Chapter XIX: Section III: Riches (4)

I say "follow," but in reality they are the recognition. Reverence is but the perceiving of the thing in its entire truth: truth reverted is truth revered (vereor and veritas having clearly the same root), so that Goethe is for once, and for a wonder, wrong in that part of the noble scheme of education in "Wilhelm Meister," in which he says that reverence is not innate, and must be taught. Reverence is as instinctive as anger;--both of them instant on true vision: it is sight and understanding that we have to teach, and these are reverence. Make a man perceive worth, and in its reflection he sees his own relative unworth, and worships thereupon inevitably, not with stiff courtesy, but rejoicingly, passionately, and, best of all, restfully: for the inner capacity of awe and love is infinite in man; and when his eyes are once opened to the sight of beauty and honour, it is with him as with a lover, who, falling at his mistress's feet, would cast himself through the earth, if it might be, to fall lower, and find a deeper and humbler place. And the common insolences and petulances of the people, and their talk of equality, are not irreverence in them in the least, but mere blindness, stupefaction, and fog in the brains,[110] which pass away in the degree that they are raised and purified: the first sign of which raising is, that they gain some power of discerning, and some patience in submitting to their true counsellors and governors; the modes of such discernment forming the real "constitution" of the state, and not the titles or offices of the discerned person; for it is no matter, save in degree of mischief, to what office a man is appointed, if he cannot fulfil it. And this brings us to the third division of our subject.

[110] Compare Chaucer's "villany" (clownishness).

"Full foul and chorlishe seemed she,
And eke villanous for to be,
And little coulde of norture
To worship any creature."

III.--GOVERNMENT BY COUNCIL.

This is the determination, by living authority, of the national conduct to be observed under existing circumstances; and the modification or enlargement, abrogation or enforcement, of the code of national law according to present needs or purposes. This government is necessarily always by Council, for though the authority of it may be vested in one person, that person cannot form any opinion on a matter of public interest but by (voluntarily or involuntarily) submitting himself to the influence of others.

This government is always twofold--visible and invisible.

The visible government is that which nominally carries on the national business; determines its foreign relations, raises taxes, levies soldiers, fights battles, or directs that they be fought, and otherwise becomes the exponent of the national fortune. The invisible government is that exercised by all energetic and intelligent men, each in his sphere, regulating the inner will and secret ways of the people, essentially forming its character, and preparing its fate. Visible governments are the toys of some nations, the diseases of others, the harness of some, the burdens of the more, the necessity of all. Sometimes their career is quite distinct from that of the people, and to write it, as the national history, is as if one should number the accidents which befall a man's weapons and wardrobe, and call the list his biography. Nevertheless a truly noble and wise nation necessarily has a noble and wise visible government, for its wisdom issues in that conclusively. "Not out of the oak, nor out of the rock, but out of the temper of man, is his polity:" where the temper inclines, it inclines as Samson by his pillar, and draws all down with it.

Visible governments are, in their agencies, capable of three pure forms, and of no more than three.

They are either monarchies, where the authority is vested in one person; oligarchies, when it is vested in a minority; or democracies, when vested in a majority.

But these three forms are not only, in practice, variously limited and combined, but capable of infinite difference in character and use, receiving specific names according to their variations; which names, being nowise agreed upon, nor consistently used, either in thought or writing, no man can at present tell, in speaking of any kind of government, whether he is understood, nor in hearing whether he understands. Thus we usually call a just government by one person a monarchy, and an unjust or cruel one, a tyranny; this might be reasonable if it had reference to the divinity of true government; but to limit the term "oligarchy" to government by a few rich people, and to call government by a few wise or noble people "aristocracies," is evidently absurd, unless it were proved that rich people never could be wise, or noble people rich; and farther absurd because there are other distinctions in character, as well as riches or wisdom (greater purity of race, or strength of purpose, for instance), which may give the power of government to the few. So that if we had to give names to every group or kind of minority, we should have verbiage enough. But there is one right name--"oligarchy."

So also the terms "republic" and "democracy" are confused, especially in modern use; and both of them are liable to every sort of misconception. A republic means, properly, a polity in which the state, with its all, is at every man's service, and every man, with his all, at the state's service (people are apt to lose sight of the last condition); but its government may nevertheless be oligarchic (consular, or decemviral, for instance), or monarchic (dictatorial). But a democracy means a state in which the government rests directly with the majority of the citizens. And both these conditions have been judged only by such accidents and aspects of them as each of us has had experience of; and sometimes both have been confused with anarchy, as it is the fashion at present to talk of the "failure of republican institutions in America," when there has never yet been in America any such thing as an institution; neither any such thing as a res-publica, but only a multitudinous res-privata; every man for himself. It is not republicanism which fails now in America; it is your model science of political economy, brought to its perfect practice. There you may see competition, and the "law of demand and supply" (especially in paper), in beautiful and unhindered operation.[111] Lust of wealth, and trust in it; vulgar faith in magnitude and multitude, instead of nobleness; besides that faith natural to backwoodsmen,--"lucum ligna,"--perpetual self-contemplation, issuing in passionate vanity: total ignorance of the finer and higher arts, and of all that they teach and bestow;[112] and the discontent of energetic minds unoccupied, frantic with hope of uncomprehended change, and progress they know not whither;[113] these are the things that they have "failed" with in America; and yet not altogether failed--it is not collapse, but collision; the greatest railroad accident on record, with fire caught from the furnace, and Catiline's quenching "non aqua, sed ruina." But I see not, in any of our talk of them, justice enough done to their erratic strength of purpose, nor any estimate taken of the strength of endurance of domestic sorrow in what their women and children suppose a righteous cause. And out of that endurance and suffering, its own fruit will be born with time; and Carlyle's prophecy of them (June, 1850), as it has now come true in the first clause, will in the last.

