Part 3 (1/2)
England is one of the richest countries in the world. Our merchants are enterprising, our manufacturers are industrious, our labourers are hard-working. There is an acc.u.mulation of wealth in the country to which past times can offer no parallel. The Bank is gorged with gold. There never was more food in the empire; there never was more money. There is no end to our manufacturing productions, for the steam-engine never tires. And yet notwithstanding all this wealth, there is an enormous ma.s.s of poverty. Close alongside the Wealth of Nations, there gloomily stalks the Misery of Nations,--luxurious ease resting upon a dark background of wretchedness.
Parliamentary reports have again and again revealed to us the miseries endured by certain portions of our working population. They have described the people employed in factories, workshops, mines, and brickfields, as well as in the pursuits of country life. We have tried to grapple with the evils of their condition by legislation, but it seems to mock us. Those who sink into poverty are fed, but they remain paupers. Those who feed them, feel no compa.s.sion; and those who are fed, return no grat.i.tude. There is no bond of sympathy between the givers and the receivers. Thus the Haves and the Have-nots, the opulent and the indigent, stand at the two extremes of the social scale, and a wide gulf is fixed between them.
Among rude and savage people, the condition of poverty is uniform.
Provided the bare appet.i.tes are satisfied, suffering is scarcely felt.
Where slavery exists, indigence is little known; for it is the master's interest to keep the slave in a condition fit for labour, and the employer generally takes care to supply the animal wants of the employed. It is only when society becomes civilized and free, and man enters into compet.i.tion with his fellows, that he becomes exposed to indigence, and experiences social misery. Where civilization, as in this country, has reached its highest point, and where large acc.u.mulations of wealth have been made, the misery of the indigent cla.s.ses is only rendered more acute by the comfort and luxury with which it is placed in immediate contrast.
Much of the existing misery is caused by selfishness--by the greed to acc.u.mulate wealth on the one hand, and by improvidence on the other.
Acc.u.mulation of money has become the great desire and pa.s.sion of the age. The wealth of nations, and not the happiness of nations, is the princ.i.p.al aim. We study political economy, and let social economy s.h.i.+ft for itself. Regard for ”Number One” is the prevailing maxim.
High profits are regarded as the _summum bonum_,--no matter how obtained, or at what sacrifice. Money is our G.o.d: ”Devil take the hindmost” our motto. The spirits of darkness rule supreme--
”Mammon has led them on, Mammon, the least erect of all the spirits That fell from Heaven.”
With respect to the poorer cla.s.ses,--what has become of them in the midst of our so-called civilization? An immense proportion of them remain entirely uncivilized. Though living in a Christian country, Christianity has never reached them. They are as uncivilized and unchristianized as the Trin.o.bantes were at the landing of Julius Caesar, about nineteen hundred years ago. Yet these uncivilized people live in our midst. St. James's and St. Giles's lie close together. In the Parks of London, you may see how gold is wors.h.i.+pped; in the East End of London, you may see to what depths human misery may fall.
They work, eat, drink, and sleep: that const.i.tutes their life. They think nothing of providing for to-morrow, or for next week, or for next year. They abandon themselves to their sensual appet.i.tes; and make no provision whatever for the future. The thought of adversity, or of coming sorrow, or of the helplessness that comes with years and sickness, never crosses their minds. In these respects, they resemble the savage tribes, who know no better, and do no worse. Like the North American Indians, they debase themselves by the vices which accompany civilization, but make no use whatever of its benefits and advantages.
Captain Parry found the Esquimaux near the North Pole as uncivilized as the miserable creatures who inhabit the dens of our great cities. They were, of course, improvident; for, like savages generally, they never save. They were always either feasting or famished.
When they found a quant.i.ty of whale's blubber, they would eat as much of it as they could, and hide the rest. Yet their improvidence gave them no concern. Even when they had been without food or fuel for days together, they would be as gay and good-humoured as usual. They never thought of how they should be provided for to-morrow. Saving for the future forms no part of the savage economy.
Amongst civilized peoples, cold is said to be the parent of frugality.
Thus the northern nations of Europe owe a portion of their prosperity to the rigour of their climate. Cold makes them save during summer, to provide food, coal, and clothing during winter. It encourages house-building and housekeeping. Hence Germany is more industrious than Sicily; Holland and Belgium than Andalusia; North America and Canada than Mexico.
When the late Edward Denison, M.P. for Newark, with unexampled self-denial, gave up a large portion of his time and labour to reclaim the comparatively uncivilized population of the East End of London, the first thing he did was to erect an iron church of two stories, the lower part of which was used as a school and lecture room, and also as a club where men and boys might read, play games, and do anything else that might keep them out of the drinking-houses. ”What is so bad in this quarter,” said Mr. Denison, ”is the habitual condition of this ma.s.s of humanity--its uniform mean level, the absence of anything more civilizing than a grinding organ to raise the ideas beyond the daily bread and beer, the utter want of education, the complete indifference to religion, with the fruits of all this--improvidence, dirt, and their secondaries, crime and disease.... There is no one to give a push to struggling energy, to guide aspiring intelligence, or to break the fall of unavoidable misfortune.... The Mission Clergyman,” he goes on to say, ”is a sensible, energetic man, in whose hands the work of _civilizing the people_ is making as much progress as can be expected. But most of his energy is taken up in serving tables, nor can any great advance be made while every nerve has to be strained to keep the people from absolute starvation. And this is what happens every winter.... What a monstrous thing it is that in the richest country in the world, large ma.s.ses of the population should be condemned annually, by a natural operation of nature, to starvation and death. It is all very well to say, how can it be helped? Why, it was not so in our grandfathers' time.
