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An Englishman Looks At The World=
By
H. G. Wells
Contents
THE
PHILOSOPHER'S PUBLIC LIBRARY
THE
SO-CALLED SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY
THE
SCHOOLMASTER AND THE EMPIRE
AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD
(July, 1909.)
The telephone bell rings with the
petulant persistence that marks a trunk call, and I go in from some ineffec=
tual
gymnastics on the lawn to deal with the irruption. There is the usual troub=
le
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 t=
he
real message comes through: "Blériot has crossed the Channel...=
. An
article ... about what it means."
I make a hasty
promise and go out and tell my friends.
From my garden I =
look
straight upon the Channel, and there are white caps upon the water, and the
iris and tamarisk are all asway with the south-west wind that was also blow=
ing
yesterday. M. Blériot has done very well, and Mr. Latham, his rival,=
had
jolly bad luck. That is what it means to us first of all. It also, I reflect
privately, means that I have under-estimated the possible stability of
aeroplanes. I did not expect anything of the sort so soon. This is a good f=
ive
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 enviab=
le
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 th=
ese
matters. It cannot be fifteen years ago since Sir Hiram Maxim made the first
machine that could lift its weight from the ground, and I well remember how=
the
clumsy quality of that success confirmed the universal doubt that men could
ever in any effectual manner fly.
Since then a
conspiracy of accidents has changed the whole problem; the bicycle and its
vibrations developed the pneumatic tyre, the pneumatic tyre rendered a
comfortable mechanically driven road vehicle possible, the motor-car set an
enormous premium on the development of very light, very efficient engines, =
and
at last the engineer was able to offer the experimentalists in gliding one
strong enough and light enough for the new purpose. And here we are! Or,
rather, M. Blériot is!
What does it mean=
for
us?
One meaning, I th=
ink,
stands out plainly enough, unpalatable enough to our national pride. This t=
hing
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 ab=
road
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 freedo=
m 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 fir=
st
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 neith=
er
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 developme=
nt 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, someth=
ing
benumbing in our atmosphere and circumstances. That is the first and gravest
intimation in M. Blériot's feat.
The second is tha=
t,
in spite of our fleet, this is no longer, from the military point of view, =
an
inaccessible island.
So long as one ha=
d to
consider the navigable balloon the aerial side of warfare remained unimport=
ant.
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 ro=
und
the fastest navigable that ever drove before the wind; they can drop weight=
s,
take up weights, and do all sorts of able, inconvenient things. They are bi=
rds.
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. Wi=
thin
a year we shall have--or rather they will have--aeroplanes capable of start=
ing
from Calais, let us say, circling over London, dropping a hundredweight or =
so
of explosive upon the printing machines of The Times, and returning securel=
y to
Calais for another similar parcel. They are things neither difficult nor co=
stly
to make. For the price of a Dreadnought one might have hundreds. They will =
be
extremely hard to hit with any sort of missile. I do not think a large army=
of
under-educated, under-trained, extremely unwilling conscripts is going to be
any good against this sort of thing.
I do not think th=
at
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 a=
nd
demanding eight, and saying we won't wait, and so on, and then subsiding in=
to
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 tha=
n 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 gent=
eel
athleticism, and his home has books in it, and thought and conversation. Our
homes and schools are relatively dull and uninspiring; there is no intellec=
tual
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 t=
he
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. M=
uch
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 conflic=
t.
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 f=
or a
quicker adversary. Well, is there any reason to suppose that our Navy is go=
ing
to keep above the general national level in these things? Is the Navy brigh=
t?
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 aga=
in
of the days during the Boer war, when one realised that it had never occurr=
ed
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 Se=
a we
got a surprise like that, and fished out a parboiled, half-drowned admiral
explaining what a confoundedly slim, unexpected, almost ungentlemanly thing=
the
enemy had done to him.
Very probably the
Navy is the exception to the British system; its officers are rescued from =
the
dull homes and dull schools of their class while still of tender years, and
shaped after a fashion of their own. But M. Blériot reminds us that =
we
may no longer shelter and degenerate behind these blue backs. And the keene=
st
men at sea are none the worse for having keen men on land behind them.
Are we an awakeni=
ng
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 c=
ould
imagine the day of reckoning coming like a swarm of birds.
Here the air is f=
ull
of the clamour of rich and prosperous people invited to pay taxes, and beyo=
nd
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 spea=
k 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 Empir=
e.
We have still our
Derby Day, of course....
Apart from these
patriotic solicitudes, M. Blériot has set quite another train of tho=
ught
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 w=
ho
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 organis=
ed
intelligence differs from the majority, the majority will have no adequate
power of retort. The common man with a pike, being only sufficiently indign=
ant and
abundant, could chase the eighteenth century gentleman as he chose, but I f=
ail
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.
(EASTBOURNE, Augu=
st
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 u=
nsuspected
pleasures. At the first chance I will go up again, and I will go higher and
further.
This experience h=
as
restored all the keenness of my ancient interest in flying, which had becom=
e 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 Lilient=
hal,
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 mant=
el
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 fir=
st 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 six=
teen
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 outri=
ght
that in my lifetime we should see men flying. But I qualified that by repea=
ting
that for many years to come it would be an enterprise only for quite fantas=
tic
daring and skill. We conjured up stupendous difficulties and risks. I was
deeply impressed and greatly discouraged by a paper a distinguished Cambrid=
ge mathematician
produced to show that a flying machine was bound to pitch fearfully, that a=
s it
flew on its pitching must increase until up went its nose, down went its ta=
il,
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&qu=
ot;
it would be heeling over to the lightest side wind. A sneeze might upset it=
. We
contrasted our poor human equipment with the instinctive balance of a bird,
which has had ten million years of evolution by way of a start....
The waterplane in
which I soared over Eastbourne this morning with Mr. Grahame-White was as
steady as a motor-car running on asphalt.
Then we went on f=
rom
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 disma=
y as
to lose all self-control? And, above all, wouldn't the pitching and tossing
make them quite horribly sea-sick?
I have always bee=
n 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 v=
erge
of any new experience; when one tries one's first dive, for example, or pus=
hes
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 s=
tate
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 ya=
cht
travelling on perfect ice. The finest motor-car in the world on the best ro=
ad
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 w=
ent
with an undulating movement, leaping with a light splashing pat upon the wa=
ter,
from wave to wave. Then we came about into the wind and rose, and looking o=
ver
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 lo=
ok
down, but I can never bring myself right up to the edge nor crane over to l=
ook
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 rath=
er
high wind was blowing, and one looks down through the chinks between the bo=
ards
one stands on upon the heads of the people in the streets below; I didn't l=
ike
it. But this morning I looked directly down on a little fleet of fishing bo=
ats
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 agreea=
ble
exaltation. And Eastbourne, in the early morning sunshine, had all the brig=
htly
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 tightene=
d 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 low=
er
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 pecul=
iar
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 in=
to
anything--except the land or the sea, and even those large essentials seem a
beautifully safe distance away.
I had heard a gre=
at
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 ear=
ly
morning Mr. Travers came from Brighton in this Farman in which I flew I cou=
ld
hear the hum of the great insect when it still seemed abreast of Beachy Hea=
d,
and a good two miles away. If one can hear a thing at two miles, how much t=
he
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 t=
hat
our voices had become almost infinitesimally small.
And so it was I w=
ent
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 i=
t 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. Gettin=
g 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 diffi=
cult
than, let us say, twice the difficulty in learning the control and manageme=
nt
of a motor-bicycle. I cannot understand the sort of young man who won't lea=
rn 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 surviv=
ors
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 uncomforta=
ble
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 al=
ong
the line of the world's coastlines and lake groups and waterways. The airmen
will go to and fro over water as the midges do. Wherever there is a square =
mile
of water the waterplanes will come and go like hornets at the mouth of their
nest. But there are much stronger reasons than this convenience for keeping
over water. Over water the air, it seems, lies in great level expanses; even
when there are gales it moves in uniform masses like the swift, still rush =
of a
deep river. The airman, in Mr. Grahame-White's phrase, can go to sleep on i=
t.
But over the land, and for thousands of feet up into the sky, the air is mo=
re
irregular than a torrent among rocks; it is--if only we could see it--a wav=
ing,
whirling, eddying, flamboyant confusion. A slight hill, a ploughed field, t=
he 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. W=
ith
a powerful enough engine he climbs at once again, but these sudden downfalls
are the least pleasant and most dangerous experience in aviation. They exac=
t a
tiring vigilance.
Over lake or sea,=
in
sunshine, within sight of land, this is the perfect way of the flying touri=
st.
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.
(December, 1910)<= o:p>
I was ill in bed, reading Samuel Wa=
rren'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 b=
ack
to England from a little excursion. He had left London last Saturday week at
midday; he hoped to be back by Thursday; and he had talked to the President=
in
Washington, visited Philadelphia, and had a comparatively loitering afterno=
on
in New York. What had I to say about it?
Firstly, that I w=
ish
this article could be written by Samuel Warren. And failing that, I wish th=
at
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 sha=
red
Mr. Holt's experience.
Because I am chie=
fly
impressed by the fact not that Mr. Holt has taken days where weeks were nee=
ded
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 Dicke=
ns,
whom the journey nearly killed.
If Mr. Holt's exp=
enses
were higher, it was for the special trains and the sake of the record. Anyo=
ne
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 v= ery 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 Vern= e, saw all these increments in speed, motor-cars, and airships aeroplanes, and submarines, wireless telegraphy and what not, as plain and necessary deduct= ions from the promises of physical science, should turn upon a world that read a= nd doubted and jeered with "I told you so. Now will you respect a prophet?"<= o:p>
It was not that t=
he
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 ser=
ies
of consequences, high probabilities that follow on all this tremendous
development of swift, secure, and cheapened locomotion, just as they follow=
ed
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 th=
is
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 to=
wns
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 indomit=
able
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, usu=
ally
in the same village; and to that condition, law, custom, habits, morals, ha=
ve
adapted themselves. The whole plan and conception of human society is based=
on
the rustic home and the needs and characteristics of the agricultural famil=
y.
There have been gipsies, wanderers, knaves, knights-errant and adventurers,=
no
doubt, but the settled permanent rustic home and the tenure of land about i=
t,
and the hens and the cow, have constituted the fundamental reality of the w=
hole
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 un=
der the
stimulus of novelty rather than by constant toil, and this revolution in hu=
man
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, wanderin=
g,
adventurous tendencies in man's composition.
Already one can n=
ote
remarkable developments of migration. There is, for example, that flow to a=
nd
fro across the Atlantic of labourers from the Mediterranean. Italian workme=
n 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 su=
mmer
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 Rivie=
ra. 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 indicatio=
ns
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 f=
rom
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 multitud=
es
of workers seasonally between regions where work is needed in this season a=
nd
regions where work is needed in that. They can go out to the agricultural l=
ands
at one time and come back into towns for artistic work and organised work i=
n factories
at another. They can move from rain and darkness into sunshine, and from he=
at
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 t=
he
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 ch=
ief
opportunity. Obviously, these great forces of transport are already straini=
ng
against the limits of existing political areas. Every country contains now =
an
increasing ingredient of unenfranchised Uitlanders. Every country finds a
growing section of its home-born people either living largely abroad, drawi=
ng 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, unintere=
sted
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 natu=
ral
and inevitable apathy of a large portion of the population whose interests =
go
beyond the State.
Politicians and
statesmen, being the last people in the world to notice what is going on in=
it,
are making no attempt whatever to re-adapt this hugely growing floating
population of delocalised people to the public service. As Mr. Marriott put=
s 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 hand=
s 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 populati=
on
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 o=
wn,
and yet from the point of view of current politics and legislation unorgani=
sed
and ineffective.
Most of the force=
s of
international finance and international business enterprise will be with it=
. It
will develop its own characteristic standards of art and literature and con=
duct
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 traditio=
ns established
during the home-keeping, localised era of mankind's career.
This conflict fol=
lows
as inevitably upon these new gigantic facilities of locomotion as the
Mauretania followed from the discoveries of steam and steel. OF THE NEW REI=
GN
(June, 1911.)
The bunting and the crimson vanish =
from
the streets. Already the vast army of improvised carpenters that the Corona=
tion
has created set themselves to the work of demolition, and soon every road t=
hat
converges upon Central London will be choked again with great loads of
timber--but this time going outward--as our capital emerges from this unpre=
cedented
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 live=
ries
pass by, this sense of critical expectation is perhaps greater than it is f=
or
those more immediately concerned in the spectacle. They have had their part=
s to
play, their symbolic acts to perform, they have sat in their privileged pla=
ces,
and we have waited at the barriers until their comfort and dignity was assu=
red.
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 presen=
ce
of gigantic opportunities.
There is a convic=
tion
widespread among us--his own words, perhaps, have done most to create it--t=
hat
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 indiffere=
nt
abstinence from the broad processes of our national and imperial developmen=
t.
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 un=
ity
and correlation, a layer of foundation-stones and a signature to documents,=
but
an actor in our drama, a living Prince.
Time will test th=
ese
hopes, but certainly we, the innumerable democracy of individually unimport=
ant
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 thoug=
h it
is by the traditions of party government and a legacy of intellectual and
social heaviness, has been in uneasy and ineffectual revolt against deadnes=
s, 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. I=
t 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, since=
rely
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 advance=
ment
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 departm=
ent
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 hypocri=
tes gladly,
because its criticism is poor, and it is wastefully harsh to frank unorthod=
oxy.
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 Engla=
nd
like the rising of sap in the spring, a new generation asking only for such
leadership and such emancipation from restricted scope and ungenerous hosti=
lity
as a King alone can give it....
When in its turn =
this
latest reign comes at last to its reckoning, what will the sum of its
achievement be? What will it leave of things visible? Will it leave a London
preserved and beautified, or will it but add abundantly to the lumps of
dishonest statuary, the scars and masses of ill-conceived rebuilding which
testify to the aesthetic degradation of the Victorian period? Will a great
constellation of artists redeem the ambitious sentimentalities and genteel
skilfulness that find their fitting mausoleum in the Tate Gallery? Will our
literature escape at last from pretentiousness and timidity, our philosophy
from the foolish cerebrations of university "characters" and emin=
ent
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 recognitio=
n 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 person=
s, 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 manki=
nd,
and if we have, have we the wisdom and the quality? Or are we just the chil=
dren
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 beauti=
ful
dawn of new and balanced effort, easy, unresting, planned, assured, and the=
re
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 h=
is
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 achievem=
ent,
relentless veracity of thought and method, and richly imaginative fearlessn=
ess
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-r=
ate
quality and the shortness and weakness of aim in very much that has been do=
ne.
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? Ha=
ve
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 discove=
r,
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 amon=
g us
to-day a one-eyed, one-armed adulterer, rather fragile, prone to sea-sickne=
ss,
and with just that one supreme quality of imaginative courage which made Ne=
lson
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 i=
s no
quickening appreciation for the exceptional best in a man, and because we
overvalue the good behaviour, the sound physique, the commonplace virtues o=
f 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 o=
ur
naval preparations. We go on launching these lumping great Dreadnoughts, an=
d I
cannot bring myself to believe in them. They seem vulnerable from the air a=
bove
and the deep below, vulnerable in a shallow channel and in a fog (and the N=
orth
Sea is both foggy and shallow), and immensely costly. If I were Lord High A=
dmiral
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 ou=
t 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 curr=
ent
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 t=
hat
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 itsel=
f at
Totteridge. I presume these young heroes consider they are preparing for a
possible conflict in England or Western Europe, and I presume the authoriti=
es
are satisfied with them. It is at any rate the only serious war of which th=
ere
is any manifest probability. Western Europe is now a network of railways,
tramways, high roads, wires of all sorts; its chief beasts of burthen are t=
he
railway train and the motor car and the bicycle; towns and hypertrophied vi=
llages
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 amo=
unt
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 h=
ave
to be done and where it would have to be done, and of any attempts to creat=
e an
instrument for that novel unprecedented undertaking, I discover no trace.
In my capacity of
devil's advocate pleading against national over-confidence, I might go on to
the quality of our social and political movements. One hears nowadays a vast
amount of chatter about efficiency--that magic word--and social organisatio=
n,
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 dul=
ly 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 lar=
ge,
and muddle disastrously with the problem in hand. The "expert" qu=
ack
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 easie=
r of
exposition. The educational "expert," in the lack of a lively pub=
lic
intelligence, develops all the vices of the second-rate energetic, and he i=
s, 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 en=
ough
to make clear the quality of my doubts. I think the English mind cuts at li=
fe
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 commonp=
lace
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 c=
ase
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 Governm=
ent 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 f=
ind
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.
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 Thi=
s is
the primary question for British Imperialism; everything else is secondary =
or subordinated
to that.
There is a multit=
ude
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 w=
ill,
and that if a large proportion of such active and intelligent people are
discontented and estranged, nothing can save it from disintegration. I do n=
ot
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 wi=
ll
and feeling of Canada were against it, or coerce India into a sustained sub=
mission
if India presented a united and resistant front. Our Empire, for all its ro=
ll
of battles, was not created by force; colonisation and diplomacy have playe=
d a
far larger share in its growth than conquest; and there is no such strength=
in
its sovereignty as the rule of pride and pressure demand. It is to the free
consent and participation of its constituent peoples that we must look for =
its continuance.
A large and
influential body of politicians considers that in preferential trading betw=
een
the parts of the Empire, and in the erection of a tariff wall against exter=
ior
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 pie=
ce
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 irritati=
on,
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 numb=
er
of prominent politicians in the days before Mr. Chamberlain's return from S=
outh
Africa and the adoption of Tariff Reform by the Unionist Party; and I decip=
her
again the same considerations, unanswered and unanswerable, that leave me
sceptical to-day.
Take a map of the
world and consider the extreme differences in position and condition between
our scattered states. Here is Canada, lying along the United States, looking
eastward to Japan and China, westward to all Europe. See the great slashes =
of
lake, bay, and mountain chain that cut it meridianally. Obviously its main
routes and trades and relations lie naturally north and south; obviously its
full development can only be attained with those ways free, open, and activ=
e.
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 i=
ts
trade to one artificial duct to England, but only at the price of a hampere=
d 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 Lon=
don
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 a=
nd
business points of view each of these is an entirely separate entity, a sys=
tem 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 a=
ny
case. We lost the American colonies because we interfered with their fiscal
arrangements, and it was Napoleon's attempt to strangle the Continental tra=
de
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 spec=
ial
taxation to deal only with one butcher or one plumber, it would greatly end=
ear
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 instan=
ce,
among the hotel staffs of Switzerland and the Riviera--who live almost enti=
rely
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 doubt=
s,
is the possibility of a unified organisation of the Empire for military
defence. We are to have, it is suggested, an imperial Army and an imperial
Navy, and so far, no doubt, as the guaranteeing of a general peace goes, we=
may
develop a sense of participation in that way. But it is well in these islan=
ds
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 j=
ealous
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 hundr=
ed
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 sci=
ence
and art and literature, to develop social organisation, to master and bette=
r 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, a=
nd
our irritation has been greatly exacerbated by the swaggering bad manners, =
the
talk of "Blood and Iron" and Mailed Fists, the Welt-Politik rubbi=
sh
that inaugurated the new German phase.
The British
middle-class, therefore, is full of an angry, vague disposition to thwart t=
hat
expansion which Germans regard very reasonably as their natural destiny; th=
ere
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 no=
t.
There is nothing in Germany to make Canada envious and ashamed of wasted ye=
ars.
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 consu=
med
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 Brit=
ish
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 in=
to a
central European unity.
Physically, our
Empire is incurably scattered, various, and divided, and it is to quite oth=
er
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 spir=
it,
sanguine, discursive, and beyond comparison insubordinate, adaptable, and
originating. It has been made by odd and irregular means by trading compani=
es,
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 contribu=
tion
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 enor=
mous
variety of localised life and colour. And it is in the development and stre=
ngthening,
the enrichment the rendering more conscious and more purposeful, of that br=
oad
creative spirit of the British that the true cement and continuance of our
Empire is to be found.
The Empire must l=
ive
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 collec=
tive
conquests and triumphs--its utmost military rôle must be the guarante=
eing
of a common inaggressive security; but it can, if it is to survive, it must,
give all its constituent parts such a civilisation as none of them could
achieve alone, a civilisation, a wealth and fullness of life increasing and
developing with the years. Through that, and that alone, can it be made wor=
th
having and worth serving.
And in the first
place the whole Empire must use the English language. I do not mean that any
language must be stamped out, that a thousand languages may not flourish by
board and cradle and in folk-songs and village gossip--Erse, the Taal, a
hundred Indian and other Eastern tongues, Canadian French--but I mean that =
also
English must be available, that everywhere there must be English teaching. =
And
everyone who wants to read science or history or philosophy, to come out of=
the
village life into wider thoughts and broader horizons, to gain appreciation=
in
art, must find ready to hand, easily attainable in English, all there is to
know and all that has been said thereon. It is worth a hundred Dreadnoughts=
and
a million soldiers to the Empire, that wherever the imperial posts reach,
wherever there is a curious or receptive mind, there in English and by the
imperial connection the full thought of the race should come. To the lonely
youth upon the New Zealand sheep farm, to the young Hindu, to the trapper u=
nder
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 escap=
es
from his immediate surroundings and all the urgencies of every day, into a
limitless fellowship of thought and beauty.
Now I am not writ=
ing
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 i=
t,
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 langua=
ge
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 i=
ndefinitely.
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 out=
look
no localised life can supply.
Only so is it
possible to establish and maintain the wide understandings, the common symp=
athy
necessary to our continued association. The Empire, mediately or immediatel=
y,
must become the universal educator, news-agent, book-distributor, civiliser=
-general,
and vehicle of imaginative inspiration for its peoples, or else it must sub=
mit
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 Bri=
tish
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 constitue=
nt
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 adeq=
uate
effort is being made to render the English language universal throughout it=
s limits,
none at all to use it as a medium of thought and enlightenment. Half the go=
od
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 r=
ead
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 scient=
ific
paper of the slightest value. The effort and arrangement needed to make boo=
ks,
facilities for research, and all forms of art accessible throughout the Emp=
ire,
would be altogether trivial in proportion to the consolidation it would eff=
ect.
But English peopl=
e do
not understand these things. Their Empire is an accident. It was made for t=
hem
by their exceptional and outcast men, and in the end it will be lost, I fea=
r,
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 t=
he Empire,
is nothing to them. They are provincials mocked by a world-wide opportunity,
the stupid legatees of a great generation of exiles. They go out of town for
the "shootin'," and come back for the fooleries of Parliament, an=
d to
see what the Censor has left of our playwrights and Sir Jesse Boot of our w=
riters,
and to dine in restaurants and wear clothes.