America too will find that caucuses, division-lists,
stump-oratory and speeches to Buncombe will _not_ carry men
to the immortal gods; that the Washington Congress, and
constitutional battle of Kilkenny cats is, there as here,
naught for such objects; quite incompetent for such; and, in
fine, that said sublime constitutional arrangement will
require to be (with terrible throes, and travail such as few
expect yet) remodelled, abridged, extended, suppressed; torn
asunder, put together again;--not without heroic labour, and
effort quite other than that of the Stump-Orator and the
Revival Preacher, one day!

[111] "Supply-and-demand,--alas! For what noble work was there
ever any audible 'demand' in that poor sense?" ("Past and
Present"). Nay, the demand is not loud even for ignoble
work. See "Average earnings of Betty Taylor," in _Times_, of
4th February, of this year [1863]: "Worked from Monday
morning at 8 a.m., to Friday night at 5.30 p.m., for 1_s._
5-1/2_d._"--Laissez faire.

[112] See Bacon's note in the "Advancement of Learning," on
"didicisse fideliter artes" (but indeed the accent had need
be upon "fideliter"). "It taketh away vain admiration of
anything, which is the root of all weakness: for all things
are admired either because they are new, or because they are
great," etc.

[113] Ames, by report of Waldo Emerson, expressed the popular
security wisely, saying, "that a monarchy is a merchantman,
which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and
go to the bottom; whilst a republic is a raft, which would
never sink, but then your feet are always in the water."
Yes, and when the four winds (your only pilots) steer
competitively from the four corners, [Greek: hos d' hot'
oporinos Borees phoreesin akanthas], perhaps the wiser
mariner may wish for keel and wheel again.

Understand, then, once for all, that no form of government, provided it be a government at all, is, as such, either to be condemned or praised, or contested for in anywise but by fools. But all forms of government are good just so far as they attain this one vital necessity of policy--that the wise and kind, few or many, shall govern the unwise and unkind; and they are evil so far as they miss of this or reverse it. Nor does the form in any case signify one whit, but its firmness and adaptation to the need; for if there be many foolish persons in a state, and few wise, then it is good that the few govern; and if there be many wise and few foolish, then it is good that many govern; and if many be wise, yet one wiser, then it is good that one should govern; and so on. Thus, we may have "the ants' republic, and the realm of bees," both good in their kind; one for groping, and the other for building; and nobler still, for flying, the Ducal monarchy of those

"Intelligent of seasons, that set forth
The aery caravan, high over seas."

Nor need we want examples, among the inferior creatures, of dissoluteness, as well as resoluteness in, government. I once saw democracy finely illustrated by the beetles of North Switzerland, who, by universal suffrage, and elytric acclamation, one May twilight, carried it that they would fly over the Lake of Zug; and flew short, to the great disfigurement of the Lake of Zug--[Greek: Kantharou limen]--over some leagues square, and to the close of the Cockchafer democracy for that year. The old fable of the frogs and the stork finely touches one form of tyranny; but truth will touch it more nearly than fable, for tyranny is not complete when it is only over the idle, but when it is over the laborious and the blind. This description of pelicans and climbing perch which I find quoted in one of our popular natural histories, out of Sir Emerson Tennent's "Ceylon," comes as near as may be to the true image of the thing:--

Heavy rains came on, and as we stood on the high ground, we
observed a pelican on the margin of the shallow pool gorging
himself; our people went towards him, and raised a cry of
"Fish! fish!" We hurried down, and found numbers of fish
struggling upward through the grass, in the rills formed by
the trickling of the rain. There was scarcely water to cover
them, but nevertheless they made rapid progress up the bank,
on which our followers collected about two baskets of them.
They were forcing their way up the knoll, and had they not
been interrupted, first by the pelican, and afterwards by
ourselves, they would in a few minutes have gained the
highest point, and descended on the other side into a pool
which formed another portion of the tank. In going this
distance, however, they must have used muscular exertion
enough to have taken them half a mile on level ground; for
at these places all the cattle and wild animals of the
neighbourhood had latterly come to drink, so that the
surface was everywhere indented with footmarks, in addition
to the cracks in the surrounding baked mud, into which the
fish tumbled in their progress. In those holes which were
deep, and the sides perpendicular, they remained to die, and
were carried off by kites and crows.

