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diff --git a/old/64186-0.txt b/old/64186-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index d1996ba..0000000 --- a/old/64186-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10258 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Social Forces in England and America, by H. -G. (Herbert George) Wells - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Social Forces in England and America - -Author: H. G. (Herbert George) Wells - -Release Date: December 31, 2020 [eBook #64186] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOCIAL FORCES IN ENGLAND AND -AMERICA *** - - - - - BOOKS BY - - H. G. WELLS - - SOCIAL FORCES IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. Crown 8vo, _net_ $2.00 - PASSIONATE FRIENDS. Ill’d. 8vo _net_ 1.35 - ANN VERONICA. Ill’d. Post 8vo 1.50 - THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. Post 8vo 1.50 - THE FUTURE IN AMERICA. Ill’d. 8vo _net_ 2.00 - THE INVISIBLE MAN. Post 8vo 1.00 - THIRTY STRANGE STORIES. Post 8vo 1.50 - WHEN THE SLEEPER WAKES. Ill’d. Post 8vo 1.50 - ANTICIPATIONS. Post 8vo _net_ 1.80 - SOCIALISM AND THE GREAT STATE (Wells and 8vo _net_ 2.00 - others). - - - HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y. - - - - - SOCIAL FORCES IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA - - - BY - - H. G. WELLS - - AUTHOR OF “THE FUTURE IN AMERICA” “SOCIALISM AND THE GREAT STATE” ETC. - -[Illustration] - - HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS - NEW YORK AND LONDON - MCMXIV - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1914, BY HARPER & BROTHERS - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - PUBLISHED APRIL, 1914 - - 0–0 - - - - - CONTENTS - - - PAGE - THE COMING OF BLÉRIOT 1 - - MY FIRST FLIGHT 9 - - OFF THE CHAIN 17 - - OF THE NEW REIGN 25 - - WILL THE EMPIRE LIVE? 38 - - THE LABOUR UNREST 50 - - SOCIAL PANACEAS 94 - - SYNDICALISM OR CITIZENSHIP? 102 - - THE GREAT STATE 112 - - THE COMMON SENSE OF WARFARE 155 - - THE CONTEMPORARY NOVEL 173 - - THE PHILOSOPHER’S PUBLIC LIBRARY 199 - - ABOUT CHESTERTON AND BELLOC 205 - - ABOUT SIR THOMAS MORE 214 - - TRAFFIC AND REBUILDING 219 - - THE SO-CALLED SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY 224 - - DIVORCE 242 - - THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE EMPIRE 255 - - THE ENDOWMENT OF MOTHERHOOD 268 - - DOCTORS 275 - - AN AGE OF SPECIALISATION 281 - - IS THERE A PEOPLE? 287 - - THE DISEASE OF PARLIAMENTS 293 - - THE AMERICAN POPULATION 321 - - THE POSSIBLE COLLAPSE OF CIVILISATION 383 - - THE IDEAL CITIZEN 390 - - SOME POSSIBLE DISCOVERIES 397 - - THE HUMAN ADVENTURE 409 - - - - - SOCIAL FORCES IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA - - - - - SYNOPSIS - - - 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) - - - - - SOCIAL FORCES IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA - - - - - 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 whitecaps -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 underestimated 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, a -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, undertrained, 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 bright 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 asphalte. - -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 motorbicycle. 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 coast-lines 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 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 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 readapt 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 upon 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 were -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 æsthetic 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, -highroads, 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 -overconfidence, 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 resistent 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 demands. 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 meridionally. 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 defense. 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 phrase. - -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, and 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 connexion 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 -everyday, 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 worldwide -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 Mr. Redford 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_) - - - § 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 4_s._ 6½_d._ 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 5_s._, 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 ship was not even equipped to save its -third-class passengers; they 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. But -for capitalism and for our existing social system his escape—with five -and fifty third-class children waiting below to drown—was the -abandonment of every noble pretension. 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. - - - § 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 natural 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 whole endowment 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 pounds-worth 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. - - - § 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. - - - § 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 bricklaying 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. - - - § 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 -worldwide. 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. - - - § 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 Notting 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 life-long 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 underrepresented, 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!” For example, 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, so 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 interwoven -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 shortsightedness 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 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 mere 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 - - - § 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 discreetly 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 a 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. - - - § 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 of 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 antitraditionalism; 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 æsthetic 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 overpopulation 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. - - - § 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 good will, 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 M. 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 refragmentation. 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 a 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. - - - § 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 -life-long 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 debris 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, worldwide 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 dreamlike 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 would 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 -life-long 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 life-long 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. The 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 intrust 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 for versatility, if -on no other score, I am flatly antagonistic to the conceptions of “Guild -Socialism” which has arisen recently out of the impact of M. Penty and -Syndicalism upon the uneasy intelligence of M. 