Mostly they call
themselves Imperialists, which is just their harmless way of expressing the=
ir
satisfaction with things as they are. In practice their Imperialism resolves
itself into a vigorous resistance to taxation and an ill-concealed hostilit=
y 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 Amer=
ica
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 a=
nd decline
of our philosophy and science, the decadence of British invention and
enterprise, troubles them not at all, because they fail to connect these th=
ings
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.
(May, 1912.)
Sec. 1
Our country is, I
think, in a dangerous state of social disturbance. The discontent of the
labouring mass of the community is deep and increasing. It may be that we a=
re
in the opening phase of a real and irreparable class war.
Since the Coronat=
ion
we have moved very rapidly indeed from an assurance of extreme social stabi=
lity
towards the recognition of a spreading disorganisation. It is idle to prete=
nd
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 t=
oo
faithfully appropriate. Nothing is being done to allay these forces; everyt=
hing
conspires to exasperate them.
Whither are these
forces taking us? What can still be done and what has to be done to avoid t=
he
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 stri=
ke
for unprecedented ends--against the system, against the fundamental conditi=
ons
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 c=
heap
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 eye=
s,
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; h=
e 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 magnat=
e 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 questio=
ns 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 justifia=
ble
answer, should be that that is the work for which he is fitted by his infer=
ior
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 pla=
y.
The old workman might and did quarrel very vigorously with his specific emp=
loyer,
but he never set out to arraign all employers; he took the law and the Chur=
ch
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 employ=
er
and employed. He criticises the good intentions of the whole system of
governing and influential people, and not only their good intentions, but t=
heir
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 o=
f misapprehension
to the revolutionary fort.
The workman of the
new generation is full of distrust the most demoralising of social influenc=
es.
He is like a sailor who believes no longer either in the good faith or
seamanship of his captain, and, between desperation and contempt, contempla=
tes
vaguely but persistently the assumption of control by a collective forecast=
le.
He is like a private soldier obsessed with the idea that nothing can save t=
he 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 resentme=
nt.
This is a
psychological question, a matter of mental states. Feats of legal subtlety =
are
inopportune, arithmetical exploits still more so. To emerge with the sum of=
4s.
6-1/2d. as a minimum, by calculating on the basis of the mine's present
earnings, from a conference which the miners and everybody else imagined wa=
s to
give a minimum of 5s., may be clever, but it is certainly not politic in the
present stage of Labour feeling. To stamp violently upon obscure newspapers
nobody had heard of before and send a printer to prison, and to give thereb=
y 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 ver=
y ill-advised.
The distrust deepens.
The real task bef=
ore
a governing class that means to go on governing is not just at present to g=
et
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 justi=
fy
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 Democra=
cy.
And it is just
because we are all beginning to realise the immense need for this heroic
quality in those who rule and are rich and powerful, as the response and
corrective to these distrusts and jealousies that are threatening to
disintegrate our social order, that we have all followed the details of this
great catastrophe in the Atlantic with such intense solicitude. It was one =
of those
accidents that happen with a precision of time and circumstance that outdoes
art; not an incident in it all that was not supremely typical. It was the
penetrating comment of chance upon our entire social situation. Beneath a
surface of magnificent efficiency was--slap-dash. The third-class passengers
had placed themselves on board with an infinite confidence in the care that=
was
to be taken of them, and they went down, and most of their women and childr=
en
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--pers=
ons
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 beh=
aved
better in his place. He escaped. He thought it natural to escape. His class=
thinks
it was right and proper that he did escape. It is not the man I would
criticise, but the manifest absence of any such sense of the supreme dignit=
y 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 comm=
on
good are the only effective answer to distrust. If such dominating people
cannot produce these qualities there will have to be an end to them, and th=
e world
must turn to some entirely different method of direction.
Sec. 2
The essential tro=
uble
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 situat=
ion.
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 settlemen=
t,
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 angr=
y.
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 ar=
e to
be preserved and restored.
We need before
anything else a restoration of class confidence. It is a time when class sh=
ould
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 understand=
ings
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 somethi=
ng
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 mass=
es
on the other, intervenes the professional politician, not as a mediator, bu=
t as
an obstacle, who must be propitiated before any dealings are possible. Our
national politics no longer express the realities of the national life; they
are a mere impediment in the speech of the community. With our whole social
order in danger, our Legislature is busy over the trivial little affairs of=
the
Welsh Established Church, whose endowment probably is not equal to the fort=
une
of any one of half a dozen Titanic passengers or a tithe of the probable lo=
ss
of another strike among the miners. We have a Legislature almost antiquaria=
n,
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 leas=
t,
the legal profession is the political profession. It delights in false issu=
es
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 Law=
yers,
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 politi=
cal
life. And since they are the most specialised, the most specifically traine=
d 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 a=
s 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, p=
ower
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 fou=
nd
it, is the political barrister's ideal career. To achieve that, he must
maintain legal and political monopolies, and prevent the invasion of politi=
cal 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 b=
ack
to work on any terms and as soon as possible as the highest good.
And it is with su=
ch
men that our insurgent modern Labour, with its vaguely apprehended wants, i=
ts
large occasions and its rapid emotional reactions, comes into contact direc=
tly
it attempts to adjust itself in the social body. It is one of the main fact=
ors
in the progressive embitterment of the Labour situation that whatever busin=
ess
is afoot--arbitration, conciliation, inquiry--our contemporary system prese=
nts
itself to Labour almost invariably in a legal guise. The natural infirmitie=
s 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 th=
is
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 ther=
e,
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. Su=
ch a
method is to be found in proportional representation with large constituenc=
ies,
and to that we must look for our ultimate liberation from our present maste=
rs,
these politician barristers. But the Labour situation cannot wait for this
millennial release, and for the current issue it seems to me patent that ev=
ery 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 a=
s 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 achie=
ve
remarkable agreements full of the possibility of subsequent surprises, they
will make reputations, and do everything Heaven and their professional trai=
ning
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 a=
bout
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 rath=
er
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 enti=
rely
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 theoretic=
al
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 th=
ey
thought of what was then a poundsworth of living. The Mint has since been
increasing its annual output of gold coins to two or three times the former
amount, and we have, as it were, debased the coinage with extraordinary
quantities of gold. But we who know and own did nothing to adjust that; we =
did
not tell the working man of that; we have let him find it out slowly and in=
directly
at the grocer's shop. That may be permissible from the lawyer's point of vi=
ew,
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 ton=
e, a
new generosity on the part of those who deal with Labour speeches, Labour
literature, Labour representatives, and Labour claims. Labour is necessaril=
y at
an enormous disadvantage in discussion; in spite of a tremendous inferiorit=
y 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 discussio=
n 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 soc=
iety
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; s=
tick
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, t=
hat
means revolution; if you crush out the hope of that, then sabotage and a su=
llen
general sympathy for anarchistic crime.
Sec. 3
In the preceding
pages I have discussed certain aspects of the present Labour situation. I h=
ave
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 be=
ing
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 stea=
dily
turning our Labour struggles from mere attempts to adjust hours and wages i=
nto movements
that are gravely and deliberately revolutionary.
This is the obvio=
us
devotion of a large and growing proportion of the time and energy of the ow=
ning
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 a=
nd
into the imagination of the working man.
The intimate
psychology of work is a thing altogether too little considered and discusse=
d.
One asks: "What keeps a workman working properly at his work?" an=
d it
seems a sufficient answer to say that it is the need of getting a living. B=
ut
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 tendenc=
y of
modern industrialism has been to subdivide processes and make work more bor=
ing
and irksome. Also the workman must be satisfied with the living he is getti=
ng,
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 ret=
urn
of the man to his job, and the fluctuations of employment, the failure of t=
he
employing class to provide any alternative to idleness during slack time, b=
reak
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 do=
ing
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 th=
at
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 questi=
ons.
The worker of a former generation took himself for granted; it is a new pha=
se
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 g=
ot
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 unti=
l 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 afterno=
on.
"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 l=
ife
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 t=
hing
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 spirit=
ual
urgencies in him beyond eating and drinking and dog-fighting, the local lit=
tle
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 forc=
es,
are giving it precisely that spectacular view of luxury, amusement, aimless=
ness
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 deligh=
t'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 i=
nglorious
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 i=
s to
dream that Mr. Asquith or some other politician by some trick of a Concilia=
tion
Act or some claptrap of Compulsory Arbitration, or that any belated suppres=
sion
of discussion and strike organisations by the law, will avert this gathering
storm? The Spectacle of Pleasure, the parade of clothes, estates, motor-car=
s,
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 s=
uch
a resolve is hopeless and unseasonable; we are dealing here with the profou=
nder
impulses that underlie reason. Crush this resentment; it will recur with ac=
cumulated
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 endu=
re
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 La=
bour
troubles are unprecedented, and that they mean the end of an epoch. The sup=
ply
of good-tempered, cheap labour--upon which the fabric of our contemporary e=
ase
and comfort is erected--is giving out. The spread of information and the me=
ans
of presentation in every class and the increase of luxury and self-indulgen=
ce
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, critica=
l,
and suspicious. The replacement has already gone so far that I am certain t=
hat
attempts to baffle and coerce the workers back to their old conditions must
inevitably lead to a series of increasingly destructive outbreaks, to stres=
ses
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 condit=
ions
of which the first and foremost is that the wages-earning labouring class a=
s 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 lif=
e.
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 probl=
em 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 ha=
ve
as a class put to so vulgar and unprofitable a use, is breaking down, and t=
hat
we have to discover a new, more equable way of getting the world's work don=
e.
Certain things st=
and
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 w=
hich
the insurgent worker insists. If we, who have at least some experience of
affairs, who own property, manage businesses, and discuss and influence pub=
lic 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, cal=
ling
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 th=
eir advantages
and Labour, grown observant and intelligent, has discovered itself and decl=
ares
itself no longer subordinate. Just what powers of recovery and reconstructi=
on
our system may have under these circumstances the decades immediately befor=
e us
will show.
Sec. 4
Let us try to
anticipate some of the social developments that are likely to spring out of=
the
present Labour situation.
It is quite
conceivable, of course, that what lies before us is not development but
disorder. Given sufficient suspicion on one side and sufficient obstinacy a=
nd
trickery on the other, it may be impossible to restore social peace in any
form, and industrialism may degenerate into a wasteful and incurable confli=
ct.
But that distressful possibility is the worst and perhaps the least probabl=
e of
many. It is much more acceptable to suppose that our social order will be a=
ble
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 perio=
d of
great general affluence have brought about.
One almost inevit=
able
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 n=
ot
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 knowled=
ge;
it has seemed unnecessary to trouble much about the general conduct of thin=
gs,
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 bee=
n an
elaboration of trivial things and a neglect of troublesome and important th=
ings.
The one grave shock of the Boer War has long been explained and sentimental=
ised
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 prospero=
us
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 accou=
nt
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 so=
rt
of working arrangements are our renascent owning and directing classes like=
ly
to make with the new labouring class? How is the work going to be done in t=
he
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 intermitten=
tly
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 schem=
es
for a more permanent type of employment and for a direct participation of t=
he
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 empl=
oyees
to prevent their striking and a real and honest co-partnery.
In the latter cas=
e 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 rece=
iver
of royalties during his declining years.
And concurrently =
with
the systematic reconstruction of a large portion of our industries upon the=
se
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. Proba=
bly
that is not going to pay from the point of view of the money-making busines=
s 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 ourselv=
es
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 jol=
ly
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 attent=
ive 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 general=
ly
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 no=
w as
the way from Calais to Paris that if the owning class does not attend to th=
ese
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 consciousne=
ss
among the more fortunate and leisurely section of the community I believe t=
hat
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 occupat=
ion
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 nea=
rly
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 to=
ok 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 w=
ell
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 t=
rue
of most occupations, of coal-mining or engineering, or brick-laying or
cotton-spinning. The thing has never been properly thought about. Our
civilisation has grown up in a haphazard kind of way, and it has been
convenient to specialise workers and employ them piecemeal. But if it is tr=
ue
that in respect of any occupation a man has his period of maximum efficienc=
y,
then we open up a whole world of new social possibilities. What we really w=
ant
from a man for our social welfare in that case is not regular continuing wo=
rk, but
a few strenuous years of high-pressure service. We can as a community affor=
d to
keep him longer at education and training before he begins, and we can rele=
ase
him with a pension while he is still full of life and the capacity for enjo=
ying
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 li=
fe
of a man as one complete whole.
That is one
possibility that is frequently in my thoughts about the present labour cris=
is.
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 amoun=
t 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 b=
e of
enormous moral benefit to our strained and relaxed community. I believe tha=
t in
making labour a part of everyone's life and the whole of nobody's life lies=
the
ultimate solution of these industrial difficulties.
Sec. 5
It is almost a
national boast that we "muddle through" our troubles, and I suppo=
se
it is true and to our credit that by virtue of a certain kindliness of temp=
er,
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 qu=
ite
conceivable that our country will, in a measure, survive the enormous stres=
ses
of labour adjustment that are now upon us, even if it never rises to any he=
roic
struggle against these difficulties. But it may survive as a lesser country=
, as
an impoverished and second-rate country. It will certainly do no more than =
that,
if in any part of the world there is to be found a people capable of taking=
up
this gigantic question in a greater spirit. Perhaps there is no such people,
and the conflicts and muddles before us will be world-wide. Or suppose that=
it
falls to our country in some strange way to develop a new courage and
enterprise, and to be the first to go forward into this new phase of
civilisation I foresee, from which a distinctive labouring class, a class t=
hat
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 patchi=
ng.
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 soci=
al
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 h=
ave
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 peri=
od
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 t=
here
are that cannot be done by small adjustments, such as leaping chasms or kil=
ling
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 w=
ay
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 higglin=
g of
the market. Humanity is rebelling against the continuing existence of a lab=
our
class as such, and I can see no way by which our present method of weekly w=
ages
employment can change by imperceptible increments into a method of salary a=
nd
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 comprehens=
ive
scale or not at all. We need nothing less than a national plan of social de=
velopment
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 n=
ew,
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 t=
his
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 obli=
ge
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 h=
ad
during the past year will rouse him from that attitude of mind. The statesm=
an
at the other extremity has to consider the worker as a being with a beginni=
ng, 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 s=
ome
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 o=
ne
hand we need some broader handling of business than is possible in the priv=
ate
adventure of the solitary proprietor or the single company, and on the other
some more completely organised development of the collective bargain. We ha=
ve 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 un=
ion
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 o=
ur
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 hea=
rt
of the patriotic Englishman sinks, because it is our national misfortune th=
at all
the accidents of public life have conspired to retard the development of ju=
st
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 sho=
rt
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 ma=
ke
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 finan=
ciers
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 intern=
al
dissensions, and presently we may have to pay in national humiliation for t=
his
almost organised rejection of stimulus and power.
But however thwar=
ted
and crippled our public imagination may be, we have still got to do the bes=
t 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 natio=
n in
the air I would say that all the great productive activities and all the me=
ans
of communication should be national concerns and be run as national service=
s.
But our State is peculiarly incapable of such functions; at the present tim=
e it
cannot even produce a postage stamp that will stick; and the type of offici=
al
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 ope=
ns
an immense opportunity for voluntary effort. Deference to our official lead=
ers
is absurd; it is a time when men must, as the phrase goes, "come forwa=
rd."
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 h=
ave
come to a phase in our affairs when the only alternative to a great, delibe=
rate
renascence of will and understanding is national disorder and decay.
Sec. 6
I have attempted a
diagnosis of this aspect of our national situation. I have pointed out that
nearly all the social forces of our time seem to be in conspiracy to bring
about the disappearance of a labour class as such and the rearrangement of =
our
work and industry upon a new basis. That rearrangement demands an unprecede=
nted
national effort and the production of an adequate National Plan. Failing th=
at,
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 tha=
t 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 deb=
ates
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 hopel=
ess
dissatisfaction, how rarely it is associated with any will to change a stat=
e 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 mat=
ter
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 appare=
nt
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 t=
he inhabitants
of Netting Hill. Election of representatives in one-member local constituen=
cies
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 elect=
oral
system that forbids absolutely any vote splitting or any indication of shad=
es
of opinion. The presence of more than two candidates introduces an altogeth=
er 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-cal=
led
self-governing people, are permitted to do is, in a muddled, angry way, to
strike off the names of about half of these selected gentlemen.
Take almost any
member of the present Government and consider his case. You may credit him =
with
a lifelong industrious intention to get there, but ask yourself what is this
man's distinction, and for what great thing in our national life does he st=
and?
By the complaisance of our party machinery he was able to present himself t=
o 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 s=
tifles
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 peop=
le
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 importanc=
e 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 represe=
ntation,
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 exist=
s an
active society which has organised the education of the public in the detai=
ls
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 whatev=
er
that his vote will be wasted in the event of that man's chance being hopele=
ss.
There is a method by which the order of the voter's subsequent preference i=
s 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 immen=
se
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 wou=
ld
be quite unable to oust any well-known and representative independent candi=
date
who chose to stand against him. There would be an immediate alteration in t=
ype
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 intellect=
ual
and moral hold upon the community; they would already be outstanding and di=
stinguished
men before they came to the work of government. Great sections of our natio=
nal
life, science, art, literature, education, engineering, manufacture would c=
ease
to be under-represented, or misrepresented by the energetic barrister and
political specialist, and our Legislature would begin to serve, as we have =
now
such urgent need of its serving, as the means and instrument of that nation=
al
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 reporte=
rs,
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-appo=
inted,
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 Pl=
an
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 o=
ur
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 Eng=
land
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 th=
em
to be actors not in a reminiscent pageant but a living conflict, and the so=
oner
they are prepared to take their part in that the better our Empire will acq=
uit
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 so=
me
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 destin=
ies.
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 need=
ed
too urgently to make our leaders leader-like and to sustain the active
understandings of the race.
And from the labo=
ur
class itself we are also justified in demanding a far more effectual
contribution to the National Conference than it is making at the present ti=
me.
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 disc=
ussion
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 th=
ey
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 contemp=
lating
a social reorganisation that may minimise or destroy their precedence. We h=
ave
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=
.
(June, 1912.)
To have followed the frequent discu=
ssions
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 th=
an 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 ma=
ke
it clear that one is not oneself a panacea-monger. One writes and people re=
ad a
little inattentively and more than a little impatiently, until one makes a
positive proposal Then they jump. "So that's your Remedy!" they s=
ay.
"How absurdly inadequate!" I was privileged to take part in one s=
uch
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 woul=
d 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 o=
ur
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 p=
art
of the activities of us, forty million people, will be devoted to its parti=
al
accomplishment. In the presence of very great issues people become impatient
and irritated, as they would not allow themselves to be irritated by far mo=
re
limited problems. Nobody in his senses expects a panacea for the comparativ=
ely simple
and trivial business of playing chess. Nobody wants to be told to "rely
wholly upon your pawns," or "never, never move your rook"; n=
obody
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 civilisati=
on.
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 overhaulin=
g,
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, ref=
uses
a proffered Stepney, and bawls passionately for anything--for a four-wheele=
r,
or a donkey, as long as he can be free from that exploded mechanism. There =
are
evidently quite a considerable number of people in this country who would
welcome a tyrant at the present time, a strong, silent, cruel, imprisoning,
executing, melodramatic sort of person, who would somehow manage everything
while they went on--being silly. I find that form of impatience cropping up
everywhere. I hear echoes of Mr. Blatchford's "Wanted, a Man," an=
d 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 sa=
ving
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 P=
lan.
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&q=
uot;
is unduly subordinated to our "firstly"; our game is better
individually than collectively; we are like a football team that passes bad=
ly,
and our need is not nearly so much to change the players as to broaden thei=
r 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 o=
n 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 implicatio=
n 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 m=
ost
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 t=
hey
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 co=
ver
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 o=
f 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 les=
ser
reason, for tempering zeal with patience. This upper portion of our educati=
onal
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 f=
ar
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 schoo=
ls
we have. We cannot have an educational purge, if only because we have not t=
he
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 exa=
mple
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 g=
reat
number of examiners chosen haphazard turned out to be negligent and incompe=
tent
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 th=
ink
clearly, and study and consider and reconsider our ideas about public thing=
s to
the very utmost of our possibilities. We have to clarify our views and expr=
ess
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 f=
or
all the troubles of the State, and take it and go on just as we are going n=
ow.
But, indeed, to say a word for that idea would be a treason. We are the Sta=
te,
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 elabor=
ated
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 t=
hat
will settle the whole trouble, can carry people to a level beyond an undivi=
ded
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 consider=
able
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 t=
his
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.
"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 labou=
r,
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-earni=
ng
proletariat? Regarded as a project of social development, Syndicalism is
ridiculous; regarded as an illuminating and unintentionally ironical comple=
ment
to the implicit theories of our present social order, it is worthy of close
attention. The dream of the Syndicalist is an impossible social fragmentati=
on.
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 St=
ate;
our community is to become a conflict of inter-woven governments of workers,
incapable of progressive changes of method or of extension or transmutation=
of
function, the whole being of a man is to lie within his industrial
specialisation, and, upon lines of causation not made clear, wages are to g=
o on
rising and hours of work are to go on falling.... There the mind halts, bli=
nded
by the too dazzling vistas of an unimaginative millennium And the way to th=
is,
one gathers, is by striking--persistent, destructive striking--until it com=
es
about.
Such is Syndicali=
sm,
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 log=
ical
reaction to our present economic system, which has counted our workers neit=
her
as souls nor as heads, but as hands. They are beginning to accept the
suggestions of that method. It is the culmination in aggression of that, at
first, entirely protective trade unionism which the individual selfishness =
and collective
short-sightedness and State blindness of our owning and directing and ruling
classes forced upon the working man. At first trade unionism was essentially
defensive; it was the only possible defence of the workers, who were being
steadily pressed over the margin of subsistence. It was a nearly involuntary
resistance to class debasement. Mr. Vernon Hartshorn has expressed it as th=
at
in a recent article. But his paper, if one read it from beginning to end,
displayed, compactly and completely, the unavoidable psychological developm=
ent
of the specialised labour case. He began in the mildest tones with those no=
w 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 w=
ants
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 de=
fine
or even forecast his ultimate intentions. He will in that case merely clutc=
h.
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 contriva=
nce
an arresting and delaying organisation begotten by just that class separati=
on
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 t=
he
suburban line with the electric tramway, and attack that again with the pet=
rol
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 commonplace=
s 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 w=
ar
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, t=
hat
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 t=
hat
must be blind to the traffic in our streets.
Syndicalism is no=
t 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 cr=
ush
that down--then sabotage and that black revolt of the human spirit into cri=
me
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, sou=
nds
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. Pau=
l's
begins to totter it is no good propping it up with half a dozen walking-sti=
cks,
and small palliatives have no legitimate place at all in this discussion. O=
ur
generation has to take up this tremendous necessity of a social reconstruct=
ion
in a great way; its broad lines have to be thought out by thousands of mind=
s,
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 wh=
at
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 o=
ne
another, but while on the one hand such work as being a master gardener and
growing roses, or a master cabinet maker and making fine pieces, or an arti=
st
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 lunati=
cs,
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 li=
fe
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 diffic=
ulty
of "mere toil."