But whether governments be bad or good, one general disadvantage seems to attach to them in modern times--that they are all costly. This, however, is not essentially the fault of the governments. If nations choose to play at war, they will always find their governments willing to lead the game, and soon coming under that term of Aristophanes, "[Greek: kapeloi aspidon]," shield-sellers. And when ([Greek: pem' epipemati]) the shields take the form of iron ships, with apparatus "for defence against liquid fire"--as I see by latest accounts they are now arranging the decks in English dockyards,--they become costly biers enough for the grey convoy of chief-mourner waves, wreathed with funereal foam, to bear back the dead upon; the massy shoulders of those corpse-bearers being intended for quite other work, and to bear the living, if we would let them.

Nor have we the least right to complain of our governments being expensive so long as we set the government to do precisely the work which brings no return. If our present doctrines of political economy be just, let us trust them to the utmost; take that war business out of the government's hands, and test therein the principles of supply and demand. Let our future sieges of Sebastopol be done by contract--no capture, no pay--(I am prepared to admit that things might go better so); and let us sell the commands of our prospective battles, with our vicarages, to the lowest bidder; so may we have cheap victories and divinity. On the other hand, if we have so much suspicion of our science that we dare not trust it on military or spiritual business, it would be but reasonable to try whether some authoritative handling may not prosper in matters utilitarian. If we were to set our governments to do useful things instead of mischievous, possibly even the apparatus might in time come to be less costly! The machine, applied to the building of the house, might perhaps pay, when it seems not to pay, applied to pulling it down. If we made in our dockyards ships to carry timber and coals, instead of cannon, and with provision for brightening of domestic solid culinary fire, instead of for the averting of hostile liquid fire, it might have some effect on the taxes? Or if the iron bottoms were to bring us home nothing better than ivory and peacocks, instead of martial glory, we might at least have gayer suppers, and doors of the right material for dreams after them. Or suppose that we tried the experiment on land instead of water carriage; already the government, not unapproved, carries letters and parcels for us; larger packages may in time follow:--parcels;--even general merchandise? Why not, at last, ourselves? Had the money spent in local mistakes and vain private litigation, on the railroads of England, been laid out, instead, under proper government restraint, on really useful railroad work, and had no absurd expense been incurred in ornamenting stations, we might already have had,--what ultimately will be found we must have,--quadruple rails, two for passengers, and two for traffic, on every great line; and we might have been carried in swift safety, and watched and warded by well-paid pointsmen, for half the present fares. "[Greek: ho Demidion, horas ta lago' ha soi phero]?" Suppose it should turn out, finally, that a true government set to true work, instead of being a costly engine, was a paying one? that your government, rightly organized, instead of itself subsisting by an income tax, would produce its subjects some subsistence in the shape of an income dividend!--police and judges duly paid besides, only with less work than the state at present provides for them.

A true government set to true work!--Not easily imagined, still less obtained, but not beyond human hope or ingenuity. Only you will have to alter your election systems somewhat, first. Not by universal suffrage, nor by votes purchasable with beer, is such government to be had. That is to say, not by universal equal suffrage. Every man upwards of twenty, who had been convicted of no legal crime, should have his say in this matter; but afterwards a louder voice, as he grows older, and approves himself wiser. If he has one vote at twenty, he should have two at thirty, four at forty, and ten at fifty. For every one vote which he has with an income of a hundred a year, he should have ten with an income of a thousand (provided you first see to it that wealth is, as nature intended it to be, the reward of sagacity and industry,--not of good luck in a scramble or a lottery.) For every one vote which he had as subordinate in any business, he should have two when he became a master; and every office and authority nationally bestowed, inferring trustworthiness and intellect, should have its known proportional number of votes attached to it. But into the detail and working of a true system in these matters we cannot now enter; we are concerned as yet with definitions only, and statements of first principles, which will be established now sufficiently for our purposes when we have examined the nature of that form of government last on the list in the previous paper,--the purely "Magistral," exciting at present its full share of public notice, under its ambiguous title of "slavery."

I have not, however, been able to ascertain in definite terms, from the declaimers against slavery, what they understand by it. If they mean only the imprisonment or compulsion being in many cases highly expedient, slavery, so defined, would be no evil in itself, but only in its abuse; that is, when men are slaves, who should not be, or masters, who should not be, or under conditions which should not be. It is not, for instance, a necessary condition of slavery, nor a desirable one, that parents should be separated from children, or husbands from wives; but the institution of war, against which people declaim with less violence, effects such separations--not unfrequently in a higher permanent manner. To press a sailor, seize a white youth by conscription for a soldier, or carry off a black one for a labourer, may all be right, or all wrong, according to needs and circumstances. It is wrong to scourge a man unnecessarily. So it is to shoot him. Both must be done on occasion; and it is better and kinder to flog a man to his work, than to leave him idle till he robs, and flog him afterwards. The essential thing for all creatures is to be made to do right; how they are made to do it--by pleasant promises, or hard necessities, pathetic oratory, or the whip, is comparatively immaterial. To be deceived is perhaps as incompatible with human dignity as to be whipped, and I suspect the last instrument to be not the worst, for the help of many individuals. The Jewish nation throve under it, in the hand of a monarch reputed not unwise; it is only the change of whip for scorpion which is expedient, and yet that change is as likely to come to pass on the side of licence as of law; for the true scorpion whips are those of the nation's pleasant vices, which are to it as St. John's locusts--crown on the head, ravin in the mouth, and sting in the tail. If it will not bear the rule of Athena and her brother, who shepherd without smiting ([Greek: ou plege nemontes]), Athena at last calls no more in the corners of the streets; and then follows the rule of Tisiphone, who smites without shepherding.