Behind us they were in many ways, but they were not met every winter with the spectacle of starving thousands. The fact is, we have accepted the marvellous prosperity which has in the last twenty years been granted us, without reflecting on the conditions attached to it, and without nerving ourselves to the exertion and the sacrifices which their fulfilment demands.”
And yet Mr. Denison clearly saw that if the people were sufficiently educated, and taught to practise the virtue of Thrift, much of this misery might be prevented. ”The people,” he elsewhere says, ”_create_ their dest.i.tution and their disease. Probably there are hardly any of the most needy who, if they had been only moderately frugal and provident, could not have placed themselves in a position to tide over the occasional months of want of work, or of sickness, which there always must be.... I do not underrate the difficulty of laying by out of weekly earnings, but I say it _can_ be done. A dock-labourer, while a young, strong, unmarried man, could lay by half his weekly wages, and such men are almost sure of constant employment.”
After showing how married men might also save, Mr. Denison goes on to say, ”Saving is within the reach of nearly every man, even if quite at the bottom of the tree; but if it were of anything like _common_ occurrence, the dest.i.tution and disease of this city would be kept within quite manageable limits. And this will take place. I may not live to see it, but it will be within two generations. For, unfortunately, this amount of change may be effected without the least improvement in the spiritual condition of the people. Good laws, energetically enforced, with compulsory education, supplemented by gratuitous individual exertion (which will then have a much reduced field and much fairer prospects), will certainly succeed in giving the ma.s.s of the people so much light as will generally guide them into so much industry and morality as is clearly conducive to their bodily ease and advancement in life.”
The difference in thriftiness between the English workpeople and the inhabitants of Guernsey is thus referred to by Mr. Denison: ”The difference between poverty and pauperism is brought home to us very strongly by what I see here. In England, we have people faring sumptuously while they are getting good wages, and coming on the parish paupers the moment those wages are suspended. Here, people are never dependent upon any support but their own; but they live, of their own free will, in a style of frugality which a landlord would be hooted at for suggesting to his cottagers. We pity Hodge, reduced to bacon and greens, and to meat only once a week. The princ.i.p.al meal of a Guernsey farmer consists of _soupe a la graisse_, which is, being interpreted, cabbage and peas stewed with a little dripping. This is the daily dinner of men who _own_ perhaps three or four cows, a pig or two, and poultry.
But the produce and the flesh of these creatures they sell in the market, investing their gains in extension of land, or stock, or in ”quarters,” that is, rent-charges on land, certificates of which are readily bought and sold in the market.”[1]
[Footnote 1: _Letters and other writings of the late Edward Denison, M.P._, pp. 141, 142.]
Mr. Dension died before he could accomplish much. He was only able to make a beginning. The misery, arising from improvidence, which he so deeply deplored, still exists, and is even more widely spread. It is not merely the artizan who spends all that he earns, but the cla.s.ses above him, who cannot plead the same excuse of ignorance. Many of what are called the ”upper” cla.s.ses are no more excusable than the ”lower.” They waste their means on keeping up appearances, and in feeding folly, dissipation, and vice.
No one can reproach the English workman with want of industry. He works harder and more skilfully than the workman of any other country; and he might be more comfortable and independent in his circ.u.mstances, were he as prudent as he is laborious. But improvidence is unhappily the defect of the cla.s.s. Even the best-paid English workmen, though earning more money than the average of professional men, still for the most part belong to the poorer cla.s.ses because of their thoughtlessness. In prosperous times they are not accustomed to make provision for adverse times; and when a period of social pressure occurs, they are rarely found more than a few weeks ahead of positive want.
Hence, the skilled workman, unless trained in good habits, may exhibit no higher a life than that of the mere animal; and the earning of increased wages will only furnish him with increased means for indulging in the gratification of his grosser appet.i.tes. Mr. Chadwick says, that during the Cotton Famine, ”families trooped into the relief rooms in the most abject condition, whose previous aggregate wages exceeded the income of many curates,--as had the wages of many of the individual workmen.”[1] In a time of prosperity, working-people feast, and in a time of adversity they ”clem.” Their earnings, to use their own phrase, ”come in at the spigot and go out at the bunghole.” When prosperity comes to an end, and they are paid off, they rely upon chance and providence--the providence of the Improvident!
[Footnote 1: _Address on Economy and Trade._ By EDWIN CHADWICK, C.B., p.
22.]
Though trade has invariably its cycles of good and bad years, like the lean and fat kine in Pharaoh's dream--its bursts of prosperity, followed by glut, panic, and distress--the thoughtless and spendthrift take no heed of experience, and make no better provision for the future.