And the mention o=
f a
compulsory period of labour service for everyone--a year or so with the pic=
kaxe
as well as with the rifle--leads me to another idea that I believe will sta=
nd
the test of unlimited criticism, and that is a total condemnation of all th=
ese
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 dou=
bt necessary
to save a large portion of our population from lives of continuous toil, bu=
t,
like trade unionism, they are a necessity of our present conditions, and no=
t 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 somet=
hing
far more infuriating to a normal human being--and that is boredom. The pros=
pect
of a carefully inspected sanitary life, tethered to some light, little, uni=
nteresting
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 pow=
er
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 hewi=
ng
five hundredweight, and no more and no less, each day and every day, I shou=
ld
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 i=
mperfection
of our social organisation that will not enable a man to do his stint of la=
bour
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 t=
oil
than if he worked, with occasional lapses into unemployment, drearily all h=
is
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 th=
e 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 Sta=
te
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 employ=
er;
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 stee=
l,
and possibly in housing in what one might call the standardisable industrie=
s, that
the State is imagined as the direct owner and employer and it is just in th=
ese
departments that the bulk of the irksome toil is to be found. There remain
large regions of more specialised and individualised production that many S=
ocialists
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 tim=
e,
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 f=
olly
will be the avenger of lost opportunities. Not a Labour State do we want, n=
or a
Servile State, but a powerful Leisure State of free men.
Sec. 1
For many years no=
w 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 cert=
ain
defined intention. They are firstly: The Normal Social Life, and secondly: =
The
Great State. Throughout this essay these expressions will be used in accord=
ance
with the definitions presently to be given, and the fact that they are so u=
sed
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 inten=
ded
by the Normal Social Life here is a type of human association and employmen=
t,
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 proba=
bly
the lot of the greater moiety of mankind.
Essentially this =
type
of association presents a localised community, a community of which the gre=
ater
proportion of the individuals are engaged more or less directly in the
cultivation of the land. With this there is also associated the grazing or
herding over wider or more restricted areas, belonging either collectively =
or
discretely to the community, of sheep, cattle, goats, or swine, and almost
always the domestic fowl is commensal with man in this life. The cultivated=
land
at least is usually assigned, temporarily or inalienably, as property to
specific individuals, and the individuals are grouped in generally monogami=
c 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. Accordi=
ng
to the dangers or securities of the region, the nature of the cultivation a=
nd
the temperament of the people, this community is scattered either widely in
separate steadings or drawn together into villages. At one extreme, over la=
rge
areas of thin pasture this agricultural community may verge on the nomadic;=
at
another, in proximity to consuming markets, it may present the concentratio=
n 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 trades=
men,
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 modifi=
ed
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 t=
erms
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, a=
nd 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 wo=
men
and without, that have produced abnormal and surplus ways of living,
supplemental, additional, and even antagonistic to this normal scheme.
And first as to t= he 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 ne= eds of the Normal Social Life. He has attained nothing of that frictionless fit= ting 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 a= gricultural 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. Wi= th 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 str= ands are the early roads, whose knots are the first towns and the first courts.<= o:p>
Indeed, all recor=
ded
history is in a sense the history of these surplus and supplemental activit=
ies
of mankind. The Normal Social Life flowed on in its immemorial fashion, usi=
ng
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 histo=
ry
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 conditio=
ns
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 p=
art
of those modifying developments. The Normal Social Life is essentially
illiterate and traditional. The Normal Social Life is as mute as the standi=
ng
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 towar=
ds
the general life of humanity. It may present itself as law and pacification=
, as
a positive addition and superstructure to the Normal Social Life, as roads =
and
markets and cities, as courts and unifying monarchies, as helpful and direc=
ting
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 religio=
us
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 manki=
nd.
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 antagonist=
ic
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 So=
cial
Life. One opens at the depopulation of Italy by the aggressive great estate=
s of
the Roman Empire, at the impoverishment of the French peasantry by a too ce=
ntralised
monarchy before the revolution, or at the huge degenerative growth of the g=
reat
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 scal=
e;
one discovers the process developing into a phase of social fragmentation a=
nd
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 retur=
n 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 peasan=
t 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 mank=
ind,
the less-localised life of mankind, that life of mankind which is not direc=
tly
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 limitatio=
ns.
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 securi=
ty
and freedom, have passed into a new phase of extraordinary productivity. Th=
ey
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 p=
ower
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 a=
nd
termed the Normal Social Life with the still vague and formless impulses th=
at
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 associat=
ion.
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 politi=
cal
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 a=
s recuperative
as that small agriculture which has hitherto been the inevitable social bas=
is.
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 n=
ewer
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 t=
he 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 a=
nd
rephrased as an attempt to apprehend this defensive struggle of the Normal
Social Life against waxing novelty and innovation and to give a direction a=
nd
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, s=
uch
as Liberalism, Individualism, Socialism, in the light of this broad general=
isation
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 oppo=
site
to the Normal Social Life, which we have already defined.
Sec. 2
The Normal Social
Life has been defined as one based on agriculture, traditional and essentia=
lly
unchanging. It has needed no toleration and displayed no toleration for nov=
elty
and strangeness. Its beliefs have been on such a nature as to justify and
sustain itself, and it has had an intrinsic hostility to any other beliefs.=
The
God of its community has been a jealous god even when he was only a tribal =
and
local god. Only very occasionally in history until the coming of the modern
period do we find any human community relaxing from this ancient and more n=
ormal
state of entire intolerance towards ideas or practices other than its own. =
When
toleration and a receptive attitude towards alien ideas was manifested in t=
he
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 Athe=
ns
the hemlock was in the last resort at the service of the ancient gods and t=
he
ancient morals against the sceptical critic.
But with the stea=
dy
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 tru=
th
of novelties. Liberalism--I do not, of course, refer in any way to the
political party which makes this profession--is essentially
anti-traditionalism; its tendency is to commit for trial any institution or
belief that is brought before it. It is the accuser and antagonist of all t=
he
fixed and ancient values and imperatives and prohibitions of the Normal Soc=
ial
Life. And growing up in relation to Liberalism and sustained by it is the g=
reat
body of scientific knowledge, which professes at least to be absolutely und=
ogmatic
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 extre=
mest
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 wit=
h 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 a=
nd
beautiful social order; while the Socialist, with an equal liberalism, rega=
rds
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 moveme=
nts,
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 cle=
an
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 tim=
e is
not a battle-ground between individualism and socialism; it is a battle-gro=
und
between the Normal Social Life on the one hand and a complex of forces on t=
he
other which seek a form of replacement and seem partially to find it in the=
se
and other doctrines.
Nearly all
contemporary thinkers who are not too muddled to be assignable fall into on=
e of
three classes, of which the third we shall distinguish is the largest and m=
ost
various and divergent. It will be convenient to say a little of each of the=
se
classes before proceeding to a more particular account of the third. Our
analysis will cut across many accepted classifications, but there will be a=
mple
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 a=
rise
naturally out of the Normal Social Life. They desire a state in which prope=
rty
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. Chester=
ton
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 th=
e townsmen,
Christian in the spirit of the parish priest. There are no other Conservato=
rs
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 h=
is
more imperialist moments--all present themselves as essentially Conservator=
s as
seekers after and preservers of the Normal Social Life.
So, too, do
Socialists of the William Morris type. The mind of William Morris was
profoundly reactionary He hated the whole trend of later nineteenth-century
modernism with the hatred natural to a man of considerable scholarship and
intense aesthetic sensibilities. His mind turned, exactly as Mr. Belloc's
turns, to the finished and enriched Normal Social Life of western Europe in=
the
middle ages, but, unlike Mr. Belloc, he believed that, given private owners=
hip
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 tha=
n 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 continu=
ally
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" l=
and
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, prop=
erty
is to be kept disseminated; a vast amount of political speaking and writing=
in
America and throughout the world enforces one's impression of the widespread
influence of Conservator ideals.
Of course, it is
inevitable that phases of prosperity for the Normal Social Life will lead to
phases of over-population and scarcity, there will be occasional famines and
occasional pestilences and plethoras of vitality leading to the blood-letti=
ng
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 a=
nd
always must be; they are part of the jolly rhythms of the human lot under t=
he
sun, and are to be taken with the harvest home and love-making and the peac=
eful
ending of honoured lives as an integral part of the unending drama of manki=
nd.
Sec. 3
Now opposed to the
Conservators are all those who do not regard contemporary humanity as a fin=
al
thing nor the Normal Social Life as the inevitable basis of human continuit=
y.
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 f=
or
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 gre=
at
variety of intermediaries between two extremes. I propose to give distincti=
ve
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 profoun=
dly 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 a=
nd
survival, whose tendencies are on the whole inevitably satisfactory. The fu=
ture
welfare of man he believes in effect may be trusted to the spontaneous and
planless activities of people of goodwill, and nothing but state interventi=
on
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 woul=
d 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 coul=
d 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 p=
ower
of Law. Their common influence is the discouragement of collective
understandings upon the basis of the existing state. Both converge in pract=
ice
upon laissez faire. I would therefore lump them together under the term of
Planless Progressives, and I would contrast with them those types which bel=
ieve
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 pha=
se,
and as a phase which is now passing, in human experience; and they are prep=
ared
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 powe=
r,
and, on the other, labour hordes, for the most part urban, without any prop=
erty
or outlook except continuous toil and anxiety, which in England have substi=
tuted
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 th=
at
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 t=
o 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 en=
ds,
ends that are neither feared nor evaded.
Now while the
Conservators are continually talking of the "eternal facts" of hu=
man
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 institut=
ion
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 th=
ese
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 lit=
tle
confused, and will be found to wobble in the course even of a brief discuss=
ion
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 a=
nd
incoherent that for a man to call himself a socialist nowadays is to give no
indication whatever whether he is a Conservator like William Morris, a non-=
Constructor
like Karl Marx, or a Constructor of any of half a dozen different schools. =
On
the whole, however, modern socialism tends to fall towards the Constructor
wing. So, too, do those various movements in England and Germany and France
called variously nationalist and imperialist, and so do the American civic =
and
social reformers. Under the same heading must come such attempts to give the
vague impulses of Syndicalism a concrete definition as the "Guild
Socialism" of Mr. Orage. All these movements are agreed that the world=
is
progressive towards a novel and unprecedented social order, not necessarily=
and
fatally better, and that it needs organised and even institutional guidance=
thither,
however much they differ as to the form that order should assume.
For the greater
portion of a century socialism has been before the world, and it is not per=
haps
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 stateme=
nt
of itself that was at once simple, complete and acceptable to any large
proportion of those who call themselves socialists. But always it has point=
ed
to two or three definite things. The first of these is that unlimited freed=
oms 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 suggeste=
d by
the different schools. And, next, every school of socialism accepts the
concentration of management and property as necessary, and declines to
contemplate what is the typical Conservator remedy, its re-fragmentation.
Accordingly it sets up not only against the large private owner, but against
owners generally, the idea of a public proprietor, the State, which shall h=
old
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 probl=
ems,
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 w=
orld
over. Socialism is now old enough to know better. Few modern socialists pre=
sent
their faith as a complete panacea, and most are now setting to work in earn=
est 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. Necessaril=
y 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 consciousne=
ss
in the expropriated masses of social disintegration. It spends its force ve=
ry
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 c=
an
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 socialist=
ic spirit
in the mass of the proletariat; merely vindictive attacks upon property,
sabotage, and the general strike are the logical and inevitable consequence=
s of
an uncontrolled concentration of property in a few hands, and such things m=
ust
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 anyth=
ing
but an interesting failure, but a failure that has all the educational valu=
e 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 confi=
scation
and an open transfer from private to public hands, conceived the extraordin=
ary
idea of filching property for the state. A small body of people of extreme
astuteness were to bring about the municipalisation and nationalisation fir=
st
of this great system of property and then of that, in a manner so artful th=
at
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 w=
its
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 t=
he
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 wed=
ge
towards a complete communism. The minimum, once established, could obviousl=
y be
raised continually until either everybody had what they needed, or the reso=
urces
of society gave out and set a limit to the process.
This second metho=
d of
attack brought the Fabian movement into co-operation with a large amount of
benevolent and constructive influence outside the socialist ranks altogethe=
r.
Few wealthy people really grudge the poor a share of the necessities of lif=
e,
and most are quite willing to assist in projects for such a distribution. B=
ut
while these schemes naturally involved a very great amount of regulation an=
d 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 an=
tagonistic
to wealth as such. If the lion did not exactly lie down with the lamb, at a=
ny
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 t=
he
Normal Social Life was before the world, and this project was the compulsor=
y regimentation
of the workers and the complete state control of labour under a new plutocr=
acy.
Our present chaos was to be organised into a Servile State.
Sec. 4
Now to many of us=
who
found the general spirit of the socialist movement at least hopeful and
attractive and sympathetic, this would be an almost tragic conclusion, did =
we
believe that Fabianism was anything more than the first experiment in
planning--and one almost inevitably shallow and presumptuous--of the long
series that may be necessary before a clear light breaks upon the road huma=
nity
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, t=
hat
is, of mankind. With less arrogance and confidence, but it may be with a fi=
rmer
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&quo=
t; in
twenty-five years, or do anything beyond contributing in our place and meas=
ure
to that constructive discussion whose real magnitude we now begin to realis=
e.
We have faith in a
possible future, but it is a faith that makes the quality of that future en=
tirely
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 bec=
ause
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 n=
ever
at any time been absolutely permanent, always it has carried within itself =
the
germs of enterprise and adventure and exchanges that finally attack its sta=
bility.
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 tolerabl=
e, seem
also doomed to accumulate catastrophic tensions. Bureaucratic schemes for
establishing the regular lifelong subordination of a labouring class, enliv=
ened
though they may be by frequent inspection, disciplinary treatment during
seasons of unemployment, compulsory temperance, free medical attendance, an=
d a cheap
and shallow elementary education fail to satisfy the restless cravings in t=
he
heart of man. They are cravings that even the baffling methods of the most
ingeniously worked Conciliation Boards cannot permanently restrain. The dri=
ft
of any Servile State must be towards a class revolt, paralysing sabotage an=
d a
general strike. The more rigid and complete the Servile State becomes, the =
more
thorough will be its ultimate failure. Its fate is decay or explosion. From=
its
débris we shall either revert to the Normal Social Life and begin ag=
ain
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 soci=
al
life we put, then, as the only real alternative to the Normal Social Life f=
rom
which man is continually escaping. For it we do not propose to use the
expressions the "socialist state" or "socialism," becau=
se 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 idea=
l of
a social system no longer localised, no longer immediately tied to and
conditioned by the cultivation of the land, world-wide in its interests and
outlook and catholic in its tolerance and sympathy, a system of great
individual freedom with a universal understanding among its citizens of a c=
ollective
thought and purpose.
Now, the difficul=
ties
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 na=
ture
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 oth=
er
social net that necessity may weave about him. But the Normal Social Life h=
as
this advantage that it has a vast accumulated moral tradition and a minutel=
y worked-out
material method. All the fundamental institutions have arisen in relation t=
o 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 le=
ast
resistance for perplexed humanity.
This conception of
the Great State, on the other hand, is still altogether unsubstantial. It i=
s a
project as dream-like to-day as electric lighting, electric traction, or
aviation would have been in the year 1850. In 1850 a man reasonably convers=
ant
with the physical science of his time could have declared with a very
considerable confidence that, given a certain measure of persistence and so=
cial
security, these things were more likely to be attained than not in the cour=
se
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 prod=
uced
some clumsy, curious toy, more probably he would have failed altogether; an=
d,
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 th=
at
the permanent residence of the cultivator in close relation to his ground i=
s 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 plann=
ed 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 unfavourab=
le
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 br=
oadly
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 carr=
y;
but there will remain, more particularly in the summer, a vast amount of ha=
nd
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 agricultura=
l 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 reap=
ing
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 th=
ey
in particular doing this for the community? Is our Great State still to hav=
e 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 peop=
le
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 peopl=
e 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 l=
ook
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 be=
ing
condemned to lifelong labour. And contemporary events, the phenomena of rec=
ent strikes,
the phenomena of sabotage, carry out the suggestion that in a community whe=
re
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 af=
ter
the most elaborate Labour Conciliation schemes and social minima are
established Things are altogether too stimulating to the imagination nowada=
ys.
Of all impossible social dreams that belief in tranquillised and submissive=
and
virtuous Labour is the wildest of all. No sort of modern men will stand it.
They will as a class do any vivid and disastrous thing rather than stand it.
Even the illiterate peasant will only endure lifelong toil under the stimul=
us
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 e=
nd
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 h=
ad
better throw ourselves in with the Conservators forthwith, for they are rig=
ht
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 c=
itizen,
as to be met as regards the greater moiety of it by the payment of wages ov=
er
and above the gratuitous share of each individual in the general output; an=
d as
regards the residue, a residue of rough, disagreeable, and monotonous
operations, by some form of conscription, which will demand a year or so, l=
et
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 f=
or
everyone, in spite of the fact that enormous numbers of people do no produc=
tive
work at all because they are too well off, that great numbers are out of wo=
rk,
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 competiti=
ve
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 sm=
all
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 beli=
eve
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 Profes=
sor
William James this suggestion of a general conscription and a period of pub=
lic
service for everyone, a suggestion which greatly occupied his thoughts duri=
ng
the last years of his life. He was profoundly convinced of the high educati=
onal
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 y=
ear
(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 th=
ese
conceivable triumphs of scientific adjustment and direction lies the infini=
tely
greater difficulty on our way to the Great State, the difficulty of directi=
on.
What sort of people are going to distribute the work of the community, deci=
de
what is or is not to be done, determine wages, initiate enterprises; and un=
der
what sort of criticism, checks, and controls are they going to do this deli=
cate
and extensive work? With this we open the whole problem of government, admi=
nistration
and officialdom.
The Marxist and t=
he
democratic socialist generally shirk this riddle altogether; the Fabian
conception of a bureaucracy, official to the extent of being a distinct cla=
ss
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, noth=
ing
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 apa=
rt
from the danger of unsympathetic and fatally irritating government there ca=
n be
little or no doubt that the method of making men officials for life is quite
the worst way of getting official duties done. Officialdom is a species of
incompetence. This rather priggish, teachable, and well-behaved sort of boy,
who is attracted by the prospect of assured income and a pension to win his=
way
into the Civil Service, and who then by varied assiduities rises to a sort =
of
timidly vindictive importance, is the last person to whom we would willingly
entrust the vital interests of a nation. We want people who know about life=
at
large, who will come to the public service seasoned by experience, not peop=
le
who have specialised and acquired that sort of knowledge which is called, i=
n 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 cha=
nges
in occupation as a proper circumstance in the life of every citizen; it will
value a certain amateurishness in its service, and prefer it to the trite
omniscience of the stale official. On that score of the necessity or
versatility, if on no other score, I am flatly antagonistic to the concepti=
ons
of "Guild Socialism" which have arisen recently out of the impact=
of
Mr. Penty and Syndicalism upon the uneasy intelligence of Mr. Orage.
And since the Fab=
ian
socialists have created a widespread belief that in their projected state e=
very
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 o=
ut
that the Great State presupposes neither the one nor the other. It is a for=
m 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 wo=
rks
if he chooses. But if he likes to live on his minimum and do nothing--thoug=
h 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 confid=
ence
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 examp=
le,
nor the stage--though it may build and own theatres--the tailor, the dressm=
aker,
the restaurant cook, an enormous multitude of other busy workers-for-prefer=
ences.
In the Great State of the future, as in the life of the more prosperous cla=
sses
of to-day, the greater proportion of occupations and activities will be pri=
vate
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 gre=
at
public services, sustaining everybody in absolute freedom at a certain mini=
mum
of comfort and well-being, and still leaving most of the interests, amuseme=
nts,
and adornments of the individual life, and all sorts of collective concerns,
social and political discussion, religious worship, philosophy, and the lik=
e to
the free personal initiatives of entirely unofficial people.
This still leaves=
the
problem of systematic knowledge and research, and all the associated proble=
ms
of aesthetic, moral, and intellectual initiative to be worked out in detail;
but at least it dispels the nightmare of a collective mind organised as a
branch of the civil service, with authors, critics, artists, scientific
investigators appointed in a phrensy of wire-pulling--as nowadays the Briti=
sh
state appoints its bishops for the care of its collective soul.
Let me now indica= te 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 again= st 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 masculin= e 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.<= o:p>
And as our concep=
tion
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 independ=
ence
of soul in common men and women. In many directions, therefore, the believe=
r in
the Great State will display a jealous watchfulness of contemporary develop=
ments
rather than a premature constructiveness. We must watch wealth; but quite as
necessary it is to watch the legislator, who mistakes propaganda for progre=
ss
and class exasperation to satisfy class vindictiveness for construction.
Supremely important is it to keep discussion open, to tolerate no limitatio=
n on
the freedom of speech, writing, art and book distribution, and to sustain t=
he
utmost liberty of criticism upon all contemporary institutions and processe=
s.
This briefly is t=
he
programme of problems and effort to which my idea of the Great State, as the
goal of contemporary progress, leads me.
The diagram on p.=
131
shows compactly the gist of the preceding discussion; it gives the view of
social development upon which I base all my political conceptions.
produces an
increasing surplus of energy and opportunity, more particularly under modern
conditions of scientific organisation and power production; and this through
the operation of rent and of usury tends to =
&nb=
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|
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and &n=
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an
increasing proportion of the population to become: =
&nb=
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sp;
| (a) A LEISURE
CLASS
and
(b) A LABOUR CLASS under
no urgent compulsion =
divorced from the land and =
to
work =
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2 3|
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| which may
degenerate
degenerate =
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style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> | |
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| &nbs=
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and produce a =
| | |
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SOCIAL DEBACLE =
| &nbs=
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| |
| =
&nb=
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&nb=
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| &nbs=
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| | which may become =
&nb=
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which may become | | a Governing =
&nb=
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controlled =
| | Class (with waster =
&nb=
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regimented
| | elements) in =
&nb=
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and disciplined
| | an unprogressive =
&nb=
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Labour Class of
| | Bureaucratic
<-----------------> an unprogressive | | SERVILE STATE =
&nb=
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Bureaucratic | | =
&nb=
sp; =
SERVILE STATE | | =
&nb=
sp;
=
&nb=
sp; |
which may become =
&nb=
sp; =
which may be the=
whole
community =
&nb=
sp;
rendered needless of
the GREAT STATE =
&nb=
sp;
by a universal w=
orking
under various =
&nb=
sp;
compulsory year motives and inducements =
&nb=
sp;
or so of labour =
but
not constantly, =
&nb=
sp;
service together nor
permanently =
&nb=
sp; =
with a scientific nor
unwillingly =
&nb=
sp; =
organisation =
&nb=
sp; =
&nb=
sp; of
production, =
&nb=
sp; =
&nb=
sp; and
so reabsorbed =
&nb=
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=
by
re-endowment =
&nb=
sp; =
&nb=
sp; into
the Leisure =
&nb=
sp; =
&nb=
sp; Class
of the =
&nb=
sp; =
&nb=
sp; GREAT
STATE
THE COMMON SENSE OF WARFA=
RE
Sec. 1
CONSCRIPTION
I want to say as
compactly as possible why I do not believe that conscription would increase=
the
military efficiency of this country, and why I think it might be a disastro=
us
step for this country to take.