If, however, slavery, instead of absolute compulsion, is meant the purchase, by money, of the right of compulsion, such purchase is necessarily made whenever a portion of any territory is transferred, for money, from one monarch to another: which has happened frequently enough in history, without its being supposed that the inhabitants of the districts so transferred became their slaves. In this, as in the former case, the dispute seems about the fashion of the thing rather than the fact of it. There are two rocks in mid-sea, on each of which, neglected equally by instructive and commercial powers, a handful of inhabitants live as they may. Two merchants bid for the two properties, but not in the same terms. One bids for the people, buys them, and sets them to work, under pain of scourge; the other bids for the rock, buys it, and throws the inhabitants into the sea. The former is the American, the latter the English method, of slavery; much is to be said for, and something against, both, which I hope to say in due time and place.

If, however, slavery mean not merely the purchase of the right of compulsion, but the purchase of the body and soul of the creature itself for money, it is not, I think, among the black races that purchases of this kind are most extensively made, or that separate souls of a fine make fetch the highest price. This branch of the inquiry we shall have occasion also to follow out at some length; for in the worst instance of the "[Greek: Bion prasis]" we are apt to get only Pyrrhon's answer--[Greek: ti phes?--epriamen se? Adelon].

The fact is that slavery is not a political institution at all, but an inherent, natural, and eternal inheritance of a large portion of the human race--to whom the more you give of their own will, the more slaves they will make themselves. In common parlance, we idly confuse captivity with slavery, and are always thinking of the difference between pine-trunks and cowslip bells, or between carrying wood and clothes-stealing, instead of noting the far more serious differences between Ariel and Caliban, and the means by which practically that difference may be brought about.[114]

[114] The passage of Plato, referred to in note p. 280, in its
context, respecting the slave who, well dressed and washed,
aspires to the hand of his master's daughter, corresponds
curiously to the attack of Caliban on Prospero's cell, and
there is an undercurrent of meaning throughout, in the
"Tempest" as well as in the "Merchant of Venice"; referring
in this case to government, as in that to commerce. Miranda
("the wonderful," so addressed first by Ferdinand, "Oh, you
wonder!") corresponds to Homer's Arete: Ariel and Caliban
are respectively the spirits of freedom and mechanical
labour. Prospero ("for hope"), a true governor, opposed to
Sycorax, the mother of slavery, her name, "Swine-raven,"
indicating at once brutality and deathfulness; hence the
line--"As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed, with raven's
feather,"--etc. For all dreams of Shakespeare, as those of
true and strong men must be, are "[Greek: phantasmata theia,
kai skiai ton onton]," phantasms of God, and shadows of
things that are. We hardly tell our children, willingly, a
fable with no purport in it; yet we think God sends His best
messengers only to say fairy tales to us, all fondness and
emptiness. The "Tempest" is just like a grotesque in a rich
missal, "clasped where paynims pray." Ariel is the spirit of
true liberty, in early stages of human society oppressed by
ignorance and wild tyranny; venting groans as fast as
mill-wheels strike; in shipwreck of states, fearful; so that
"all but mariners plunge in the brine, and quit the vessel,
then all afire with me," yet having in itself the will and
sweetness of truest peace, whence that is especially called
"Ariel's" song, "Come unto these yellow sands"--(fenceless,
and countless--changing with the sweep of the sea--"vaga
arena." Compare Horace's opposition of the sea-sand to the
dust of the grave: "numero carentis"--"exigui;" and again
compare "animo rotundum percurrisse" with "put a girdle
round the earth")--"and then take hands: court'sied when you
have, and kiss'd,--the wild waves whist:" (mind it is
"courtesia," not "curtsey") and read "quiet" for "whist" if
you want the full sense. Then may you indeed foot it featly,
and sweet spirits bear the burden for you--with watch in the
night, and call in early morning. The power of liberty in
elemental transformation follows--"Full fathom five thy
father lies, of his bones are coral made." Then, giving rest
after labour, it "fetches dew from the still-vex'd
Bermoothes, and, with a charm joined to their suffered
labour, leaves men asleep." Snatching away the feast of the
cruel, it seems to them as a harpy, followed by the utterly
vile, who cannot see it in any shape, but to whom it is the
picture of nobody, it still gives shrill harmony to their
false and mocking catch, "Thought is free," but leads them
into briars and foul places, and at last hollas the hounds
upon them. Minister of fate against the great criminal, it
joins itself with the "incensed seas and shores"--the sword
that layeth at it cannot hold, and may, "with bemocked-at
stabs as soon kill the still-closing waters, as diminish one
dowle that's in my plume." As the guide and aid of true
love, it is always called by Prospero "fine" (the French
"fine"--not the English), or "delicate"--another long note
would be needed to explain all the meaning in this word.
Lastly, its work done, and war, it resolves itself to the
elements. The intense significance of the last song, "Where
the bee sucks," I will examine in its due place. The types
of slavery in Caliban are more palpable, and need not be
dwelt on now: though I will notice them also, severally, in
their proper places;--the heart of his slavery is in his
worship: "That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor."
But, in illustration of the sense in which the Latin
"benignus" and "malignus," are to be coupled with Eleutheria
and Douleia, not that Caliban's torment is always the
physical reflection of his own nature--"cramps" and
"side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up"--"thou shalt be
pinched as thick as honeycomb:" the whole nature of slavery
being one cramp and cretinous contraction. Fancy this of
Ariel! You may fetter him, but yet set no mark on him; you
may put him to hard work and far journey, but you cannot
give him a cramp.

