great Britain particularly—it is manifesting + itself by an unprecedented lawlessness in political matters, and in a + strange and ominous contempt for the law. One sees it, for example, in the + refusal of large sections of the medical profession to carry out insurance + legislation, in the repudiation of Irish Home Rule by Ulster, and in the + steady drift of great masses of industrial workers towards the conception + of a universal strike. The case of the discontented workers in Great + Britain and France is particularly remarkable. These people form effective + voting majorities in many constituencies; they send alleged Socialist and + Labour representatives into the legislative assembly; and, in addition, + they have their trade unions with staffs of elected officials, elected + ostensibly to state their case and promote their interests. Yet nothing is + now more evident than that these officials, working-men representatives + and the like, do not speak for their supporters, and are less and less + able to control them. The Syndicalist movement, sabotage in France, and + Larkinism in Great Britain, are, from the point of view of social + stability, the most sinister demonstrations of the gathering anger of the + labouring classes with representative institutions. These movements are + not revolutionary movements, not movements for reconstruction such as were + the democratic Socialist movements that closed the nineteenth century. + They are angry and vindictive movements. They have behind them the most + dangerous and terrible of purely human forces, the wrath, the blind + destructive wrath, of a cheated crowd. + </p> + <p> + Now, so far as the insurrection of labour goes, American conditions differ + from European, and the process of disillusionment will probably follow a + different course. American labour is very largely immigrant labour still + separated by barriers of language and tradition from the established + thought of the nation. It will be long before labour in America speaks + with the massed effectiveness of labour in France and England, where + master and man are racially identical, and where there is no variety of + "Dagoes" to break up the revolt. But in other directions the American + disbelief in and impatience with "elected persons" is and has been far + profounder than it is in Europe. The abstinence of men of property and + position from overt politics, and the contempt that banishes political + discussion from polite society, are among the first surprises of the + visiting European to America, and now that, under an organised pressure of + conscience, college-trained men and men of wealth are abandoning this + strike of the educated and returning to political life, it is, one notes, + with a prevailing disposition to correct democracy by personality, and to + place affairs in the hands of autocratic mayors and presidents rather than + to carry out democratic methods to the logical end. At times America seems + hot for a Caesar. If no Caesar is established, then it will be the good + fortune of the Republic rather than its democratic virtue which will have + saved it. + </p> + <p> + And directly one comes to look into the quality and composition of the + elected governing body of any modern democratic State, one begins to see + the reason and nature of its widening estrangement from the community it + represents. In no sense are these bodies really representative of the + thought and purpose of the nation; the conception of its science, the + fresh initiatives of its philosophy and literature, the forces that make + the future through invention and experiment, exploration and trial and + industrial development have no voice, or only an accidental and feeble + voice, there. The typical elected person is a smart rather than + substantial lawyer, full of cheap catchwords and elaborate tricks of + procedure and electioneering, professing to serve the interests of the + locality which is his constituency, but actually bound hand and foot to + the specialised political association, his party, which imposed him upon + that constituency. Arrived at the legislature, his next ambition is + office, and to secure and retain office he engages in elaborate manoeuvres + against the opposite party, upon issues which his limited and specialised + intelligence indicates as electorally effective. But being limited and + specialised, he is apt to drift completely out of touch with the interests + and feelings of large masses of people in the community. In Great Britain, + the United States and France alike there is a constant tendency on the + part of the legislative body to drift into unreality, and to bore the + country with the disputes that are designed to thrill it. In Great + Britain, for example, at the present time the two political parties are + both profoundly unpopular with the general intelligence, which is + sincerely anxious, if only it could find a way, to get rid of both of + them. Irish Home Rule—an issue as dead as mutton, is opposed to + Tariff Reform, which has never been alive. Much as the majority of people + detest the preposterously clumsy attempts to amputate Ireland from the + rule of the British Parliament which have been going on since the + breakdown of Mr. Gladstone's political intelligence, their dread of + foolish and scoundrelly fiscal adventurers is sufficiently strong to + retain the Liberals in office. The recent exposures of the profound + financial rottenness of the Liberal party have deepened the public resolve + to permit no such enlarged possibilities of corruption as Tariff Reform + would afford their at least equally dubitable opponents. And meanwhile, + beneath those ridiculous alternatives, those sham issues, the real and + very urgent affairs of the nation, the vast gathering discontent of the + workers throughout the Empire, the racial conflicts in India and South + Africa which will, if they are not arrested, end in our severance from + India, the insane waste of national resources, the control of disease, the + frightful need of some cessation of armament, drift neglected.... + </p> + <p> + Now do these things indicate the ultimate failure and downfall of + representative government? Was this idea which inspired so much of the + finest and most generous thought of the eighteenth and nineteenth + centuries a wrong idea, and must we go back to Caesarism or oligarchy or + plutocracy or a theocracy, to Rome or Venice or Carthage, to the strong + man or the ruler by divine right, for the political organisation of the + future? + </p> + <p> + My answer to that question would be an emphatic No. My answer would be + that the idea of representative government is the only possible idea for + the government of a civilised community. But I would add that so far + representative government has not had even the beginnings of a fair trial. + So far we have not had representative government, but only a devastating + caricature. + </p> + <p> + It is quite plain now that those who first organised the parliamentary + institutions which now are the ruling institutions of the greater part of + mankind fell a prey to certain now very obvious errors. They did not + realise that there are hundreds of different ways in which voting may be + done, and that every way will give a different result. They thought, and + it is still thought by a great number of mentally indolent people, that if + a country is divided up into approximately equivalent areas, each + returning one or two representatives, if every citizen is given one vote, + and if there is no legal limit to the presentation of candidates, that + presently a cluster of the wisest, most trusted and best citizens will + come together in the legislative assembly. + </p> + <p> + In reality the business is far more complicated than this. In reality a + country will elect all sorts of different people according to the + electoral method employed. It is a fact that anyone who chooses to + experiment with a willing school or club may verify. Suppose, for example, + that you take your country, give every voter one single vote, put up six + and twenty candidates for a dozen vacancies, and give them no adequate + time for organisation. The voters, you will find, will return certain + favourites, A and B and C and D let us call them, by enormous majorities, + and behind these at a considerable distance will come E, F, G, H, I, J, K, + and L. Now give your candidates time to develop organisation. A lot of + people who swelled A's huge vote will dislike J and K and L so much, and + prefer M and N so much, that if they are assured that by proper + organisation A's return can be made certain without their voting for him, + they will vote for M and N. But they will do so only on that + understanding. Similarly certain B-ites will want O and P if they can be + got without sacrificing B. So that adequate party organisation in the + community may return not the dozen a naive vote would give, but A, B, C, + D, E, F, G, H, M, N, O, P. Now suppose that, instead of this arrangement, + your community is divided into twelve constituencies and no candidate may + contest more than one of them. And suppose each constituency has strong + local preferences. A, B and C are widely popular; in every constituency + they have supporters but in no constituency does any one of the three + command a majority. They are great men, not local men. Q, who is an + unknown man in most of the country, has, on the contrary, a strong sect of + followers in the constituency for which A stands, and beats him by one + vote; another local celebrity, E, disposes of B in the same way; C is + attacked not only by S but T, whose peculiar views upon vaccination, let + us say, appeal to just enough of C's supporters to let in S. Similar + accidents happen in the other constituencies, and the country that would + have unreservedly returned A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K and L on the + first system, return instead O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Numerous + voters who would have voted for A if they had a chance vote instead for R, + S, T, etc., numbers who would have voted for B, vote for Q, V, W, X, etc. + But now suppose that A and B are opposed to one another, and that there is + a strong A party and a strong B party highly organised in the country. B + is really the second favourite over the country as a whole, but A is the + first favourite. D, F, H, J, L, N, P, R, U, W, Y constitute the A + candidates and in his name they conquer. B, C, E, G, I, K, M, O, Q, S, V + are all thrown out in spite of the wide popularity of B and C. B and C, we + have supposed, are the second and third favourites, and yet they go out in + favour of Y, of whom nobody has heard before, some mere hangers-on of A's. + Such a situation actually occurs in both Ulster and Home-Rule Ireland. + </p> + <p> + But now let us suppose another arrangement, and that is that the whole + country is one constituency, and every voter has, if he chooses to + exercise them, twelve votes, which, however, he must give, if he gives + them all, to twelve separate people. Then quite certainly A, B, C, D will + come in, but the tail will be different. M, N, O, P may come up next to + them, and even Z, that eminent non-party man, may get in. But now + organisation may produce new effects. The ordinary man, when he has twelve + votes to give, likes to give them all, so that there will be a good deal + of wild voting at the tails of the voting papers. Now if a small resolute + band decide to plump for T or to vote only for A and T or B and T, T will + probably jump up out of the rejected. This is the system which gives the + specialist, the anti-vaccinator or what not, the maximum advantage. V, W, + X and Y, being rather hopeless anyhow, will probably detach themselves + from party and make some special appeal, say to the teetotal vote or the + Mormon vote or the single tax vote, and so squeeze past O, P, Q, R, who + have taken a more generalised line. + </p> + <p> + I trust the reader will bear with me through these alphabetical + fluctuations. Many people, I know from colloquial experiences, do at about + this stage fly into a passion. But if you will exercise self-control, then + I think you will see my point that, according to the method of voting, + almost any sort of result may be got out of an election except the + production of a genuinely representative assembly. + </p> + <p> + And that is the a priori case for supposing, what our experience of + contemporary life abundantly verifies, that the so-called representative + assemblies of the world are not really representative at all. I will go + farther and say that were it not for the entire inefficiency of our method + of voting, not one-tenth of the present American and French Senators, the + French Deputies, the American Congressmen, and the English Members of + Parliament would hold their positions to-day. They would never have been + heard of. They are not really the elected representatives of the people; + they are the products of a ridiculous method of election; they are the + illegitimate children of the party system and the ballot-box, who have + ousted the legitimate heirs from their sovereignty. They are no more the + expression of the general will than the Tsar or some President by <i>pronunciamento</i>. + They are an accidental oligarchy of adventurers. Representative government + has never yet existed in the world; there was an attempt to bring it into + existence in the eighteenth century, and it succumbed to an infantile + disorder at the very moment of its birth. What we have in the place of the + leaders and representatives are politicians and "elected persons." + </p> + <p> + The world is passing rapidly from localised to generalised interests, but + the method of election into which our fathers fell is the method of + electing one or two representatives from strictly localised + constituencies. Its immediate corruption was inevitable. If discussing and + calculating the future had been, as it ought to be, a common, systematic + occupation, the muddles of to-day might have been foretold a hundred years + ago. From such a rough method of election the party system followed as a + matter of course. In theory, of course, there may be any number of + candidates for a constituency and a voter votes for the one he likes best; + in practice there are only two or three candidates, and the voter votes + for the one most likely to beat the candidate he likes least. It cannot be + too strongly insisted that in contemporary elections we vote against; we + do not vote for. If A, B and C are candidates, and you hate C and all his + works and prefer A, but doubt if he will get as many votes as B, who is + indifferent to you, the chances are you will vote for B. If C and B have + the support of organised parties, you are still less likely to risk + "wasting" your vote upon A. If your real confidence is in G, who is not a + candidate for your constituency, and if B pledges himself to support G, + while A retains the right of separate action, you may vote for B even if + you distrust him personally. Additional candidates would turn any election + of this type into a wild scramble. The system lies, in fact, wholly open + to the control of political organisations, calls out, indeed, for the + control of political organisations, and has in every country produced what + is so evidently demanded. The political organisations to-day rule us + unchallenged. Save as they speak for us, the people are dumb. + </p> + <p> + Elections of the prevalent pattern, which were intended and are still + supposed by simple-minded people to give every voter participation in + government, do as a matter of fact effect nothing of the sort. They give + him an exasperating fragment of choice between the agents of two party + organisations, over neither of which he has any intelligible control. For + twenty-five years I have been a voter, and in all that time I have only + twice had an opportunity of voting for a man of distinction in whom I had + the slightest confidence. Commonly my choice of a "representative" has + been between a couple of barristers entirely unknown to me or the world at + large. Rather more than half the men presented for my selection have not + been English at all, but of alien descent. This, then, is the sum of the + political liberty of the ordinary American or Englishman, that is the + political emancipation which Englishwomen have shown themselves so + pathetically eager to share. He may reject one of two undesirables, and + the other becomes his "representative." Now this is not popular government + at all; it is government by the profession of politicians, whose control + becomes more and more irresponsible in just the measure that they are able + to avoid real factions within their own body. Whatever the two party + organisations have a mind to do together, whatever issue they chance to + reserve from "party politics," is as much beyond the control of the free + and independent voter as if he were a slave subject in ancient Peru. + </p> + <p> + Our governments in the more civilised parts of the world to-day are only + in theory and sentiment democratic. In reality they are democracies so + eviscerated by the disease of bad electoral methods that they are mere + cloaks for the parasitic oligarchies that have grown up within their form + and substance. The old spirit of freedom and the collective purpose which + overthrew and subdued priestcrafts and kingcrafts, has done so, it seems, + only to make way for these obscure political conspiracies. Instead of + liberal institutions, mankind has invented a new sort of usurpation. And + it is not unnatural that many of us should be in a phase of political + despair. + </p> + <p> + These oligarchies of the party organisations have now been evolving for + two centuries, and their inherent evils and dangers become more and more + manifest. The first of these is the exclusion from government of the more + active and intelligent sections of the community. It is not treated as + remarkable, it is treated as a matter of course, that neither in Congress + nor in the House of Commons is there any adequate representation of the + real thought of the time, of its science, invention and enterprise, of its + art and feeling, of its religion and purpose. When one speaks of + Congressmen or Members of Parliament one thinks, to be plain about it, of + intellectual riff-raff. When one hears of a pre-eminent man in the + English-speaking community, even though that pre-eminence may be in + political or social science, one is struck by a sense of incongruity if he + happens to be also in the Legislature. When Lord Haldane disengages the + Gifford lectures or Lord Morley writes a "Life of Gladstone" or + ex-President Roosevelt is delivered of a magazine article, there is the + same sort of excessive admiration as when a Royal Princess does a + water-colour sketch or a dog walks on its hind legs. + </p> + <p> + Now this intellectual inferiority of the legislator is not only directly + bad for the community by producing dull and stupid legislation, but it has + a discouraging and dwarfing effect upon our intellectual life. Nothing so + stimulates art, thought and science as realisation; nothing so cripples it + as unreality. But to set oneself to know thoroughly and to think clearly + about any human question is to unfit oneself for the forensic claptrap + which is contemporary politics, is to put oneself out of the effective + current of the nation's life. The intelligence of any community which does + not make a collective use of that intelligence, starves and becomes + hectic, tends inevitably to preciousness and futility on the one hand, and + to insurgency, mischief and anarchism on the other. + </p> + <p> + From the point of view of social stability this estrangement of the + national government and the national intelligence is far less serious than + the estrangement between the governing body and the real feeling of the + mass of the people. To many observers this latter estrangement seems to be + drifting very rapidly towards a social explosion in the British Isles. The + organised masses of labour find themselves baffled both by their + parliamentary representatives and by their trade union officials. They are + losing faith in their votes and falling back in anger upon insurrectionary + ideals, upon the idea of a general strike, and upon the expedients of + sabotage. They are doing this without any constructive proposals at all, + for it is ridiculous to consider Syndicalism as a constructive proposal. + They mean mischief because they are hopeless and bitterly disappointed. It + is the same thing in France, and before many years are over it will be the + same thing in America. That way lies chaos. In the next few years there + may be social revolt and bloodshed in most of the great cities of Western + Europe. That is the trend of current probability. Yet the politicians go + on in an almost complete disregard of this gathering storm. Their + jerrymandered electoral methods are like wool in their ears, and the + rejection of Tweedledum for Tweedledee is taken as a "mandate" for + Tweedledee's distinctive brand of political unrealities.... + </p> + <p> + Is this an incurable state of things? Is this method of managing our + affairs the only possible electoral method, and is there no remedy for its + monstrous clumsiness and inefficiency but to "show a sense of humour," or, + in other words, to grin and bear it? Or is it conceivable that there may + be a better way to government than any we have yet tried, a method of + government that would draw every class into conscious and willing + co-operation with the State, and enable every activity of the community to + play its proper part in the national life? That was the dream of those who + gave the world representative government in the past. Was it an impossible + dream? + </p> + <p> + Sec. 2 + </p> + <p> + Is this disease of Parliaments an incurable disease, and have we, + therefore, to get along as well as we can with it, just as a tainted and + incurable invalid diets and is careful and gets along through life? Or is + it possible that some entirely more representative and effective + collective control of our common affairs can be devised? + </p> + <p> + The answer to that must determine our attitude to a great number of + fundamental questions. If no better governing body is possible than the + stupid, dilatory and forensic assemblies that rule in France, Britain and + America to-day, then the civilised human community has reached its climax. + That more comprehensive collective handling of the common interests to + which science and intelligent Socialism point, that collective handling + which is already urgently needed if the present uncontrolled waste of + natural resources and the ultimate bankruptcy of mankind is to be avoided, + is quite beyond the capacity of such assemblies; already