By conscription I
mean the compulsory enlistment for a term of service in the Army of the who=
le
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 servi=
ce,
the idea which as a Socialist I support very heartily, of making every citi=
zen
give a year or so of his life to our public needs, are matters quite outsid=
e my
present discussion. What I am writing about now is this idea that the count=
ry can
be strengthened for war by making every man in it a bit of a soldier.
And I want the re=
ader
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 cas=
e 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 at=
tack
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 cons=
cript
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. F=
or
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 R=
oman
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 t=
ake
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 t=
he
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 m=
en
killed round about him, confidence in himself, in his officers, and the met=
hods
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 creati=
on
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 th=
ese
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 ar=
my.
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 scarcel=
y enough
to go round our present supply of private soldiers. And the best and most
brilliant among this scanty supply are being drawn upon more and more for
aerial work, and for all that increasing quantity of highly specialised
services which are manifestly destined to be the real fighting forces of the
future. We cannot spare the best of our officers for training conscripts; we
shall get the dismallest results from the worst of them; and so even if it =
were
a vital necessity for our country to have an army of all its manhood now, we
could not have it, and it would be a mere last convulsion to attempt to mak=
e it
with the means at our disposal.
But that brings m=
e 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 t=
he
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 fis=
t 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 fif=
teen
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 peopl=
e.
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 ther=
e 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 attac=
king
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 con=
stantly
to be re-armed and freshly equipped at an expenditure proportionate to its
size. So long as the conflict of preparation goes on, then the bigger the a=
rmy
your adversary maintains under arms the bigger is his expenditure and the l=
ess
his earning power. The less the force you employ to keep your adversary
over-armed, and the longer you remain at peace with him while he is over-ar=
med,
the greater is your advantage. There is only one profitable use for any arm=
y,
and that is victorious conflict. Every army that is not engaged in victorio=
us
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 mi=
nimum
of military efficiency. It would be a disastrous waste of resources that we
need most urgently for other things.
Sec. 2
In the popular
imagination the Dreadnought is still the one instrument of naval war. We co=
unt
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 ano=
ther
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, i=
n a
ratio of 10 to 16, or in some ratio still more advantageous to us, accordin=
g 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 v=
ictorious
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 aga=
inst
our invincible Dreadnoughts. They will promenade the seas, always in the ra=
tio
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, an=
d,
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 triu=
mphs
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 w=
hich
proceedings we are prepared, some of these chances will come off, and we sh=
all
lose a Dreadnought.
It will be a poor
consolation if an ill-advised and stranded Zeppelin or so enlivens the quie=
t of
the English countryside by coming down and capitulating. It will be a trifl=
ing
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 harbou=
r, 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 rea=
lise
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, hypnot=
ised
by the Dreadnought idea.
For some years th=
ere
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-exerc=
ised
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 conscr=
ipt
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 di=
versified
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 indol=
ence
of my countrymen, it is a question I face with something very near to disma=
y.
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 anticipatin=
g the
new strategy, the new tactics, the new material, the new training that
invention is so rapidly rendering necessary? I have the gravest doubts whet=
her
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 a=
nd
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 t=
hat
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 mo=
ney
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 ave=
rted
obstinately from the future we are backing towards disaster.
Sec. 3
In the present
armament competition there are certain considerations that appear to be alm=
ost
universally overlooked, and which tend to modify our views profoundly of wh=
at
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 we=
ar
out, such as fortifications, ships, guns, and ammunition, and expenditure u=
pon
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 lat=
ter
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 efficienc=
y.
No doubt we must =
be
armed to-day, but every penny we divert from men-making and knowledge-makin=
g to
armament beyond the margin of bare safety is a sacrifice of the future to t=
he
present. Every penny we divert from national wealth-making to national weap=
ons
means so much less in resources, so much more strain in the years ahead. Bu=
t a
great system of laboratories and experimental stations, a systematic, indus=
trious
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 an=
d a
common zeal among such a body of men, is an added strength that grows great=
er
from the moment you call it into being. In our schools and military and nav=
al
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 obv=
ious
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 ye=
ars,
we shall never have to fight Germany. In twenty years' time we shall be tal=
king
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 Ge=
rmans
on the frontiers of Poland.
And the justifica=
tion
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 expansio=
n 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 Sla=
vs
are the colossal possibilities of Asia.
Even German vanit=
y,
even the preposterous ambitions that spring from that brief triumph of Seda=
n,
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 mu=
st
do before very long, we shall find India resuming its former central positi=
on
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-speaki=
ng 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 th=
ere
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 ca=
nnot
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 t=
ogether.
That is versatile. That is good to have now and that will be good to have t=
hen.
Everyone nowadays
seems demanding increased expenditure upon war preparation. I will follow t=
he
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 mak=
es
knowledge and leading, and that we increase our expenditure upon these thin=
gs
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 fund=
s,
but fourteen and a half of this, supplemented by about as much again from l=
ocal
sources, is consumed in merely elementary teaching. So that we spend only a=
bout
four millions a year of public money on every sort of research and education
above the simple democratic level. Nearly thirty millions for the foundatio=
ns
and only a seventh for the edifice of will and science! Is it any marvel th=
at
we are a badly organised nation, a nation of very widely diffused intellige=
nce
and very second-rate guidance and achievement? Is it any marvel that direct=
ly
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 Contine=
nt
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 h=
ave
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 t=
he
top. Let us begin with the educated and propertied classes and exact a coup=
le
of years' service in a destroyer or a waterplane, or an airship, or a, rese=
arch
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, knowle=
dge,
and invention; and at the same time it would add to and not subtract from t=
he
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.
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, f=
or
the last twenty years. It seems only yesterday that I wrote a review--the f=
irst
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 ap=
ologetic
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 mo=
dern
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 fact=
s,
that was the dominant view of the great period that we now in our retrospec=
tive
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 abo=
ut
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 We=
ary
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 wan=
ts
pictures of funny slums, and entertaining paupers, and laughable longshorem=
en,
and kindly impulses making life sweet. He wants romance without its defianc=
e,
and humour without its sting; and the business of the novelist, he holds, i=
s to
supply this cooling refreshment. That is the Weary Giant theory of the nove=
l.
It ruled British criticism up to the period of the Boer war--and then somet=
hing
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, un=
less
it is Mr. W.W. Jacobs, who is content merely to serve the purpose of those
slippered hours. So far from the weary reader being a decently tired giant,=
we
realise that he is only an inexpressibly lax, slovenly and under-trained gi=
ant,
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 fa=
ct,
it never has been, and by its nature I doubt if it ever can be.
I do not think th=
at
women have ever quite succumbed to the tired giant attitude in their readin=
g.
Women are more serious, not only about life, but about books. No type or ki=
nd
of woman is capable of that lounging, defensive stupidity which is the basi=
s 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, whi=
ch 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 significa=
nt
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 s=
pecialised
and professional whenever a class of adjudicators is brought into existence,
those adjudicators are apt to become as a class distrustful of their immedi=
ate
impressions, and anxious for methods of comparison between work and work, t=
hey
begin to emulate the classifications and exact measurements of a science, a=
nd
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 impressi=
ve
dictum that some particular theatrical display, although moving, interestin=
g,
and continually entertaining from start to finish, was for occult technical
reasons "not a play," and in the same way you are continually hav=
ing
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 exampl=
e,
there was a quite serious discussion, which began, I believe, in a weekly p=
aper
devoted to the interests of various nonconformist religious organisations,
about the proper length for a novel. The critic was to begin his painful du=
ties
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 we=
re 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-writ=
ing,
opinion-making sort of people is this notion of prescribing a definite leng=
th
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 obviousl=
y a
half-forgotten echo of Edgar Allan Poe's discussion of the short story. Edg=
ar
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 diffe=
rent
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 clim=
ax
is reached. The limits of the human capacity to attend closely therefore se=
t a
limit to it; it must explode and finish before interruption occurs or fatig=
ue
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, an=
d 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 t=
he
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 t=
he
novels of Dickens, long as they are, too short for me. I am sorry they do n=
ot 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 Shakesp=
eare
ran the glorious glow of Falstaff through a group of plays. But Dickens tri=
ed
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 beg=
an
to contract, to subordinate characterisation to story and description to dr=
ama;
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 narrow=
ing
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 partl=
y of
English origin, a revolt against those more exacting and cramping conceptio=
ns
of artistic perfection to which I will recur in a moment, and a return to t=
he
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 orig=
inal
enterprises as that of Monsieur Rolland in his "Jean Christophe."=
Its
double origin involves a double nature; for while the English spirit is tow=
ards
discursiveness and variety, the new French movement is rather towards
exhaustiveness. Mr. Arnold Bennett has experimented in both forms of amplit=
ude.
His superb "Old Wives' Tale," wandering from person to person and
from scene to scene, is by far the finest "long novel" that has b=
een
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 o=
ne
or two individual minds, which is the essential characteristic of the
Continental movement towards the novel of amplitude. While the "Old Wi=
ves'
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 j=
ust
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 comprehensi=
ve
and spectacular treatment of a single mind and its impressions and ideas, o=
r 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 la=
st
unfinished book of Flaubert, "Bouvard et Pécuchet." Flaube=
rt,
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 in=
to
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 mas=
ter
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 bet=
ween
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 th=
e 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 t=
ree
he climbs for safety. But the novel by comparison is like breakfasting in t=
he
open air on a summer morning; nothing is irrelevant if the waiter's mood is
happy, and the tapping of the thrush upon the garden path, or the petal of
apple-blossom that floats down into my coffee, is as relevant as the egg I =
open
or the bread and butter I bite. And all sorts of things that inevitably mar=
the
tense illusion which is the aim of the short story--the introduction, for
example, of the author's personality--any comment that seems to admit that,
after all, fiction is fiction, a change in manner between part and part,
burlesque, parody, invective, all such thing's are not necessarily wrong in=
the
novel. Of course, all these things may fail in their effect; they may jar,
hinder, irritate, and all are difficult to do well; but it is no artistic m=
erit
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 tim=
e,
reached an assured position of recognised greatness, are not only saturated=
in
the personality of the author, but have in addition quite unaffected person=
al
outbreaks. The least successful instance the one that is made the text agai=
nst
all such first-personal interventions, is, of course, Thackeray. But I think
the trouble with Thackeray is not that he makes first-personal intervention=
s,
but that he does so with a curious touch of dishonesty. I agree with the la=
te
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 aggressi=
ve,
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 l=
ooks
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 ri=
sks;
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, alm=
ost
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 a=
nd
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 tim=
e 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 s=
ay
just what I think the novel is, and where, if anywhere, its boundary-line o=
ught
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 t=
aken
upon itself uses and produced results that could not have been foreseen by =
its originators.
Few of the important things in the collective life of man started out to be
what they are. Consider, for example, all the unexpected aesthetic values, =
the
inspiration and variety of emotional result which arises out of the
cross-shaped plan of the Gothic cathedral, and the undesigned delight and
wonder of white marble that has ensued, as I have been told, through the ag=
eing
and whitening of the realistically coloured statuary of the Greeks and Roma=
ns.
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 qualit=
ies.
And no doubt the novel grew up out of simple story-telling, and the univers=
al
desire of children, old and young alike, for a story. It is only slowly tha=
t we
have developed the distinction of the novel from the romance, as being a st=
ory
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 omnibu=
s.
And I suppose it is conceivable that a novel might exist which was just pur=
ely
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 somet=
hing
more than that, and produces more effect than that. The novel has inseparab=
le
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 t=
hat
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, t=
he
more convincing his treatment the more vivid his power of suggestion. And i=
t 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 detesta=
ble.
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 admi=
res
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 recor=
d 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 t=
he
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 s=
uch
a thing as a novel in England. This has been recognised equally by novelist=
s,
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 on=
e or
two other of those partial exceptions that always occur in the case of crit=
ical
generalisations, there is a definable difference between the novel of the p=
ast
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 stand=
ards
of conduct that is altogether absent to-day. It wasn't so much that men were
agreed upon these things--about these things there have always been enormous
divergences of opinion--as that men were emphatic, cocksure, and unteachable
about whatever they did happen to believe to a degree that no longer obtain=
s. 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 infor=
med
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 incl=
uded
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 u=
p of
good characters whom you had to love, help and admire, and of bad character=
s 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 wa=
s 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 gre=
at
energy. The novel, where it was not unconditionally banned altogether as a
thing disturbing and unnecessary, was regarded as a thing subordinated to t=
he
teaching of the priest or pastor, or whatever director and dogma was follow=
ed.
Its modest moral confirmations began when authority had completed its direc=
tion.
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 free=
dom.
It was the conflict of the priest against the prophet in ancient Judaea, of=
the
Pharisee against the Nazarene, of the Realist against the Nominalist, of the
Church against the Franciscan and the Lollard, of the Respectable Person ag=
ainst
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 chang=
ing
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, consis=
ts 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 spi=
rit,
in an inquiring and experimental spirit, which has small respect for abstra=
ct
principles and deductive rules. We perceive more and more clearly, for exam=
ple,
that the study of social organisation is an empty and unprofitable study un=
til
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 atmosph=
ere.
And all our conceptions of the relationships between man and man, and of
justice and rightfulness and social desirableness, remain something misfitt=
ing
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 prob=
lems
which are being raised in such bristling multitude by our contemporary soci=
al
development Nearly every one of those problems has at its core a psychologi=
cal
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 compl=
exity
of our state. On every hand we are creating officials, and compared with on=
ly a
few years ago the private life in a dozen fresh directions comes into conta=
ct
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 withd=
raw
him as it were from the common crowd of humanity, put his mind if not his b=
ody
into uniform and endow him with powers and functions and rules. It is
manifestly a study of the profoundest public and personal importance. It is
manifestly a study of increasing importance. The process of social and
political organisation that has been going on for the last quarter of a cen=
tury
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 up=
on
the reaction between the office on the one hand and the weak, uncertain,
various human beings who take office on the other, doesn't seem even to be
suspected by the energetic, virtuous and more or less amiable people whose
activities in politics and upon the backstairs of politics bring about these
developments. They assume that the sort of official they need, a combinatio=
n of
god-like virtue and intelligence with unfailing mechanical obedience, can be
made out of just any young nephew. And I know of no means of persuading peo=
ple
that this is a rather unjustifiable assumption, and of creating an intellig=
ent controlling
criticism of officials and of assisting conscientious officials to an effec=
tive
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. T=
hat
one figure lit up and still lights the whole problem of Poor Law administra=
tion
for the English reading community. It was a translation of well-meant
regulations and pseudo-scientific conceptions of social order into blunderi=
ng,
arrogant, ill-bred flesh and blood. It was worth a hundred Royal Commission=
s.
You may make your regulations as you please, said Dickens in effect; this i=
s one
sample of the stuff that will carry them out. But Bumble stands almost alon=
e.
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 should=
ers
is too heavy to be borne, and we want the contemporary novel to give us a s=
core
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 s=
ay
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 ra=
nge
of characterisation in our novels implies. The success of civilisation amou=
nts
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 experien=
ce
and sympathy with class, and temperament with temperament then we shall nev=
er
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, ve=
ry
like the crumplings and separations and complications of an immense avalanc=
he
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 disp=
osed
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 sp=
eak,
sympathising humanity together? Cannot this be done far more effectively
through biography and autobiography, for example? Isn't there the lyric; an=
d,
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 a=
nd surprises
of the most moving and impressive sort; but beyond the opportunity it affor=
ds
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 m=
uch
to enlarge our sympathies and add to our stock of motive ideas. And regarde=
d 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 wri=
ting
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 medi=
um
to widen them appreciably, and it is that widening, that increase in the ra=
nge
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 creature=
s 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 reco=
rd
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 consid=
er
Lord Morley's "Life of Gladstone," cold, dignified--not a life at
all, indeed, so much as embalmed remains; the fire gone, the passions gone,=
the
bowels carefully removed. All biography has something of that post-mortem
coldness and respect, and as for autobiography--a man may show his soul in a
thousand half-conscious ways, but to turn upon oneself and explain oneself =
is given
to no one. It is the natural liars and braggarts, your Cellinis and Casanov=
as,
men with a habit of regarding themselves with a kind of objective admiratio=
n,
who do best in autobiography. And, on the other hand, the novel has neither=
the
intense self-consciousness of autobiography nor the paralysing responsibili=
ties
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 can=
not 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 s=
cope
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 pe=
n,
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 ma=
ke
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 spe=
ak
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 limitatio=
ns,
about the whole of human life. We are going to deal with political questions
and religious questions and social questions. We cannot present people unle=
ss
we have this free hand, this unrestricted field. What is the good of tellin=
g 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 g=
ood
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 scurri=
lity
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 a=
ll.
We are going to write about business and finance and politics and precedence
and pretentiousness and decorum and indecorum, until a thousand pretences a=
nd
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 thou=
sand
new ways of living open to men and women. We are going to appeal to the you=
ng
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 t=
he
novel.
THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUBLIC
LIBRARY
Suppose a philosopher had a great d=
eal 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 thin=
k,
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 topi=
c for
a disinterested speculator.
He would, I suppo=
se,
being a philosopher, begin by asking himself what a library essentially was,
and he would probably come to the eccentric conclusion that it was essentia=
lly
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 bure=
au,
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 proceed=
ing
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 wi=
th
the selection. It would not be a limited or an exclusive list--when in doub=
t 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 goo=
d 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 lis=
t of
thoroughly modern encyclopaedias, atlases, and volumes of information, and a
particularly complete catalogue of all literature that is still copyright; =
and
then--with perhaps a secretary or so--he would revise all his lists and mark
against every book whether he would have two, five or ten or twenty copies,=
or
whatever number of copies of it he thought proper in each library.
Then next, being a
philosopher, he would decide that if he was going to buy a great number of
libraries in this way, he was going to make an absolutely new sort of demand
for these books, and that he was entitled to a special sort of supply.
He would not expe=
ct
the machinery of retail book-selling to meet the needs of wholesale buying.=
So
he would go either to wholesale booksellers, or directly to the various
publishers of the books and editions he had chosen, and ask for reasonable
special prices for the two thousand or seven thousand or fifty thousand of =
each
book he required. And the publishers would, of course, give him very specia=
l 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 nu=
mber
of complete libraries each of--how many books? Less than twenty thousand ou=
ght
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 w=
ould
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 geolo=
gy,
a guide to poetry and poetical criticisms, and so forth.
Some such books o=
ur
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 w=
ould
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, fo=
r 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 librarie=
s,
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 ev=
en
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 philosoph=
er
and no fool, he would draw a very clear, hard distinction between the reckl=
ess
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 th=
umby
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 l=
it, 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 tha=
t,
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 m=
ake
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 succee=
d in
stipulating for a certain standard of maintenance by the local authority. S=
ince
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 stipula=
te for
a salary of at least £400, in addition to housing, light and heat, an=
d 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 probab=
ly
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 o=
f 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 equipp=
ed
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 wou=
ld
be cheaper to have no public library. Above that level, a public library th=
at
is not efficient is either dishonestly or incapably organised or managed, o=
r it
is serving too large a district and needs duplication, or it is trying to do
too much.
ABOUT CHESTERTON =
AND
BELLOC
It has been one of the less possible
dreams of my life to be a painted Pagan God and live upon a ceiling. I crown
myself becomingly in stars or tendrils or with electric coruscations (as the
mood takes me), and wear an easy costume free from complications and
appropriate to the climate of those agreeable spaces. The company about me =
on
the clouds varies greatly with the mood of the vision, but always it is in =
some
way, if not always a very obvious way, beautiful. One frequent presence is =
G.K.
Chesterton, a joyous whirl of brush work, appropriately garmented and crown=
ed.
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 arg=
ue
mightily about Pride (his weak point) and the nature of Deity. A hygienic,
attentive, and essentially anaesthetic Eagle checks, in the absence of
exercise, any undue enlargement of our Promethean livers.... Chesterton
often--but never by any chance Belloc. Belloc I admire beyond measure, but
there is a sort of partisan viciousness about Belloc that bars him from my
celestial dreams. He never figures, no, not even in the remotest corner, on=
my
ceiling. And yet the divine artist, by some strange skill that my ignorance=
of
his technique saves me from the presumption of explaining, does indicate ex=
actly
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 beho=
lder
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 th=
at
endless leisure for abstract discussion afforded by my painted entertainmen=
ts.
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 crow=
ds
upon us and jostles us, we get our little interludes for thinking and talki=
ng
between much rough scuffling and laying about us with our fists. And I cann=
ot
afford to be continually bickering with Chesterton and Belloc about forms o=
f 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 t=
hree
are closely akin; we diverge not by necessity but accident, because we spea=
k 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 t=
he
individual life. We all three hate equally and sympathetically the spectacl=
e 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 grea=
t masses
of mankind. We want as universally as possible the jolly life, men and women
warm-blooded and well-aired, acting freely and joyously, gathering life as
children gather corn-cockles in corn. We all three want people to have prop=
erty
of a real and personal sort, to have the son, as Chesterton put it, bringin=
g 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 diver=
ge
from him, less in spirit, I think, than in the manner of his expression. Th=
ere
is a base because impersonal way of giving. "Standing drink," whi=
ch
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 dri=
nk
together, and they turn in and face the public supply of drink (a little
vitiated by private commercial necessities) in the public-house. (It is
horrible that life should be so wholesale and heartless.) And Jones, with a=
sudden
effusion of manner, thrusts twopence or ninepence (got God knows how) into =
the
economic mysteries and personal delicacy of Brown. I'd as soon a man slipped
sixpence down my neck. If Jones has used love and sympathy to detect a cert=
ain
real thirst and need in Brown and knowledge and power in its assuaging by s=
ome
specially appropriate fluid, then we have an altogether different matter; b=
ut
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, an=
d I
am amazed to find Chesterton commend it.
But that is a
criticism by the way. Chesterton and Belloc agree with the Socialist that t=
he
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 conce=
rted
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 l=
ess
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 th=
em.
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 adventur=
ers,
the aggregating capitalist and his Press, in a loose, informal combination,
rule the earth, either we have got to stand aside from preventive legislati=
on
and leave things to work out on their present lines, or we have to construc=
t a
collective organisation sufficiently strong for the protection of the liber=
ties
of the some-day-to-be-jolly common man. So far we go in common. If Belloc a=
nd
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 cou=
ntry
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 a=
nd
just that non-capitalist section of the Liberal Party for which Chesterton =
and
Belloc speak. Perpetual opposition is a dishonourable aim in politics; and a
man who mingles in political development with no intention of taking on
responsible tasks unless he gets all his particular formulae accepted is a
pervert, a victim of Irish bad example, and unfit far decent democratic ins=
titutions
...