Of Shakespeare's names I will afterwards speak at more
length: they are curiously--often barbarously--mixed out of
various traditions and languages. Three of the clearest in
meaning have been already noticed. Desdemona, "[Greek:
dysdaimonia]," "miserable fortune," is also plain enough.
Othello is, I believe, "the careful"; all the calamity of
the tragedy arising from the single flaw and error in his
magnificently collected strength. Ophelia,
"serviceableness," the true lost wife of Hamlet, is marked
as having a Greek name by that last word of her, where her
gentle preciousness is opposed to the uselessness of the
churlish clergy--"A ministering angel shall my sister be
when thou liest howling." Hamlet is, I believe, connected in
some way with "homely," the entire event of the tragedy
turning on betrayal of home duty. Hermione ([Greek: herma]),
"pillar-like" ([Greek: he eidos eche chryses Aphrodites]).
Titania ([Greek: titene]), "the queen;" Benedict and
Beatrice, "blessed and blessing;" Valentine and Proteus,
enduring (or strong) (valens) and changeful. Iago and
Iachimo have evidently the same root--probably the Spanish
Iago, Jacob, "the supplanter." Leonatus, and other such
names are interpreted, or played with, in the plays
themselves. For the interpretation of Sycorax, and reference
to her raven's feather, I am indebted to Mr. John R. Wise.

I should dwell, even in these prefatory papers, at somewhat more length on this matter, had not all I would say, been said (already in vain) by Carlyle, in the first of the "Latter-Day Pamphlets," which I commend to the reader's gravest reading: together with that as much neglected, and still more immediately needed, on model prisons, and with the great chapter on "Permanence" (fifth of the last section of "Past and Present"), which sums, what is known, and foreshadows,--or rather fore-lights, all that is to be learned, of National Discipline. I have only here farther to examine the nature of one world-wide and everlasting form of slavery, wholesome in use, deadly in abuse--the service of the rich by the poor.

As in all previous discussions of our subject, we must study this relation in its simplest elements in order to reach its first principles. The simplest state of it is, then, this:[115] a wise and provident person works much, consumes little, and lays by store; an improvident person works little, consumes all the produce, and lays by no store. Accident interrupts the daily work, or renders it less productive; the idle person must then starve, or be supported by the provident one,--who, having him thus at his mercy, may either refuse to maintain him altogether, or, which will evidently be more to his own interest, say to him, "I will maintain you, indeed, but you shall now work hard, instead of indolently, and instead of being allowed to lay by what you save, as you might have done, had you remained independent, I will take all the surplus. You would not lay it up yourself; it is wholly your own fault that has thrown you into my power, and I will force you to work, or starve; yet you shall have no profit, only your daily bread." This mode of treatment has now become so universal that it is supposed the only natural--nay, the only possible one; and the market wages are calmly defined by economists as "the sum which will maintain the labourer."

[115] In the present general examination I concede so much to
ordinary economists as to ignore all innocent poverty. I
assume poverty to be always criminal; the conceivable
exceptions we will examine afterwards.

The power of the provident person to do this is only checked by the correlative power of some neighbour of similarly frugal habits, who says to the labourer--"I will give you a little more than my provident friend:--come and work for me." The power of the provident over the improvident depends thus primarily on their relative numbers; secondarily, on the modes of agreement of the adverse parties with each other. The level of wages is a variable function of the number of provident and idle persons in the world, of the enmity between them as classes, and of the agreement between those of the same class. It depends, from beginning to end, on moral conditions.

Supposing the rich to be entirely selfish, it is always for their interest that the poor should be as numerous as they can employ and restrain. For, granting the entire population no larger than the ground can easily maintain,--that the classes are stringently divided,--and that there is sense or strength of hand enough with the rich to secure obedience; then, if nine-tenths of a nation are poor, the remaining tenth have the service of nine persons each;[116] but, if eight-tenths are poor, only of four each; if seven-tenths are poor, of two and a third each; but, practically if the rich strive always to obtain more power over the poor, instead of to raise them,--and if, on the other hand, the poor become continually more vicious and numerous, through neglect and oppression--though the range of the power of the rich increases, its tenure becomes less secure; until, at last, the measure of iniquity being full, revolution, civil war, or the subjection of the state to a healthier or stronger one, closes the moral corruption and industrial disease.