there is too much + in their clumsy and untrustworthy hands, and the only course open to us is + an attempt at enlightened Individualism, an attempt to limit and restrict + State activities in every possible way, and to make little private + temporary islands of light and refinement amidst the general disorder and + decay. All collectivist schemes, all rational Socialism, if only + Socialists would realise it, all hope for humanity, indeed, are dependent + ultimately upon the hypothetical possibility of a better system of + government than any at present in existence. + </p> + <p> + Let us see first, then, if we can lay down any conditions which such a + better governing body would satisfy. Afterwards it will be open to us to + believe or disbelieve in its attainment. Imagination is the essence of + creation. If we can imagine a better government we are half-way to making + it. + </p> + <p> + Now, whatever other conditions such a body will satisfy, we may be sure + that it will not be made up of members elected by single-member + constituencies. A single-member constituency must necessarily contain a + minority, and may even contain a majority of dissatisfied persons whose + representation is, as it were, blotted out by the successful candidate. + Three single-member constituencies which might all return members of the + same colour, if they were lumped together to return three members would + probably return two of one colour and one of another. There would still, + however, be a suppressed minority averse to both these colours, or + desiring different shades of those colours from those afforded them in the + constituency. Other things being equal, it may be laid down that the + larger the constituency and the more numerous its representatives, the + greater the chance of all varieties of thought and opinion being + represented. + </p> + <p> + But that is only a preliminary statement; it still leaves untouched all + the considerations advanced in the former part of this discussion to show + how easily the complications and difficulties of voting lead to a + falsification of the popular will and understanding. But here we enter a + region where a really scientific investigation has been made, and where + established results are available. A method of election was worked out by + Hare in the middle of the last century that really does seem to avoid or + mitigate nearly every falsifying or debilitating possibility in elections; + it was enthusiastically supported by J.S. Mill; it is now advocated by a + special society—the Proportional Representation Society—to + which belong men of the most diverse type of distinction, united only by + the common desire to see representative government a reality and not a + disastrous sham. It is a method which does render impossible nearly every + way of forcing candidates upon constituencies, and nearly every trick for + rigging results that now distorts and cripples the political life of the + modern world. It exacts only one condition, a difficult but not an + impossible condition, and that is the honest scrutiny and counting of the + votes. + </p> + <p> + The peculiar invention of the system is what is called the single + transferable vote—that is to say, a vote which may be given in the + first instance to one candidate, but which, in the event of his already + having a sufficient quota of votes to return him, may be transferred to + another. The voter marks clearly in the list of the candidates the order + of his preference by placing 1, 2, 3, and so forth against the names. In + the subsequent counting the voting papers are first classified according + to the first votes. Let us suppose that popular person A is found to have + received first votes enormously in excess of what is needed to return him. + The second votes are then counted on his papers, and after the number of + votes necessary to return him has been deducted, the surplus votes are + divided in due proportion among the second choice names, and count for + them. That is the essential idea of the whole thing. At a stroke all that + anxiety about wasting votes and splitting votes, <i>which is the secret of + all party political manipulation</i> vanishes. You may vote for A well + knowing that if he is safe your vote will be good for C. You can make sure + of A, and at the same time vote for C. You are in no need of a "ticket" to + guide you, and you need have no fear that in supporting an independent + candidate you will destroy the prospects of some tolerably sympathetic + party man without any compensating advantage. The independent candidate + does, in fact, become possible for the first time. The Hobson's choice of + the party machine is abolished. + </p> + <p> + Let me be a little more precise about the particulars of this method, the + only sound method, of voting in order to ensure an adequate representation + of the community. Let us resort again to the constituency I imagined in my + last paper, a constituency in which candidates represented by all the + letters of the alphabet struggle for twelve places. And let us suppose + that A, B, C and D are the leading favourites. Suppose that there are + twelve thousand voters in the constituency, and that three thousand votes + are cast for A—I am keeping the figures as simple as possible—then + A has two thousand more than is needed to return him. <i>All</i> the + second votes on his papers are counted, and it is found that 600, or a + fifth of them, go to C; 500, or a sixth, go to E; 300, or a tenth, to G; + 300 to J; 200, or a fifteenth, each to K and L, and a hundred each, or a + thirtieth, to M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, W and Z. Then the surplus of 2,000 + is divided in these proportions—that is a fifth of 2,000 goes to C, + a sixth to E, and the rest to G, J, etc., in proportion. C, who already + has 900 votes, gets another 400, and is now returned and has, moreover, + 300 to spare; and the same division of the next votes upon C's paper + occurs as has already been made with A's. But previously to this there has + been a distribution of B's surplus votes, B having got 1,200 of first + votes. And so on. After the distribution of the surplus votes of the elect + at the top of the list, there is a distribution of the second votes upon + the papers of those who have voted for the hopeless candidates at the + bottom of the list. At last a point is reached when twelve candidates have + a quota. + </p> + <p> + In this way the "wasting" of a vote, or the rejection of a candidate for + any reason except that hardly anybody wants him, become practically + impossible. This method of the single transferable vote with very large + constituencies and many members does, in fact, give an entirely valid + electoral result; each vote tells for all it is worth, and the freedom of + the voter is only limited by the number of candidates who put up or are + put up for election. This method, and this method alone, gives + representative government; all others of the hundred and one possible + methods admit of trickery, confusion and falsification. Proportional + Representation is not a faddist proposal, not a perplexing ingenious + complication of a simple business; it is the carefully worked out right + way to do something that hitherto we have been doing in the wrong way. It + is no more an eccentricity than is proper baking in the place of baking + amidst dirt and with unlimited adulteration, or the running of trains to + their destinations instead of running them without notice into casually + selected sidings and branch lines. It is not the substitution of something + for something else of the same nature; it is the substitution of right for + wrong. It is the plain common sense of the greatest difficulty in + contemporary affairs. + </p> + <p> + I know that a number of people do not, will not, admit this of + Proportional Representation. Perhaps it is because of that hideous + mouthful of words for a thing that would be far more properly named Sane + Voting. This, which is the only correct way, these antagonists regard as a + peculiar way. It has unfamiliar features, and that condemns it in their + eyes. It takes at least ten minutes to understand, and that is too much + for their plain, straightforward souls. "Complicated"—that word of + fear! They are like the man who approved of an electric tram, but said + that he thought it would go better without all that jiggery-pokery of + wires up above. They are like the Western judge in the murder trial who + said that if only they got a man hanged for this abominable crime, he + wouldn't make a pedantic fuss about the question of <i>which</i> man. They + are like the plain, straightforward promoter who became impatient with + maps and planned a railway across Switzerland by drawing a straight line + with a ruler across Jungfrau and Matterhorn and glacier and gorge. Or else + they are like Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P., who knows too well what would + happen to him. + </p> + <p> + Now let us consider what would be the necessary consequences of the + establishment of Proportional Representation in such a community as Great + Britain—that is to say, the redistribution of the country into great + constituencies such as London or Ulster or Wessex or South Wales, each + returning a score or more of members, and the establishment of voting by + the single transferable vote. The first, immediate, most desirable result + would be the disappearance of the undistinguished party candidate; he + would vanish altogether. He would be no more seen. Proportional + Representation would not give him the ghost of a chance. The very young + man of good family, the subsidised barrister, the respectable nobody, the + rich supporter of the party would be ousted by known men. No candidate who + had not already distinguished himself, and who did not stand for something + in the public eye, would have a chance of election. There alone we have a + sufficient reason for anticipating a very thorough change in the quality + and character of the average legislator. + </p> + <p> + And next, no party organisation, no intimation from headquarters, no dirty + tricks behind the scenes, no conspiracy of spite and scandal would have + much chance of keeping out any man of real force and distinction who had + impressed the public imagination. To be famous in science, to have led + thought, to have explored or administered or dissented courageously from + the schemes of official wire-pullers would no longer be a bar to a man's + attainment of Parliament. It would be a help. Not only the level of + parliamentary intelligence, but the level of personal independence would + be raised far above its present position. And Parliament would become a + gathering of prominent men instead of a means to prominence. + </p> + <p> + The two-party system which holds all the English-speaking countries to-day + in its grip would certainly be broken up by Proportional Representation. + Sane Voting in the end would kill the Liberal and Tory and Democratic and + Republican party-machines. That secret rottenness of our public life, that + hidden conclave which sells honours, fouls finance, muddles public + affairs, fools the passionate desires of the people, and ruins honest men + by obscure campaigns would become impossible. The advantage of party + support would be a doubtful advantage, and in Parliament itself the party + men would find themselves outclassed and possibly even outnumbered by the + independent. It would be only a matter of a few years between the adoption + of Sane Voting and the disappearance of the Cabinet from British public + life. It would become possible for Parliament to get rid of a minister + without getting rid of a ministry, and to express its disapproval of—let + us say—some foolish project for rearranging the local government of + Ireland without opening the door upon a vista of fantastical fiscal + adventures. The party-supported Cabinet, which is now the real government + of the so-called democratic countries, would cease to be so, and + government would revert more and more to the legislative assembly. And not + only would the latter body resume government, but it would also + necessarily take into itself all those large and growing exponents of + extra-parliamentary discontent that now darken the social future. The case + of the armed "Unionist" rebel in Ulster, the case of the workman who + engages in sabotage, the case for sympathetic strikes and the general + strike, all these cases are identical in this, that they declare + Parliament a fraud, that justice lies outside it and hopelessly outside + it, and that to seek redress through Parliament is a waste of time and + energy. Sane Voting would deprive all these destructive movements of the + excuse and necessity for violence. + </p> + <p> + There is, I know, a disposition in some quarters to minimise the + importance of Proportional Representation, as though it were a mere + readjustment of voting methods. It is nothing of the sort; it is a + prospective revolution. It will revolutionise government far more than a + mere change from kingdom to republic or vice versa could possibly do; it + will give a new and unprecedented sort of government to the world. The + real leaders of the country will govern the country. For Great Britain, + for example, instead of the secret, dubious and dubitable Cabinet, which + is the real British government of to-day, poised on an unwieldy and + crowded House of Commons, we should have open government by the + representatives of, let us say, twenty great provinces, Ulster, Wales, + London, for example, each returning from twelve to thirty members. It + would be a steadier, stabler, more confident, and more trusted government + than the world has ever seen before. Ministers, indeed, and even + ministries might come and go, but that would not matter, as it does now, + because there would be endless alternatives through which the assembly + could express itself instead of the choice between two parties. + </p> + <p> + The arguments against Proportional Representation that have been advanced + hitherto are trivial in comparison with its enormous advantages. Implicit + in them all is the supposition that public opinion is at bottom a foolish + thing, and that electoral methods are to pacify rather than express a + people. It is possibly true that notorious windbags, conspicuously + advertised adventurers, and the heroes of temporary sensations may run a + considerable chance upon the lists. My own estimate of the popular wisdom + is against the idea that any vividly prominent figure must needs get in; I + think the public is capable of appreciating, let us say, the charm and + interest of Mr. Sandow or Mr. Jack Johnson or Mr. Harry Lauder or Mr. Evan + Roberts without wanting to send these gentlemen into Parliament. And I + think that the increased power that the Press would have through its + facilities in making reputations may also be exaggerated. Reputations are + mysterious things and not so easily forced, and even if it were possible + for a section of the Press to limelight a dozen or so figures up to the + legislature, they would still have, I think, to be interesting, + sympathetic and individualised figures; and at the end they would be only + half a dozen among four hundred men of a repute more naturally achieved. A + third objection is that this reform would give us group politics and + unstable government. It might very possibly give us unstable ministries, + but unstable ministries may mean stable government, and such stable + ministries as that which governs England at the present time may, by + clinging obstinately to office, mean the wildest fluctuations of policy. + Mr. Ramsay Macdonald has drawn a picture of the too-representative + Parliament of Proportional Representation, split up into groups each + pledged to specific measures and making the most extraordinary treaties + and sacrifices of the public interest in order to secure the passing of + these definite bills. But Mr. Ramsay Macdonald is exclusively a + parliamentary man; he knows contemporary parliamentary "shop" as a clerk + knows his "guv'nor," and he thinks in the terms of his habitual life; he + sees representatives only as politicians financed from party headquarters; + it is natural that he should fail to see that the quality and condition of + the sanely elected Member of Parliament will be quite different from these + scheming climbers into positions of trust with whom he deals to-day. It is + the party system based on insane voting that makes governments indivisible + wholes and gives the group and the cave their terrors and their + effectiveness. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald is as typical a product of existing + electoral methods as one could well have, and his peculiarly keen sense of + the power of intrigue in legislation is as good evidence as one could wish + for of the need for drastic change. + </p> + <p> + Of course, Sane Voting is not a short cut to the millennium, it is no way + of changing human nature, and in the new type of assembly, as in the old, + spite, vanity, indolence, self-interest, and downright dishonesty will + play their part. But to object to a reform on that account is not a + particularly effective objection. These things will play their part, but + it will be a much smaller part in the new than in the old. It is like + objecting to some projected and long-needed railway because it does not + propose to carry its passengers by immediate express to heaven. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE AMERICAN POPULATION + </h2> + <p> + Sec. 1 + </p> + <p> + The social conditions and social future of America constitute a system of + problems quite distinct and separate from the social problems of any other + part of the world. The nearest approach to parallel conditions, and that + on a far smaller and narrower scale, is found in the British colonies and + in the newly settled parts of Siberia. For while in nearly every other + part of the world the population of to-day is more or less completely + descended from the prehistoric population of the same region, and has + developed its social order in a slow growth extending over many centuries, + the American population is essentially a transplanted population, a still + fluid and imperfect fusion of great fragments torn at this point or that + from the gradually evolved societies of Europe. The European social + systems grow and flower upon their roots, in soil which has made them and + to which they are adapted. The American social accumulation is a various + collection of cuttings thrust into a new soil and respiring a new air, so + different that the question is still open to doubt, and indeed there are + those who do doubt, how far these cuttings are actually striking root and + living and growing, whether indeed they are destined to more than a + temporary life in the new hemisphere. I propose to discuss and weigh + certain arguments for and against the belief that these ninety million + people who constitute the United States of America are destined to develop + into a great distinctive nation with a character and culture of its own. + </p> + <p> + Humanly speaking, the United States of America (and the same is true of + Canada and all the more prosperous, populous and progressive regions of + South America) is a vast sea of newly arrived and unstably rooted people. + Of the seventy-six million inhabitants recorded by the 1900 census, ten + and a half million were born and brought up in one or other of the + European social systems, and the parents of another twenty-six millions + were foreigners. Another nine million are of African negro descent. + Fourteen million of the sixty-five million native-born are living not in + the state of their birth, but in other states to which they have migrated. + Of the thirty and a half million whites whose parents on both sides were + native Americans, a high proportion probably had one if not more + grand-parents foreign-born. Nearly five and a half million out of + thirty-three and a half million whites in 1870 were foreign-born, and + another five and a quarter million the children of foreign-born parents. + The children of the latter five and a quarter million count, of course, in + the 1900 census as native-born of native parents. Immigration varies + enormously with the activity of business, but in 1906 it rose for the + first time above a million. + </p> + <p> + These figures may be difficult to grasp. The facts may be seen in a more + concrete form by the visitor to Ellis Island, the receiving station for + the immigrants into New York Harbour. One goes to this place by tugs from + the United States barge office in Battery Park, and in order to see the + thing properly one needs a letter of introduction to the commissioner in + charge. Then one is taken through vast barracks littered with people of + every European race, every type of low-class European costume, and every + degree of dirtiness, to a central hall in which the gist of the examining + goes on. The floor of this hall is divided up into a sort of maze of + winding passages between lattice work, and along these passages, day after + day, incessantly, the immigrants go, wild-eyed Gipsies, Armenians, Greeks, + Italians, Ruthenians, Cossacks, German peasants, Scandinavians, a few + Irish still, impoverished English, occasional Dutch; they halt for a + moment at little desks to exhibit papers, at other little desks to show + their money and prove they are not paupers, to have their eyes scanned by + this doctor and their general bearing by that. Their thumb-marks are + taken, their names and heights and weights and so forth are recorded for + the card index; and so, slowly, they pass along towards America, and at + last reach a little wicket, the gate of the New World. Through this metal + wicket drips the immigration stream—all day long, every two or three + seconds, an immigrant with a valise or a bundle, passes the little desk + and goes on past the well-managed money-changing place, past the carefully + organised separating ways that go to this railway or that, past the + guiding, protecting officials—into a new world. The great majority + are young men and young women between seventeen and thirty, good, + youthful, hopeful peasant stock. They stand in a long string, waiting to + go through that wicket, with bundles, with little tin boxes, with cheap + portmanteaus with odd packages, in pairs, in families, alone, women with + children, men with strings of dependents, young couples. All day that + string of human beads waits there, jerks forward, waits again; all day and + every day, constantly replenished, constantly dropping the end beads + through the wicket, till the units mount to hundreds and the hundreds to + thousands.... In such a prosperous year as 1906 more immigrants passed + through that wicket into America than children were born in the whole of + France. + </p> + <p> + This figure of a perpetual stream of new stranger citizens will serve to + mark the primary distinction between the American social problem and that + of any European or Asiatic community. + </p> + <p> + The vast bulk of the population of the United States has, in fact, only + got there from Europe in the course of the last hundred years, and mainly + since the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne of Great Britain. That + is the first fact that the student of the American social future must + realise. Only an extremely small proportion of its blood goes back now to + those who fought for freedom in the days of George Washington. The + American community is not an expanded colonial society that has become + autonomous. It is a great and deepening pool of population accumulating + upon the area these predecessors freed, and since fed copiously by + affluents from every European community. Fresh ingredients are still being + added in enormous quantity, in quantity so great as to materially change + the racial quality in a score of years. It is particularly noteworthy that + each accession of new blood seems to sterilise its predecessors. Had there + been no immigration at all into the United States, but had the rate of + increase that prevailed in 1810-20 prevailed to 1900, the population, + which would then have been a purely native American one, would have + amounted to a hundred million—that is to say, to approximately nine + million in excess of the present total population. The new waves are for a + time amazingly fecund, and then comes a rapid fall in the birth-rate. The + proportion of colonial and early republican blood in the population is, + therefore, probably far smaller even than the figures I have quoted would + suggest. + </p> + <p> + These accesses of new population have come in a series of waves, very much + as if successive reservoirs of surplus population in the Old World had + been tapped, drained and exhausted. First came the Irish and Germans, then + Central Europeans of various types, then Poland and Western Russia began + to pour out their teeming peoples, and more particularly their Jews, + Bohemia, the Slavonic states, Italy and Hungary followed and the latest + arrivals include great numbers of Levantines, Armenians and other peoples + from Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula. The Hungarian immigrants have + still a birth-rate of forty-six per thousand, the highest birth-rate in + the world. + </p> + <p> + A considerable proportion of the Mediterranean arrivals, it has to be + noted, and more especially the Italians, do not come to settle. They work + for a season or a few years, and then return to Italy. The rest come to + stay. + </p> + <p> + A vast proportion of these accessions to the American population since + 1840 has, with the exception of the East European Jews, consisted of + peasantry, mainly or totally illiterate, accustomed to a low standard of + life and heavy bodily toil. For most of them the transfer to a new country + meant severance from the religious communion in which they had been bred + and from the servilities or subordinations to which they were accustomed + They brought little or no positive social tradition to the synthesis to + which they brought their blood and muscle. + </p> + <p> + The earlier German, English and Scandinavian incomers were drawn from a + somewhat higher social level, and were much more closely akin in habits + and faith to the earlier founders of the Republic. + </p> + <p> + Our inquiry is this: What social structure is this pool of mixed humanity + developing or likely to develop? + </p> + <p> + Sec. 2 + </p> + <p> + If we compare any European nation with the American, we perceive at once + certain broad differences. The former, in comparison with the latter, is + evolved and organised; the latter, in comparison with the former, is + aggregated and chaotic. In nearly every European country there is a social + system often quite elaborately classed and defined; each class with a + sense of function, with an idea of what is due to it and what is expected + of it. Nearly everywhere you find a governing class, aristocratic in + spirit, sometimes no doubt highly modified by recent economic and + industrial changes, with more or less of the tradition of a feudal + nobility, then a definite great mercantile class, then a large + self-respecting middle class of professional men, minor merchants, and so + forth, then a new industrial class of employees in the manufacturing and + urban districts, and a peasant population rooted to the land. There are, + of course, many local modifications of this form: in France the nobility + is mostly expropriated; in England, since the days of John Bull, the + peasant has lost his common rights and his holding, and become an + "agricultural labourer" to a newer class of more extensive farmer. But + these are differences in detail; the fact of the organisation, and the + still more important fact of the traditional feeling of organisation, + remain true of all these older communities. + </p> + <p> + And in nearly every European country, though it may be somewhat despoiled + here and shorn of exclusive predominance there, or represented by a + dislocated "reformed" member, is the Church, custodian of a great moral + tradition, closely associated with the national universities and the + organisation of national thought. The typical European town has its castle + or great house, its cathedral or church, its middle-class and lower-class + quarters. Five miles off one can see that the American town is on an + entirely different plan. In his remarkable "American Scene," Mr. Henry + James calls attention to the fact that the Church as one sees it and feels + it universally in Europe is altogether absent, and he adds a comment as + suggestive as it is vague. Speaking of the appearance of the Churches, so + far as they do appear amidst American urban scenery, he says: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Looking for the most part no more established or + seated than a stopped omnibus, they are reduced to the + inveterate bourgeois level (that of private, accommodated + pretensions merely), and fatally despoiled of the fine old + ecclesiastical arrogance, ... The field of American life is + as bare of the Church as a billiard-table of a centre-piece; a + truth that the myriad little structures 'attended' on Sundays + and on the 'off' evenings of their 'sociables' proclaim as + with the audible sound of the roaring of a million mice.... + + "And however one indicates one's impression of the + clearance, the clearance itself, in its completeness, with the + innumerable odd connected circumstances that bring it + home, represents, in the history of manners and morals, a + deviation in the mere measurement of which hereafter may + well reside a certain critical thrill. I say hereafter because + it is a question of one of those many measurements that + would as yet, in the United States, be premature. Of all + the solemn conclusions one feels as 'barred,' the list is quite + headed in the States, I think, by this particular abeyance + of judgment. When an ancient treasure of precious vessels, + overscored with glowing gems and wrought artistically into + wondrous shapes, has, by a prodigious process, been converted + through a vast community into the small change, + the simple circulating medium of dollars and 'nickels,' we + can only say that the consequent permeation will be of + values of a new order. Of <i>what</i> order we must wait to + see." +</pre> + <p> + America has no Church. Neither has it a peasantry nor an aristocracy, and + until well on in the Victorian epoch it had no disproportionately rich + people. + </p> + <p> + In America, except in the regions where the negro abounds, there is no + lower stratum. There is no "soil people" to this community at all; your + bottom-most man is a mobile freeman who can read, and who has ideas above + digging and pigs and poultry-keeping, except incidentally for his own + ends. No one owns to subordination As a consequence, any position which + involves the acknowledgment of an innate inferiority is difficult to fill; + there is, from the European point of view, an extraordinary dearth of + servants, and this endures in spite of a great peasant immigration. The + servile tradition will not root here now; it dies forthwith. An enormous + importation of European serfs and peasants goes on, but as they touch this + soil their backs begin to stiffen with a new assertion. + </p> + <p> + And at the other end of the scale, also, one misses an element. There is + no territorial aristocracy, no aristocracy at all, no throne, no + legitimate and acknowledged representative of that upper social structure + of leisure, power and State responsibility which in the old European + theory of Society was supposed to give significance to the whole. The + American community, one cannot too clearly insist, does not correspond to + an entire European community at all, but only to the middle masses of it, + to the trading and manufacturing class between the dimensions of the + magnate and the clerk and skilled artisan. It is the central part of the + European organism without either the dreaming head or the subjugated feet. + Even the highly feudal slave-holding "county family" traditions of + Virginia and the South pass now out of memory. So that in a very real + sense the past of the American nation is in Europe, and the settled order + of the past is left behind there. This community was, as it were, taken + off its roots, clipped of its branches, and brought hither. It began + neither serf nor lord, but burgher and farmer; it followed the normal + development of the middle class under Progress everywhere and became + capitalistic. The huge later immigration has converged upon the great + industrial centres and added merely a vast non-servile element of + employees to the scheme. + </p> + <p> + America has been and still very largely is a one-class country. It is a + great sea of human beings detached from their traditions of origin. The + social difference from Europe appears everywhere, and nowhere more + strikingly than in the railway carriages. In England the compartments in + these are either "first class," originally designed for the aristocracy, + or "second class," for the middle class, or "third class," for the + populace. In America there is only one class, one universal simple + democratic car. In the Southern States, however, a proportion of these + simple democratic cars are inscribed with the word "White," whereby nine + million people are excluded. But to this original even-handed treatment + there was speedily added a more sumptuous type of car, the parlour car, + accessible to extra dollars; and then came special types of train, all + made up of parlour cars and observation cars and the like. In England + nearly every train remains still first, second and third, or first and + third. And now, quite outdistancing the differentiation of England, + America produces private cars and private trains, such as Europe reserves + only for crowned heads. + </p> + <p> + The evidence of the American railways, then, suggests very strongly what a + hundred other signs confirm, that the huge classless sea of American + population is not destined to remain classless, is already developing + separations and distinctions and structures of its own. And monstrous + architectural portents in Boston and Salt Lake City encourage one to + suppose that even that churchless aspect, which so stirred the speculative + element in Mr. Henry James, is only the opening formless phase of a + community destined to produce not only classes but intellectual and moral + forms of the most remarkable kind. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 3 + </p> + <p> + It is well to note how these ninety millions of people whose social future + we are discussing are distributed. This huge development of human + appliances and resources is here going on in a community that is still, + for all the dense crowds of New York, the teeming congestion of East Side, + extraordinarily scattered. America, one recalls, is still an unoccupied + country across which the latest developments of civilisation are rushing. + We are dealing here with a continuous area of land which is, leaving + Alaska out of account altogether, equal to Great Britain, France, the + German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, Belgium, Japan, + Holland, Spain and Portugal, Sweden and Norway, Turkey in Europe, Egypt + and the whole Empire of India, and the population spread out over this + vast space is still less than the joint population of the first two + countries named and not a quarter that of India. + </p> + <p> + Moreover, it is not spread at all evenly. Much of it is in undistributed + clots. It is not upon the soil; barely half of it is in holdings and homes + and authentic communities. It is a population of an extremely modern type. + Urban concentration has already gone far with it; fifteen millions of it + are crowded into and about twenty great cities, another eighteen millions + make up five hundred towns. Between these centres of population run + railways indeed, telegraph wires, telephone connections, tracks of various + sorts, but to the European eye these are mere scratchings on a virgin + surface. An empty wilderness manifests itself through this thin network of + human conveniences, appears in the meshes even at the railroad side. + </p> + <p> + Essentially, America is still an unsettled land, with only a few + incidental good roads in favoured places, with no universal police, with + no wayside inns where a civilised man may rest, with still only the + crudest of rural postal deliveries, with long stretches of swamp and + forest and desert by the track side, still unassailed by industry. This + much one sees clearly enough eastward of Chicago. Westward it becomes more + and more the fact. In Idaho, at last, comes the untouched and perhaps + invincible desert, plain and continuous through the long hours of travel. + Huge areas do not contain one human being to the square mile, still vaster + portions fall short of two.... + </p> + <p> + It is upon Pennsylvania and New York State and the belt of great towns + that stretches out past Chicago to Milwaukee and Madison that the nation + centres and seems destined to centre. One needs but examine a tinted + population map to realise that. The other concentrations are provincial + and subordinate; they have the same relation to the main axis that Glasgow + or Cardiff have to London in the British scheme. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 4 + </p> + <p> + When I speak of this vast multitude, these ninety millions of the United + States of America as being for the most part peasants de-peasant-ised and + common people cut off from their own social traditions, I do not intend to + convey that the American community is as a whole traditionless. There is + in America a very distinctive tradition indeed, which animates the entire + nation, gives a unique idiom to its press and all its public utterances, + and is manifestly the starting point from which the adjustments of the + future must be made. + </p> + <p> + The mere sight of the stars and stripes serves to recall it; "Yankee" in + the mouth of a European gives something of its quality. One thinks at once + of a careless abandonment of any pretension, of tireless energy and daring + enterprise, of immense self-reliance, of a disrespect for the past so + complete that a mummy is in itself a comical object, and the blowing out + of an ill-guarded sacred flame, a delightful jest. One thinks of the + enterprise of the sky-scraper and the humour of "A Yankee at the Court of + King Arthur," and of "Innocents Abroad." Its dominant notes are democracy, + freedom, and confidence. It is religious-spirited without superstition + consciously Christian in the vein of a nearly Unitarian Christianity, + fervent but broadened, broadened as a halfpenny is broadened by being run + over by an express train, substantially the same, that is to say, but with + a marked loss of outline and detail. It is a tradition of romantic + concession to good and inoffensive women and a high development of that + personal morality which puts sexual continence and alcoholic temperance + before any public virtue. It is equally a tradition of sporadic emotional + public-spiritedness, entirely of the quality of gallantry, of handsome and + surprising gifts to the people, disinterested occupation of office and the + like. It is emotionally patriotic, hypotheticating fighting and dying for + one's country as a supreme good while inculcating also that working and + living for oneself is quite within the sphere of virtuous action. It + adores the flag but suspects the State. One sees more national flags and + fewer national servants in America than in any country in the world. Its + conception of manners is one of free plain-spoken men revering women and + shielding them from most of the realities of life, scornful of + aristocracies and monarchies, while asserting simply, directly, boldly and + frequently an equal claim to consideration with all other men. If there is + any traditional national costume, it is shirt-sleeves. And it cherishes + the rights of property above any other right whatsoever. + </p> + <p> + Such are the details that come clustering into one's mind in response to + the phrase, the American tradition. + </p> + <p> + From the War of Independence onward until our own times that tradition, + that very definite ideal, has kept pretty steadily the same. It is the + image of a man and not the image of a State. Its living spirit has been + the spirit of freedom at any cost, unconditional and irresponsible. It is + the spirit of men who have thrown off a yoke, who are jealously resolved + to be unhampered masters of their "own," to whom nothing else is of + anything but secondary importance. That was the spirit of the English + small gentry and mercantile class, the comfortable property owners, the + Parliamentarians, in Stuart times. Indeed even earlier, it is very largely + the spirit of More's "Utopia." It was that spirit sent Oliver Cromwell + himself packing for America, though a heedless and ill-advised and + unforeseeing King would not let him go. It was the spirit that made + taxation for public purposes the supreme wrong and provoked each country, + first the mother country and then in its turn the daughter country, to + armed rebellion. It has been the spirit of the British Whig and the + British Nonconformist almost up to the present day. In the Reform Club of + London, framed and glazed over against Magna Charta, is the American + Declaration of Independence, kindred trophies they are of the same + essentially English spirit of stubborn insubordination. But the American + side of it has gone on unchecked by the complementary aspect of the + English character which British Toryism expresses. + </p> + <p> + The War of Independence raised that Whig suspicion of and hostility to + government and the freedom of private property and the repudiation of any + but voluntary emotional and supererogatory co-operation in the national + purpose to the level of a religion, and the American Constitution with but + one element of elasticity in the Supreme Court decisions, established + these principles impregnably in the political structure. It organised + disorganisation. Personal freedom, defiance of authority, and the stars + and stripes have always gone together in men's minds; and subsequent waves + of immigration, the Irish fleeing famine, for which they held the English + responsible, and the Eastern European Jews escaping relentless + persecutions, brought a persuasion of immense public wrongs, as a + necessary concomitant of systematic government, to refresh without + changing this defiant thirst for freedom at any cost. + </p> + <p> + In my book, "The Future in America," I have tried to make an estimate of + the working quality of this American tradition of unconditional freedom + for the adult male citizen. I have shown that from the point of view of + anyone who regards civilisation as an organisation of human + interdependence and believes that the stability of society can be secured + only by a conscious and disciplined co-ordination of effort, it is a + tradition extraordinarily and dangerously deficient in what I have called + a "<i>sense of the State</i>." And by a "sense of the State" I mean not + merely a vague and sentimental and showy public-spiritedness—of that + the States have enough and to spare—but a real sustaining conception + of the collective interest embodied in the State as an object of simple + duty and as a determining factor in the life of each individual. It + involves a sense of function and a sense of "place," a sense of a general + responsibility and of a general well-being overriding the individual's + well-being, which are exactly the senses the American tradition attacks + and destroys. + </p> + <p> + For the better part of a century the American tradition, quite as much by + reason of what it disregards as of what it suggests, has meant a great + release of human energy, a vigorous if rough and untidy exploitation of + the vast resources that the European invention of railways and telegraphic + communication put within reach of the American people. It has stimulated + men to a greater individual activity, perhaps, than the world has ever + seen before. Men have been wasted by misdirection no doubt, but there has + been less waste by inaction and lassitude than was the case in any + previous society. Great bulks of things and great quantities of things + have been produced, huge areas brought under cultivation, vast cities + reared in the wilderness. + </p> + <p> + But this tradition has failed to produce the beginnings or promise of any + new phase of civilised organisation, the growths have remained largely + invertebrate and chaotic, and, concurrently with its gift of splendid and + monstrous growth, it has also developed portentous political and economic + evils. No doubt the increment of human energy has been considerable, but + it has been much less than appears at first sight. Much of the human + energy that America has displayed in the last century is not a development + of new energy but a diversion. It has been accompanied by a fall in the + birth-rate that even the immigration torrent has not altogether replaced. + Its insistence on the individual, its disregard of the collective + organisation, its treatment of women and children as each man's private + concern, has had its natural outcome. Men's imaginations have been turned + entirely upon individual and immediate successes and upon concrete + triumphs; they have had no regard or only an ineffectual sentimental + regard for the race. Every man was looking after himself, and there was no + one to look after