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 -state—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 æsthetic, 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. - -I append a diagram which 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 generally 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 living - | | to work upon uncertain wages - |3 |2 1| |1 |2 |3 - | | ---------------------- ---------------------- | | - | | |which may degenerate| |which may degenerate| | | - | | |into | |into a sweated, | | | - | | |a waster class | |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 general labour | - |working under various | |conscription | - |motives and inducements, | |together with a | - |but not | |scientific organisation| - |constantly, nor permanently,| |of production, | - |nor unwillingly. | |and so reabsorbed | - ------------------------------ |by re-endowment | - |into the Leisure | - |Class of the | - |GREAT STATE | - ------------------------- - - - - - THE COMMON SENSE OF WARFARE - - - § 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 dismalest 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 rearmed 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 overarmed, and the longer you remain at peace with him while -he is overarmed, 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. - - - § 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. - - - § 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 undertrained 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 writer’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 things 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 æsthetic 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 storytelling, 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, cock-sure, 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 Judæa, 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. 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 back stairs of politics bring about these developments. They assume -that the sort of official they need, a combination of godlike 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-unconscious 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 encyclopædias, 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 bookselling 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 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 brushwork, 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 anæsthetic 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 warmblooded 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 know -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 formulæ accepted is a pervert, a -victim of Irish bad example, and unfit for 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, or 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 clearinghouse -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 -generalisations 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 cock-sure -science; and indisputably Comte and Herbert Spencer believed that -cock-sure 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 -commonsense,” 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 must 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_,[2] for example—are, -as it were, 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. - -Footnote 2: - - _Social Origins_, by Andrew Lang; _Primal Law_, by J. J. Atkinson. - (Longmans). - -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 -standpoint 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 postgraduate -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. Remarriage 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 remarriage, 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 remarriage 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 two 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, have 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 steam 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 - - - § 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 wanting. 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. - - - § 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; 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. - - - § 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?”—I 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 -formulæ 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 naïve 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 a 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 shilling 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 uncoordinated 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 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 are 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, venial -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 - - - § 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 absolutisms 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 worldwide 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 Cæsar. If -no Cæsar 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 -manœuvres 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 shame 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 Cæsarism 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 naïve 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, R, 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 Czar 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 again; 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 riffraff. 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? - - - § 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, becomes 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 hung for the 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 of 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 - - - § 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 eighty 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 grandparents 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 latticework, 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 dependants, 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 more than twenty-three 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? - - - § 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 -bottommost 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 slaveholding “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. - - - § 3 - -It is well to note how these eighty 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. - - - § 4 - -When I speak of this vast multitude, these eighty 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 -Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court_, 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 shirtsleeves. 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-sixty 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. - - - § 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 exultation, “_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 crackling 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, dead to ideas, impervious to generalisations, a -public which has carried the conception of freedom to its logical -extreme of entire individual detachment. These telltale 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 knockabout 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 clientèle to be counted by the hundred thousand, manifestly -with no other solicitudes, just burning to live and living to burn. - - - § 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 § 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. - - - § 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 a rich -man “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 Cæsarism, 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 Cæsar of the Republic, and the Empire had been established for many -years before the Romans fully realised that they had returned to -monarchy. - - - § 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.” - - - § 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. - - - § 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 § 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 or 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 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. - - - § 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 Smith 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 has called it, 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 -worldwide 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 health 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 in 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, every one 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 discrimination 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 make 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 palæolithic 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, or 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 tall 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 latter 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 was 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, 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 threescore 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 keeps 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 -anæsthetic, 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 outmanœuvre 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 animallike 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. - - - THE END - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. - 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. - 3. 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