[116] I say nothing yet of the quality of the servants, which,
nevertheless, is the gist of the business. Will you have
Paul Veronese to paint your ceiling, or the plumber from
over the way? Both will work for the same money; Paul, if
anything, a little cheaper of the two, if you keep him in
good humour; only you have to discern him first, which will
need eyes.

It is rare, however, that things come to this extremity. Kind persons among the rich, and wise among the poor, modify the connexion of the classes: the efforts made to raise and relieve on the one side, and the success and honest toil on the other, bind and blend the orders of society into the confused tissue of half-felt obligation, sullenly-rendered obedience, and variously-directed, or mis-directed, toil, which form the warp of daily life. But this great law rules all the wild design of the weaving; that success (while society is guided by laws of competition) signifies always so much victory over your neighbour as to obtain the direction of his work, and to take the profits of it. This is the real source of all great riches. No man can become largely rich by his personal toil.[117] The work of his own hands, wisely directed, will indeed always maintain himself and his family, and make fitting provision for his age. But it is only by the discovery of some method of taxing the labour of others that he can become opulent. Every increase of his capital enables him to extend this taxation more widely; that is, to invest larger funds in the maintenance of his labourers--to direct, accordingly, vaster and yet vaster masses of labour; and to appropriate its profits. There is much confusion of idea on the subject of this appropriation. It is, of course, the interest of the employer to disguise it from the persons employed; and for his own comfort and complacency he often desires no less to disguise it from himself. And it is matter of much doubt with me, how far the foolish arguments used habitually on this subject are indeed the honest expressions of foolish convictions,--or rather (as I am sometimes forced to conclude from the irritation with which they are advanced) are resolutely dishonest, wilful sophisms, arranged so as to mask to the last moment the real state of economy, and future duties of men. By taking a simple example, and working it thoroughly out, the subject may be rescued from all but determined misconception.

[117] By his heart he may; but only when its produce, or the
sight or hearing of it, becomes a subject of dispute, so as
to enable the artist to tax the labour of multitudes highly,
in exchange for his own.

Let us imagine a society of peasants, living on a river-shore, exposed to destructive inundation at somewhat extended intervals; and that each peasant possesses of this good, but imperilled ground, more than he needs to cultivate for immediate subsistence. We will assume farther (and with too great probability of justice) that the greater part of them indolently keep in tillage just as much land as supplies them with daily food;--that they leave their children idle and untaught; and take no precautions against the rise of the stream. But one of them (we will say only one, for the sake of greater clearness) cultivates carefully all the ground of his estate; makes his children work hard and healthily; uses his spare time and theirs in building a rampart against the river; and at the end of some years has in his storehouses large reserves of food and clothing, and in his stables a well-tended breed of cattle.

The torrent rises at last--sweeps away the harvests and many of the cottages of the careless peasantry, and leaves them destitute. They naturally come for help to the provident one, whose fields are unwasted and whose granaries are full. He has the right to refuse it them; no one disputes his right. But he will probably not refuse it; it is not his interest to do so, even were he entirely selfish and cruel. The only question with him will be on what terms his aid is to be granted.

Clearly not on terms of mere charity. To maintain his neighbours in idleness would be his ruin and theirs. He will require work from them in exchange for their maintenance; and whether in kindness or cruelty, all the work they can give. Not now the three or four hours they were wont to spend on their own land, but the eight or ten hours they ought to have spent. But how will he apply this labour? The men are now his slaves--nothing less. On pain of starvation, he can force them to work in the manner and to the end he chooses. And it is by his wisdom in this choice that the worthiness of his mastership is proved, or its unworthiness. Evidently he must first set them to bank out the water in some temporary way, and to get their ground cleansed and resown; else, in any case, their continued maintenance will be impossible. That done, and while he has still to feed them, suppose he makes them raise a secure rampart for their own ground against all future flood, and rebuild their houses in safer places, with the best material they can find; being allowed time out of their working hours to fetch such material from a distance. And for the food and clothing advanced, he takes security in land that as much shall be returned at a convenient period.

At the end of a few years, we may conceive this security redeemed, and the debt paid. The prudent peasant has sustained no loss; but is no richer than he was, and has had all his trouble for nothing. But he has enriched his neighbours materially; bettered their houses, secured their land, and rendered them, in worldly matters, equal to himself. In all true and final sense, he has been throughout their lord and king.