the future. Had the promise of 1815 been fulfilled, + there would now be in the United States of America one hundred million + descendants of the homogeneous and free-spirited native population of that + time. There is not, as a matter of fact, more than thirty-five million. + There is probably, as I have pointed out, much less. Against the assets of + cities, railways, mines and industrial wealth won, the American tradition + has to set the price of five-and-seventy million native citizens who have + never found time to get born, and whose place is now more or less filled + by alien substitutes. Biologically speaking, this is not a triumph for the + American tradition. It is, however, very clearly an outcome of the intense + individualism of that tradition. Under the sway of that it has burnt its + future in the furnace to keep up steam. + </p> + <p> + The next and necessary evil consequent upon this exaltation of the + individual and private property over the State, over the race that is and + over public property, has been a contempt for public service. It has + identified public spirit with spasmodic acts of public beneficence. The + American political ideal became a Cincinnatus whom nobody sent for and who + therefore never left his plough. There has ensued a corrupt and + undignified political life, speaking claptrap, dark with violence, + illiterate and void of statesmanship or science, forbidding any healthy + social development through public organisation at home, and every year + that the increasing facilities of communication draw the alien nations + closer, deepening the risks of needless and disastrous wars abroad. + </p> + <p> + And in the third place it is to be remarked that the American tradition + has defeated its dearest aims of a universal freedom and a practical + equality. The economic process of the last half-century, so far as America + is concerned has completely justified the generalisations of Marx. There + has been a steady concentration of wealth and of the reality as + distinguished from the forms of power in the hands of a small energetic + minority, and a steady approximation of the condition of the mass of the + citizens to that of the so-called proletariat of the European communities. + The tradition of individual freedom and equality is, in fact, in process + of destroying the realities of freedom and equality out of which it rose. + Instead of the six hundred thousand families of the year 1790, all at + about the same level of property and, excepting the peculiar condition of + seven hundred thousand blacks, with scarcely anyone in the position of a + hireling, we have now as the most striking, though by no means the most + important, fact in American social life a frothy confusion of + millionaires' families, just as wasteful, foolish and vicious as + irresponsible human beings with unlimited resources have always shown + themselves to be. And, concurrently with the appearance of these + concentrations of great wealth, we have appearing also poverty, poverty of + a degree that was quite unknown in the United States for the first century + of their career as an independent nation. In the last few decades slums as + frightful as any in Europe have appeared with terrible rapidity, and there + has been a development of the viler side of industrialism, of sweating and + base employment of the most ominous kind. + </p> + <p> + In Mr. Robert Hunter's "Poverty" one reads of "not less than eighty + thousand children, most of whom are little girls, at present employed in + the textile mills of this country. In the South there are now six times as + many children at work as there were twenty years ago. Child labour is + increasing yearly in that section of the country. Each year more little + ones are brought in from the fields and hills to live in the degrading and + demoralising atmosphere of the mill towns...." + </p> + <p> + Children are deliberately imported by the Italians. I gathered from + Commissioner Watchorn at Ellis Island that the proportion of little + nephews and nieces, friends' sons and so forth brought in by them is + peculiarly high, and I heard him try and condemn a doubtful case. It was a + particularly unattractive Italian in charge of a dull-eyed little boy of + no ascertainable relationship.... + </p> + <p> + In the worst days of cotton-milling in England the conditions were hardly + worse than those now existing in the South. Children, the tiniest and + frailest, of five and six years of age, rise in the morning and, like old + men and women, go to the mills to do their day's labour; and, when they + return home, "wearily fling themselves on their beds, too tired to take + off their clothes." Many children work all night—"in the maddening + racket of the machinery, in an atmosphere insanitary and clouded with + humidity and lint." + </p> + <p> + "It will be long," adds Mr. Hunter in his description, "before I forget + the face of a little boy of six years, with his hands stretched forward to + rearrange a bit of machinery, his pallid face and spare form already + showing the physical effects of labour. This child, six years of age, was + working twelve hours a day." + </p> + <p> + From Mr. Spargo's "Bitter Cry of the Children" I learn this much of the + joys of certain among the youth of Pennsylvania: + </p> + <p> + "For ten or eleven hours a day children of ten and eleven stoop over the + chute and pick out the slate and other impurities from the coal as it + moves past them. The air is black with coal dust, and the roar of the + crushers, screens and rushing mill-race of coal is deafening. Sometimes + one of the children falls into the machinery and is terribly mangled, or + slips into the chute and is smothered to death. Many children are killed + in this way. Many others, after a time, contract coal-miners asthma and + consumption, which gradually undermine their health. Breathing continually + day after day the clouds of coal dust, their lungs become black and choked + with small particles of anthracite...." + </p> + <p> + In Massachusetts, at Fall River, the Hon. J.F. Carey tells how little + naked boys, free Americans, work for Mr. Borden, the New York millionaire, + packing cloth into bleaching vats, in a bath of chemicals that bleaches + their little bodies like the bodies of lepers.... + </p> + <p> + Altogether it would seem that at least one million and a half children are + growing up in the United States of America stunted and practically + uneducated because of unregulated industrialism. These children, ill-fed, + ill-trained mentally benighted, since they are alive and active, since + they are an active and positive and not a negative evil, are even more + ominous in the American outlook than those five and sixty million of good + race and sound upbringing who will now never be born. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 5 + </p> + <p> + It must be repeated that the American tradition is really the tradition of + one particular ingredient in this great admixture and stirring up of + peoples. This ingredient is the Colonial British, whose seventeenth + century Puritanism and eighteenth century mercantile radicalism and + rationalism manifestly furnished all the stuff out of which the American + tradition is made. It is this stuff planted in virgin soil and inflated to + an immense and buoyant optimism by colossal and unanticipated material + prosperity and success. From that British middle-class tradition comes the + individualist protestant spirit, the keen self-reliance and personal + responsibility, the irresponsible expenditure, the indiscipline and + mystical faith in things being managed properly if they are only let + alone. "State-blindness" is the natural and almost inevitable quality of a + middle-class tradition, a class that has been forced neither to rule nor + obey, which has been concentrated and successfully concentrated on private + gain. + </p> + <p> + This middle-class British section of the American population was, and is + to this day, the only really articulate ingredient in its mental + composition. And so it has had a monopoly in providing the American forms + of thought. The other sections of peoples that have been annexed by or + have come into this national synthesis are <i>silent</i> so far as any + contribution to the national stock of ideas and ideals is concerned. There + are, for example, those great elements, the Spanish Catholics, the French + Catholic population of Louisiana, the Irish Catholics, the + French-Canadians who are now ousting the sterile New Englander from New + England, the Germans, the Italians the Hungarians. Comparatively they say + nothing. From all the ten million of coloured people come just two or + three platform voices, Booker Washington, Dubois, Mrs. Church Terrell, + mere protests at specific wrongs. The clever, restless Eastern European + Jews, too, have still to find a voice. Professor M|nsterberg has written + with a certain bitterness of the inaudibility of the German element in the + American population. They allow themselves, he remonstrates, to count for + nothing. They did not seem to exist, he points out, even in politics until + prohibitionist fury threatened their beer. Then, indeed, the American + German emerged from silence and obscurity, but only to rescue his mug and + retire again with it into enigmatical silence. + </p> + <p> + If there is any exception to this predominance of the tradition of the + English-speaking, originally middle-class, English-thinking northerner in + the American mind, it is to be found in the spread of social democracy + outward from the festering tenement houses of Chicago into the mining and + agrarian regions of the middle west. It is a fierce form of socialist + teaching that speaks throughout these regions, far more closely akin to + the revolutionary Socialism of the continent of Europe than to the + constructive and evolutionary Socialism of Great Britain. Its typical + organ is <i>The Appeal to Reason</i>, which circulates more than a quarter + of a million copies weekly from Kansas City. It is a Socialism reeking + with class feeling and class hatred and altogether anarchistic in spirit; + a new and highly indigestible contribution to the American moral and + intellectual synthesis. It is remarkable chiefly as the one shrill + exception in a world of plastic acceptance. + </p> + <p> + Now it is impossible to believe that this vast silence of these imported + and ingested factors that the American nation has taken to itself is as + acquiescent as it seems. No doubt they are largely taking over the + traditional forms of American thought and expression quietly and without + protest, and wearing them; but they will wear them as a man wears a + misfit, shaping and adapting it every day more and more to his natural + form, here straining a seam and there taking in a looseness. A force of + modification must be at work. It must be at work in spite of the fact + that, with the exception of social democracy, it does not anywhere show as + a protest or a fresh beginning or a challenge to the prevailing forms. + </p> + <p> + How far it has actually been at work is, perhaps, to be judged best by an + observant stroller, surveying the crowds of a Sunday evening in New York, + or read in the sheets of such a mirror of popular taste as the Sunday + edition of the <i>New York American</i> or the <i>New York Herald</i>. In + the former just what I mean by the silent modification of the old + tradition is quite typically shown. Its leading articles are written by + Mr. Arthur Brisbane, the son of one of the Brook Farm Utopians, that + gathering in which Hawthorne and Henry James senior, and Margaret Fuller + participated, and in which the whole brilliant world of Boston's past, the + world of Emerson, Longfellow, Thoreau, was interested. Mr. Brisbane is a + very distinguished man, quite over and above the fact that he is paid the + greatest salary of any journalist in the world. He writes with a wit and + directness that no other living man can rival, and he holds up constantly + what is substantially the American ideal of the past century to readers + who evidently need strengthening in it. It is, of course, the figure of a + man and not of a State; it is a man, clean, clean shaved and almost + obtrusively strong-jawed, honest, muscular, alert, pushful, chivalrous, + self-reliant, non-political except when he breaks into shrewd and + penetrating voting—"you can fool all the people some of the time," + etc.—and independent—independent—in a world which is + therefore certain to give way to him. + </p> + <p> + His doubts, his questionings, his aspirations, are dealt with by Mr. + Brisbane with a simple direct fatherliness with all the beneficent + persuasiveness of a revivalist preacher. Millions read these leaders and + feel a momentary benefit, en route for the more actual portions of the + paper. He asks: "Why are all men gamblers?" He discusses our Longing for + Immortal Imperfection, and "Did we once live on the moon?" He recommends + the substitution of whisky and soda for neat whisky, drawing an + illustration from the comparative effect of the diluted and of the + undiluted liquid as an eye-wash ("Try whisky on your friend's eyeball!" is + the heading), sleep ("The man who loses sleep will make a failure of his + life, or at least diminish greatly his chances of success"), and the + education of the feminine intelligence ("The cow that kicks her weaned + calf is all heart"). He makes identically the same confident appeal to the + moral motive which was for so long the salvation of the Puritan + individualism from which the American tradition derives. "That hand," he + writes, "which supports the head of the new-born baby, the mother's hand, + supports the civilisation of the world." + </p> + <p> + But that sort of thing is not saving the old native strain in the + population. It moves people, no doubt, but inadequately. And here is a + passage that is quite the quintessence of Americanism, of all its deep + moral feeling and sentimental untruthfulness. I wonder if any man but an + American or a British nonconformist in a state of rhetorical excitement + ever believed that Shakespeare wrote his plays or Michael Angelo painted + in a mood of humanitarian exaltation, "<i>for the good of all men</i>." + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "What <i>shall</i> we strive for? <i>Money</i>? + + "Get a thousand millions. Your day will come, and + in due course the graveyard rat will gnaw as calmly at + your bump of acquisitiveness as at the mean coat of the + pauper. + + "Then shall we strive for <i>power</i>? + + "The names of the first great kings of the world are + forgotten, and the names of all those whose power we envy + will drift to forgetfulness soon. What does the most powerful + man in the world amount to standing at the brink of + Niagara, with his solar plexus trembling? What is his + power compared with the force of the wind or the energy + of one small wave sweeping along the shore? + + "The power which man can build up within himself, + for himself, is nothing. Only the dull reasoning of gratified + egotism can make it seem worth while. + + "Then what is worth while? Let us look at some of + the men who have come and gone, and whose lives inspire + us. Take a few at random: + + "Columbus, Michael Angelo, Wilberforce, Shakespeare, + Galileo, Fulton, Watt, Hargreaves—these will do. + + "Let us ask ourselves this question: 'Was there any + <i>one thing</i> that distinguished <i>all</i> their lives, + that united all these men, active in fields so different?' + + "Yes. Every man among them, and every man whose + life history is worth the telling, did something for <i>the good + of other men</i>.... + + "Get money if you can. Get power if you can; Then, if + you want to be more than the ten thousand million unknown + mingled in the dust beneath you, see what good you can + do with your money and your power. + + "If you are one of the many millions who have not + and can't get money or power, see what good you can do + without either: + + "You can help carry a load for an old man. You can + encourage and help a poor devil trying to reform. You + can set a good example to children. You can stick to the + men with whom you work, fighting honestly for their + welfare. + + "Time was when the ablest man would rather kill ten + men than feed a thousand children. That time has gone. + We do not care much about feeding the children, but we + care less about killing the men. To that extent we have + improved already. + + "The day will come when we shall prefer helping our + neighbour to robbing him—legally—of a million dollars. + + "Do what good you can <i>now</i>, while it is unusual, + and have the satisfaction of being a pioneer and an + eccentric." +</pre> + <p> + It is the voice of the American tradition strained to the utmost to make + itself audible to the new world, and cracking into italics and breaking + into capitals with the strain. The rest of that enormous bale of paper is + eloquent of a public void of moral ambitions, lost to any sense of + comprehensive things, deaf to ideas, impervious to generalisations, a + public which has carried the conception of freedom to its logical extreme + of entire individual detachment. These tell-tale columns deal all with + personality and the drama of personal life. They witness to no interest + but the interest in intense individual experiences. The engagements, the + love affairs, the scandals of conspicuous people are given in pitiless + detail in articles adorned with vigorous portraits and sensational + pictorial comments. Even the eavesdroppers who write this stuff strike the + personal note, and their heavily muscular portraits frown beside the + initial letter. Murders and crimes are worked up to the keenest pitch of + realisation, and any new indelicacy in fashionable costume, any new + medical device or cure, any new dance or athleticism, any new breach in + the moral code, any novelty in sea bathing or the woman's seat on + horseback, or the like, is given copious and moving illustration, stirring + headlines, and eloquent reprobation. There is a coloured supplement of + knock-about fun, written chiefly in the quaint dialect of the New York + slums. It is a language from which "th" has vanished, and it presents a + world in which the kicking by a mule of an endless succession of victims + is an inexhaustible joy to young and old. "Dat ole Maud!" There is a + smaller bale dealing with sport. In the advertisement columns one finds + nothing of books, nothing of art; but great choice of bust developers, + hair restorers, nervous tonics, clothing sales, self-contained flats, and + business opportunities.... + </p> + <p> + Individuality has, in fact, got home to itself, and, as people say, taken + off its frills. All but one; Mr. Arthur Brisbane's eloquence one may + consider as the last stitch of the old costume—mere decoration. + Excitement remains the residual object in life. The <i>New York American</i> + represents a clientele to be counted by the hundred thousand, manifestly + with no other solicitudes, just burning to live and living to burn. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 6 + </p> + <p> + The modifications of the American tradition that will occur through its + adoption by these silent foreign ingredients in the racial synthesis are + not likely to add to it or elaborate it in any way. They tend merely to + simplify it to bare irresponsible non-moral individualism. It is with the + detail and qualification of a tradition as with the inflexions of a + language; when another people takes it over the refinements disappear. But + there are other forces of modification at work upon the American tradition + of an altogether more hopeful kind. It has entered upon a constructive + phase. Were it not so, then the American social outlook would, indeed, be + hopeless. + </p> + <p> + The effectual modifying force at work is not the strangeness nor the + temperamental maladjustment of the new elements of population, but the + conscious realisation of the inadequacy of the tradition on the part of + the more intelligent sections of the American population. That blind + national conceit that would hear no criticism and admit no deficiency has + disappeared. In the last decade such a change has come over the American + mind as sometimes comes over a vigorous and wilful child. Suddenly it + seems to have grown up, to have begun to weigh its powers and consider its + possible deficiencies. There was a time when American confidence and + self-satisfaction seemed impregnable; at the slightest qualm of doubt + America took to violent rhetoric as a drunkard resorts to drink. Now the + indictment I have drawn up harshly, bluntly and unflatteringly in Sec. 4 + would receive the endorsement of American after American. The falling + birth-rate of all the best elements in the State, the cankering effect of + political corruption, the crumbling of independence and equality before + the progressive aggregation of wealth—he has to face them, he cannot + deny them. There has arisen a new literature, the literature of national + self-examination, that seems destined to modify the American tradition + profoundly. To me it seems to involve the hope and possibility of a + conscious collective organisation of social life. + </p> + <p> + If ever there was an epoch-marking book it was surely Henry Demarest + Lloyd's "Wealth against Commonwealth." It marks an epoch not so much by + what it says as by what it silently abandons. It was published in 1894, + and it stated in the very clearest terms the incompatibility of the almost + limitless freedom of property set up by the constitution, with the + practical freedom and general happiness of the mass of men. It must be + admitted that Lloyd never followed up the implications of this + repudiation. He made his statements in the language of the tradition he + assailed, and foreshadowed the replacement of chaos by order in quite + chaotic and mystical appeals. Here, for instance, is a typical passage + from "Man, the Social Creator". + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Property is now a stumbling-block to the people, just + as government has been. Property will not be abolished, + but, like government, it will be democratised. + + "The philosophy of self-interest as the social solution + was a good living and working synthesis in the days when + civilisation was advancing its frontiers twenty miles a day + across the American continent, and every man for himself + was the best social mobilisation possible. + + "But to-day it is a belated ghost that has overstayed + the cock-crow. These were frontier morals. But this same, + everyone for himself, becomes most immoral when the + frontier is abolished and the pioneer becomes the fellow-citizen + and these frontier morals are most uneconomic when + labour can be divided and the product multiplied. Most + uneconomic, for