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diff --git a/11502-0.txt b/11502-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7c7355 --- /dev/null +++ b/11502-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9851 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11502 *** + +AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD + +Being a Series of Unrestrained Remarks upon Contemporary Matters + +By + +H.G. WELLS + +1914 + + + + + + +Blériot arrives and sets him thinking. (1) + +He flies, (2) + +And deduces certain consequences of cheap travel. (3) + +He considers the King, and speculates on the New Epoch; (4) + +He thinks Imperially, (5) + +And then, coming to details, about Labour, (6) + +Socialism, (7) + +And Modern Warfare, (8) + +He discourses on the Modern Novel, (9) + +And the Public Library; (10) + +Criticises Chesterton, Belloc, (11) + +And Sir Thomas More, (12) + +And deals with the London Traffic Problem as a Socialist should. (13) + +He doubts the existence of Sociology, (14) + +Discusses Divorce, (15) + +Schoolmasters, (16) + +Motherhood, (17) + +Doctors, (18) + +And Specialisation; (19) + +Questions if there is a People, (20) + +And diagnoses the Political Disease of our Times. (21) + +He then speculates upon the future of the American Population, (22) + +Considers a possible set-back to civilisation, (23) + +The Ideal Citizen, (24) + +The still undeveloped possibilities of Science, (25), +and--in the broadest spirit-- + +The Human Adventure. (26) + + + + +CONTENTS + +1. The Coming of Blériot + +2. My First Flight + +3. Off the Chain + +4. Of the New Reign + +5. Will the Empire Live? + +6. The Labour Unrest + +7. The Great State + +8. The Common Sense of Warfare + +9. The Contemporary Novel + +10. The Philosopher's Public Library + +11. About Chesterton and Belloc + +12. About Sir Thomas More + +13. Traffic and Rebuilding + +14. The So-called Science of Sociology + +15. Divorce + +16. The Schoolmaster and the Empire + +17. The Endowment of Motherhood + +18. Doctors + +19. An Age of Specialisation + +20. Is there a People? + +21. The Disease of Parliaments + +22. The American Population + +23. The Possible Collapse of Civilisation + +24. The Ideal Citizen + +25. Some Possible Discoveries + +26. The Human Adventure + + + + +AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD + + + + +THE COMING OF BLÉRIOT + +(_July, 1909_.) + + +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: "Blériot has crossed the Channel.... An article +... about what it means." + +I make a hasty promise and go out and tell my friends. + +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. Blériot 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. Blériot is! + +What does it mean for us? + +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. + +And now our insularity is breached by the foreigner who has got ahead +with flying. + +It means, I take it, first and foremost for us, that the world cannot +wait for the English. + +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. Blériot's +feat. + +The second is that, in spite of our fleet, this is no longer, from the +military point of view, an inaccessible island. + +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 _they_ +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 _The Times_, 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. + +I do not think that the arrival of M. Blériot 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. + +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. Blériot's aeroplane points also to +the fleet. + +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 _bright_? + +The arrival of M. Blériot 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. + +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. Blériot 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. + +Are we an awakening people? + +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. + +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. + +We have still our Derby Day, of course.... + +Apart from these patriotic solicitudes, M. Blériot 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. + + + + +MY FIRST FLIGHT + +(EASTBOURNE, _August 5, 1912--three years later_.) + + +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. + +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. + +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 _must_ 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.... + +The waterplane in which I soared over Eastbourne this morning with Mr. +Grahame-White was as steady as a motor-car running on asphalt. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _must_ 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. + +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. + +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.... + +I find my study unattractive to-day. + + + + +OFF THE CHAIN + +(_December, 1910_) + + +I was ill in bed, reading Samuel Warren's "Ten Thousand a Year," and +noting how much the world can change in seventy years. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. _Now_ will you respect a +prophet?" + +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. + +Briefly, the ties that bind men to place are being severed; we are in +the beginning of a new phase in human experience. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. _Now_ 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. + +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. + +Men will harvest in Saskatchewan and come down in great liners to spend +the winter working in the forests of Yucatan. + +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. + +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. + +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, "_Now,"_ 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.... + +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. + +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. + +This conflict follows as inevitably upon these new gigantic facilities +of locomotion as the _Mauretania_ followed from the discoveries of steam +and steel. + + + + +OF THE NEW REIGN + +(_June, 1911_.) + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 rôle 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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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? + +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? + +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? + +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 + + "Free of the snare of slumber's silken bands," + +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? + +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? + +I doubt very much if we are. Let me give some of the impressions that +qualify my assurance in the future of our race. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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. + + + + +WILL THE EMPIRE LIVE? + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +rôle 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +THE LABOUR UNREST + +(_May, 1912_.) + + +Sec. 1 + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +Sec. 2 + +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. + +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. + +We need before anything else a restoration of class confidence. It is a +time when class should speak with class very frankly. + +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 _Titanic_ 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. + +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. + +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 _Titanic_ 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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +Sec. 3 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _we_ toilers, and for what is it that we +toil?" + +What answer do we give them? + +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 _Titanic_ 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.... + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Larkinism comes to endorse me since this was written.] + +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. + + +Sec. 4 + +Let us try to anticipate some of the social developments that are likely +to spring out of the present Labour situation. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +That is not, of course, inevitable, but I am taking now the more hopeful +view. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +Sec. 5 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + + +Sec. 6 + +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.... + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Some parent might object_." +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. + +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. + + +SOCIAL PANACEAS + +(_June, 1912_.) + + +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. + +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 _that's_ 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 +_Westminster Gazette_ 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. + +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. + +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 +_firstly_, doing our own jobs just as well as ever we can, and +_secondly_--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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +SYNDICALISM OR CITIZENSHIP + + +"Is a railway porter a railway porter first and a man afterwards, or is +he a man first and incidentally a railway porter?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _living_--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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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. + + + + +THE GREAT STATE + + +Sec. 1 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +Sec. 2 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Then first we must distinguish a series of writers and thinkers which +one may call--the word conservative being already politically +assigned--the Conservators. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +Sec. 3 + +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. + +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 _laissez faire_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _filching_ 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. + +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. + +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. + + +Sec. 4 + +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 _laissez faire_ 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. + +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. + +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 débris 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +THE NORMAL SOCIAL LIFE + +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: + | | + (_a_) A LEISURE CLASS and (_b_) 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 + + + + + +THE COMMON SENSE OF WARFARE + + +Sec. 1 + +CONSCRIPTION + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _officers_. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +Sec. 2 + +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. + +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. + +Then other things will happen. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +With our eyes averted obstinately from the future we are backing towards +disaster. + + +Sec. 3 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + + + + +THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL + + +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 _Saturday Review_. 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. + +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--_Problems_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Westminster +Gazette_, 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. + +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. + +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 _via_ Mr. Bennett and Mr. Cannan from France. The +great original of all this work is that colossal last unfinished book of +Flaubert, "Bouvard et Pécuchet." 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 _artist_--I +lay stress upon that word artist--that Great Britain has ever produced +in all that is essentially the novel, Laurence Sterne.... + +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?--_Westminster Gazettisms?_--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. + +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 Rügen," bear witness. + +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. + +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 _nots_. 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. + +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. + +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 +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _the thing was so_. Now history, biography, +blue-book and so forth, can hardly ever get beyond the statement that +the superficial fact was so. + +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 _sit under_ 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. + + + + +THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUBLIC LIBRARY + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +ABOUT CHESTERTON AND BELLOC + + +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.... + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 ... + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +ABOUT SIR THOMAS MORE + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + + + + +TRAFFIC AND REBUILDING + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +THE SO-CALLED SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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 +_practically_ similar units and _practically_ 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 _atoms_ and +_ions_ 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. + +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 _truer_ 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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +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 ... + +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 Fouillée 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 _consciousness_ 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 +_motif_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _is_, +without considering what is _intended to be_. 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. + +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? + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +DIVORCE + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. _v_. 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. + +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 crêche, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE EMPIRE + + +Sec. 1 + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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 _Times_. 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. + + +Sec. 2 + +But let me take one special instance. In a periodical, now no longer +living, called the _Independent Review_, 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: + +"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." + +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 _Independent Review_. "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." + +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: + +"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." + +This quotation is conclusive. + + +Sec. 3 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +THE ENDOWMENT OF MOTHERHOOD + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The alternative to that is racial replacement and social decay. That is +the essential idea conveyed by this phrase, the Endowment of Motherhood. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +DOCTORS + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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? + +But these are Utopian questionings. The sane, practical man shakes his +head, smiles pityingly at my dreamy impracticability, and passes them +by. + + + + +AN AGE OF SPECIALISATION + + +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. + +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? + +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. + +This is most distinctly _not_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +And what is true of a military caste is equally true of a special +governing class such as our public schools maintain. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +IS THERE A PEOPLE? + + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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: +"_In the last analysis the People are always right_." + +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, _the +unchanging law of God."_ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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? + +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. + +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. + + + + +THE DISEASE OF PARLIAMENTS + + +Sec. 1 + +There is a growing discord between governments and governed in the +world. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _pronunciamento_. 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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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? + + +Sec. 2 + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, _which is the secret of all party political manipulation_ +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. + +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. _All_ 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. + +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. + +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 _which_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +THE AMERICAN POPULATION + + +Sec. 1 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Our inquiry is this: What social structure is this pool of mixed +humanity developing or likely to develop? + + +Sec. 2 + +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. + +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: + + "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 _what_ order we must wait to + see." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +Sec. 3 + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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. + + +Sec. 4 + +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. + +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. + +Such are the details that come clustering into one's mind in response to +the phrase, the American tradition. + +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. + +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. + +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 "_sense of the State_." 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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...." + +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.... + +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." + +"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." + +From Mr. Spargo's "Bitter Cry of the Children" I learn this much of the +joys of certain among the youth of Pennsylvania: + +"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...." + +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.... + +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. + + +Sec. 5 + +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. + +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 _silent_ 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 Münsterberg +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. + +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 _The Appeal to Reason_, 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. + +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. + +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 _New York American_ or the _New York Herald_. 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. + +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." + +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, "_for the good of +all men_." + + "What _shall_ we strive for? _Money_? + + "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 _power_? + + "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 + _one thing_ that distinguished _all_ 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 _the good + of other men_.... + + "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 _now_, while it is unusual, + and have the satisfaction of being a pioneer and an + eccentric." + +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.... + +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 _New York American_ +represents a clientele to be counted by the hundred thousand, manifestly +with no other solicitudes, just burning to live and living to burn. + + +Sec. 6 + +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. + +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. + +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". + + "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.'" + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +Sec. 7 + +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. + +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? + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +Sec. 8 + +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. + +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." + + +Sec. 9 + +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. _The Appeal to Reason_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +Sec. 10 + +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. + +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. + +That ideal of a man-owned, mother-revering home has been the prevalent +American ideal from the landing of the _Mayflower_ 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 _all_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I find in the London _New Age_ 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: + + "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?" + +That, however, is by the way. Here is the point at issue: + + "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...." + +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. + + +Sec. 11 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +THE POSSIBLE COLLAPSE OF CIVILISATION + +(_New Year, 1909_.) + + +The Editor of the _New York World_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +Why shouldn't it? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +What would you do, dear reader--what should I do--if a slump went on +continually? + +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. + +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 _Zeppelin_ and the +_Ville de Paris_ 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! + +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. + +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. + + + + +THE IDEAL CITIZEN + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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. + + + + +SOME POSSIBLE DISCOVERIES + + +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.... + +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.... + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. Blériot, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +THE HUMAN ADVENTURE + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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-- + +A curtain falls. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11502 *** |