We will next trace his probable line of conduct, presuming his object to be exclusively the increase of his own fortune. After roughly recovering and cleansing the ground, he allows the ruined peasantry only to build huts upon it, such as he thinks protective enough from the weather to keep them in working health. The rest of their time he occupies first in pulling down and rebuilding on a magnificent scale his own house, and in adding large dependencies to it. This done, he follows the example of the first great Hebrew financier, and in exchange for his continued supply of corn, buys as much of his neighbours! land, as he thinks he can superintend the management of; and makes the former owners securely embank and protect the ceded portion. By this arrangement he leaves to a certain number of the peasantry only as much ground as will just maintain them in their existing numbers: as the population increases, he takes the extra hands, who cannot be maintained on the narrow estates, for his own servants; employs some to cultivate the ground he has bought, giving them of its produce merely enough for subsistence; with the surplus, which, under his energetic and careful superintendence, will be large, he supports a train of servants for state, and a body of workmen, whom he educates in ornamental arts. He now can splendidly decorate his house, lay out its grounds magnificently, and richly supply his table, and that of his household and retinue. And thus, without any abuse of right, we should find established all the phenomena of poverty and riches, which (it is supposed necessarily) accompany modern civilization. In one part of the district, we should have unhealthy land, miserable dwellings and half-starved poor; in another, a well-ordered estate, well-fed servants, and refined conditions of highly-educated and luxurious life.

I have put the two cases in simplicity, and to some extremity. But though in more complex and qualified operation, all the relations of society are but the expansion of these two typical sequences of conduct and result. I do not say, observe, that the first procedure is entirely right; still less, that the second is wholly wrong. Servants and artists, and splendour of habitation and retinue, have all their use, propriety and office. I only wish the reader to understand clearly what they cost; that the condition of having them is the subjection to you of a certain number of imprudent or unfortunate persons (or, it may be, more fortunate than their master), over whose destinies you exercise a boundless control. "Riches" mean eternally and essentially this; and may heaven send at last a time when those words of our best-reputed economist shall be true, and we shall indeed "all know what it is to be rich;" that is to be slave-master over farthest earth, and over all ways and thoughts of men. Every operative you employ is your true servant: distant or near, subject to your immediate orders, or ministering to your widely-communicated caprice--for the pay he stipulates, or the price he tempts,--all are alike under this great dominion of the gold. The milliner who makes the dress is as much a servant (more so, in that she uses more intelligence in the service) as the maid who puts it on; the carpenter who smoothes the door, as the footman who opens it; the tradesmen who supply the table, as the labourers and sailors who supply the tradesmen. Why speak of these lower services? Painters and singers (whether of note or rhyme), jesters and story-tellers, moralists, historians, priests--so far as these, in any degree, paint, or sing, or tell their tale, or charm their charm, or "perform" their rite, for pay, in so far they are all slaves; abject utterly, if the service be for pay only; abject less and less in proportion to the degrees of love and wisdom which enter into their duty, or can enter into it, according as their function is to do the bidding and the work of a man;--or to amuse, tempt, and deceive a child.

There may be thus, and, to a certain extent, there always is, a government of the rich by the poor, as of the poor by the rich; but the latter is the prevailing and necessary one, and it consists, observe, of two distinct functions,--the collection of the profits of labour from those who would have misused them, and the administration of those profits for the service either of the same person in future, or of others; or, as is more frequently the case in modern times, for the service of the collector himself.

The examination of these various modes of collection and use of riches will form the third branch of our future inquiries; but the key to the whole subject lies in the clear understanding of the difference between selfish and unselfish expenditure. It is not easy, by any course of reasoning, to enforce this on the generally unwilling hearer; yet the definition of unselfish expenditure is brief and simple. It is expenditure which if you are a capitalist, does not pay you, but pays somebody else; and if you are a consumer, does not please you, but pleases somebody else. Take one special instance, in further illustration of the general type given above. I did not invent that type, but spoke of a real river, and of real peasantry, the languid and sickly race which inhabits, or haunts--for they are often more like spectres than living men--the thorny desolation on the banks of the Arve. Some years ago, a society formed at Geneva offered to embank the river, for the ground which would have been recovered by the operation; but the offer was refused by the (then Sardinian) government. The capitalists saw that this expenditure would have "paid," if the ground saved from the river was to be theirs. But if when the offer that had this aspect of profit was refused, they had nevertheless persisted in the plan and, merely taking security for the return of their outlay, lent the funds for the work, and thus saved a whole race of human souls from perishing in a pestiferous fen (as, I presume, some among them would, at personal risk, have dragged any one drowning creature out of the current of the stream, and not expected payment therefor), such expenditure would have precisely corresponded to the use of his power made, in the first instance, by our supposed richest peasant--it would have been the king's, of grace, instead of the usurer's, for gain.

"Impossible, absurd, Utopian!" exclaim nine-tenths of the few readers whom these words may find. No, good reader, this is not Utopian: but I will tell you what would have seemed, if we had not seen it, Utopian on the side of evil instead of good: that ever men should have come to value their money so much more than their lives, that if you call upon them to become soldiers, and take chance of bullet, for their pride's sake, they will do it gaily, without thinking twice; but if you ask them for their country's sake to spend a hundred pounds without security of getting back a hundred-and-five[118] they will laugh in your face.