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 so=
cial
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 C=
hesterton'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 stre=
et
corners and on the trams, I would take down that alien-looking and detestab=
le
inscription "L.C.C.," and put up, "This Tram, this Street,
belongs to the People of London." Would Chesterton or Belloc quarrel w=
ith
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 ide=
als
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 th=
ey
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 l=
ikes
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 si=
mple
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 oth=
er
day a pamphlet full of misrepresentation and bad argument against Socialism=
by
an Australian Jew, published by the Single-Tax people apparently in a disin=
terested
attempt to free the land from the landowner by the simple expedient of abus=
ing
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 "R=
ed
Flag" and doubts whether Marx had much experience of affairs. Well, th=
ere
is no reason why Chesterton and Belloc should at their level do the same so=
rt
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 antagonis=
ts
with an undying feud, but in the fight against human selfishness and narrow=
ness
and for a finer, juster law, we are brothers--at the remotest, half-brother=
s.
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 fo=
r 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 justifiab=
le
for him to go about sitting on other people's Utopias. I appeal to his sens=
e 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, unscrupul=
ous 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. Si=
dney
Webb.
There are some writers who are chie=
fly
interesting in themselves, and some whom chance and the agreement of men ha=
ve 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 retain=
ed
any peculiar distinction among the many other contemporaries of whom we have
chance glimpses in letters and suchlike documents, were it not that he happ=
ened
to be the first man of affairs in England to imitate the "Republic&quo=
t;
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 stimul=
us
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 resembla=
nces
to and differences from the modern speculative mind that his essential inte=
rest
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 worke=
r,
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 di=
ed.
It would seem tha=
t he
began and ended his career in the orthodox religion and a general acquiesce=
nce
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 t=
he
texture of his life were the profoundest doubts, and that, stirred and dist=
urbed
by Plato, he saw fit to write them down. One may question if such scepticis=
m is
in itself unusual, whether any large proportion of great statesmen, great e=
cclesiastics
and administrators have escaped phases of destructive self-criticism of des=
tructive
criticism of the principles upon which their general careers were framed. B=
ut
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-Christi=
an
community excelling all Christendom in wisdom and virtue; in practice his s=
ense
of conformity and orthodoxy was manifest enough, but in his "Utopia&qu=
ot;
he ventures to contemplate, and that not merely wistfully, but with some co=
nfidence,
the possibility of an absolute religious toleration.
The
"Utopia" is none the less interesting because it is one of the mo=
st 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-spirite=
d,
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 eve=
n to
the practice of reading aloud in company, which still prevails among the mo=
re
representative survivors of the Whig tradition. He argues ably against priv=
ate
property, but no thought of any such radicalism as the admission of those p=
oor
peons of his, with head half-shaved and glaring uniform against escape, to
participation in ownership appears in his proposals. His communism is all f=
or
the convenience of his Syphogrants and Tranibores, those gentlemen of gravi=
ty
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 ve=
ry
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 w=
ould
have revised his sceptical theology and admitted the possibility of heaven.=
Like any Whig, Mo=
re
exalted reason above the imagination at every point, and so he fails to
understand the magic prestige of gold, making that beautiful metal into ves=
sels
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 an=
d chiefly
pretended and minded, that what time may possibly be spared from the necess=
ary
occupations and affairs of the commonwealth, all that the citizens should
withdraw from the bodily service to the free liberty of the mind and garnis=
hing
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 accide=
nts
become a proverb for undisciplined fancifulness in social and political
matters, is in reality a very unimaginative work. In that, next to the acci=
dent
of its priority, lies the secret of its continuing interest. In some respec=
ts
it is like one of those precious and delightful scrapbooks people disinter =
in
old country houses; its very poverty of synthetic power leaves its ingredie=
nts,
the cuttings from and imitations of Plato, the recipe for the hatching of e=
ggs,
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 t=
he
countless multitudes who will continue ignorantly to use its name for
everything most alien to More's essential quality.
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 wit=
h 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 disco=
ncerting
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 prope=
rty.
Like all really
serious and respectable British problems it has to be handled gently to pre=
vent
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-fe=
lt
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 Hend=
on
pilot. Unspecialised writers have the destructive analytical touch. They pu=
ll
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 thoro=
ughfares,
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--th=
ere
are more acres of railway sidings than of public parks in Greater London--a=
nd
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 s=
ome
of the various and entirely incompatible schemes experts are giving us by w=
ay 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 particula=
rly
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, whi=
ch
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 l=
evel
or to the trains emptied and now reloading on the train level. Above and be=
low
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 an=
d even
texture needed for horseless traffic.
But that is a sch=
eme
too comprehensive and rational for the ordinary student of the London traff=
ic
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 attractiv=
e 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 n=
ew 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 incohe=
rent
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. T=
he
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 scheme=
s, headshakings
over the vacant sites about Aldwych and the Strand, brilliant petty suggest=
ions
and--dispersal. Meanwhile the experts intrigue; one partial plan after anot=
her
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 Stre=
et
stupidity, some such cramped and thwarted thing as that new arch which gives
upon Charing Cross is added to the confusion. I do not see any reason to
suppose that this continuous muddle of partial destruction and partial
rebuilding is not to constitute the future history of London.
Let us, however, =
drop
the expert methods and handle this question rather more rudely. Do we want =
London
rebuilt? If we do, is there, after all, any reason why we should rebuild it=
on
its present site? London is where it is for reasons that have long ceased t=
o 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 interlacin=
g of
trees; as this new building, this clearance of areas, the piercing of avenu=
es,
becomes more comprehensive, it becomes less reasonable. If we can do such b=
ig
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 i=
t is
unreasonable to be constantly pulling down the London we have and putting i=
t up
again. Let us drain away our heavy traffic into tunnels, set up that cleari=
ng-house
plan, and control the growth at the periphery, which is still so witless and
ugly, and, save for the manifest tidying and preserving that is needed, beg=
in
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 recognis=
ed
that there are two quite divergent ways of attacking sociological and econo=
mic
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 und=
erstand,
any claim to original discovery. What I have to say, and have been saying f=
or
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 mode=
rn
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 de=
ny
that Herbert Spencer and Comte are to be exalted as the founders of a new a=
nd
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 a=
nd
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 o=
ne
gathers that, for the most part, he regarded it as an intellectual procedur=
e in
no way differing from physics. His classification of the sciences shows pre=
tty
clearly that he thought of them all as exact logical systematisations of fa=
ct
arising out of each other in a synthetic order, each lower one containing t=
he elements
of a lucid explanation of those above it--physics explaining chemistry;
chemistry, physiology; physiology, sociology; and so forth. His actual meth=
od
was altogether unscientific; but through all his work runs the assumption t=
hat
in contrast with his predecessors he is really being as exact and universal=
ly
valid as mathematics. To Herbert Spencer--very appropriately since his ment=
al
characteristics make him the English parallel to Comte--we owe the naturali=
sation
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 Spe=
ncer
was less unfamiliar with natural history than with any other branch of prac=
tical
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 curr=
ent
sociological work. On the lines he initiated sociological investigation, wh=
at
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 na=
mes
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," continue=
s 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 Mr=
s.
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 instan=
ce
as one passes from mechanics and physics and chemistry through the biologic=
al
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 dispositio=
n 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 qui=
te
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 quantitie=
s. 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 stro=
ng
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 n=
ot
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 che=
mists,
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 no=
ted
that, so far as the practical results of chemistry and physics go, it scarc=
ely
matters which assumption we adopt. For purposes of inquiry and discussion t=
he incorrect
one is infinitely more convenient.
But this ceases t=
o 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, natu=
re's
weak moments, and it was only with the establishment of Darwin's great gene=
ralisation
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 in=
vincibly
true; and the former are regarded as a more complex set of problems merely,
with obliquities and refractions that presently will be explained away. Com=
te
and Herbert Spencer certainly seem to me to have taken that much for grante=
d.
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 tho=
ught
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 var=
iety
and inexactness of generalisation increases, because individuality tells mo=
re
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 yo=
u 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 call=
ed
the scientific method is the method of ignoring individualities; and, like =
many
mathematical conventions, its great practical convenience is no proof whate=
ver
of its final truth. Let me admit the enormous value, the wonder of its resu=
lts
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 biolo=
gy
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 inte=
rrogations;
and the bulk of his work was the digesting and critical analysis of that. F=
or
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 var=
ious
sorts, classes entirely analogous, from the point of view of evidence, to t=
he
writers of history and memoirs. I question profoundly whether the word &quo=
t;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 con=
vey
this quality of certitude; but to most people it certainly does at the pres=
ent
time. So far as the movements of comets and electric trams go, there is, no
doubt, practically cocksure science; and indisputably Comte and Herbert Spe=
ncer
believed that cocksure could be extended to every conceivable finite thing.=
The
fact that Herbert Spencer called a certain doctrine Individualism reflects
nothing on the non-individualising quality of his primary assumptions and of
his mental texture. He believed that individuality (heterogeneity) was and =
is
an evolutionary product from an original homogeneity. It seems to me that t=
he
general usage is entirely for the limitation of the use of the word "s=
cience"
to knowledge and the search after knowledge of a high degree of precision. =
And
not simply the general usage: "Science is measurement," Science is
"organised common sense," proud, in fact, of its essential error,
scornful of any metaphysical analysis of its terms.
If we quite boldly
face the fact that hard positive methods are less and less successful just =
in
proportion as our "ologies" deal with larger and less numerous
individuals; if we admit that we become less "scientific" as we
ascend the scale of the sciences, and that we do and must change our method,
then, it is humbly submitted we shall be in a much better position to consi=
der
the question of "approaching" sociology. We shall realise that all
this talk of the organisation of sociology, as though presently the sociolo=
gist
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 Profe=
ssor
Durkheim has pointed out, separate human society into societies, and made b=
elieve
they competed one with another and died and reproduced just like animals, a=
nd
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 com=
e,
they go, they fuse and separate. And we are forced to conclude that not onl=
y 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 Huma=
nity
into a museum, or dry it for examination; our one single still living speci=
men
is all history, all anthropology, and the fluctuating world of men. There i=
s 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 des=
tiny
...
Sociology, it is
evident, is, upon any hypothesis, no less than the attempt to bring that va=
st,
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 leas=
t upon
the metaphysical assumptions of this paper. With that conceded, we may go o=
n to
consider the more hopeful ways in which that great Being may be presented i=
n a
comprehensible manner. Essentially this presentation must involve an elemen=
t of
self-expression must partake quite as much of the nature of art as of scien=
ce.
One finds in the first conference of the Sociological Society, Professor St=
ein,
speaking, indeed a very different philosophical dialect from mine, but comi=
ng
to the same practical conclusion in the matter, and Mr. Osman Newland count=
ing
"evolving ideals for the future" as part of the sociologist's wor=
k.
Mr. Alfred Fouillée also moves very interestingly in the region of t=
his
same idea; he concedes an essential difference between sociology and all ot=
her
sciences in the fact of a "certain kind of liberty belonging to societ=
y 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 Spenc=
er,
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 a=
nd
gives itself into the world of phenomena continually by force of its own id=
eal 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, whic=
h is
truth; and sociology mast be neither art simply, nor science in the narrow
meaning of the word at all, but knowledge rendered imaginatively, and with =
an
element of personality that is to say, in the highest sense of the term, li=
terature.
If this contentio=
n 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, ma=
kes
up the bulk of valid sociological work at the present time. Of history ther=
e 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 impo=
se
general interpretations upon the complex of occurrences and institutions, to
establish broad historical generalisations, to eliminate the mass of irrele=
vant
incident, to present some great period of history, or all history, in the l=
ight
of one dramatic sequence, or as one process. This Dr. Beattie Crozier, for =
example,
attempts in his "History of Intellectual Development." Equally co=
mprehensive
is Buckle's "History of Civilisation." Lecky's "History of E=
uropean
Morals," during the onset of Christianity again, is essentially sociol=
ogy.
Numerous works--Atkinson's "Primal Law," and Andrew Lang's "=
Social
Origins," for example--may be considered, as it were, to be fragments =
to
the same purport. In the great design of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of=
the
Roman Empire," or Carlyle's "French Revolution," you have a
greater insistence upon the dramatic and picturesque elements in history, b=
ut
in other respects an altogether kindred endeavour to impose upon the vast
confusions of the past a scheme of interpretation, valuable just to the ext=
ent
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 su=
ch
literary activities as restore the dead bones of the past to a living
participation in our lives.
But it is in the
second and at present neglected direction that I believe the predominant at=
tack
upon the problem implied by the word "sociology" must lie; the at=
tack
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. No=
w, I
submit it is not only a legitimate form of approach, but altogether the mos=
t promising
and hopeful form of approach, to endeavour to disentangle and express one's=
personal
version of that idea, and to measure realities from the stand-point of that
idealisation. I think, in fact, that the creation of Utopias--and their
exhaustive criticism--is the proper and distinctive method of sociology.
Suppose now the
Sociological Society, or some considerable proportion of it, were to adopt =
this
view, that sociology is the description of the Ideal Society and its relati=
on
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 t=
est
of time and established itself in the esteem of men is frankly Utopian. Pla=
to,
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, a=
ll
the while that he is professing science, fact, precision, is adding detail
after detail to the intensely personal Utopia of a Western Republic that co=
nstitutes
his one meritorious gift to the world. Sociologists cannot help making Utop=
ias;
though they avoid the word, though they deny the idea with passion, their v=
ery
silences shape a Utopia. Why should they not follow the precedent of Aristo=
tle,
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 t=
he
backbone of sociology. It would have great sections devoted to such questio=
ns
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 wo=
rk
at present roughly classed together as sociological could be brought into
relation in the simplest manner, either as new suggestions, as new discussi=
on
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 practicabili=
ty
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 refere=
nce
for the graduation and post graduate work of sociological students.
Only one group of
inquiries commonly classed as sociological would have to be left out of dir=
ect
relationship with this Ideal State; and that is inquiries concerning the ro=
ugh
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, h=
ow
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 d=
oubt
serious questions for the practical administrator, questions of primary imp=
ortance
to the politician; but they have no more to do with sociology than the erec=
tion
of a temporary hospital after the collision of two trains has to do with
railway engineering.
So much for my se=
cond
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 i=
n attempting
its incomplete realisation.
DIVORCE=
The time is fast approaching when i=
t will
be necessary for the general citizen to form definite opinions upon proposa=
ls
for probably quite extensive alterations of our present divorce laws, arisi=
ng
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 t=
hese
issues.
Divorce is not on=
e 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 count=
ry
when our marriage was a practically divorceless bond, soluble only under ex=
traordinary
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 partners=
hip.
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 relig=
ious
and orthodox people carry their assertion of the indissolubility of marriag=
e to
the grave; they demand that the widow or widower shall remain unmarried,
faithful to the vows made at the altar until death comes to the release of =
the
lonely survivor also. Re-marriage is regarded by such people as a posthumou=
s bigamy.
There is certainly a very strong and logical case to be made out for a marr=
iage
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 thi=
ng
in life. It banishes for ever any dream of escape from the presence and ser=
vice
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 husb=
and
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, i=
t would
do so in just the same spirit that it might prevent him from self-mutilatio=
n or
attempted suicide, for the good of the State simply, and not to defend any
supposed independence of the injured member. There is much, I assert, to be
said for such a complete shutting up of the family from the interference of=
the
law, and not the least among these reasons is the entire harmony of such a =
view
with the passionate instincts of the natural man and woman in these matters.
All unsophisticated human beings appear disposed to a fierce proprietorship=
in
their children and their sexual partners, and in no respect is the ordinary
mortal so easily induced to vehemence and violence.
For my own part, =
I do
not think the maintenance of a marriage that is indissoluble, that precludes
the survivor from re-marriage, that gives neither party an external refuge =
from
the misbehaviour of the other, and makes the children the absolute property=
of
their parents until they grow up, would cause any very general unhappiness =
Most
people are reasonable enough, good-tempered enough, and adaptable enough to
shake down even in a grip so rigid, and I would even go further and say tha=
t 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 mig=
ht
occur, to balance against an almost universal effort to achieve contentment=
and
reconciliation. We should hear more of the "natural law" permitti=
ng
murder by the jealous husband or by the jealous wife, and the traffic in
poisons would need a sedulous attention--but even there the impossibility of
re-marriage would operate to restrain the impatient. On the whole, I can
imagine the world rubbing along very well with marriage as unaccommodating =
as a
perfected steel trap. Exceptional people might suffer or sin wildly--to the
general amusement or indignation.
But when once we =
part
from the idea of such a rigid and eternal marriage bond--and the law of eve=
ry
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 b=
reak
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 whate=
ver,
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 op=
en
at once the whole question of a terminating agreement. Marriage ceases to b=
e an
unlimited union and becomes a definite contract. We raise the whole questio=
n 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 extrem=
est
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 gi=
ve
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 hav=
e a
marriage makeable by the oral declaration of both parties and terminable by=
the
oral declaration of either, which would be, indeed, no marriage at all, but=
an
encounter. You might marry a dozen times in that way in a day.... Somewhere
between these extremes lies the marriage law of a civilised state. Let us,
rather than working down from the eternal marriage of the religious idealis=
ts,
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 wor=
ld
of Mr. Shaw's dreams, in which everybody is to have an equal income and nob=
ody is
to have children, in that culminating conversazione of humanity, his marria=
ge
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 econ=
omic
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 withdr=
awal
of one partner raises at once all sorts of questions of financial adjustmen=
t,
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 th=
ere existed
some sort of marriage settlement providing for the dissolution of the
partnership. Otherwise the petitioner for a Shaw-esque divorce must be prep=
ared
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 thi=
nk
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 f=
or most
of the eventualities of life, taking cognizance of the earning power, the
property and prospects of either party, insisting upon due insurances, ensu=
ring
private incomes for each partner, securing the welfare of the children, and
laying down equitable conditions in the event of a divorce or separation. S=
uch
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 li=
kely
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 M=
rs.
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. M=
rs.
A. come Master A. and Miss A. intervening. They have the strongest claim
against both their parents for love, shelter and upbringing, and the legisl=
ator
and statesman, concerned as he is chiefly with the future of the community,=
has
the strongest reasons for seeing that they get these things, even at the pr=
ice
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 possib=
le
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 ch=
oice
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 ha=
ve
to consider what may or may not be for the welfare of the children. Mr. Sha=
w,
following the late Samuel Butler, meets this difficulty by the most extrava=
gant
abuse of parents. He would have us believe that the worst enemies a child c=
an
have are its mother and father, and that the only civilised path to citizen=
ship
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 an=
d 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 devo=
tion
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 t=
ask
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 wh=
ich 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 h=
is
beneficialness to them. There is no reason why we should restrict divorce o=
nly
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 freed=
om,
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 ho=
mes,
quarrelling and bickering homes, and give a safety-valve for that hate whic=
h 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 div=
orce
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 t=
he
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 o=
ur
criterion in these matters, then our divorce law does in this direction alr=
eady
go too far. A husband or wife may do far more injury to the home by constan=
tly neglecting
it for the companionship of some outside person with whom no "matrimon=
ial
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. Bu=
t in
another direction, some strain of sentimentality in my nature makes me hesi=
tate
to go with the great majority of divorce law reformers. I cannot bring myse=
lf
to agree that either a long term of imprisonment or the misfortune of insan=
ity
should in itself justify a divorce. I admit the social convenience, but I w=
ince
at the thought of those tragic returns of the dispossessed. So far as insan=
ity
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, t=
here
is no decent-minded person nowadays but wants to put an end to that ugly bl=
ot
upon our civilisation, the publication of whatever is most spicy and painfu=
l 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 consum=
mation,
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 divor=
ce
proceedings. The thing is a nastiness, a stream of social contagion and an
extreme cruelty, and there can be no doubt that whatever other result this
British Royal Commission may have, there at least will be many sweeping
alterations.
THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE
EMPIRE
Sec. 1
"If Youth but
Knew" is the title of a book published some years ago, but still with a
quite living interest, by "Kappa"; it is the bitter complaint of a
distressed senior against our educational system. He is hugely disappointed=
in
the public-school boy, and more particularly in one typical specimen. He is=
--if
one might hazard a guess--an uncle bereft of great expectations. He finds an
echo in thousands of other distressed uncles and parents. They use the most
divergent and inadequate forms of expression for this vague sense that the
result has not come out good enough; they put it contradictorily and often
wrongly, but the sense is widespread and real and justifiable and we owe a
great debt to "Kappa" for an accurate diagnosis of what in the
aggregate amounts to a grave national and social evil.
The trouble with
"Kappa's" particular public-school boy is his unlit imagination, =
the
apathetic commonness of his attitude to life at large. He is almost stupidly
not interested in the mysteries of material fact, nor in the riddles and gr=
eat
dramatic movements of history, indifferent to any form of beauty, and
pedantically devoted to the pettiness of games and clothing and social cond=
uct.
It is, in fact, chiefly by his style in these latter things, his extensive
unilluminated knowledge of Greek and Latin, and his greater costliness, tha=
t 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 remarkab=
le
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 mo=
re
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 wi=
th
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 t=
he
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. Any=
one
who has seen much of undergraduates, or medical students, or Army candidate=
s,
and also of their social subordinates, must be disposed to agree that the
difference between the two classes is mainly in unimportant things--in poli=
sh,
in manner, in superficialities of accent and vocabulary and social habit--a=
nd
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 le=
ader
class adequate to modern needs. The State is light-headed.
But while one agr=
ees
with "Kappa" and shares his alarm, one must confess the remedies =
he
considers indicated do not seem quite so satisfactory as his diagnosis of t=
he
disease. He attacks the curriculum and tells us we must reduce or revolutio=
nise
instruction and exercise in the dead languages, introduce a broader handlin=
g of
history, a more inspiring arrangement of scientific courses, and so forth. I
wish, indeed, it were possible to believe that substituting biology for Gre=
ek
prose composition or history with models and photographs and diagrams for L=
atin
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 stimulati=
ng and
vigorous personalities are now being carefully eliminated, and in which dul=
l,
prosaic men prevail invincibly. The explanation of the inert commonness of
"Kappa's" schoolboy lies not in his having learnt this or not lea=
rnt
that, but in the fact that from seven to twenty he has been in the intellec=
tual
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 h=
ave
been checked by them and brought at last to nothing; and so he emerges a me=
re
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 spiritu=
al etiolation
of "Kappa's" young friend.