they make closure the rule of industry, + leading not to wealth, but to that awful waste of wealth + which is made visible to every eye in our unemployed—not + hands alone, but land, machinery, and, most of all, hearts. + Those who still practise these frontier morals are like + criminals, who, according to the new science of penology, + are simply reappearances of old types. Their acquisitiveness + once divine like Mercury's, is now out of place except + in jail. Because out of place, they are a danger. A sorry + day it is likely to be for those who are found in the way + when the new people rise to rush into each other's arms, + to get together, to stay together and to live together. The + labour movement halts because so many of its rank and + file—and all its leaders—do not see clearly the golden thread + of love on which have been strung together all the past + glories of human association, and which is to serve for + the link of the new Association of Friends who Labour, + whose motto is 'All for All.'" +</pre> + <p> + The establishment of the intricate co-operative commonwealth by a rush of + eighty million flushed and shiny-eyed enthusiasts, in fact, is Lloyd's + proposal. He will not face, and few Americans to this day will face, the + cold need of a great science of social adjustment and a disciplined and + rightly ordered machinery to turn such enthusiasms to effect. They seem + incurably wedded to gush. However, he did express clearly enough the + opening phase of American disillusionment with the wild go-as-you-please + that had been the conception of life in America through a vehement, + wasteful, expanding century. And he was the precursor of what is now a + bulky and extremely influential literature of national criticism. A number + of writers, literary investigators one may call them, or sociological men + of letters, or magazine publicists—they are a little difficult to + place—has taken up the inquiry into the condition of civic + administration, into economic organisation into national politics and + racial interaction, with a frank fearlessness and an absence of windy + eloquence that has been to many Europeans a surprising revelation of the + reserve forces of the American mind. President Roosevelt, that magnificent + reverberator of ideas, that gleam of wilful humanity, that fantastic first + interruption to the succession of machine-made politicians at the White + House, has echoed clearly to this movement and made it an integral part of + the general intellectual movement of America. + </p> + <p> + It is to these first intimations of the need of a "sense of the State" in + America that I would particularly direct the reader's attention in this + discussion. They are the beginnings of what is quite conceivably a great + and complex reconstructive effort. I admit they are but beginnings. They + may quite possibly wither and perish presently; they may much more + probably be seized upon by adventurers and converted into a new cant + almost as empty and fruitless as the old. The fact remains that, through + this busy and immensely noisy confusion of nearly a hundred millions of + people, these little voices go intimating more and more clearly the + intention to undertake public affairs in a new spirit and upon new + principles, to strengthen the State and the law against individual + enterprise, to have done with those national superstitions under which + hypocrisy and disloyalty and private plunder have sheltered and prospered + for so long. + </p> + <p> + Just as far as these reform efforts succeed and develop is the + organisation of the United States of America into a great, self-conscious, + civilised nation, unparalleled in the world's history, possible; just as + far as they fail is failure written over the American future. The real + interest of America for the next century to the student of civilisation + will be the development of these attempts, now in their infancy, to create + and realise out of this racial hotchpotch, this human chaos, an idea, of + the collective commonwealth as the datum of reference for every individual + life. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 7 + </p> + <p> + I have hinted in the last section that there is a possibility that the new + wave of constructive ideas in American thought may speedily develop a cant + of its own. But even then, a constructive cant is better than a + destructive one. Even the conscious hypocrite has to do something to + justify his pretences, and the mere disappearance from current thought of + the persuasion that organisation is a mistake and discipline needless, + clears the ground of one huge obstacle even if it guarantees nothing about + the consequent building. + </p> + <p> + But, apart from this, are there more solid and effectual forces behind + this new movement of ideas that makes for organisation in American medley + at the present time? + </p> + <p> + The speculative writer casting about for such elements lights upon four + sets of possibilities which call for discussion. First, one has to ask: + How far is the American plutocracy likely to be merely a wasteful and + chaotic class, and how far is it likely to become consciously aristocratic + and constructive? Secondly, and in relation to this, what possibilities of + pride and leading are there in the great university foundations of + America? Will they presently begin to tell as a restraining and directing + force upon public thought? Thirdly, will the growing American Socialist + movement, which at present is just as anarchistic and undisciplined in + spirit as everything else in America, presently perceive the constructive + implications of its general propositions and become statesmanlike and + constructive? And, fourthly, what are the latent possibilities of the + American women? Will women as they become more and more aware of + themselves as a class and of the problem of their sex become a force upon + the anarchistic side, a force favouring race-suicide, or upon the + constructive side which plans and builds and bears the future? + </p> + <p> + The only possible answer to each one of these questions at present is + guessing and an estimate. But the only way in which a conception of the + American social future may be reached lies through their discussion. + </p> + <p> + Let us begin by considering what constructive forces may exist in this new + plutocracy which already so largely sways American economic and political + development. The first impression is one of extravagant and aimless + expenditure, of a class irresponsible and wasteful beyond all precedent. + One gets a Zolaesque picture of that aspect in Mr. Upton Sinclair's + "Metropolis," or the fashionable intelligence of the popular New York + Sunday editions, and one finds a good deal of confirmatory evidence in + many incidental aspects of the smart American life of Paris and the + Riviera. The evidence in the notorious Thaw trial, after one has + discounted its theatrical elements, was still a very convincing + demonstration of a rotten and extravagant, because aimless and + functionless, class of rich people. But one has to be careful in this + matter if one is to do justice to the facts. If a thing is made up of two + elements, and one is noisy and glaringly coloured, and the other is quiet + and colourless, the first impression created will be that the thing is + identical with the element that is noisy and glaringly coloured. One is + much less likely to hear of the broad plans and the quality of the wise, + strong and constructive individuals in a class than of their foolish + wives, their spendthrift sons, their mistresses, and their moments of + irritation and folly. + </p> + <p> + In the making of very rich men there is always a factor of good fortune + and a factor of design and will. One meets rich men at times who seem to + be merely lucky gamblers, who strike one as just the thousandth man in a + myriad of wild plungers, who are, in fact, chance nobodies washed up by an + eddy. Others, again, strike one as exceptionally lucky half-knaves. But + there are others of a growth more deliberate and of an altogether higher + personal quality. One takes such men as Mr. J.D. Rockefeller or Mr. + Pierpont Morgan—the scale of their fortunes makes them public + property—and it is clear that we are dealing with persons on quite a + different level of intellectual power from the British Colonel Norths, for + example, or the South African Joels. In my "Future in America" I have + taken the former largely at Miss Tarbell's estimate, and treated him as a + case of acquisitiveness raised in Baptist surroundings. But I doubt very + much if that exhausts the man as he is to-day. Given a man brought up to + saving and "getting on" as if to a religion, a man very acquisitive and + very patient and restrained, and indubitably with great organising power, + and he grows rich beyond the dreams of avarice. And having done so, there + he is. What is he going to do? Every step he takes up the ascent to riches + gives him new perspectives and new points of view. + </p> + <p> + It may have appealed to the young Rockefeller, clerk in a Chicago house, + that to be rich was itself a supreme end; in the first flush of the + discovery that he was immensely rich, he may have thanked Heaven as if for + a supreme good, and spoken to a Sunday school gathering as if he knew + himself for the most favoured of men. But all that happened twenty years + ago or more. One does not keep on in that sort of satisfaction; one + settles down to the new facts. And such men as Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. + Pierpont Morgan do not live in a made and protected world with their minds + trained, tamed and fed and shielded from outside impressions as royalties + do. The thought of the world has washed about them; they have read and + listened to the discussion of themselves for some decades; they have had + sleepless nights of self-examination. To succeed in acquiring enormous + wealth does not solve the problem of life; indeed, it reopens it in a new + form. "What shall I do with myself?" simply recurs again. You may have + decided to devote yourself to getting on, getting wealthy. Well, you have + got it. Now, again, comes the question: "What shall I do?" + </p> + <p> + Mr. Pierpont Morgan, I am told, collected works of art. I can understand + that satisfying a rich gentleman of leisure, but not a man who has felt + the sensation of holding great big things in his great big hands. Saul, + going out to seek his father's asses, found a kingdom—and became + very spiritedly a king, and it seems to me that these big industrial and + financial organisers, whatever in their youth they proposed to do or be, + must many of them come to realise that their organising power is up + against no less a thing than a nation's future. Napoleon, it is curious to + remember once wanted to run a lodging-house, and a man may start to corner + oil and end the father of a civilisation. + </p> + <p> + Now, I am disposed to suspect at times that an inkling of such a + realisation may have come to some of these very rich men. I am inclined to + put it among the possibilities of our time that it may presently become + clearly and definitely the inspiring idea of many of those who find + themselves predominantly rich. I do not see why these active rich should + not develop statesmanship, and I can quite imagine them developing very + considerable statesmanship. Because these men were able to realise their + organising power in the absence of economic organisation, it does not + follow that they will be fanatical for a continuing looseness and freedom + of property. The phase of economic liberty ends itself, as Marx long ago + pointed out. The American business world becomes more and more a managed + world with fewer and fewer wild possibilities of succeeding. Of all people + the big millionaires should realise this most acutely, and, in fact, there + are many signs that they do. It seems to me that the educational zeal of + Mr. Andrew Carnegie and the university and scientific endowments of Mr. + Rockefeller are not merely showy benefactions; they express a definite + feeling of the present need of constructive organisation in the social + scheme. The time has come to build. There is, I think, good reason for + expecting that statesmanship of the millionaires to become more organised + and scientific and comprehensive in the coming years. It is plausible at + least to maintain that the personal quality of the American plutocracy has + risen in the last three decades, has risen from the quality of a mere + irresponsible wealthy person towards that of a real aristocrat with a + "sense of the State." That one may reckon the first hopeful possibility in + the American outlook. + </p> + <p> + And intimately connected with this development of an attitude of public + responsibility in the very rich is the decay on the one hand of the + preposterous idea once prevalent in America that politics is an unsuitable + interest for a "gentleman," and on the other of the democratic jealousy of + any but poor politicians. In New York they talk very much of "gentlemen," + and by "gentlemen" they seem to mean rich men "in society" with a college + education. Nowadays, "gentlemen" seem more and more disposed towards + politics, and less and less towards a life of business or detached + refinement. President Roosevelt, for example, was one of the pioneers in + this new development, this restoration of virility to the gentlemanly + ideal. His career marks the appearance of a new and better type of man in + American politics, the close of the rule of the idealised nobody. + </p> + <p> + The prophecy has been made at times that the United States might develop a + Caesarism, and certainly the position of president might easily become + that of an imperator. No doubt in the event of an acute failure of the + national system such a catastrophe might occur, but the more hopeful and + probable line of development is one in which a conscious and powerful, if + informal, aristocracy will play a large part. It may, indeed, never have + any of the outward forms of an aristocracy or any definite public + recognition. The Americans are as chary of the coronet and the known + aristocratic titles as the Romans were of the word King. Octavius, for + that reason, never called himself king nor Italy a kingdom. He was just + the Caesar of the Republic, and the Empire had been established for many + years before the Romans fully realised that they had returned to monarchy. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 8 + </p> + <p> + The American universities are closely connected in their development with + the appearance and growing class-consciousness of this aristocracy of + wealth. The fathers of the country certainly did postulate a need of + universities, and in every state Congress set aside public lands to + furnish a university with material resources. Every State possesses a + university, though in many instances these institutions are in the last + degree of feebleness. In the days of sincere democracy the starvation of + government and the dislike of all manifest inequalities involved the + starvation of higher education. Moreover, the entirely artificial nature + of the State boundaries, representing no necessary cleavages and traversed + haphazard by the lines of communication, made some of these State + foundations unnecessary and others inadequate to a convergent demand. From + the very beginning, side by side with the State universities, were the + universities founded by benefactors; and with the evolution of new centres + of population, new and extremely generous plutocratic endowments appeared. + The dominant universities of America to-day, the treasure houses of + intellectual prestige, are almost all of them of plutocratic origin, and + even in the State universities, if new resources are wanted to found new + chairs, to supply funds for research or publication or what not, it is to + the more State-conscious wealthy and not to the State legislature that the + appeal is made almost as a matter of course. The common voter, the small + individualist has less constructive imagination—is more + individualistic, that is, than the big individualist. + </p> + <p> + This great network of universities that is now spread over the States, + interchanging teachers, literature and ideas, and educating not only the + professions but a growing proportion of business leaders and wealthy + people, must necessarily take an important part in the reconstruction of + the American tradition that is now in progress. It is giving a large and + increasing amount of attention to the subjects that bear most directly + upon the peculiar practical problems of statecraft in America, to + psychology, sociology and political science. It is influencing the press + more and more directly by supplying a rising proportion of journalists and + creating an atmosphere of criticism and suggestion. It is keeping itself + on the one hand in touch with the popular literature of public criticism + in those new and curious organs of public thought, the ten-cent magazines; + and on the other it is making a constantly more solid basis of common + understanding upon which the newer generation of plutocrats may meet. That + older sentimental patriotism must be giving place under its influence to a + more definite and effectual conception of a collective purpose. It is to + the moral and intellectual influence of sustained scientific study in the + universities, and a growing increase of the college-trained element in the + population that we must look if we are to look anywhere for the new + progressive methods, for the substitution of persistent, planned and + calculated social development for the former conditions of systematic + neglect and corruption in public affairs varied by epileptic seizures of + "Reform." + </p> + <p> + Sec. 9 + </p> + <p> + A third influence that may also contribute very materially to the + reconstruction of the American tradition is the Socialist movement. It is + true that so far American Socialism has very largely taken an Anarchistic + form, has been, in fact, little more than a revolutionary movement of the + wages-earning class against the property owner. It has already been + pointed out that it derives not from contemporary English Socialism but + from the Marxist social democracy of the continent of Europe, and has not + even so much of the constructive spirit as has been developed by the + English Socialists of the Fabian and Labour Party group or by the newer + German evolutionary Socialists. Nevertheless, whenever Socialism is + intelligently met by discussion or whenever it draws near to practicable + realisation, it becomes, by virtue of its inherent implications, a + constructive force, and there is no reason to suppose that it will not be + intelligently met on the whole and in the long run in America. The + alternative to a developing Socialism among the labouring masses in + America is that revolutionary Anarchism from which it is slowly but + definitely marking itself off. In America we have to remember that we are + dealing with a huge population of people who are for the most part, and + more and more evidently destined under the present system of free + industrial competition, to be either very small traders, small farmers on + the verge of debt, or wages-earners for all their lives. They are going to + lead limited lives and worried lives—and they know it. Nearly + everyone can read and discuss now, the process of concentrating property + and the steady fixation of conditions that were once fluid and adventurous + goes on in the daylight visibly to everyone. And it has to be borne in + mind also that these people are so far under the sway of the American + tradition that each thinks himself as good as any man and as much entitled + to the fullness of life. Whatever social tradition their fathers had, + whatever ideas of a place to be filled humbly and seriously and duties to + be done, have been left behind in Europe. No Church dominates the scenery + of this new land, and offers in authoritative and convincing tones + consolations hereafter for lives obscurely but faithfully lived. Whatever + else happens in this national future, upon one point the patriotic + American may feel assured, and that is of an immense general discontent in + the working class and of a powerful movement in search of a general + betterment. The practical forms and effects of that movement will depend + almost entirely upon the average standard of life among the workers and + their general education. Sweated and ill-organised foreigners, such as one + finds in New Jersey living under conditions of great misery, will be + fierce, impatient and altogether dangerous. They will be acutely + exasperated by every picture of plutocratic luxury in their newspaper, + they will readily resort to destructive violence. The western miner, the + western agriculturist, worried beyond endurance between the money-lender + and railway combinations will be almost equally prone to savage methods of + expression. <i>The Appeal to Reason</i>, for example, to which I have made + earlier reference in this chapter, is furious to wreck the present + capitalistic system, but it is far too angry and impatient for that + satisfaction to produce any clear suggestion of what shall replace it. + </p> + <p> + To call this discontent of the seething underside of the American system + Socialism is a misnomer. Were there no Socialism there would be just as + much of this discontent, just the same insurgent force and desire for + violence, taking some other title and far more destructive methods. This + discontent is a part of the same planless confusion that gives on the + other side the wanton irresponsible extravagances of the smart people of + New York. But Socialism alone, of all the forms of expression adopted by + the losers in the economic struggle, contains constructive possibilities + and leads its adherents towards that ideal of an organised State, planned + and developed, from which these terrible social stresses may be + eliminated, which is also the ideal to which sociology and the thoughts of + every constructive-minded and foreseeing man in any position of life tend + to-day. In the Socialist hypothesis of collective ownership and + administration as the social basis, there is the germ of a "sense of the + State" that may ultimately develop into comprehensive conceptions of + social order, conceptions upon which enlightened millionaires and + unenlightened workers may meet at last in generous and patriotic + co-operation. + </p> + <p> + The chances of the American future, then, seem to range between two + possibilities just as a more or less constructive Socialism does or does + not get hold of and inspire the working mass of the population. In the + worst event—given an emotional and empty hostility to property as + such, masquerading as Socialism—one has the prospect of a bitter and + aimless class war between the expropriated many and the property-holding + few, a war not of general insurrection but of localised outbreaks, strikes + and brutal suppressions, a war rising to bloody conflicts and sinking to + coarsely corrupt political contests, in which one side may prevail in one + locality and one in another, and which may even develop into a chronic + civil war in the less-settled parts of the country or an irresistible + movement for secession between west and east. That is assuming the + greatest imaginable vehemence and short-sighted selfishness and the least + imaginable intelligence on the part of both workers and the + plutocrat-swayed government. But if the more powerful and educated + sections of the American community realise in time the immense moral + possibilities of the Socialist movement, if they will trouble to + understand its good side instead of emphasising its bad, if they will keep + in touch with it and help in the development of a constructive content to + its propositions, then it seems to me that popular Socialism may count as + a third great factor in the making of the civilised American State. + </p> + <p> + In any case, it does not seem to me probable that there can be any + national revolutionary movement or any complete arrest in the development + of an aristocratic phase in American history. The area of the country is + too great and the means of communication between the workers in different + parts inadequate for a concerted rising or even for effective political + action in mass. In the worst event—and it is only in the worst event + that a great insurrectionary movement becomes probable—the + newspapers, magazines, telephones and telegraphs, all the apparatus of + discussion and popular appeal, the railways, arsenals, guns, flying + machines, and all the material of warfare, will be in the hands of the + property owners, and the average of betrayal among the leaders of a class, + not racially homogeneous, embittered, suspicious united only by their + discomforts and not by any constructive intentions, will necessarily be + high. So that, though the intensifying trouble between labour and capital + may mean immense social disorganisation and lawlessness, though it may + even supply the popular support in new attempts at secession, I do not see + in it the possibility and force for that new start which the revolutionary + Socialists anticipate; I see it merely as one of several forces making, on + the whole and particularly in view of the possible mediatory action of the + universities, for construction and reconciliation. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 10 + </p> + <p> + What changes are likely to occur in the more intimate social life of the + people of the United States? Two influences are at work that may modify + this profoundly. One is that spread of knowledge and that accompanying + change in moral attitude which is more and more sterilising the once + prolific American home, and the second is the rising standard of feminine + education. There has arisen in this age a new consciousness in women. They + are entering into the collective thought to a degree unprecedented in the + world's history, and with portents at once disquieting and confused. + </p> + <p> + In Sec. 5 I enumerated what I called the silent factors in the American + synthesis, the immigrant European aliens, the Catholics, the coloured + blood, and so forth. I would now observe that, in the making of the + American tradition, the women also have been to a large extent, and quite + remarkably, a silent factor. That tradition is not only fundamentally + middle-class and English, but it is also fundamentally masculine. The + citizen is the man. The woman belongs to him. He votes for her, works for + her, does all the severer thinking for her. She is in the home behind the + shop or in the dairy at the farmhouse with her daughters. She gets the + meal while the men talk. The American imagination and American feeling + centre largely upon the family and upon "mother." American ideals are + homely. The social unit is the home, and it is another and a different set + of influences and considerations that are never thought of at all when the + home sentiment is under discussion, that, indeed, it would be indelicate + to mention at such a time, which are making that social unit the home of + one child or of no children at all. + </p> + <p> + That ideal of a man-owned, mother-revering home has been the prevalent + American ideal from the landing of the <i>Mayflower</i> right down to the + leader writing of Mr. Arthur Brisbane. And it is clear that a very + considerable section among one's educated women contemporaries do not mean + to stand this ideal any longer. They do not want to be owned and + cherished, and they do not want to be revered. How far they represent + their sex in this matter it is very hard to say. In England in the + professional and most intellectually active classes it is scarcely an + exaggeration to say that <i>all</i> the most able women below + five-and-thirty are workers for the suffrage and the ideal of equal and + independent citizenship, and active critics of the conventions under which + women live to-day. It is at least plausible to suppose that a day is + approaching when the alternatives between celibacy or a life of economic + dependence and physical subordination to a man who has chosen her, and + upon whose kindness her happiness depends, or prostitution, will no longer + be a satisfactory outlook for the great majority of women, and when, with + a newly aroused political consciousness, they will be prepared to exert + themselves as a class to modify this situation. It may be that this is + incorrect, and that in devotion to an accepted male and his children most + women do still and will continue to find their greatest satisfaction in + life. But it is the writer's impression that so simple and single-hearted + a devotion is rare, and that, released from tradition—and education, + reading and discussion do mean release from tradition—women are as + eager for initiative, freedom and experience as men. In that case they + will persist in the present agitation for political rights, and these + secured, go on to demand a very considerable reconstruction of our present + social order. + </p> + <p> + It is interesting to point the direction in which this desire for + independence will probably take them. They will discover that the + dependence of women at the present time is not so much a law-made as an + economic dependence due to the economic disadvantages their sex imposes + upon them. Maternity and the concomitants of maternity are the + circumstances in their lives, exhausting energy and earning nothing, that + place them at a discount. From the stage when property ceased to be + chiefly the creation of feminine agricultural toil (the so-called + primitive matriarchate) to our present stage, women have had to depend + upon a man's willingness to keep them, in order to realise the organic + purpose of their being. Whether conventionally equal or not, whether + voters or not, that necessity for dependence will still remain under our + system of private property and free independent competition. There is only + one evident way by which women as a class can escape from that dependence + each upon an individual man and from all the practical inferiority this + dependence entails, and that is by so altering their status as to make + maternity and the upbringing of children a charge not upon the husband of + the mother but upon the community. The public Endowment of Maternity is + the only route by which the mass of women can reach that personal freedom + and independent citizenship so many of them desire. + </p> + <p> + Now, this idea of the Endowment of Maternity—or as it is frequently + phrased, the Endowment of the Home—is at present put forward by the + modern Socialists as an integral part of their proposals, and it is + interesting to note that there is this convergent possibility which may + bring the feminist movement at last altogether into line with constructive + Socialism. Obviously, before anything in the direction of family endowment + becomes practicable, public bodies and the State organisation will need to + display far more integrity and efficiency than they do in America at the + present time. Still, that is the trend of things in all contemporary + civilised communities, and it is a trend that will find a powerful + reinforcement in men's solicitudes as the increasing failure of the + unsupported private family to produce offspring adequate to the needs of + social development becomes more and more conspicuous. The impassioned + appeals of President Roosevelt have already brought home the race-suicide + of the native-born to every American intelligence, but mere rhetoric will + not in itself suffice to make people, insecurely employed and struggling + to maintain a comfortable standard of life against great economic + pressure, prolific. Presented as a call to a particularly onerous and + quite unpaid social duty the appeal for unrestricted parentage fails. + Husband and wife alike dread an excessive burthen. Travel, leisure, + freedom, comfort, property and increased ability for business competition + are the rewards of abstinence from parentage, and even the disapproval of + President Roosevelt and the pride of offspring are insufficient + counterweights to these inducements. Large families disappear from the + States, and more and more couples are childless. Those who have children + restrict their number in order to afford those they have some reasonable + advantage in life. This, in the presence of the necessary knowledge, is as + practically inevitable a consequence of individualist competition and the + old American tradition as the appearance of slums and a class of + millionaires. + </p> + <p> + These facts go to the very root of the American problem. I have already + pointed out that, in spite of a colossal immigration, the population of + the United States was at the end of the nineteenth century over twenty + millions short of what it should have been through its own native increase + had the birth-rate of the opening of the century been maintained. For a + hundred years America has been "fed" by Europe. That feeding process will + not go on indefinitely. The immigration came in waves as if reservoir + after reservoir was tapped and exhausted. Nowadays England, Scotland, + Ireland, France and Scandinavia send hardly any more; they have no more to + send. Germany and Switzerland send only a few. The South European and + Austrian supply is not as abundant as it was. There may come a time when + Europe and Western Asia will have no more surplus population to send, when + even Eastern Asia will have passed into a less fecund phase, and when + America will have to look to its own natural increase for the continued + development of its resources. + </p> + <p> + If the present isolated family of private competition is still the social + unit, it seems improbable that there will be any greater natural increase + than there is in France. + </p> + <p> + Will the growing idea of a closer social organisation have developed by + that time to the possibility of some collective effort in this matter? Or + will that only come about after the population of the world has passed + through a phase of absolute recession? The peculiar constitution of the + United States gives a remarkable freedom of experiment in these matters to + each individual state, and local developments do not need to wait upon a + national change of opinion; but, on the other hand, the superficial + impression of an English visitor is that any such profound interference + with domestic autonomy runs counter to all that Americans seem to hold + dear at the present time. These are, however, new ideas and new + considerations that have still to be brought adequately before the + national consciousness, and it is quite impossible to calculate how a + population living under changing conditions and with a rising standard of + education and a developing feminine consciousness may not think and feel + and behave in a generation's time. At present for all political and + collective action America is a democracy of untutored individualist men + who will neither tolerate such interference between themselves and the + women they choose to marry as the Endowment of Motherhood implies, nor + view the "kids" who will at times occur even in the best-regulated + families as anything but rather embarrassing, rather amusing by-products + of the individual affections. + </p> + <p> + I find in the London <i>New Age</i> for August 15th, 1908, a description + by Mr. Jerome K. Jerome of "John Smith," the average British voter. John + Smith might serve in some respects for the common man of all the modern + civilisations. Among other things that John Smith thinks and wants, he + wants: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "a little house and garden in the country all to himself. + His idea is somewhere near half an acre of ground. He + would like a piano in the best room; it has always been his + dream to have a piano. The youngest girl, he is convinced, + is musical. As a man who has knocked about the world + and has thought, he quite appreciates the argument that + by co-operation the material side of life can be greatly + improved. He quite sees that by combining a dozen families + together in one large house better practical results can be + obtained. It is as easy to direct the cooking for a hundred + as for half a dozen. There would be less waste of food, of + coals, of lighting. To put aside one piano for one girl is + absurd. He sees all this, but it does not alter one little + bit his passionate craving for that small house and garden + all to himself. He is built that way. He is typical of a + good many other men and women built on the same pattern. + What are you going to do with them? Change them—their + instincts, their very nature, rooted in the centuries? + Or, as an alternative, vary Socialism to fit John Smith? + Which is likely to prove the shorter operation?" +</pre> + <p> + That, however, is by the way. Here is the point at issue: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "He has heard that Socialism proposes to acknowledge + woman's service to the State by paying her a weekly wage + according to the number of children that she bears and + rears. I don't propose to repeat his objections to the idea; + they could hardly be called objections. There is an ugly + look comes into his eyes; something quite undefinable, + prehistoric, almost dangerous, looks out of them.... In + talking to him on this subject you do not seem to be + talking to a man. It is as if you had come face to face + with something behind civilisation, behind humanity, something + deeper down still among the dim beginnings of + creation...." +</pre> + <p> + Now, no doubt Mr. Jerome is writing with emphasis here. But there is + sufficient truth in the passage for it to stand here as a rough symbol of + another factor in this question. John Smithism, that manly and + individualist element in the citizen, stands over against and resists all + the forces of organisation that would subjugate it to a collective + purpose. It is careless of coming national cessation and depopulation, + careless of the insurgent spirit beneath the acquiescences of Mrs. Smith, + careless of its own inevitable defeat in the economic struggle, careless + because it can understand none of these things; it is obstinately + muddle-headed, asserting what it conceives to be itself against the + universe and all other John Smiths whatsoever. It is a factor with all + other factors. The creative, acquisitive, aggressive spirit of those + bigger John Smiths who succeed as against the myriads of John Smiths who + fail, the wider horizons and more efficient methods of the educated man, + the awakening class-consciousness of women, the inevitable futility of + John Smithism, the sturdy independence that makes John Smith resent even + disciplined co-operation with Tom Brown to achieve a common end, his + essential incapacity, indeed, for collective action; all these things are + against the ultimate triumph, and make for the ultimate civilisation even + of John Smith. + </p> + <p> + Sec. 11 + </p> + <p> + It may be doubted if the increasing collective organisation of society to + which the United States of America, in common with all the rest of the + world, seem to be tending will be to any very large extent a national + organisation. The constitution is an immense and complicated barrier to + effectual centralisation. There are many reasons for supposing the + national government will always remain a little ineffectual and detached + from the full flow of American life, and this notwithstanding the very + great powers with which the President is endowed. + </p> + <p> + One of these reasons is certainly the peculiar accident that has placed + the seat of government upon the Potomac. To the thoughtful visitor to the + United States this hiding away of the central government in a minute + district remote from all the great centres of thought, population and + business activity becomes more remarkable more perplexing, more suggestive + of an incurable weakness in the national government as he grasps more + firmly the peculiarities of the American situation. + </p> + <p> + I do not see how the central government of that great American nation of + which I dream can possibly be at Washington, and I do not see how the + present central government can possibly be transferred to any other + centre. But to go to Washington, to see and talk to Washington, is to + receive an extraordinary impression of the utter isolation and + hopelessness of Washington. The National Government has an air of being + marooned there. Or as though it had crept into a corner to do something in + the dark. One goes from the abounding movement and vitality of the + northern cities to this sunny and enervating place through the negligently + cultivated country of Virginia, and one discovers the slovenly, unfinished + promise of a city, broad avenues lined by negro shanties and patches of + cultivation, great public buildings and an immense post office, a lifeless + museum, an inert university, a splendid desert library, a street of + souvenir shops, a certain industry of "seeing Washington," an idiotic + colossal obelisk. It seems an ideal nest for the tariff manipulator, a + festering corner of delegates and agents and secondary people. In the + White House, in the time of President Roosevelt, the present writer found + a transitory glow of intellectual activity, the spittoons and glass + screens that once made it like a London gin palace had been removed, and + the former orgies of handshaking reduced to a minimum. It was, one felt, + an accidental phase. The assassination of McKinley was an interruption of + the normal Washington process. To this place, out of the way of + everywhere, come the senators and congressmen, mostly leaving their + families behind them in their states of origin, and hither, too, are drawn + a multitude of journalists and political agents and clerks, a crowd of + underbred, mediocre men. For most of them there is neither social nor + intellectual life. The thought of America is far away, centred now in New + York; the business and economic development centres upon New York; apart + from the President, it is in New York that one meets the people who + matter, and the New York atmosphere that grows and develops ideas and + purposes. New York is the natural capital of the United States, and would + need to be the capital of any highly organised national system. Government + from the district of Columbia is in itself the repudiation of any highly + organised national system. + </p> + <p> + But government from this ineffectual, inert place is only the most + striking outcome of that inflexible constitution the wrangling delegates + of 1787-8 did at last produce out of a conflict of State jealousies. They + did their best to render centralisation or any coalescence of States + impossible and private property impregnable, and so far their work has + proved extraordinarily effective. Only a great access of intellectual and + moral vigour in the nation can ever set it aside. And while the more and + more sterile millions of the United States grapple with the legal and + traditional difficulties that promise at last to arrest their development + altogether, the rest of the world will be moving on to new phases. An + awakened Asia will be reorganising its social and political conceptions in + the light of modern knowledge and modern ideas, and South America will be + working out its destinies, perhaps in the form of a powerful confederation + of states. All Europe will be schooling its John Smiths to finer + discipline and broader ideas. It is quite possible that the American John + Smiths may have little to brag about in the way of national predominance + by A.D. 2000. It is quite possible that the United States may be sitting + meekly at the feet of at present unanticipated teachers. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE POSSIBLE COLLAPSE OF CIVILISATION + </h2> + <h3> + (<i>New Year, 1909</i>.) + </h3> + <p> + The Editor of the <i>New York World</i> has asked me to guess the general + trend of events in the next thirty years or so with especial reference to + the outlook for the State and City of New York. I like and rarely refuse + such cheerful invitations to prophesy. I have already made a sort of + forecast (in my "Anticipations") of what may happen if the social and + economic process goes on fairly smoothly for all that time, and shown a + New York relieved from its present congestion by the development of the + means of communication, and growing and spreading in wide and splendid + suburbs towards Boston and Philadelphia. I made that forecast before ever + I passed Sandy Hook, but my recent visit only enhanced my sense of growth + and "go" in things American. Still, we are nowadays all too apt to think + that growth is inevitable and progress in the nature of things; the + Wonderful Century, as Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace called the nineteenth, has + made us perhaps over-confident and forgetful of the ruins of great cities + and confident prides of the past that litter the world, and here I will + write about the other alternative, of the progressive process "hitting + something," and smashing. + </p> + <p> + There are two chief things in modern life that impress me as dangerous and + incalculable. The first of these is the modern currency and financial + system, and the second is the chance we take of destructive war. Let me + dwell first of all on the mysterious possibilities of the former, and then + point out one or two uneasy developments of the latter. + </p> + <p> + Now, there is nothing scientific about our currency and finance at all. It + is a thing that has grown up and elaborated itself out of very simple + beginnings in the course of a century or so. Three hundred years ago the + edifice had hardly begun to rise from the ground, most property was real, + most people lived directly on the land, most business was on a cash basis, + oversea trade was a proportionately small affair, labour was locally + fixed. Most of the world was at the level at which much of China remains + to-day—able to get along without even coinage. It was a rudimentary + world from the point of view of the modern financier and industrial + organiser. Well, on that rude, secure basis there has now been piled the + most chancy and insecurely experimental system of conventions and + assumptions about money and credit it is possible to imagine. There has + grown up a vast system of lending and borrowing, a world-wide extension of + joint-stock enterprises that involve at last the most fantastic + relationships. I find myself, for example, owning (partially, at least) a + bank in New Zealand, a railway in Cuba, another in Canada, several in + Brazil, an electric power plant in the City of Westminster, and so on, and + I use these stocks and shares as a sort of interest-bearing money. If I + want money to spend, I sell a railway share much as one might change a + hundred-pound banknote; if I have more cash than I need immediately I buy + a few shares. I perceive that the value of these shares oscillates, + sometimes rather gravely, and that the value of the alleged money on the + cheques I get also oscillates as compared with the things I want to buy; + that, indeed, the whole system (which has only existed for a couple of + centuries or so, and which keeps on getting higher and giddier) is + perpetually swaying and quivering and bending and sagging; but it is only + when such a great crisis occurs as that of 1907 that it enters my mind + that possibly there is no limit to these oscillations, that possibly the + whole vast accidental edifice will presently come smashing down. + </p> + <p> + Why shouldn't it? + </p> + <p> + I defy any economist or financial expert to prove that it cannot. That it + hasn't done so in the little time for which it has existed is no reply at + all. It is like arguing that a man cannot die because he has never been + known to do so. Previous men have died, previous civilisations have + collapsed, if not of acute, then of chronic financial disorders. + </p> + <p> + The experience of 1907 indicated very clearly how a collapse might occur. + A panic, like an avalanche, is a thing much easier to start than stop. + Previous panics have been arrested by good luck; this last one in America, + for example, found Europe strong and prosperous and helpful. In every + panic period there is a huge dislocation of business enterprises, vast + multitudes of men are thrown out of employment, there is grave social and + political disorder; but in the end, so far, things have an air of having + recovered. But now, suppose the panic wave a little more universal—and + panic waves tend to be more extensive than they used to be. Suppose that + when securities fall all round, and gold appreciates in New York, and + frightened people begin to sell investments and hoard gold, the same thing + happens in other parts of the world. Increase the scale of the trouble + only two or three times, and would our system recover? Imagine great + masses of men coming out of employment, and angry and savage, in all our + great towns; imagine the railways working with reduced staffs on reduced + salaries or blocked by strikers; imagine provision dealers stopping + consignments to retailers, and retailers hesitating to give credit. A + phase would arrive when the police and militia keeping order in the + streets would find themselves on short rations and without their weekly + pay. + </p> + <p> + What we moderns, with our little three hundred years or so of security, do + not recognise is that things that go up and down may, given a certain + combination of chances, go down steadily, down and down. + </p> + <p> + What would you do, dear reader—what should I do—if a slump + went on continually? + </p> + <p> + And that brings me to the second great danger to our modern civilisation, + and that is War. We have over-developed war. While we have left our peace + organisation to the niggling, slow, self-seeking methods of private + enterprise; while we have left the breeding of our peoples to chance, + their minds to the halfpenny press and their wealth to the drug + manufacturer, we have pushed forward the art of war on severely scientific + and Socialist lines; we have put all the collective resources of the + community and an enormous proportion of its intelligence and invention + ungrudgingly into the improvement and manufacture of the apparatus of + destruction. Great Britain, for example, is content with the railways and + fireplaces and types of housing she had fifty years ago; she still uses + telephones and the electric light in the most tentative spirit; but every + ironclad she had five-and-twenty years ago is old iron now and abandoned. + Everything crawls forward but the science of war; that rushes on. Of what + will happen if presently the guns begin to go off I have no shadow of + doubt. Every year has seen the disproportionate increase until now. Every + modern European state is more or less like a cranky, ill-built steamboat + in which some idiot has mounted and loaded a monstrous gun with no + apparatus to damp its recoil. Whether that gun hits or misses when it is + fired, of one thing we may be absolutely certain—it will send the + steamboat to the bottom of the sea. + </p> + <p> + Modern warfare is an insanity, not a sane business proposition. Its + preparation eats more and more into the resources which should be + furnishing a developing civilisation; its possibilities of destruction are + incalculable. A new epoch has opened with the coming of the navigable + balloon and the flying machine. To begin with, these things open new gulfs + for expenditure; in the end they mean possibilities of destruction beyond + all precedent. Such things as the <i>Zeppelin</i> and the <i>Ville de + Paris</i> are only the first pigmy essays of the aeronaut. It is clear + that to be effective, capable of carrying guns and comparatively + insensitive to perforation by shot and shell, these things will have to be + very much larger and as costly, perhaps, as a first-class cruiser. Imagine + such monsters of the air, and wild financial panic below! + </p> + <p> + Here, then, are two associated possibilities with which to modify our + expectation of an America advancing steadily on the road to an organised + civilisation, of New York rebuilding herself in marble, spreading like a + garden city over New Jersey and Long Island and New York State, becoming a + new and greater Venice, queen of the earth. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps, after all, the twentieth century isn't going to be so prosperous + as the nineteenth. Perhaps, instead of going resistlessly onward, we are + going to have a set-back. Perhaps we are going to be put back to learn + over again under simpler conditions some of those necessary fundamental + lessons our race has learnt as yet insufficiently well—honesty and + brotherhood, social collectivism, and the need of some common + peace-preserving council for the whole world. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE IDEAL CITIZEN + </h2> + <p> + Our conceptions of what a good citizen should be are all at sixes and + sevens. No two people will be found to agree in every particular of such + an ideal, and the extreme divergences upon what is necessary, what is + permissible, what is unforgivable in him, will span nearly the whole range + of human possibility and conduct. As a consequence, we bring up our + children in a mist of vague intimations, in a confusion of warring voices, + perplexed as to what they must do, uncertain as to what they may do, + doomed to lives of compromise and fluctuating and inoperative opinion. + Ideals and suggestions come and go before their eyes like figures in a + fog. The commonest pattern, perhaps—the commonest pattern certainly + in Sunday schools and edifying books, and on all those places and + occasions when morality is sought as an end—is a clean and + able-bodied person, truthful to the extent that he does not tell lies, + temperate so far as abstinence is concerned, honest without pedantry, and + active in his own affairs, steadfastly law-abiding and respectful to + custom and usage, though aloof from the tumult of politics, brave but not + adventurous, punctual in some form of religious exercise, devoted to his + wife and children, and kind without extravagance to all men. Everyone + feels that this is not enough, everyone feels that something more is + wanted and something different; most people are a little interested in + what that difference can be, and it is a business that much of what is + more than trivial in our art, our literature and our drama must do to fill + in bit by bit and shade by shade the subtle, the permanent detail of the + answer. + </p> + <p> + It does very greatly help in this question to bear in mind the conflict of + our origins. Every age is an age of transition, of minglings, of the + breaking up of old, narrow cultures, and the breaking down of barriers, of + spiritual and often of actual interbreeding. Not only is the physical but + the moral and intellectual ancestry of everyone more mixed than ever it + was before. We blend in our blood, everyone of us, and we blend in our + ideas and purposes, craftsmen, warriors, savages, peasants, and a score of + races, and an endless multitude of social expedients and rules. Go back + but a hundred generations in the lineage of the most delicate girl you + know, and you will find a dozen murderers. You will find liars and cheats, + lascivious sinners, women who have sold themselves, slaves, imbeciles, + devotees, saints, men of fantastic courage, discreet and watchful persons, + usurers, savages, criminals and kings, and every one of this miscellany, + not simply fathering or mothering on the way to her, but teaching urgently + and with every grade of intensity, views and habits for which they stand. + Something of it all has come to her, albeit much may seem forgotten. In + every human birth, with a new little variation, a fresh slight novelty of + arrangement the old issues rise again. Our ideas, even more than our + blood, flow from multitudinous sources. + </p> + <p> + Certain groups of ideas come to us distinctively associated with certain + marked ways of life. Many, and for a majority of us, it may be, most of + our ancestors were serfs or slaves. And men and women who have had, + generation after generation, to adapt themselves to slavery and the rule + of a master, develop an idea of goodness very different from that of + princes. From our slave ancestry, says Lester Ward, we learnt to work, and + certainly it is from slavery we derive the conception that industry, even + though it be purposeless industry, is a virtue in itself. The good slave, + too, has a morality of restraints; he abstains from the food he handles + and hungers for, and he denies himself pride and initiative of every sort. + He is honest in not taking, but he is unscrupulous about adequate service. + He makes no virtue of frankness, but much of kindly helpfulness and + charity to the weak. He has no sense of duty in planning or economising. + He is polite and soft-spoken, and disposed to irony rather than + denunciation, ready to admire cuteness and condone deception. Not so the + rebel. That tradition is working in us also. It has been the lot of vast + masses of population in every age to be living in successful or + unsuccessful resistance to mastery, to be dreading oppression or to be + just escaped from it. Resentment becomes a virtue then, and any peace with + the oppressor a crime. It is from rebel origins so many of us get the idea + that disrespectfulness is something of a duty and obstinacy a fine thing. + And under the force of this tradition we idealise the rugged and + unmanageable, we find something heroic in rough clothes and hands, in bad + manners, insensitive behaviour, and unsociableness. And a community of + settlers, again, in a rough country, fighting for a bare existence, makes + a virtue of vehemence, of a hasty rapidity of execution. Hurried and + driven men glorify "push" and impatience, and despise finish and fine + discriminations as weak and demoralising things. These three, the Serf, + the Rebel, and the Squatter, are three out of a thousand types and aspects + that have gone to our making. In the American composition they are + dominant. But all those thousand different standards and traditions are + our material, each with something fine, and each with something evil. They + have all provided the atmosphere of upbringing for men in the past. Out of + them and out of unprecedented occasions, we in this newer age, in which + there are no slaves, in which every man is a citizen, in which the + conveniences of a great and growing civilisation makes the frantic avidity + of the squatter a nuisance, have to set ourselves to frame the standard of + our children's children, to abandon what the slave or the squatter or the + rebel found necessary and that we find unnecessary, to fit fresh + requirements to our new needs. So we have to develop our figure of the + fine man, our desirable citizen in that great and noble civilised state we + who have a "sense of the state" would build out of the confusions of our + world. + </p> + <p> + To describe that ideal modern citizen now is at best to make a guess and a + suggestion of what must be built in reality by the efforts of a thousand + minds. But he will be a very different creature from that indifferent, + well-behaved business man who passes for a good citizen to-day. He will be + neither under the slave tradition nor a rebel nor a vehement elemental + man. Essentially he will be aristocratic, aristocratic not in the sense + that he has slaves or class inferiors, because probably he will have + nothing of the sort, but aristocratic in the sense that he will feel the + State belongs to him and he to the State. He will probably be a public + servant; at any rate, he will be a man doing some work in the complicated + machinery of the modern community for a salary and not for speculative + gain. Typically, he will be a professional man. I do not think the ideal + modern citizen can be a person living chiefly by buying for as little as + he can give and selling for as much as he can get; indeed, most of what we + idolise to-day as business enterprise I think he will regard with + considerable contempt. But, then, I am a Socialist, and look forward to + the time when the economic machinery of the community will be a field not + for private enrichment but for public service. + </p> + <p> + He will be good to his wife and children as he will be good to his friend, + but he will be no partisan for wife and family against the common welfare. + His solicitude will be for the welfare of all the children of the + community; he will have got beyond blind instinct; he will have the + intelligence to understand that almost any child in the world may have as + large a share as his own offspring in the parentage of his + great-great-grandchildren His wife he will treat as his equal; he will not + be "kind" to her, but fair and frank and loving, as one equal should be + with another; he will no more have the impertinence to pet and pamper her, + to keep painful and laborious things out of her knowledge to "shield" her + from the responsibility of political and social work, than he will to make + a Chinese toy of her and bind her feet. He and she will love that they may + enlarge and not limit one another. + </p> + <p> + Consciously and deliberately the ideal citizen will seek beauty in himself + and in his way of living. He will be temperate rather than harshly + abstinent, and he will keep himself fit and in training as an elementary + duty. He will not be a fat or emaciated person. Fat, panting men, and + thin, enfeebled ones cannot possibly be considered good citizens any more + than dirty or verminous people. He will be just as fine and seemly in his + person as he can be, not from vanity and self-assertion but to be pleasing + and agreeable to his fellows. The ugly dress and ugly bearing of the "good + man" of to-day will be as incomprehensible to him as the filth of a + palaeolithic savage is to us. He will not speak of his "frame," and hang + clothes like sacks over it; he will know and feel that he and the people + about him have wonderful, delightful and beautiful bodies. + </p> + <p> + And—I speak of the ideal common citizen—he will be a student + and a philosopher. To understand will be one of his necessary duties. His + mind, like his body, will be fit and well clothed. He will not be too busy + to read and think, though he may be too busy to rush about to get + ignorantly and blatantly rich. It follows that, since he will have a mind + exercised finely and flexible and alert, he will not be a secretive man. + Secretiveness and secret planning are vulgarity; men and women need to be + educated, and he will be educated out of these vices. He will be intensely + truthful, not simply in the vulgar sense of not misstating facts when + pressed, but truthful in the manner of the scientific man or the artist, + and as scornful of concealment as they; truthful, that is to say, as the + expression of a ruling desire to have things made plain and clear, because + that so they are most beautiful and life is at its finest.... + </p> + <p> + And all that I have written of him is equally true and applies word for + word, with only such changes of gender as are needed, to the woman citizen + also. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SOME POSSIBLE DISCOVERIES + </h2> + <p> + The present time is harvest home for the prophets. The happy speculator in + future sits on the piled-up wain, singing "I told you so," with the + submarine and the flying machine and the Marconigram and the North Pole + successfully achieved. In the tumult of realisations it perhaps escapes + attention that the prophetic output of new hopes is by no means keeping + pace with the crop of consummations. The present trend of scientific + development is not nearly so obvious as it was a score of years ago; its + promises lack the elementary breadth of that simpler time. Once you have + flown, you have flown. Once you have steamed about under water, you have + steamed about under water. There seem no more big things of that kind + available—so that I almost regret the precipitance of Commander + Peary and Captain Amundsen. No one expects to go beyond that atmosphere + for some centuries at least; all the elements are now invaded. Conceivably + man may presently contrive some sort of earthworm apparatus, so that he + could go through the rocks prospecting very much as an earthworm goes + through the soil, excavating in front and dumping behind, but, to put it + moderately, there are considerable difficulties. And I doubt the + imaginative effect. On the whole, I think material science has got samples + now of all its crops at this level, and that what lies before it in the + coming years is chiefly to work them out in detail and realise them on the + larger scale. No doubt science will still yield all sorts of big + surprising effects, but nothing, I think, to equal the dramatic novelty, + the demonstration of man having got to something altogether new and + strange, of Montgolfier, or the Wright Brothers, of Columbus, or the Polar + conquest. There remains, of course, the tapping of atomic energy, but I + give two hundred years yet before that.... + </p> + <p> + So far, then, as mechanical science goes I am inclined to think the coming + period will be, from the point of view of the common man, almost without + sensational interest. There will be an immense amount of enrichment and + filling-in, but of the sort that does not get prominently into the daily + papers. At every point there will be economies and simplifications of + method, discoveries of new artificial substances with new capabilities, + and of new methods of utilising power. There will be a progressive change + in the apparatus and quality of human life—the sort of alteration of + the percentages that causes no intellectual shock. Electric heating, for + example, will become practicable in our houses, and then cheaper, and at + last so cheap and good that nobody will burn coal any more. Little + electric contrivances will dispense with menial service in more and more + directions. The builder will introduce new, more convenient, healthier and + prettier substances, and the young architect will become increasingly the + intelligent student of novelty. The steam engine, the coal yard, and the + tail chimney, and indeed all chimneys, will vanish quietly from our urban + landscape. The speeding up and cheapening of travel, and the increase in + its swiftness and comfort will go on steadily—widening experience. A + more systematic and understanding social science will be estimating the + probable growth and movement of population, and planning town and country + on lines that would seem to-day almost inconceivably wise and generous. + All this means a quiet broadening and aeration and beautifying of life. + Utopian requirements, so far as the material side of things goes, will be + executed and delivered with at last the utmost promptness.... + </p> + <p> + It is in quite other directions that the scientific achievements to + astonish our children will probably be achieved. Progress never appears to + be uniform in human affairs. There are intricate correlations between + department and department. One field must mark time until another can come + up to it with results sufficiently arranged and conclusions sufficiently + simplified for application Medicine waits on organic chemistry, geology on + mineralogy, and both on the chemistry of high pressures and temperature. + And subtle variations in method and the prevailing mental temperament of + the type of writer engaged, produce remarkable differences in the quality + and quantity of the stated result. Moreover, there are in the history of + every scientific province periods of seed-time, when there is great + activity without immediate apparent fruition, and periods, as, for + example, the last two decades of electrical application, of prolific + realisation. It is highly probable that the physiologist and the organic + chemist are working towards co-operations that may make the physician's + sphere the new scientific wonderland. + </p> + <p> + At present dietary and regimen are the happy hunting ground of the quack + and that sort of volunteer specialist, half-expert, half-impostor, who + flourishes in the absence of worked out and definite knowledge. The + general mass of the medical profession, equipped with a little experience + and a muddled training, and preposterously impeded by the private + adventure conditions under which it lives, goes about pretending to the + possession of precise knowledge which simply does not exist in the world. + Medical research is under-endowed and stupidly endowed, not for systematic + scientific inquiry so much as for the unscientific seeking of remedies for + specific evils—for cancer, consumption, and the like. Yet masked, + misrepresented limited and hampered, the work of establishing a sound + science of vital processes in health and disease is probably going on now, + similar to the clarification of physics and chemistry that went on in the + later part of the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth + centuries. It is not unreasonable to suppose that medicine may presently + arrive at far-reaching generalised convictions, and proceed to take over + this great hinterland of human interests which legitimately belongs to it. + </p> + <p> + But medicine is not the only field to which we may reasonably look for a + sudden development of wonders. Compared with the sciences of matter, + psychology and social science have as yet given the world remarkably + little cause for amazement. Not only is our medicine feeble and + fragmentary, but our educational science is the poorest miscellany of + aphorisms and dodges. Indeed, directly one goes beyond the range of + measurement and weighing and classification, one finds a sort of + unprogressive floundering going on, which throws the strongest doubts upon + the practical applicability of the current logical and metaphysical + conceptions in those fields. We have emerged only partially from the age + of the schoolmen In these directions we have not emerged at all. It is + quite possible that in university lecture rooms and forbidding volumes of + metaphysical discussion a new emancipation of the human intellect and will + is even now going on. Presently men may be attacking the problems of the + self-control of human life and of human destiny in new phrases and an + altogether novel spirit. + </p> + <p> + Guesses at the undiscovered must necessarily be vague, but my + anticipations fall into two groups, and first I am disposed to expect a + great systematic increment in individual human power. We probably have no + suspicion as yet of what may be done with the human body and mind by way + of enhancing its effectiveness I remember talking to the late Sir Michael + Foster upon the possibilities of modern surgery, and how he confessed that + he did not dare for his reputation's sake tell ordinary people the things + he believed would some day become matter-of-fact operations. In that + respect I think he spoke for very many of his colleagues. It is already + possible to remove almost any portion of the human body, including, if + needful, large sections of the brain; it is possible to graft living flesh + on living flesh, make new connections, mould, displace, and rearrange. It + is also not impossible to provoke local hypertrophy, and not only by knife + and physical treatment but by the subtler methods of hypnotism, profound + changes can be wrought in the essential structure of a human being. If + only our knowledge of function and value were at all adequate, we could + correct and develop ourselves in the most extraordinary way. Our knowledge + is not adequate, but it may not always remain inadequate. + </p> + <p> + We have already had some very astonishing suggestions in this direction + from Doctor Metchnikoff. He regards the human stomach and large intestine + as not only vestigial and superfluous in the human economy, but as + positively dangerous on account of the harbour they afford for those + bacteria that accelerate the decay of age. He proposes that these viscera + should be removed. To a layman like myself this is an altogether + astounding and horrifying idea, but Doctor Metchnikoff is a man of the + very greatest scientific reputation, and it does not give him any qualm of + horror or absurdity to advance it. I am quite sure that if a gentleman + called upon me "done up" in the way I am dimly suggesting, with most of + the contents of his abdomen excavated, his lungs and heart probably + enlarged and improved, parts of his brain removed to eliminate harmful + tendencies and make room for the expansion of the remainder, his mind and + sensibilities increased, and his liability to fatigue and the need of + sleep abolished, I should conceal with the utmost difficulty my + inexpressible disgust and terror. But, then, if M. Bliriot, with his + flying machine, ear-flaps and goggles, had soared down in the year 54 + B.C., let us say, upon my woad-adorned ancestors—every family man in + Britain was my ancestor in those days—at Dover, they would have had + entirely similar emotions. And at present I am not discussing what is + beautiful in humanity, but what is possible—and what, being + possible, is likely to be attempted. + </p> + <p> + It does not follow that because men will some day have this enormous power + over themselves, physically and mentally, that they will necessarily make + themselves horrible—even by our present standards quite a lot of us + would be all the slenderer and more active and graceful for + "Metchnikoffing"—nor does surgery exhaust the available methods. We + are still in the barbaric age, so far as our use of food and drugs is + concerned. We stuff all sorts of substances into our unfortunate interiors + and blunder upon the most various consequences. Few people of three score + and ten but have spent in the aggregate the best part of a year in a state + of indigestion, stupid, angry or painful indigestion as the case may be. + No one would be so careless and ignorant about the fuel he burnt in his + motor-car as most of us are about the fuel we burn in our bodies. And + there are all sort of stimulating and exhilarating things, digesting + things, fatigue-suppressing things, exercise economising things, we dare + not use because we are afraid of our ignorance of their precise working. + There seems no reason to suppose that human life, properly understood and + controlled, could not be a constant succession of delightful and for the + most part active bodily and mental phases. It is sheer ignorance and bad + management that keep the majority of people in that disagreeable system of + states which we indicate by saying we are "a bit off colour" or a little + "out of training." It may seem madly Utopian now to suggest that + practically everyone in the community might be clean, beautiful, + incessantly active, "fit," and long-lived, with the marks of all the + surgery they have undergone quite healed and hidden, but not more madly + Utopian than it would have seemed to King Alfred the Great if one had said + that practically everyone in this country, down to the very swineherds, + should be able to read and write. + </p> + <p> + Metchnikoff has speculated upon the possibility of delaying old age, and I + do not see why his method should not be applied to the diurnal need of + sleep. No vital process seems to be absolutely fated in itself; it is a + thing conditioned and capable of modification. If Metchnikoff is right—and + to a certain extent he must be right—the decay of age is due to + changing organic processes that may be checked and delayed and modified by + suitable food and regimen. He holds out hope of a new phase in the human + cycle, after the phase of struggle and passion, a phase of serene + intellectual activity, old age with all its experience and none of its + infirmities. Still more are fatigue and the need for repose dependent upon + chemical changes in the body. It would seem we are unable to maintain + exertion, partly through the exhaustion of our tissues, but far more by + the loading of our blood with fatigue products—a recuperative + interlude must ensue. But there is no reason to suppose that the usual + food of to-day is the most rapidly assimilable nurture possible, that a + rapidly digestible or injectable substance is not conceivable that would + vastly accelerate repair, nor that the elimination and neutralisation of + fatigue products might not also be enormously hastened. There is no + inherent impossibility in the idea not only of various glands being + induced to function in a modified manner, but even in the insertion upon + the circulation of interceptors and artificial glandular structures. No + doubt that may strike even an adventurous surgeon as chimerical, but + consider what people, even authoritative people, were saying of flying and + electric traction twenty years ago. At present a man probably does not get + more than three or four hours of maximum mental and physical efficiency in + the day. Few men can keep at their best in either physical or intellectual + work for so long as that. The rest of the time goes in feeding, digesting, + sleeping, sitting about, relaxation of various kinds. It is quite possible + that science may set itself presently to extend systematically that + proportion of efficient time. The area of maximum efficiency may invade + the periods now demanded by digestion, sleep, exercise, so that at last + nearly the whole of a man's twenty-four hours will be concentrated on his + primary interests instead of dispersed among these secondary necessary + matters. + </p> + <p> + Please understand I do not consider this concentration of activity and + these vast "artificialisations" of the human body as attractive or + desirable things. At the first proposal much of this tampering with the + natural stuff of life will strike anyone, I think, as ugly and horrible, + just as seeing a little child, green-white and still under an anaesthetic, + gripped my heart much more dreadfully than the sight of the same child + actively bawling with pain. But the business of this paper is to discuss + things that may happen, and not to evolve dreams of loveliness. Perhaps + things of this kind will be manageable without dreadfulness. Perhaps man + will come to such wisdom that neither the knife nor the drugs nor any of + the powers which science thrusts into his hand will slay the beauty of + life for him. Suppose we assume that he is not such a fool as to let that + happen, and that ultimately he will emerge triumphant with all these + powers utilised and controlled. + </p> + <p> + It is not only that an amplifying science may give mankind happier bodies + and far more active and eventful lives, but that psychology and + educational and social science, reinforcing literature and working through + literature and art, may dare to establish serenities in his soul. For + surely no one who has lived, no one who has watched sin and crime and + punishment, but must have come to realise the enormous amount of + misbehaviour that is mere ignorance and want of mental scope. For my own + part I have never believed in the devil. And it may be a greater + undertaking but no more impossible to make ways to goodwill and a good + heart in men than it is to tunnel mountains and dyke back the sea. The way + that led from the darkness of the cave to the electric light is the way + that will lead to light in the souls of men, that is to say, the way of + free and fearless thinking, free and fearless experiment, organised + exchange of thoughts and results, and patience and persistence and a sort + of intellectual civility. + </p> + <p> + And with the development of philosophical and scientific method that will + go on with this great increase in man's control over himself, another + issue that is now a mere pious aspiration above abysses of ignorance and + difficulty, will come to be a manageable matter. It has been the perpetual + wonder of philosophers from Plato onward that men have bred their dogs and + horses and left any man or woman, however vile, free to bear offspring in + the next generation of men. Still that goes on. Beautiful and wonderful + people die childless and bury their treasure in the grave, and we rest + content with a system of matrimony that seems designed to perpetuate + mediocrity. A day will come when men will be in possession of knowledge + and opportunity that will enable them to master this position, and then + certainly will it be assured that every generation shall be born better + than was the one before it. And with that the history of humanity will + enter upon a new phase, a phase which will be to our lives as daylight is + to the dreaming of a child as yet unborn. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE HUMAN ADVENTURE + </h2> + <p> + Alone among all the living things this globe has borne, man reckons with + destiny. All other living things obey the forces that created them; and + when the mood of the power changes, submit themselves passively to + extinction Man only looks upon those forces in the face, anticipates the + exhaustion of Nature's kindliness, seeks weapons to defend himself. Last + of the children of Saturn, he escapes their general doom. He dispossesses + his begetter of all possibility of replacement, and grasps the sceptre of + the world. Before man the great and prevalent creatures followed one + another processionally to extinction; the early monsters of the ancient + seas, the clumsy amphibians struggling breathless to the land, the + reptiles, the theriomorpha and the dinosaurs, the bat-winged reptiles of + the Mesozoic forests, the colossal grotesque first mammals, the giant + sloths, the mastodons and mammoths; it is as if some idle dreamer moulded + them and broke them and cast them aside, until at last comes man and + seizes the creative wrist that would wipe him out of being again. + </p> + <p> + There is nothing else in all the world that so turns against the powers + that have made it, unless it be man's follower fire. But fire is witless; + a little stream, a changing breeze can stop it. Man circumvents. If fire + were human it would build boats across the rivers and outmanoeuvre the + wind. It would lie in wait in sheltered places, smouldering, husbanding + its fuel until the grass was yellow and the forests sere. But fire is a + mere creature of man's; our world before his coming knew nothing of it in + any of its habitable places, never saw it except in the lightning flash or + remotely on some volcanic coronet. Man brought it into the commerce of + life, a shining, resentful slave, to hound off the startled beasts from + his sleeping-place and serve him like a dog. + </p> + <p> + Suppose that some enduring intelligence watched through the ages the + successions of life upon this planet, marked the spreading first of this + species and then that, the conflicts, the adaptations, the predominances, + the dyings away, and conceive how it would have witnessed this strange + dramatic emergence of a rare great ape to manhood. To such a mind the + creature would have seemed at first no more than one of several varieties + of clambering frugivorous mammals, a little distinguished by a disposition + to help his clumsy walking with a stake and reinforce his fist with a + stone. The foreground of the picture would have been filled by the + rhinoceros and mammoth, the great herds of ruminants, the sabre-toothed + lion and the big bears. Then presently the observer would have noted a + peculiar increasing handiness about the obscurer type, an unwonted + intelligence growing behind its eyes. He would have perceived a + disposition in this creature no beast had shown before, a disposition to + make itself independent of the conditions of climate and the chances of + the seasons. Did shelter fail among the trees and rocks, this curious new + thing-began to make itself harbours of its own; was food irregular, it + multiplied food. It began to spread out from its original circumstances, + fitting itself to novel needs, leaving the forests, invading the plains, + following the watercourses upward and downward, presently carrying the + smoke of its fires like a banner of conquest into wintry desolations and + the high places of the earth. + </p> + <p> + The first onset of man must have been comparatively slow, the first + advances needed long ages. By small degrees it gathered pace. The stride + from the scattered savagery of the earlier stone period to the first + cities, historically a vast interval, would have seemed to that still + watcher, measuring by the standards of astronomy and the rise and decline + of races and genera and orders, a, step almost abrupt. It took, perhaps, a + thousand generations or so to make it. In that interval man passed from an + animal-like obedience to the climate and the weather and his own + instincts, from living in small family parties of a score or so over + restricted areas of indulgent country, to permanent settlements, to the + life of tribal and national communities and the beginnings of cities. He + had spread in that fragment of time over great areas of the earth's + surface, and now he was adapting himself to the Arctic circle on the one + hand and to the life of the tropics on the other; he had invented the + plough and the ship, and subjugated most of the domestic animals; he was + beginning to think of the origin of the world and the mysteries of being. + Writing had added its enduring records to oral tradition, and he was + already making roads. Another five or six hundred generations at most + bring him to ourselves. We sweep into the field of that looker-on, the + momentary incarnations of this sempiternal being, Man. And after us there + comes— + </p> + <p> + A curtain falls. + </p> + <p> + The time in which we, whose minds meet here in this writing, were born and + live and die, would be to that imagined observer a mere instant's phase in + the swarming liberation of our kind from ancient imperatives. It would + seem to him a phase of unprecedented swift change and expansion and + achievement. In this last handful of years, electricity has ceased to be a + curious toy, and now carries half mankind upon their daily journeys, it + lights our cities till they outshine the moon and stars, and reduces to + our service a score of hitherto unsuspected metals; we clamber to the pole + of our globe, scale every mountain, soar into the air, learn how to + overcome the malaria that barred our white races from the tropics, and how + to draw the sting from a hundred such agents of death. Our old cities are + being rebuilt in towering marble; great new cities rise to vie with them. + Never, it would seem, has man been so various and busy and persistent, and + there is no intimation of any check to the expansion of his energies. + </p> + <p> + And all this continually accelerated advance has come through the + quickening and increase of man's intelligence and its reinforcement + through speech and writing. All this has come in spite of fierce instincts + that make him the most combatant and destructive of animals, and in spite + of the revenge Nature has attempted time after time for his rebellion + against her routines, in the form of strange diseases and nearly universal + pestilences. All this has come as a necessary consequence of the first + obscure gleaming of deliberate thought and reason through the veil of his + animal being. To begin with, he did not know what he was doing. He sought + his more immediate satisfaction and safety and security. He still + apprehends imperfectly the change that comes upon him. The illusion of + separation that makes animal life, that is to say, passionate competing + and breeding and dying, possible, the blinkers Nature has put upon us that + we may clash against and sharpen one another, still darken our eyes. We + live not life as yet, but in millions of separated lives, still unaware + except in rare moods of illumination that we are more than those fellow + beasts of ours who drop off from the tree of life and perish alone. It is + only in the last three or four thousand years, and through weak and + tentative methods of expression, through clumsy cosmogonies and + theologies, and with incalculable confusion and discoloration, that the + human mind has felt its way towards its undying being in the race. Man + still goes to war against himself, prepares fleets and armies and + fortresses, like a sleep-walker who wounds himself, like some infatuated + barbarian who hacks his own limbs with a knife. + </p> + <p> + But he awakens. The nightmares of empire and racial conflict and war, the + grotesques of trade jealousy and tariffs, the primordial dream-stuff of + lewdness and jealousy and cruelty, pale before the daylight which filters + between his eyelids. In a little while we individuals will know ourselves + surely for corpuscles in his being, for thoughts that come together out of + strange wanderings into the coherence of a waking mind. A few score + generations ago all living things were in our ancestry. A few score + generations ahead, and all mankind will be in sober fact descendants from + our blood. In physical as in mental fact we separate persons, with all our + difference and individuality, are but fragments, set apart for a little + while in order that we may return to the general life again with fresh + experiences and fresh acquirements, as bees return with pollen and + nourishment to the fellowship of the hive. + </p> + <p> + And this Man, this wonderful child of old earth, who is ourselves in the + measure of our hearts and minds, does but begin his adventure now. Through + all time henceforth he does but begin his adventure. This planet and its + subjugation is but the dawn of his existence. In a little while he will + reach out to the other planets, and take that greater fire, the sun, into + his service. He will bring his solvent intelligence to bear upon the + riddles of his individual interaction, transmute jealousy and every + passion, control his own increase, select and breed for his embodiment a + continually finer and stronger and wiser race. What none of us can think + or will, save in a disconnected partiality, he will think and will + collectively. Already some of us feel our merger with that greater life. + There come moments when the thing shines out upon our thoughts. Sometimes + in the dark sleepless solitudes of night, one ceases to be so-and-so, one + ceases to bear a proper name, forgets one's quarrels and vanities, + forgives and understands one's enemies and oneself, as one forgives and + understands the quarrels of little children, knowing oneself indeed to be + a being greater than one's personal accidents, knowing oneself for Man on + his planet, flying swiftly to unmeasured destinies through the starry + stillnesses of space. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD*** + + +******* This file should be named 11502-h.htm or 11502-h.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/5/0/11502 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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