[118] I have not hitherto touched on the subject of interest of
money; it is too complex; and must be reserved for its
proper place in the body of the work. (I should be glad if a
writer, who sent me some valuable notes on this subject, and
asked me to return a letter which I still keep at his
service, would send me his address.) The definition of
interest (apart from compensation for risk) is, "the
exponent of the comfort of accomplished labour, separated
from its power;" the power being what is lent: and the
French economists who have maintained the entire illegality
of interest are wrong; yet by no means so curiously or
wildly wrong as the English and French ones opposed to them,
whose opinions have been collected by Dr. Whewell at page 41
of his Lectures; it never seeming to occur to the mind of
the compiler any more than to the writers whom he quotes,
that it is quite possible, and even (according to Jewish
proverb) prudent, for men to hoard, as ants and mice do, for
use, not usury; and lay by something for winter nights, in
the expectation of rather sharing than lending the
scrapings. My Savoyard squirrels would pass a pleasant time
of it under the snow-laden pine-branches, if they always
declined to economize because no one would pay them interest
on nuts.

Not but that also this game of life-giving-and-taking is, in the end, somewhat more costly than other forms of play might be. Rifle practice is, indeed, a not unhealthy pastime, and a feather on the top of the head is a pleasing appendage; but while learning the stops and fingering of the sweet instrument, does no one ever calculate the cost of an overture? What melody does Tityrus meditate on his tenderly spiral pipe? The leaden seed of it, broad cast, true conical "Dents de Lion" seed--needing leas allowance for the wind than is usual with that kind of herb--what crop are you likely to have of it? Suppose, instead of this volunteer marching and countermarching, you were to do a little volunteer ploughing and counterploughing? It is more difficult to do it straight: the dust of the earth, so disturbed, is more grateful than for merely rhythmic footsteps. Golden cups, also, given for good ploughing would be more suitable in colour (ruby glass, for the wine which "giveth his colour" on the ground, as well as in the cup, might be fitter for the rifle prize in the ladies' hands); or, conceive a little volunteer exercise with the spade, other than such as is needed for moat and breastwork, or even for the burial of the fruit of the leaden avena-seed, subject to the shrill Lemures' criticism--

"Wer hat das Haus so schlecht gebaut?"

If you were to embank Lincolnshire now,--more stoutly against the sea? or strip the peat of Solway, or plant Plinlimmon moors with larch--then, in due hour of year, some amateur reaping and threshing?

"Nay, we reap and thresh by steam in these advanced days."

I know it, my wise and economical friends. The stout arms God gave you to win your bread by, you would fain shoot your neighbours--and God's sweet singers--with;[119] then you invoke the friends to your farm-service, and--

"When young and old come forth to play
On a sulphurous holiday,
Tell how the darling goblin sweat
(His feast of cinders duly set),
And belching night, where breathed the morn.
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-labourers could not end."

But we will press the example closer. On a green knoll above that plain of the Arve, between Cluses and Bonneville, there was, in the year 1860, a cottage, inhabited by a well-doing family--man and wife, three children, and the grandmother. I call it a cottage but, in truth, it was a large chimney on the ground, wide at the bottom (so that the family might live round the fire), with one broken window in it, and an unclosing door. The family, I say, was "well-doing," at least, it was hopeful and cheerful; the wife healthy, the children, for Savoyards, pretty and active, but the husband threatened with decline, from exposure under the cliffs of the Mont Vergi by day, and to draughts between every plank of his chimney in the frosty nights. "Why could he not plaster the chinks?" asks the practical reader. For the same reason that your child cannot wash its face and hands till you have washed them many a day for it, and will not wash them when it can, till you force it.

[119] Compare Chaucer's feeling respecting birds (from Canace's
falcon, to the nightingale, singing "Domine labia "--to the
Lord of Love) with the usual modern British sentiments on
this subject. Or even Cowley's:--

"What prince's choir of music can excel
That which within this shade does dwell.
To which we nothing pay, or give,
They, like all other poets, live
Without reward, or thanks for their obliging pains!
'Tis well if they became not prey."

Yes; it is better than well; particularly since the seed
sown by the wayside has been protected by the peculiar
appropriation of part of the church rates in our country
parishes. See the remonstrance from a "Country Parson," in
the _Times_ of June 4th (or 5th; the letter is dated June
3rd, 1862):--"I have heard at a vestry meeting a good deal
of higgling over a few shillings' outlay in cleaning the
church; but I have never heard any dissatisfaction expressed
on account of the part of the rate which is invested in
fifty or 100 dozens of birds' heads."

I passed this cottage often in my walks, had its window and door mended, sometimes mended also a little the meal of sour bread and broth, and generally got kind greeting and smile from the face of young or old; which greeting, this year, narrowed itself into the half-recognizing stare of the elder child and the old woman's tears; for the father and mother were both dead,--one of sickness, the other of sorrow. It happened that I passed not alone, but with a companion, a practised English joiner, who, while these people were dying of cold, had been employed from six in the morning to six of the evening for two months, in fitting the panels without nails, of a single door in a large house in London. Three days of his work taken, at the right time, from the oak panels, and applied to the larch timbers, would have saved these Savoyards' lives. He would have been maintained equally (I suppose him equally paid for his work by the owner of the greater house, only the work not consumed selfishly on his own walls;) and the two peasants, and eventually, probably their children, saved.