Now, it is a very
grave thing, I know, to bring this charge against a great profession--to sa=
y,
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 inspiri=
ng
minds in our schools. Our upper-class schools are out of touch with the tho=
ught
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 th=
at
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 tim=
id
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 m=
ay
seem wanton charges to some, but I am not speaking without my book. Monthly=
I
am brought into close contact with the pedagogic intelligence through the
medium of three educational magazines. A certain morbid habit against which=
I
struggle in vain makes me read everything I catch a schoolmaster writing. I=
am,
indeed, one of the faithful band who read the Educational Supplement of the
Times. In these papers schoolmasters write about their business, lectures u=
pon
the questions of their calling are reported at length, and a sort of invali=
d discussion
moves with painful decorum through the correspondence column. The scholastic
mind so displayed in action fascinates me. It is like watching a game of
billiards with wooden cushes and beechwood balls.
Sec. 2
But let me take o=
ne
special instance. In a periodical, now no longer living, called the Indepen=
dent
Review, there appeared some years ago a very curious and typical contributi=
on
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 importan=
t 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 pre=
sent
is bound up all the happiness only of the utterly selfish and the thoughtle=
ss
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 pa=
ges
of this now vanished Independent Review. "English Ideas on
Education"!--this very brevity is eloquent, the more so since the styl=
e 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 worr=
ied
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 atmosph=
ere
where there is no swift, fierce opposition to be feared; they frill out into
vague qualifications and butt gently against other partially contradictory =
statements.
There is a classification of minds--the sort of classification dear to the
Y.M.C.A. essayists, made for the purposes of the essay and unknown to
psychology. There are, we are told, accurate unimaginative, ingenious minds
capable of science and kindred vulgar things (such was Archimedes), and vag=
ue,
imaginative minds, with the gift for language and for the treatment of pass=
ion
and the higher indefinable things (such as Homer and Mr. Gilkes), and, some=
how,
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. F=
or 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 langua=
ges
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 an=
d 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 cl=
ear,
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 t=
hem,
and make themselves master of any subject set before them."
This quotation is
conclusive.
Sec. 3
I am haunted by a
fear that the careless reader will think I am writing against upper-class
schoolmasters. I am, it is undeniable, writing against their dullness, but =
it
is, I hold, a dullness that is imposed upon them by the conditions under wh=
ich
they live. Indeed, I believe, could I put the thing directly to the
profession--"Do you not yourselves feel needlessly limited and
dull?"--should receive a majority of affirmative responses. We have, a=
s 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 plac=
e,
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 m=
an
of marked intellectual character, a man of intellectual distinction. It is
assumed, rather lightly in many cases, that he has done "good work,&qu=
ot;
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. Th=
at,
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 origi=
nal
part in theological or philosophical discussion, or do any of these minor t=
hings.
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 relat=
ed
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 d=
ays,
of warring opinion, these days of gigantic, strange issues that cannot poss=
ibly
be expressed in the formulae of the smaller times that have gone before, ta=
ct
is evasion, conformity formality, and silence an unblemished record, mere e=
vidence
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, ab=
out
anything likely to interest an intelligent adolescent. At the approach of a=
ll
such things he must have acquired the habit of the modest cough, the infect=
ious
trick of the nice evasion. How can "Kappa" expect inspiration from
the decorous resultants who satisfy these conditions? What brand can ever b=
e 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 fr=
om
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 unstimulati=
ng
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 mas=
ters
in the world. If we English believe we are indeed a masterful people, we mu=
st
be prepared to expose our children to more and more various stimulations th=
an
we do; they must grow up free, bold, adventurous, initiated, even if they h=
ave
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 com=
promise,
the Establishment, or you by his Socialism or by his Catholicism or Darwini=
sm,
or even by his erroneous choice of ties and collars. Boys who are to be fre=
e,
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 th=
ey
believe before them with all the courage of conviction. They must have an i=
dea
of will prevailing over form. It is far more important that boys should lea=
rn 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 lifele=
ss
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 thin=
g "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 Polon=
ius
as an ideal for them, so long will their influence deaden the souls of our
sons.
THE ENDOWMENT OF MOTHERHO=
OD
Some few years ago the Fabian Socie=
ty,
which has been so efficient in keeping English Socialism to the lines of
"artfulness and the 'eighties," refused to have anything to do wi=
th
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 sup=
posed
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. T=
here
is nothing shameful about it. It is a plain and simple idea for which the m=
ind
of the man in the street has now been very completely prepared. It has alre=
ady
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 absur=
d to
go on building up a civilisation with a dwindling supply of babies in the
cradles--and these not of the best possible sort--and so I suppose there is
hardly an intelligent person in the English-speaking communities who has not
thought of some possible remedy--from the naive scoldings of Mr. Roosevelt =
and
the more stolid of the periodicals to sane and intelligible legislative
projects.
The reasons for t=
he
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 fo=
llow
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 l=
ong
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 thr=
ee
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 unsucces=
sful
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 t=
hey
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 goi=
ng
to have larger families under existing conditions, though all the ex-Presid=
ents
and all the pulpits in the world clamour together for them to do so.
If having and rea=
ring
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 lookin=
g to
the State to recognise that service and offer some compensation for the wor=
ldly
disadvantages it entails. He is justified in saying that while his unencumb=
ered
rival wins past him he is doing the State the most precious service in the
world by rearing and educating a family, and that the State has become his
debtor.
In other words, t=
he
modern State has got to pay for its children if it really wants them--and m=
ore
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 administra=
tor
of the family budget, that its amount should be made dependent upon the qua=
lity
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 p=
aid,
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 ou=
ght
to get about that much from the State, and people of the class which spends
five shillings a week per head on them would get about that, and so on. And=
if
these payments were met by a special income tax there would be no social
injustice whatever in such an unequality of payment. Each social stratum wo=
uld
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 thin=
k,
gives the broad principles upon which the payments would be made.
Of course, if the=
se
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 mo=
dern
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 th=
at
our good-class families should be endowed, but the whole tendency of the ti=
mid
and disingenuous progressivism of our time, which is all mixed up with idea=
s 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 q=
uite
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 of=
fers
a minimum chance of meddlesome interference with people's lives. There woul=
d be
no chance of "seeking out" anybody and applying benevolent but gr=
im
compulsions on the strength of it. In spite of its wide scope it would be m=
uch
less of a public nuisance than that Wet Children's Charter, which exasperat=
es
me every time I pass a public-house on a rainy night. But, on the other han=
d,
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 wi=
ll
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 difficultie=
s of
his position.
But I cannot hide
from myself, and I do not intend to hide from anyone else, my firm persuasi=
on
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 invent=
ed,
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 so=
urce
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 fu=
nds.
But the fact remains that for the great mass of the medical profession ther=
e 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 doct=
or
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 cas=
e to
case. The busier he keeps, the less his leisure for thought and learning, t=
he
richer he grows, and the more he is esteemed. His four or five years of has=
ty, crowded
study are supposed to give him a complete and final knowledge of the treatm=
ent
of every sort of disease, and he goes on year after year, often without
co-operation, working mechanically in the common incidents of practice, bir=
ths,
cases of measles and whooping cough, and so forth, and blundering more or l=
ess
in whatever else turns up.
There are no publ=
ic
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 ventilat=
e perplexing
questions, but a broadly conceived and properly endowed weekly circular cou=
ld,
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 n=
ew
research for its practical needs--correcting, explaining, announcing; and, =
in
addition, a force of public specialists to whom every difficulty in diagnos=
is
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 nu=
rse,
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 ano=
ther
who was mainly occupied in or about research. People hear so much about mod=
ern
research that they do not realise how entirely inadequate it is in amount a=
nd
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 spi=
te
of all the lessons of the last century, it still fails to realise how disco=
very
and invention enrich the community and how paying an investment is the publ=
ic
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 g=
ot
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 expec=
t to
have the master minds of the world at your service; and save for a few inde=
pendent
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 in=
to 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 l=
ess
than a quarter of the salary of a Bond Street shopwalker by those vastly im=
portant
inquiries? Not one cancer case in twenty thousand is being properly describ=
ed
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 o=
ut
of all proportion petty in comparison with what might have been done. I sup=
pose
the whole of the unprecedented progress in material knowledge of the ninete=
enth
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 hundr=
ed
men. Now, suppose instead of that scattered band of un-co-ordinated workers=
a great
army of hundreds of thousands of well-paid men; suppose, for instance, the
community had kept as many scientific and medical investigators as it has
bookmakers and racing touts and men about town--should we not know a thousa=
nd
times as much as we do about disease and health and strength and power?
But these are Uto=
pian
questionings. The sane, practical man shakes his head, smiles pityingly at =
my
dreamy impracticability, and passes them by.
AN AGE OF SPECIALISATION<=
/span>
There is something of the phonograp=
h 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 alwa=
ys
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 up=
on
cheap and wholesale lines. There must be in these demiurgic profundities a
rapid manufacture of innumerable thousands of that particular speech about
"scrappy reading," and that contrast of "modern" with
"serious" literature, that babbles about in the provinces so
incessantly. Gramophones thinly disguised as bishops, gramophones still more
thinly disguised as eminent statesmen, gramophones K.C.B. and gramophones
F.R.S. have brazened it at us time after time, and will continue to brazen =
it
to our grandchildren when we are dead and all our poor protests forgotten. =
And
almost equally popular in their shameless mouths is the speech that declares
this present age to be an age of specialisation. We all know the profound d=
roop
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 dignif=
ied,
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 reflecti=
on
will suffice to demonstrate that. This is beyond any precedent an age of ch=
ange,
change in the appliances of life, in the average length of life, in the gen=
eral
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 worke=
r,
the wheelwright or the druggist of yesterday did his work under almost exac=
tly
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 h=
is medium.
His dress and bearing even were distinctive; he was, in fact, a highly spec=
ialised
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 innovati=
on.
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 i=
s 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 intellige=
nt
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 mu=
st
be, of course, much more generally intelligent than the average bricklayer,=
but
he needs far less specialised skill. To repair machinery requires, of cours=
e, 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 affa=
irs.
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 th=
e days
of hand-to-hand fighting, to keep the soldier something other than a man. F=
or
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 un=
der
orders, obedient to the pitch of absolute abnegation of his private
intelligence. We still think that our officers have, like some very elabora=
te
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, a=
nd 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 pub=
lic
schools maintain.
The misunderstand=
ing
that has given rise to this proposition that this is an age of specialisati=
on,
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 whi=
ch
the inquiry of an individual man is concentrated are often much narrower th=
an
the problems that occupied Faraday or Dalton, and yet the hard and fast lin=
es
that once divided physicist from chemist, or botanist from pathologist have
long since gone. Professor Farmer, the botanist, investigates cancer, and t=
he
ordinary educated man, familiar though he is with their general results, wo=
uld
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 th=
at
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 th=
at
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 th=
ink,
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.
Of all the great personifications t=
hat
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 t=
he
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 p=
art
in the history of mankind for many years to come. There is a practical as w=
ell
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 a=
bout
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" displ=
ays.
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 t=
o 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 the=
re
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 ex=
ists
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 oppos=
ite
opinion may go, one must talk to intelligent Americans or read the contempo=
rary
literature of the first French Revolution to understand. I find, for exampl=
e,
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 nam=
e of
Shakespeare from the ruck of his contemporaries and the passage in which th=
is
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 beli=
ef
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 Peo=
ple
are always right."
And it was that s=
till
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 wo=
rds
of the American Constitution, and Theodore Parker calls it "the Americ=
an
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 himse=
lf a
great wave of critical discrimination sweeping through the ranks of the var=
ious
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 i=
ndivisible,
a simple, mystical being, which pervades and dominates the community and
determines its final collective consequences.
Now upon the beli=
ef
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 t=
he
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 th=
is
belief. The whole political machine is designed and expressed to register t=
he People's
will, literature is entirely rewarded and controlled by the effectual suffr=
ages
of the bookseller's counter, science (until private endowment intervened) w=
as
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 ab=
out
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 rega=
rd
the professional politician with a certain contempt; they trouble their hea=
ds
hardly at all about literature, and they contemplate the general religious =
condition
of the population with absolute unconcern. It is not that they are unpatrio=
tic
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 ar=
ise
they have an absolute faith that "in the last analysis" the People
will get it right.
And now suppose t=
hat
I am right and that there is no People! Suppose that the crowd is really no
more than a crowd, a vast miscellaneous confusion of persons which grows mo=
re
miscellaneous every year. Suppose this conception of the People arose out o=
f a
sentimental idealisation, Rousseau fashion, of the ancient homogeneous peas=
ant
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, inarticula=
te,
non-existent, there are always the keepers of the shrine who will oblige.
Professional politicians, venal and violent men, will take over the derelict
political control, people who live by the book trade will alone have a care=
for
letters, research and learning will be subordinated to political expediency,
and a great development of noisily competitive religious enterprises will t=
ake
the place of any common religious formula. There will commence a secular de=
cline
in the quality of public thought, emotion and activity. There will be no ar=
rest
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 t=
he
error of this faith. Is there?
I write as one th=
at
listens from afar. But there come reports of legislative and administrative
corruption, of organised public blackmail, that do seem to carry out my the=
sis.
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 scound=
rel Griswold;
one thinks of State Universities that are no more than mints for bogus degr=
ees;
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 sort=
s of
widely accepted generalisations will collapse if that foundation is withdra=
wn.
I submit it as worth considering.
Sec. 1
There is a growing
discord between governments and governed in the world.
There has always =
been
discord between governments and governed since States began; government has
always been to some extent imposed, and obedience to some extent reluctant.=
We
have come to regard it as a matter of course that under all absolutions and
narrow oligarchies the community, so soon as it became educated and as its
social elaboration developed a free class with private initiatives, so soon,
indeed, as it attained to any power of thought and expression at all, would
express discontent. But we English and Americans and Western Europeans
generally had supposed that, so far as our own communities were concerned, =
this
discontent was already anticipated and met by representative institutions. =
We
had supposed that, with various safeguards and elaborations, our communities
did, as a matter of fact, govern themselves. Our panacea for all discontents
was the franchise. Social and national dissatisfaction could be given at the
same time a voice and a remedy in the ballot box. Our liberal intelligences
could and do still understand Russians wanting votes, Indians wanting votes,
women wanting votes. The history of nineteenth-century Liberalism in the wo=
rld
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 enfranchi=
sed,
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 representativ=
es
is no mere accident of this democratic country or that; it is an almost
world-wide movement. It is an almost universal disappointment with so-called
popular government, and in many communities--in Great Britain particularly-=
-it
is manifesting itself by an unprecedented lawlessness in political matters,=
and
in a strange and ominous contempt for the law. One sees it, for example, in=
the
refusal of large sections of the medical profession to carry out insurance =
legislation,
in the repudiation of Irish Home Rule by Ulster, and in the steady drift of
great masses of industrial workers towards the conception of a universal
strike. The case of the discontented workers in Great Britain and France is
particularly remarkable. These people form effective voting majorities in m=
any
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 pro=
mote
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, sabot=
age
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 an=
d 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 lang=
uage
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 ot=
her
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 not=
es,
with a prevailing disposition to correct democracy by personality, and to p=
lace
affairs in the hands of autocratic mayors and presidents rather than to car=
ry out
democratic methods to the logical end. At times America seems hot for a Cae=
sar.
If no Caesar is established, then it will be the good fortune of the Republ=
ic
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 bod=
y 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 the=
se
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 experimen=
t,
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 tric=
ks
of procedure and electioneering, professing to serve the interests of the l=
ocality
which is his constituency, but actually bound hand and foot to the speciali=
sed
political association, his party, which imposed him upon that constituency.
Arrived at the legislature, his next ambition is office, and to secure and
retain office he engages in elaborate manoeuvres against the opposite party,
upon issues which his limited and specialised intelligence indicates as
electorally effective. But being limited and specialised, he is apt to drift
completely out of touch with the interests and feelings of large masses of
people in the community. In Great Britain, the United States and France ali=
ke
there is a constant tendency on the part of the legislative body to drift i=
nto
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 polit=
ical
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, w=
hich
has never been alive. Much as the majority of people detest the preposterou=
sly
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 pu=
blic
resolve to permit no such enlarged possibilities of corruption as Tariff Re=
form
would afford their at least equally dubitable opponents. And meanwhile, ben=
eath
those ridiculous alternatives, those sham issues, the real and very urgent
affairs of the nation, the vast gathering discontent of the workers through=
out
the Empire, the racial conflicts in India and South Africa which will, if t=
hey
are not arrested, end in our severance from India, the insane waste of nati=
onal
resources, the control of disease, the frightful need of some cessation of
armament, drift neglected....
Now do these thin=
gs
indicate the ultimate failure and downfall of representative government? Was
this idea which inspired so much of the finest and most generous thought of=
the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a wrong idea, and must we go back to
Caesarism or oligarchy or plutocracy or a theocracy, to Rome or Venice or
Carthage, to the strong man or the ruler by divine right, for the political
organisation of the future?
My answer to that
question would be an emphatic No. My answer would be that the idea of
representative government is the only possible idea for the government of a
civilised community. But I would add that so far representative government =
has
not had even the beginnings of a fair trial. So far we have not had
representative government, but only a devastating caricature.
It is quite plain=
now
that those who first organised the parliamentary institutions which now are=
the
ruling institutions of the greater part of mankind fell a prey to certain n=
ow
very obvious errors. They did not realise that there are hundreds of differ=
ent
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 equival=
ent
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 gi=
ve
them no adequate time for organisation. The voters, you will find, will ret=
urn certain
favourites, A and B and C and D let us call them, by enormous majorities, a=
nd
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 organisa=
tion
in the community may return not the dozen a naive vote would give, but A, B=
, C,
D, E, F, G, H, M, N, O, P. Now suppose that, instead of this arrangement, y=
our
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 major=
ity.
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 wh=
ich
A stands, and beats him by one vote; another local celebrity, E, disposes o=
f B
in the same way; C is attacked not only by S but T, whose peculiar views up=
on
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 t=
he
first system, return instead O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Numerous v=
oters
who would have voted for A if they had a chance vote instead for R, S, T, e=
tc.,
numbers who would have voted for B, vote for Q, V, W, X, etc. But now suppo=
se
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 t=
hird
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 bo=
th
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 separa=
te
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 advantag=
e.
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 Mo=
rmon
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 k=
now
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 abundan=
tly
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 prese=
nt
American and French Senators, the French Deputies, the American Congressmen,
and the English Members of Parliament would hold their positions to-day. Th=
ey
would never have been heard of. They are not really the elected representat=
ives
of the people; they are the products of a ridiculous method of election; th=
ey
are the illegitimate children of the party system and the ballot-box, who h=
ave
ousted the legitimate heirs from their sovereignty. They are no more the
expression of the general will than the Tsar or some President by
pronunciamento. They are an accidental oligarchy of adventurers. Representa=
tive
government has never yet existed in the world; there was an attempt to brin=
g 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 a=
nd
representatives are politicians and "elected persons."
The world is pass=
ing
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 bee=
n,
as it ought to be, a common, systematic occupation, the muddles of to-day m=
ight
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 cann=
ot
be too strongly insisted that in contemporary elections we vote against; we=
do
not vote for. If A, B and C are candidates, and you hate C and all his works
and prefer A, but doubt if he will get as many votes as B, who is indiffere=
nt
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" yo=
ur
vote upon A. If your real confidence is in G, who is not a candidate for yo=
ur
constituency, and if B pledges himself to support G, while A retains the ri=
ght
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 e=
very
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-min=
ded
people to give every voter participation in government, do as a matter of f=
act
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 show=
n 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 a=
re
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 res=
erve
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 sentime=
nt
democratic. In reality they are democracies so eviscerated by the disease of
bad electoral methods that they are mere cloaks for the parasitic oligarchi=
es
that have grown up within their form and substance. The old spirit of freed=
om
and the collective purpose which overthrew and subdued priestcrafts and
kingcrafts, has done so, it seems, only to make way for these obscure polit=
ical
conspiracies. Instead of liberal institutions, mankind has invented a new s=
ort
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 thes=
e 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, in=
vention
and enterprise, of its art and feeling, of its religion and purpose. When o=
ne
speaks of Congressmen or Members of Parliament one thinks, to be plain about
it, of intellectual riff-raff. When one hears of a pre-eminent man in the
English-speaking community, even though that pre-eminence may be in politic=
al
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 Roosevel=
t is
delivered of a magazine article, there is the same sort of excessive admira=
tion
as when a Royal Princess does a water-colour sketch or a dog walks on its h=
ind
legs.
Now this intellec=
tual
inferiority of the legislator is not only directly bad for the community by
producing dull and stupid legislation, but it has a discouraging and dwarfi=
ng
effect upon our intellectual life. Nothing so stimulates art, thought and
science as realisation; nothing so cripples it as unreality. But to set one=
self
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, st=
arves
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 t=
he
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 obse=
rvers
this latter estrangement seems to be drifting very rapidly towards a social
explosion in the British Isles. The organised masses of labour find themsel=
ves
baffled both by their parliamentary representatives and by their trade union
officials. They are losing faith in their votes and falling back in anger u=
pon insurrectionary
ideals, upon the idea of a general strike, and upon the expedients of sabot=
age.
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 rev=
olt
and bloodshed in most of the great cities of Western Europe. That is the tr=
end
of current probability. Yet the politicians go on in an almost complete
disregard of this gathering storm. Their jerrymandered electoral methods ar=
e like
wool in their ears, and the rejection of Tweedledum for Tweedledee is taken=
as
a "mandate" for Tweedledee's distinctive brand of political unrea=
lities....
Is this an incura=
ble
state of things? Is this method of managing our affairs the only possible e=
lectoral
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 activit=
y of
the community to play its proper part in the national life? That was the dr=
eam
of those who gave the world representative government in the past. Was it an
impossible dream?
Sec. 2
Is this disease of
Parliaments an incurable disease, and have we, therefore, to get along as w=
ell
as we can with it, just as a tainted and incurable invalid diets and is car=
eful
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 civili=
sed
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 pre=
sent
uncontrolled waste of natural resources and the ultimate bankruptcy of mank=
ind
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 cou=
rse
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 u=
pon the
hypothetical possibility of a better system of government than any at prese=
nt
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 bet=
ter
government we are half-way to making it.
Now, whatever oth=
er
conditions such a body will satisfy, we may be sure that it will not be mad=
e 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, blott=
ed
out by the successful candidate. Three single-member constituencies which m=
ight
all return members of the same colour, if they were lumped together to retu=
rn
three members would probably return two of one colour and one of another. T=
here
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 cha=
nce
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 pop=
ular
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 governm=
ent
a reality and not a disastrous sham. It is a method which does render impos=
sible
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--tha=
t is
to say, a vote which may be given in the first instance to one candidate, b=
ut
which, in the event of his already having a sufficient quota of votes to re=
turn
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 aga=
inst
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 wasti=
ng
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 y=
our
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 ha=
ve no
fear that in supporting an independent candidate you will destroy the prosp=
ects
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 constituenc=
y 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 favour=
ites.
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 fift=
h of
them, go to C; 500, or a sixth, go to E; 300, or a tenth, to G; 300 to J; 2=
00,
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 t=
he
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 ha=
ving
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 reas=
on
except that hardly anybody wants him, become practically impossible. This
method of the single transferable vote with very large constituencies and m=
any
members does, in fact, give an entirely valid electoral result; each vote t=
ells
for all it is worth, and the freedom of the voter is only limited by the nu=
mber
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 ami=
dst
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 somet=
hing
else of the same nature; it is the substitution of right for wrong. It is t=
he
plain common sense of the greatest difficulty in contemporary affairs.
I know that a num=
ber
of people do not, will not, admit this of Proportional Representation. Perh=
aps
it is because of that hideous mouthful of words for a thing that would be f=
ar
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 appro=
ved
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 t=
he
murder trial who said that if only they got a man hanged for this abominable
crime, he wouldn't make a pedantic fuss about the question of which man. Th=
ey 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 consid=
er
what would be the necessary consequences of the establishment of Proportion=
al
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 re=
spectable
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 qua=
lity
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 positi=
on.
And Parliament would become a gathering of prominent men instead of a means=
to
prominence.
The two-party sys=
tem
which holds all the English-speaking countries to-day in its grip would
certainly be broken up by Proportional Representation. Sane Voting in the e=
nd
would kill the Liberal and Tory and Democratic and Republican party-machine=
s.
That secret rottenness of our public life, that hidden conclave which sells
honours, fouls finance, muddles public affairs, fools the passionate desire=
s of
the people, and ruins honest men by obscure campaigns would become impossib=
le.
The advantage of party support would be a doubtful advantage, and in Parlia=
ment
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 fr=
om
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 adventu=
res.
The party-supported Cabinet, which is now the real government of the so-cal=
led
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 re=
sume
government, but it would also necessarily take into itself all those large =
and
growing exponents of extra-parliamentary discontent that now darken the soc=
ial
future. The case of the armed "Unionist" rebel in Ulster, the cas=
e of
the workman who engages in sabotage, the case for sympathetic strikes and t=
he 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 ver=
sa
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 Gre=
at
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 c=
rowded
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, m=
ore
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 aga=
inst
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 elec=
toral
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 n=
eeds
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. E=
van
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 thin=
gs and
not so easily forced, and even if it were possible for a section of the Pre=
ss
to limelight a dozen or so figures up to the legislature, they would still
have, I think, to be interesting, sympathetic and individualised figures; a=
nd
at the end they would be only half a dozen among four hundred men of a repu=
te
more naturally achieved. A third objection is that this reform would give us
group politics and unstable government. It might very possibly give us unst=
able
ministries, but unstable ministries may mean stable government, and such st=
able
ministries as that which governs England at the present time may, by clingi=
ng
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," an=
d 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 positi=
ons
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 typi=
cal
a product of existing electoral methods as one could well have, and his
peculiarly keen sense of the power of intrigue in legislation is as good
evidence as one could wish for of the need for drastic change.
Of course, Sane
Voting is not a short cut to the millennium, it is no way of changing human
nature, and in the new type of assembly, as in the old, spite, vanity,
indolence, self-interest, and downright dishonesty will play their part. Bu=
t to
object to a reform on that account is not a particularly effective objectio=
n.
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=
span>
Sec. 1
The social condit=
ions
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 neare=
st
approach to parallel conditions, and that on a far smaller and narrower sca=
le,
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 m=
ore
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 t=
hat
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, h=
ow
far these cuttings are actually striking root and living and growing, wheth=
er
indeed they are destined to more than a temporary life in the new hemispher=
e. I
propose to discuss and weigh certain arguments for and against the belief t=
hat
these ninety million people who constitute the United States of America are
destined to develop into a great distinctive nation with a character and
culture of its own.
Humanly speaking,=
the
United States of America (and the same is true of Canada and all the more
prosperous, populous and progressive regions of South America) is a vast se=
a 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 a=
nd
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-bo=
rn
are living not in the state of their birth, but in other states to which th=
ey
have migrated. Of the thirty and a half million whites whose parents on both
sides were native Americans, a high proportion probably had one if not more
grand-parents foreign-born. Nearly five and a half million out of thirty-th=
ree
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 activ=
ity 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-cla=
ss
European costume, and every degree of dirtiness, to a central hall in which=
the
gist of the examining goes on. The floor of this hall is divided up into a =
sort
of maze of winding passages between lattice work, and along these passages,=
day
after day, incessantly, the immigrants go, wild-eyed Gipsies, Armenians,
Greeks, Italians, Ruthenians, Cossacks, German peasants, Scandinavians, a f=
ew
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 a=
nd
prove they are not paupers, to have their eyes scanned by this doctor and t=
heir
general bearing by that. Their thumb-marks are taken, their names and heigh=
ts 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 N=
ew
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 t=
he
guiding, protecting officials--into a new world. The great majority are you=
ng
men and young women between seventeen and thirty, good, youthful, hopeful p=
easant
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 depende=
nts,
young couples. All day that string of human beads waits there, jerks forwar=
d,
waits again; all day and every day, constantly replenished, constantly drop=
ping
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 whol=
e 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 coloni=
al
society that has become autonomous. It is a great and deepening pool of pop=
ulation
accumulating upon the area these predecessors freed, and since fed copiousl=
y 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 ha=
ve
been a purely native American one, would have amounted to a hundred million=
--that
is to say, to approximately nine million in excess of the present total
population. The new waves are for a time amazingly fecund, and then comes a
rapid fall in the birth-rate. The proportion of colonial and early republic=
an
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 vari=
ous
types, then Poland and Western Russia began to pour out their teeming peopl=
es,
and more particularly their Jews, Bohemia, the Slavonic states, Italy and
Hungary followed and the latest arrivals include great numbers of Levantine=
s, 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 except=
ion
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 religio=
us
communion in which they had been bred and from the servilities or
subordinations to which they were accustomed They brought little or no posi=
tive
social tradition to the synthesis to which they brought their blood and mus=
cle.
The earlier Germa=
n,
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 th=
is:
What social structure is this pool of mixed humanity developing or likely to
develop?
Sec. 2
If we compare any
European nation with the American, we perceive at once certain broad
differences. The former, in comparison with the latter, is evolved and orga=
nised;
the latter, in comparison with the former, is aggregated and chaotic. In ne=
arly
every European country there is a social system often quite elaborately cla=
ssed
and defined; each class with a sense of function, with an idea of what is d=
ue
to it and what is expected of it. Nearly everywhere you find a governing cl=
ass,
aristocratic in spirit, sometimes no doubt highly modified by recent econom=
ic
and industrial changes, with more or less of the tradition of a feudal
nobility, then a definite great mercantile class, then a large self-respect=
ing
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 fa=
ct
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 eve=
ry
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 entire=
ly
different plan. In his remarkable "American Scene," Mr. Henry Jam=
es
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 sugges=
tive
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 t=
han a
stopped omnibus, they are reduced to the inveterate bourgeois level (t=
hat of
private, accommodated pretensions merely), and fata=
lly
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 on=
e's
impression of the clear=
ance,
the clearance itself, in its completeness, with the innumerable odd connected
circumstances that bring it home, represents, in the hist=
ory of
manners and morals, a deviation in the mere measure=
ment
of which hereafter may =
well
reside a certain critical thrill. I say hereafter because it is a question of one of th=
ose
many measurements that =
would
as yet, in the United States, be premature. Of all the solemn conclusions one fe=
els 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 consequ=
ent
permeation will be of v=
alues
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, excep=
t in
the regions where the negro abounds, there is no lower stratum. There is no
"soil people" to this community at all; your bottom-most man is a
mobile freeman who can read, and who has ideas above digging and pigs and
poultry-keeping, except incidentally for his own ends. No one owns to
subordination As a consequence, any position which involves the acknowledgm=
ent
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 spi=
te
of a great peasant immigration. The servile tradition will not root here no=
w;
it dies forthwith. An enormous importation of European serfs and peasants g=
oes on,
but as they touch this soil their backs begin to stiffen with a new asserti=
on. And at the other =
end
of the scale, also, one misses an element. There is no territorial aristocr=
acy,
no aristocracy at all, no throne, no legitimate and acknowledged representa=
tive
of that upper social structure of leisure, power and State responsibility w=
hich
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 a=
nd
the clerk and skilled artisan. It is the central part of the European organ=
ism
without either the dreaming head or the subjugated feet. Even the highly fe=
udal
slave-holding "county family" traditions of Virginia and the South
pass now out of memory. So that in a very real sense the past of the Americ=
an
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 branche=
s,
and brought hither. It began neither serf nor lord, but burgher and farmer;=
it
followed the normal development of the middle class under Progress everywhe=
re
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 carriag=
es.
In England the compartments in these are either "first class,"
originally designed for the aristocracy, or "second class," for t=
he
middle class, or "third class," for the populace. In America ther=
e 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 th=
is
original even-handed treatment there was speedily added a more sumptuous ty=
pe
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 li=
ke.
In England nearly every train remains still first, second and third, or fir=
st
and third. And now, quite outdistancing the differentiation of England, Ame=
rica
produces private cars and private trains, such as Europe reserves only for
crowned heads. The evidence of t=
he
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 S=
alt
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 inte=
llectual
and moral forms of the most remarkable kind. Sec. 3 It is well to note
how these ninety millions of people whose social future we are discussing a=
re
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 development=
s 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, Holl=
and,
Spain and Portugal, Sweden and Norway, Turkey in Europe, Egypt and the whol=
e 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 tha=
t of
India. Moreover, it is n=
ot
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 mer=
e 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 s=
ide. Essentially, Amer=
ica
is still an unsettled land, with only a few incidental good roads in favour=
ed
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 unassaile=
d 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. H=
uge
areas do not contain one human being to the square mile, still vaster porti=
ons
fall short of two.... It is upon
Pennsylvania and New York State and the belt of great towns that stretches =
out
past Chicago to Milwaukee and Madison that the nation centres and seems
destined to centre. One needs but examine a tinted population map to realise
that. The other concentrations are provincial and subordinate; they have the
same relation to the main axis that Glasgow or Cardiff have to London in the
British scheme. Sec. 4 When I speak of t=
his
vast multitude, these ninety millions of the United States of America as be=
ing
for the most part peasants de-peasant-ised and common people cut off from t=
heir
own social traditions, I do not intend to convey that the American communit=
y 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 mumm=
y is
in itself a comical object, and the blowing out of an ill-guarded sacred fl=
ame,
a delightful jest. One thinks of the enterprise of the sky-scraper and the
humour of "A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur," and of
"Innocents Abroad." Its dominant notes are democracy, freedom, and
confidence. It is religious-spirited without superstition consciously Chris=
tian
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 a=
nd
detail. It is a tradition of romantic concession to good and inoffensive wo=
men
and a high development of that personal morality which puts sexual continen=
ce
and alcoholic temperance before any public virtue. It is equally a traditio=
n of
sporadic emotional public-spiritedness, entirely of the quality of gallantr=
y,
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 worki=
ng
and living for oneself is quite within the sphere of virtuous action. It ad=
ores
the flag but suspects the State. One sees more national flags and fewer nat=
ional
servants in America than in any country in the world. Its conception of man=
ners
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 cost=
ume,
it is shirt-sleeves. And it cherishes the rights of property above any other
right whatsoever. Such are the deta=
ils
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 c=
ost,
unconditional and irresponsible. It is the spirit of men who have thrown of=
f a
yoke, who are jealously resolved to be unhampered masters of their "ow=
n,"
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, f=
irst
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 spi=
rit
of stubborn insubordination. But the American side of it has gone on unchec=
ked
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 emotio=
nal
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, defian=
ce
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 th=
ey
held the English responsible, and the Eastern European Jews escaping relent=
less
persecutions, brought a persuasion of immense public wrongs, as a necessary
concomitant of systematic government, to refresh without changing this defi=
ant
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 m=
ale
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 in=
dividual.
It involves a sense of function and a sense of "place," a sense o=
f a
general responsibility and of a general well-being overriding the individua=
l's
well-being, which are exactly the senses the American tradition attacks and
destroys. For the better pa=
rt
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 energ=
y, a
vigorous if rough and untidy exploitation of the vast resources that the
European invention of railways and telegraphic communication put within rea=
ch
of the American people. It has stimulated men to a greater individual activ=
ity,
perhaps, than the world has ever seen before. Men have been wasted by misdi=
rection
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 civilis=
ed
organisation, the growths have remained largely invertebrate and chaotic, a=
nd,
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 las=
t 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 altogeth=
er
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 r=
ace.
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 o=
ut,
much less. Against the assets of cities, railways, mines and industrial wea=
lth
won, the American tradition has to set the price of five-and-seventy million
native citizens who have never found time to get born, and whose place is n=
ow
more or less filled by alien substitutes. Biologically speaking, this is no=
t 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, ha=
s been
a contempt for public service. It has identified public spirit with spasmod=
ic
acts of public beneficence. The American political ideal became a Cincinnat=
us
whom nobody sent for and who therefore never left his plough. There has ens=
ued
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 y=
ear 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 dea=
rest
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 justif=
ied
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 th=
e 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 s=
even
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, pover=
ty
of a degree that was quite unknown in the United States for the first centu=
ry
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 thousa=
nd
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 childre=
n at
work as there were twenty years ago. Child labour is increasing yearly in t=
hat
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 Watchor=
n 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 char=
ge
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 mi=
lls
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 f=
ace
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 physic=
al
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 cer=
tain
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...."<=
o:p> In Massachusetts,=
at
Fall River, the Hon. J.F. Carey tells how little naked boys, free Americans,
work for Mr. Borden, the New York millionaire, packing cloth into bleaching
vats, in a bath of chemicals that bleaches their little bodies like the bod=
ies
of lepers.... Altogether it wou=
ld
seem that at least one million and a half children are growing up in the Un=
ited
States of America stunted and practically uneducated because of unregulated
industrialism. These children, ill-fed, ill-trained mentally benighted, sin=
ce
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 b=
orn. Sec. 5 It must be repeat=
ed
that the American tradition is really the tradition of one particular
ingredient in this great admixture and stirring up of peoples. This ingredi=
ent
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-cla=
ss tradition
comes the individualist protestant spirit, the keen self-reliance and perso=
nal
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 ob=
ey,
which has been concentrated and successfully concentrated on private gain.<=
o:p> This middle-class
British section of the American population was, and is to this day, the only
really articulate ingredient in its mental composition. And so it has had a
monopoly in providing the American forms of thought. The other sections of
peoples that have been annexed by or have come into this national synthesis=
are
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 Cathol=
ics,
the French Catholic population of Louisiana, the Irish Catholics, the Frenc=
h-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 t=
en
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 exi=
st,
he points out, even in politics until prohibitionist fury threatened their =
beer.
Then, indeed, the American German emerged from silence and obscurity, but o=
nly
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 midd=
le
west. It is a fierce form of socialist teaching that speaks throughout these
regions, far more closely akin to the revolutionary Socialism of the contin=
ent
of Europe than to the constructive and evolutionary Socialism of Great Brit=
ain.
Its typical organ is The Appeal to Reason, which circulates more than a qua=
rter
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 impossi=
ble
to believe that this vast silence of these imported and ingested factors th=
at
the American nation has taken to itself is as acquiescent as it seems. No d=
oubt
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 natu=
ral
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 prot=
est
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 stroll=
er,
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 Americ=
an
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 Fa=
rm
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. M=
r.
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 w=
hat
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 a=
nd 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 comparati=
ve
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 ma=
n who
loses sleep will make a failure of his life, or at least diminish greatly h=
is
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.&q=
uot; But that sort of
thing is not saving the old native strain in the population. It moves peopl=
e,
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 nonconform=
ist
in a state of rhetorical excitement ever believed that Shakespeare wrote his
plays or Michael Angelo painted in a mood of humanitarian exaltation, "=
;for
the good of all men." "What shall we strive for? Mo=
ney? "Get a thousand millions. You=
r day
will come, and in due c=
ourse
the graveyard rat will gnaw as calmly at your bump of acquisitiveness =
as at
the mean coat of the pa=
uper. "Then shall we strive for pow=
er? "The names of the first great=
kings
of the world are forgot=
ten,
and the names of all those whose power we envy will drift to forgetfulness s=
oon.
What does the most powerful man in the world amount to st=
anding
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 buil=
d up
within himself, for him=
self,
is nothing. Only the dull reasoning of gratified egotism can make it seem worth
while. "Then what is worth while? Le=
t 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, ac=
tive
in fields so different?' "Yes. Every man among them, a=
nd
every man whose life hi=
story
is worth the telling, did something for the good of other men.... "Get money if you can. Get po=
wer if
you can; Then, if you w=
ant to
be more than the ten thousand million unknown mingled in the dust beneath y=
ou,
see what good you can d=
o with
your money and your power. "If you are one of the many
millions who have not a=
nd
can't get money or power, see what good you can do without either: "You can help carry a load fo=
r an
old man. You can encour=
age
and help a poor devil trying to reform. You can set a good example to chi=
ldren.
You can stick to the me=
n with
whom you work, fighting honestly for their welfare. "Time was when the ablest man=
would
rather kill ten men tha=
n feed
a thousand children. That time has gone. We do not care much about fee=
ding
the children, but we ca=
re
less about killing the men. To that extent we have improved already. "The day will come when we sh=
all
prefer helping our neig=
hbour
to robbing him--legally--of a million dollars. "Do what good you can now, wh=
ile it
is unusual, and have the
satisfaction of being a pioneer and an eccentric." It is the voice of
the American tradition strained to the utmost to make itself audible to the=
new
world, and cracking into italics and breaking into capitals with the strain.
The rest of that enormous bale of paper is eloquent of a public void of mor=
al
ambitions, lost to any sense of comprehensive things, deaf to ideas, imperv=
ious
to generalisations, a public which has carried the conception of freedom to=
its
logical extreme of entire individual detachment. These tell-tale columns de=
al all
with personality and the drama of personal life. They witness to no interest
but the interest in intense individual experiences. The engagements, the lo=
ve
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 t=
heir
heavily muscular portraits frown beside the initial letter. Murders and cri=
mes
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 ill=
ustration,
stirring headlines, and eloquent reprobation. There is a coloured supplemen=
t of
knock-about fun, written chiefly in the quaint dialect of the New York slum=
s.
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 not=
hing
of books, nothing of art; but great choice of bust developers, hair restore=
rs,
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 lif=
e.
The New York American represents a clientele to be counted by the hundred
thousand, manifestly with no other solicitudes, just burning to live and li=
ving
to burn. Sec. 6 The modifications=
of
the American tradition that will occur through its adoption by these silent
foreign ingredients in the racial synthesis are not likely to add to it or =
elaborate
it in any way. They tend merely to simplify it to bare irresponsible non-mo=
ral
individualism. It is with the detail and qualification of a tradition as wi=
th
the inflexions of a language; when another people takes it over the refinem=
ents
disappear. But there are other forces of modification at work upon the Amer=
ican
tradition of an altogether more hopeful kind. It has entered upon a constru=
ctive
phase. Were it not so, then the American social outlook would, indeed, be
hopeless. The effectual mod=
ifying
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 ad=
mit
no deficiency has disappeared. In the last decade such a change has come ov=
er
the American mind as sometimes comes over a vigorous and wilful child. Sudd=
enly
it seems to have grown up, to have begun to weigh its powers and consider i=
ts
possible deficiencies. There was a time when American confidence and
self-satisfaction seemed impregnable; at the slightest qualm of doubt Ameri=
ca
took to violent rhetoric as a drunkard resorts to drink. Now the indictment=
I
have drawn up harshly, bluntly and unflatteringly in Sec. 4 would receive t=
he
endorsement of American after American. The falling birth-rate of all the b=
est
elements in the State, the cankering effect of political corruption, the
crumbling of independence and equality before the progressive aggregation o=
f wealth--he
has to face them, he cannot deny them. There has arisen a new literature, t=
he
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 wha=
t it
silently abandons. It was published in 1894, and it stated in the very clea=
rest
terms the incompatibility of the almost limitless freedom of property set u=
p by
the constitution, with the practical freedom and general happiness of the m=
ass
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 h=
e 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-inter=
est 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 w=
as the
best social mobilisation possible. "But to-day it is a belated g=
host
that has overstayed the
cock-crow. These were frontier morals. But this same, everyone for himself, becomes=
most
immoral when the fronti=
er 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 clo=
sure
the rule of industry, l=
eading
not to wealth, but to that awful waste of wealth which is made visible to ever=
y 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, i=
s now
out of place except in =
jail.
Because out of place, they are a danger. A sorry day it is likely to be for th=
ose
who are found in the way when
the new people rise to rush into each other's arms, to get together, to stay toge=
ther
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 st=
rung
together all the past g=
lories
of human association, and which is to serve for the link of the new Associati=
on of
Friends who Labour, who=
se
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 t=
he 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 numbe=
r 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 econo=
mic
organisation into national politics and racial interaction, with a frank
fearlessness and an absence of windy eloquence that has been to many Europe=
ans
a surprising revelation of the reserve forces of the American mind. Preside=
nt
Roosevelt, that magnificent reverberator of ideas, that gleam of wilful
humanity, that fantastic first interruption to the succession of machine-ma=
de
politicians at the White House, has echoed clearly to this movement and mad=
e it
an integral part of the general intellectual movement of America. It is to these fi=
rst
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 a=
re
the beginnings of what is quite conceivably a great and complex reconstruct=
ive
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 h=
undred
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 principl=
es,
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 th=
ese
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 t=
heir
infancy, to create and realise out of this racial hotchpotch, this human ch=
aos,
an idea, of the collective commonwealth as the datum of reference for every
individual life. Sec. 7 I have hinted in =
the
last section that there is a possibility that the new wave of constructive
ideas in American thought may speedily develop a cant of its own. But even
then, a constructive cant is better than a destructive one. Even the consci=
ous
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 eve=
n if
it guarantees nothing about the consequent building. But, apart from t=
his,
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 w=
riter
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 plutocr=
acy
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 univer=
sity
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 undisciplin=
ed
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 Ameri=
can
women? Will women as they become more and more aware of themselves as a cla=
ss
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 estimat=
e.
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 f=
irst
impression is one of extravagant and aimless expenditure, of a class
irresponsible and wasteful beyond all precedent. One gets a Zolaesque pictu=
re
of that aspect in Mr. Upton Sinclair's "Metropolis," or the
fashionable intelligence of the popular New York Sunday editions, and one f=
inds
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 f=
unctionless,
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 noi=
sy
and glaringly coloured, and the other is quiet and colourless, the first
impression created will be that the thing is identical with the element tha=
t 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 ma=
kes
them public property--and it is clear that we are dealing with persons on q=
uite
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 c=
ase
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 appea=
led
to the young Rockefeller, clerk in a Chicago house, that to be rich was its=
elf
a supreme end; in the first flush of the discovery that he was immensely ri=
ch,
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 wor=
ld
with their minds trained, tamed and fed and shielded from outside impressio=
ns
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 weal=
th
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 g=
ot
it. Now, again, comes the question: "What shall I do?" Mr. Pierpont Morg=
an,
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 g=
reat
big things in his great big hands. Saul, going out to seek his father's ass=
es,
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 dispose=
d to
suspect at times that an inkling of such a realisation may have come to som=
e 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 the=
ir
organising power in the absence of economic organisation, it does not follow
that they will be fanatical for a continuing looseness and freedom of prope=
rty.
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 t=
hey 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 t=
he
coming years. It is plausible at least to maintain that the personal qualit=
y 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 f=
irst
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 preval=
ent
in America that politics is an unsuitable interest for a "gentleman,&q=
uot;
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&q=
uot;
they seem to mean rich men "in society" with a college education.
Nowadays, "gentlemen" seem more and more disposed towards politic=
s,
and less and less towards a life of business or detached refinement. Presid=
ent
Roosevelt, for example, was one of the pioneers in this new development, th=
is
restoration of virility to the gentlemanly ideal. His career marks the
appearance of a new and better type of man in American politics, the close =
of
the rule of the idealised nobody. The prophecy has =
been
made at times that the United States might develop a Caesarism, and certain=
ly
the position of president might easily become that of an imperator. No doub=
t in
the event of an acute failure of the national system such a catastrophe mig=
ht
occur, but the more hopeful and probable line of development is one in whic=
h 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 d=
efinite
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 Caes=
ar
of the Republic, and the Empire had been established for many years before =
the
Romans fully realised that they had returned to monarchy. Sec. 8 The American
universities are closely connected in their development with the appearance=
and
growing class-consciousness of this aristocracy of wealth. The fathers of t=
he
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 the=
se
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 necessa=
ry
cleavages and traversed haphazard by the lines of communication, made some =
of
these State foundations unnecessary and others inadequate to a convergent d=
emand.
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 Sta=
te
universities, if new resources are wanted to found new chairs, to supply fu=
nds
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.<=
o:p> This great networ=
k 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 i=
s 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 publ=
ic 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 understan=
ding
upon which the newer generation of plutocrats may meet. That older sentimen=
tal
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, a=
nd a
growing increase of the college-trained element in the population that we m=
ust
look if we are to look anywhere for the new progressive methods, for the su=
bstitution
of persistent, planned and calculated social development for the former
conditions of systematic neglect and corruption in public affairs varied by
epileptic seizures of "Reform." Sec. 9 A third influence
that may also contribute very materially to the reconstruction of the Ameri=
can
tradition is the Socialist movement. It is true that so far American Social=
ism
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 ow=
ner.
It has already been pointed out that it derives not from contemporary Engli=
sh Socialism
but from the Marxist social democracy of the continent of Europe, and has n=
ot
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 beco=
mes,
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 la=
bouring
masses in America is that revolutionary Anarchism from which it is slowly b=
ut
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 dis=
cuss
now, the process of concentrating property and the steady fixation of
conditions that were once fluid and adventurous goes on in the daylight vis=
ibly
to everyone. And it has to be borne in mind also that these people are so f=
ar
under the sway of the American tradition that each thinks himself as good a=
s 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 seriou=
sly
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 e=
lse
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 for=
ms and
effects of that movement will depend almost entirely upon the average stand=
ard
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 danger=
ous.
They will be acutely exasperated by every picture of plutocratic luxury in
their newspaper, they will readily resort to destructive violence. The west=
ern
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 m=
ade earlier
reference in this chapter, is furious to wreck the present capitalistic sys=
tem,
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 s=
ome
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 irresponsib=
le
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 a=
dministration
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 m=
ay
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 mo=
re
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 movem=
ent
for secession between west and east. That is assuming the greatest imaginab=
le
vehemence and short-sighted selfishness and the least imaginable intelligen=
ce
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 ti=
me
the immense moral possibilities of the Socialist movement, if they will tro=
uble
to understand its good side instead of emphasising its bad, if they will ke=
ep
in touch with it and help in the development of a constructive content to i=
ts
propositions, then it seems to me that popular Socialism may count as a thi=
rd
great factor in the making of the civilised American State. In any case, it d=
oes
not seem to me probable that there can be any national revolutionary moveme=
nt
or any complete arrest in the development of an aristocratic phase in Ameri=
can
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 machine=
s,
and all the material of warfare, will be in the hands of the property owner=
s,
and the average of betrayal among the leaders of a class, not racially
homogeneous, embittered, suspicious united only by their discomforts and no=
t 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 supp=
ort
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 poss=
ible
mediatory action of the universities, for construction and reconciliation.<=
o:p> Sec. 10 What changes are
likely to occur in the more intimate social life of the people of the United
States? Two influences are at work that may modify this profoundly. One is =
that
spread of knowledge and that accompanying change in moral attitude which is
more and more sterilising the once prolific American home, and the second is
the rising standard of feminine education. There has arisen in this age a n=
ew
consciousness in women. They are entering into the collective thought to a
degree unprecedented in the world's history, and with portents at once disq=
uieting
and confused. In Sec. 5 I
enumerated what I called the silent factors in the American synthesis, the
immigrant European aliens, the Catholics, the coloured blood, and so forth.=
I
would now observe that, in the making of the American tradition, the women =
also
have been to a large extent, and quite remarkably, a silent factor. That
tradition is not only fundamentally middle-class and English, but it is also
fundamentally masculine. The citizen is the man. The woman belongs to him. =
He
votes for her, works for her, does all the severer thinking for her. She is=
in the
home behind the shop or in the dairy at the farmhouse with her daughters. S=
he
gets the meal while the men talk. The American imagination and American fee=
ling
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 ment=
ion
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 educ=
ated
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 e=
xaggeration
to say that all the most able women below five-and-thirty are workers for t=
he
suffrage and the ideal of equal and independent citizenship, and active cri=
tics
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 cho=
sen
her, and upon whose kindness her happiness depends, or prostitution, will n=
o 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 w=
omen
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 reconstructi=
on
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 earni=
ng
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 primit=
ive
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 prop=
erty
and free independent competition. There is only one evident way by which wo=
men
as a class can escape from that dependence each upon an individual man and =
from
all the practical inferiority this dependence entails, and that is by so
altering their status as to make maternity and the upbringing of children a
charge not upon the husband of the mother but upon the community. The publi=
c 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 par=
t 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 l=
ine
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 unsuppo=
rted
private family to produce offspring adequate to the needs of social develop=
ment
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 t=
o make
people, insecurely employed and struggling to maintain a comfortable standa=
rd
of life against great economic pressure, prolific. Presented as a call to a
particularly onerous and quite unpaid social duty the appeal for unrestrict=
ed
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 insuffici=
ent
counterweights to these inducements. Large families disappear from the Stat=
es,
and more and more couples are childless. Those who have children restrict t=
heir
number in order to afford those they have some reasonable advantage in life.
This, in the presence of the necessary knowledge, is as practically inevita=
ble
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 spit=
e 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 be=
en
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&quo=
t;
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. T=
he 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 Ameri=
ca
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 possibil=
ity
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 recessio=
n?
The peculiar constitution of the United States gives a remarkable freedom of
experiment in these matters to each individual state, and local development=
s 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 inte=
rference
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 bet=
ween
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 Lon=
don
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 oth=
er
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 yo=
ungest
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 imp=
roved.
He quite sees that by combining a dozen families together in one large house b=
etter
practical results can be obtained. It is as easy to di=
rect
the cooking for a hundred as
for half a dozen. There would be less waste of food, of coals, of lighting. To put as=
ide
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 t=
hat
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 inst=
incts,
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 ch=
ildren
that she bears and rear=
s. 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; som=
ething
quite undefinable, prehistoric, almost dangerous,
looks out of them.... In talking to him on this subjec=
t you
do not seem to be talki=
ng to
a man. It is as if you had come face to face with something behind civilis=
ation,
behind humanity, something deeper down still among the d=
im
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 citize=
n,
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 agai=
nst
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-operat=
ion
with Tom Brown to achieve a common end, his essential incapacity, indeed, f=
or
collective action; all these things are against the ultimate triumph, and m=
ake
for the ultimate civilisation even of John Smith. Sec. 11 It may be doubted=
if
the increasing collective organisation of society to which the United State=
s 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 i=
neffectual
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 reas=
ons
is certainly the peculiar accident that has placed the seat of government u=
pon
the Potomac. To the thoughtful visitor to the United States this hiding awa=
y of
the central government in a minute district remote from all the great centr=
es
of thought, population and business activity becomes more remarkable more
perplexing, more suggestive of an incurable weakness in the national govern=
ment
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 possi=
bly
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 ut=
ter
isolation and hopelessness of Washington. The National Government has an ai=
r of
being marooned there. Or as though it had crept into a corner to do somethi=
ng 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, gre=
at
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 deleg=
ates
and agents and secondary people. In the White House, in the time of Preside=
nt 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 interruptio=
n of
the normal Washington process. To this place, out of the way of everywhere,
come the senators and congressmen, mostly leaving their families behind the=
m in
their states of origin, and hither, too, are drawn a multitude of journalis=
ts 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 repudiati=
on
of any highly organised national system. But government fr=
om
this ineffectual, inert place is only the most striking outcome of that
inflexible constitution the wrangling delegates of 1787-8 did at last produ=
ce
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. On=
ly 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 fi=
ner
discipline and broader ideas. It is quite possible that the American John
Smiths may have little to brag about in the way of national predominance by
A.D. 2000. It is quite possible that the United States may be sitting meekl=
y at
the feet of at present unanticipated teachers. THE POSSIBLE COLLAPSE OF CIVILISATI=
ON (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 happe=
n 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 subu=
rbs
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 th=
ink
that growth is inevitable and progress in the nature of things; the Wonderf=
ul
Century, as Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace called the nineteenth, has made us
perhaps over-confident and forgetful of the ruins of great cities and confi=
dent
prides of the past that litter the world, and here I will write about the o=
ther
alternative, of the progressive process "hitting something," and
smashing. There are two chi=
ef
things in modern life that impress me as dangerous and incalculable. The fi=
rst
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 mysteri=
ous
possibilities of the former, and then point out one or two uneasy developme=
nts
of the latter. Now, there is not=
hing
scientific about our currency and finance at all. It is a thing that has gr=
own
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 mo=
st
chancy and insecurely experimental system of conventions and assumptions ab=
out
money and credit it is possible to imagine. There has grown up a vast syste=
m of
lending and borrowing, a world-wide extension of joint-stock enterprises th=
at
involve at last the most fantastic relationships. I find myself, for exampl=
e,
owning (partially, at least) a bank in New Zealand, a railway in Cuba, anot=
her in
Canada, several in Brazil, an electric power plant in the City of Westminst=
er,
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 immediatel=
y 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; th=
at,
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 a=
nd
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 lim=
it
to these oscillations, that possibly the whole vast accidental edifice will=
presently
come smashing down. Why shouldn't it?=
I defy any econom=
ist or
financial expert to prove that it cannot. That it hasn't done so in the lit=
tle
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 wav=
e 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 s=
ame
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 blo=
cked
by strikers; imagine provision dealers stopping consignments to retailers, =
and
retailers hesitating to give credit. A phase would arrive when the police a=
nd militia
keeping order in the streets would find themselves on short rations and wit=
hout
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 m=
e 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 niggli=
ng,
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 t=
heir
wealth to the drug manufacturer, we have pushed forward the art of war on
severely scientific and Socialist lines; we have put all the collective
resources of the community and an enormous proportion of its intelligence a=
nd 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 w=
ill
happen if presently the guns begin to go off I have no shadow of doubt. Eve=
ry
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 mo=
re
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 o=
f 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 effecti=
ve,
capable of carrying guns and comparatively insensitive to perforation by sh=
ot
and shell, these things will have to be very much larger and as costly,
perhaps, as a first-class cruiser. Imagine such monsters of the air, and wi=
ld
financial panic below! Here, then, are t=
wo
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 al=
l,
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-b=
ack.
Perhaps we are going to be put back to learn over again under simpler condi=
tions
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. Our conceptions of what a good citi=
zen
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 near=
ly 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 common=
est
pattern, perhaps--the commonest pattern certainly in Sunday schools and
edifying books, and on all those places and occasions when morality is soug=
ht
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 wit=
hout
pedantry, and active in his own affairs, steadfastly law-abiding and respec=
tful
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 wi=
fe
and children, and kind without extravagance to all men. Everyone feels that
this is not enough, everyone feels that something more is wanted and someth=
ing
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 t=
he
subtle, the permanent detail of the answer. It does very grea=
tly
help in this question to bear in mind the conflict of our origins. Every ag=
e is
an age of transition, of minglings, of the breaking up of old, narrow cultu=
res,
and the breaking down of barriers, of spiritual and often of actual
interbreeding. Not only is the physical but the moral and intellectual ance=
stry
of everyone more mixed than ever it was before. We blend in our blood, ever=
yone
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 expedien=
ts
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, slave=
s, 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 birt=
h,
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 multitudi=
nous
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 ada=
pt
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 W=
ard,
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 itsel=
f.
The good slave, too, has a morality of restraints; he abstains from the foo=
d 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, rea=
dy
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 eve=
ry
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 vir=
tue 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 m=
en
glorify "push" and impatience, and despise finish and fine
discriminations as weak and demoralising things. These three, the Serf, the
Rebel, and the Squatter, are three out of a thousand types and aspects that
have gone to our making. In the American composition they are dominant. But=
all
those thousand different standards and traditions are our material, each wi=
th
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 grow=
ing
civilisation makes the frantic avidity of the squatter a nuisance, have to =
set
ourselves to frame the standard of our children's children, to abandon what=
the
slave or the squatter or the rebel found necessary and that we find
unnecessary, to fit fresh requirements to our new needs. So we have to deve=
lop
our figure of the fine man, our desirable citizen in that great and noble c=
ivilised
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 tradit=
ion
nor a rebel nor a vehement elemental man. Essentially he will be aristocrat=
ic, 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 f=
eel
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 gi=
ve
and selling for as much as he can get; indeed, most of what we idolise to-d=
ay
as business enterprise I think he will regard with considerable contempt. B=
ut,
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 f=
or
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 wil=
l be
for the welfare of all the children of the community; he will have got beyo=
nd
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 eq=
ual;
he will not be "kind" to her, but fair and frank and loving, as o=
ne
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 "shi=
eld"
her from the responsibility of political and social work, than he will to m=
ake
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 d=
eliberately
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 an=
d in
training as an elementary duty. He will not be a fat or emaciated person. F=
at,
panting men, and thin, enfeebled ones cannot possibly be considered good ci=
tizens
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 pleas=
ing
and agreeable to his fellows. The ugly dress and ugly bearing of the "=
good
man" of to-day will be as incomprehensible to him as the filth of a
palaeolithic savage is to us. He will not speak of his "frame," a=
nd
hang clothes like sacks over it; he will know and feel that he and the peop=
le
about him have wonderful, delightful and beautiful bodies. And--I speak of t=
he
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 a=
nd
well clothed. He will not be too busy to read and think, though he may be t=
oo
busy to rush about to get ignorantly and blatantly rich. It follows that, s=
ince
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 wom=
en
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 press=
ed,
but truthful in the manner of the scientific man or the artist, and as scor=
nful
of concealment as they; truthful, that is to say, as the expression of a ru=
ling
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 ha=
ve
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. The present time is harvest home fo=
r 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 prese=
nt
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. O=
nce
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 Amunds=
en.
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 s=
ort
of earthworm apparatus, so that he could go through the rocks prospecting v=
ery
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 effect=
s,
but nothing, I think, to equal the dramatic novelty, the demonstration of m=
an
having got to something altogether new and strange, of Montgolfier, or the
Wright Brothers, of Columbus, or the Polar conquest. There remains, of cour=
se,
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, f=
rom
the point of view of the common man, almost without sensational interest. T=
here
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. Th=
ere
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. El=
ectric
heating, for example, will become practicable in our houses, and then cheap=
er,
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 ta=
il
chimney, and indeed all chimneys, will vanish quietly from our urban landsc=
ape.
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 und=
erstanding
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 a=
nd
aeration and beautifying of life. Utopian requirements, so far as the mater=
ial
side of things goes, will be executed and delivered with at last the utmost
promptness.... It is in quite ot=
her
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 fie=
ld
must mark time until another can come up to it with results sufficiently
arranged and conclusions sufficiently simplified for application Medicine w=
aits
on organic chemistry, geology on mineralogy, and both on the chemistry of h=
igh 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 gr=
eat
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 scientif=
ic 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 abs=
ence
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, consumptio=
n,
and the like. Yet masked, misrepresented limited and hampered, the work of =
establishing
a sound science of vital processes in health and disease is probably going =
on
now, similar to the clarification of physics and chemistry that went on in =
the
later part of the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth centurie=
s.
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 n=
ot
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 poo=
rest
miscellany of aphorisms and dodges. Indeed, directly one goes beyond the ra=
nge
of measurement and weighing and classification, one finds a sort of unprogr=
essive
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 the=
se
directions we have not emerged at all. It is quite possible that in univers=
ity
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 reputatio=
n's
sake tell ordinary people the things he believed would some day become matt=
er-of-fact
operations. In that respect I think he spoke for very many of his colleague=
s.
It is already possible to remove almost any portion of the human body,
including, if needful, large sections of the brain; it is possible to graft
living flesh on living flesh, make new connections, mould, displace, and
rearrange. It is also not impossible to provoke local hypertrophy, and not =
only
by knife and physical treatment but by the subtler methods of hypnotism,
profound changes can be wrought in the essential structure of a human being=
. If
only our knowledge of function and value were at all adequate, we could cor=
rect
and develop ourselves in the most extraordinary way. Our knowledge is not
adequate, but it may not always remain inadequate. We have already h=
ad 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 m=
an
of the very greatest scientific reputation, and it does not give him any qu=
alm of
horror or absurdity to advance it. I am quite sure that if a gentleman call=
ed
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 ma=
ke
room for the expansion of the remainder, his mind and sensibilities increas=
ed,
and his liability to fatigue and the need of sleep abolished, I should conc=
eal
with the utmost difficulty my inexpressible disgust and terror. But, then, =
if
M. Blériot, with his flying machine, ear-flaps and goggles, had soar=
ed
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 h=
ave
had entirely similar emotions. And at present I am not discussing what is b=
eautiful
in humanity, but what is possible--and what, being possible, is likely to be
attempted. It does not follow
that because men will some day have this enormous power over themselves,
physically and mentally, that they will necessarily make themselves
horrible--even by our present standards quite a lot of us would be all the
slenderer and more active and graceful for "Metchnikoffing"--nor =
does
surgery exhaust the available methods. We are still in the barbaric age, so=
far
as our use of food and drugs is concerned. We stuff all sorts of substances
into our unfortunate interiors and blunder upon the most various consequenc=
es. Few
people of three score and ten but have spent in the aggregate the best part=
of
a year in a state of indigestion, stupid, angry or painful indigestion as t=
he
case may be. No one would be so careless and ignorant about the fuel he bur=
nt
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 seem=
s 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 bod=
ily and
mental phases. It is sheer ignorance and bad management that keep the major=
ity
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," a=
nd
long-lived, with the marks of all the surgery they have undergone quite hea=
led
and hidden, but not more madly Utopian than it would have seemed to King Al=
fred
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 h=
is
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 capab=
le
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 un=
able
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 funct=
ion
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 author=
itative
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 t=
ime
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, exercis=
e,
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 li=
ttle
child, green-white and still under an anaesthetic, gripped my heart much mo=
re
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 evo=
lve
dreams of loveliness. Perhaps things of this kind will be manageable withou=
t dreadfulness.
Perhaps man will come to such wisdom that neither the knife nor the drugs n=
or
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 th=
at
an amplifying science may give mankind happier bodies and far more active a=
nd
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 w=
ho
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 g=
ood heart
in men than it is to tunnel mountains and dyke back the sea. The way that l=
ed
from the darkness of the cave to the electric light is the way that will le=
ad
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.<=
o:p> And with the
development of philosophical and scientific method that will go on with this
great increase in man's control over himself, another issue that is now a m=
ere
pious aspiration above abysses of ignorance and difficulty, will come to be=
a
manageable matter. It has been the perpetual wonder of philosophers from Pl=
ato
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 t=
hat
goes on. Beautiful and wonderful people die childless and bury their treasu=
re in
the grave, and we rest content with a system of matrimony that seems design=
ed
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. Alone among all the living things t=
his
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 do=
om.
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 sea=
s, 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 mastod=
ons
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 br=
eeze
can stop it. Man circumvents. If fire were human it would build boats across
the rivers and outmanoeuvre the wind. It would lie in wait in sheltered pla=
ces,
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 t=
he
commerce of life, a shining, resentful slave, to hound off the startled bea=
sts
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 distin=
guished
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 grow=
ing
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 fro=
m its
original circumstances, fitting itself to novel needs, leaving the forests,
invading the plains, following the watercourses upward and downward, presen=
tly
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 t=
he
earlier stone period to the first cities, historically a vast interval, wou=
ld
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 ma=
n passed
from an animal-like obedience to the climate and the weather and his own
instincts, from living in small family parties of a score or so over restri=
cted
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 subjugat=
ed
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 hundre=
d 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.<=
o:p> The time in which=
we,
whose minds meet here in this writing, were born and live and die, would be=
to
that imagined observer a mere instant's phase in the swarming liberation of=
our
kind from ancient imperatives. It would seem to him a phase of unprecedented
swift change and expansion and achievement. In this last handful of years,
electricity has ceased to be a curious toy, and now carries half mankind up=
on
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; w=
e clamber
to the pole of our globe, scale every mountain, soar into the air, learn ho=
w 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 increas=
e of
man's intelligence and its reinforcement through speech and writing. All th=
is
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 ti=
me
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 m=
ay
clash against and sharpen one another, still darken our eyes. We live not l=
ife
as yet, but in millions of separated lives, still unaware except in rare mo=
ods
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, throu=
gh
clumsy cosmogonies and theologies, and with incalculable confusion and
discoloration, that the human mind has felt its way towards its undying bei=
ng
in the race. Man still goes to war against himself, prepares fleets and arm=
ies
and fortresses, like a sleep-walker who wounds himself, like some infatuated
barbarian who hacks his own limbs with a knife. But he awakens. T=
he
nightmares of empire and racial conflict and war, the grotesques of trade
jealousy and tariffs, the primordial dream-stuff of lewdness and jealousy a=
nd
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 w=
ere
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 fre=
sh
experiences and fresh acquirements, as bees return with pollen and nourishm=
ent
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 ta=
ke
that greater fire, the sun, into his service. He will bring his solvent
intelligence to bear upon the riddles of his individual interaction, transm=
ute
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 collectivel=
y.
Already some of us feel our merger with that greater life. There come momen=
ts
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 destini=
es
through the starry stillnesses of space.