p. 5My Dear Mr. Blatchford,
I have seen all the letters that you have addressed to me through your widely-circulated book, Merrie England. I am going to try to answer them. It may be rather difficult for me to do so, seeing you are such a very clever writer, and I only plain John Smith. But it is important someone should answer you, for your arguments are receiving a great deal of attention, and if they are wrong, as I think they are, it is a serious thing for England. Perhaps it is better that a plain man should answer you than none, or even than some of the learned sort; you might think the upper folks prejudiced, whereas I am one of the common multitude whom you think you are going to benefit by Socialism.
I must say your letters are capitally written. They are real good reading—bright, brisk, racy, entertaining. But are they sound and safe? I cannot think so, and I will try and tell you why. But first let me say you are misinformed if you think that I look upon Socialism as a “vile and senseless thing,” and upon Socialists as “wicked and foolish men.” I do not consider either of them vile or wicked; I believe they are dangerous, but not because they are bad. I believe they originate in the pity awakened by human misery, and in the conviction that the misery might be ended by arrangement. Nevertheless, I believe that Socialism is a terrible mistake, and that England will be ruined if ever the day comes when it is acted on.
You call your book Merrie England. At first I thought you meant a sarcasm upon her present sad state; but I see you mean p. 6 England as she would be under Socialism. I call my answer by a very different name, for reasons which will appear.
Many of your ideas are good, some of them splendid, but not more so than those that led France, at the end of the last century, to an abyss in which not the monarchy or the aristocracy alone, but the democratic leaders themselves, were swallowed up in irretrievable ruin. Too late to save their heads, they discovered that they had let loose a whirlwind.
You lay great stress upon facts throughout your letters, and are incessant in your demand that I should attend to them. This is good; but facts have to be rightly put together, and then you must have all the facts. I do not think you put the facts rightly together, and you leave out some, I am sure.
You surprise me when you tell me that I am being defrauded by those better off than I am myself. I have to scratch the hard head you give me credit for to think what you can mean. I have always understood that to defraud is to criminally wrong another—to deprive him of what is rightfully his. Who does this to me? Do you? You have more money than I have; if I were to come to your house and claim some of it on the ground that you were defrauding me by having more than I have, would you have patience with me? I think not. I think you would say it was somebody else that was defrauding me.
Who? Is it my landlord, who takes rent for my house? Do you say he has no right to take rent? Do you mean that you would not take rent if you had a house that you did not want yourself? Or do you mean that you would not let that house, but hand it over without rent to the first comer?
I cannot understand you here. You would have to tell me what gives a man a right to have anything—to own money—to possess a printing press—to receive a salary—to accept a profit on any kind of labour. If you say a man can have no right to do any of these things, why, then, you tempt me to say that a fine theory has made a fool of a clever man. But I cannot think you would go so far as this. If you do not go so far as this, then you must have some idea that you have a right to what belongs to you at the present moment, and you must have some idea as to what that right consists in. I will consider your later definition on this point afterwards. Probably you would say you have a right to it because you earned it.
p. 7 But now suppose not you, but your father, had earned it and left it to you. How then? Should you say you had no right to it in that case? I fancy not. I fancy you would stick to it, and resent any suggestion that you should give it up for the common good. You would contend that your father’s right had descended to you. It would not matter whether the amount was large or small. If it was £100 you would stick to it. If it was £100,000 you would stick to it. If it was all money you would stick to it. If it was all land you would stick to it. And so, I think, would your “hard-headed, practical friend,” Mr. Smith, whom you sometimes rail at as “silly,” and sometimes compliment as “shrewd.”
And now suppose it was not your father, but your grandfather, or your great-grandfather, that had earned the money and transmitted it to you. Would it make any difference? Would you have any scruples about holding on to it? I should be surprised if you should. I don’t believe you would. You would maintain your right precisely as much as if you had earned it yourself, and sit in the comfortable enjoyment of it undisturbed by a single twinge of misgiving as to any obligation to divide with your less fortunate neighbours.
To put it once more, in another way, suppose it was not a case of earning, either on your part or the part of any of your ancestors. Suppose it was a case of gift; suppose you or your ancestors had received it as a present for some services rendered to some one who had it in his power to give—as in a time of civil war, when estates became ownerless through confiscation for treason, and were afterwards distributed among faithful lieges—should you make its inheritance in this way a reason for refusing to hold it in possession? Should you feel called upon to order a sale and distribute the proceeds?
You see I am putting it practically as a “hard-headed man.” I cannot believe you would behave differently from other folks in these circumstances. I cannot but believe you would remain in possession, and be prompt to repel any aggression on your rights, even on the part of a Socialist. I cannot but think that if I presented myself at your door, declaring that you were defrauding me by your individual exclusive possession of the paternal estate, that you would have me removed as an intolerable nuisance.
I see further on in your book (chap. vii.) you make some attempt to lay down a principle of “right.” When I come to that, I shall p. 8 have no difficulty in showing that your ideas are wrong in the abstract, and inconsistent in the application you give them. At present, we must look at the topics of your first chapter.
You say that under the present system, weak women and young children are enduring much misery and wrong. This is too true. But when you claim to have found a cure, I have my strong reservations, and my painful suspicions; for it often happens with new theories that the cure is worse than the disease, as the people of France found at the time I spoke of.
You say you know “means whereby I may obtain justice, and women and young children may secure peace.” Brave words. They excite sympathy—perhaps a touch of admiration; but they excite also a suspicion of rawness, of inexperience, of optimistic and enthusiastic, but mistaken, youth. Justice and peace are not so easily found in this world—as the terrible lessons of a thousand years bear witness.
You are yourself evidently a little distrustful of your claim. You anticipate that I shall be sceptical. You pray me not to reject the discovery “because it is new,” and remind me that a great many good and true things were new to start with. I must confess that newness is not a recommendation in my eyes in such matters. For it stands to reason that as human experience has had thousands of years to work on, a right level or average of wisdom has been arrived at in a rough sort of way at least. It certainly seems very unlikely to me that the right method of managing human affairs should only have been found out within the last few years by a few smart young fellows who are not long from school, and that for ages all the world’s sapience and philosophy should have failed to discern the bearing of a problem constantly pressing itself upon them from day to day.
It was different with railways and telegraphs—these were brand new things that nobody could know anything about until they were tried. But human nature is not a brand new thing. It is a very old affair, with thousands of years’ experience behind us as to how it works out under various conditions. Anything that goes dead against the lessons of a hoary experience of a familiar and universal problem is open to very grave suspicion, on the surface at all events; at least such is my feeling, Mr. Blatchford. Socialism runs contrary to the practice and the voice of all antiquity, during some periods of which it has actually been tried.
p. 9 I agree with you that we must consider the question upon the evidence. But then it must be all the evidence. You keep out some part. I don’t think you suspect this; but it is a fact. You look at the country and the people as they are at the present moment, and you lay it down as a certainty that with the one fertile and the other intelligent, it must be possible, by arrangements among themselves, to secure health, happiness, and plenty for all.
My dear sir, you seem to forget that the people and the country did not begin yesterday. There is a history to the affair. To leave out this history is not the way to judge the case correctly. How came the people to be here? How came the country to be as it is? Is there nothing anterior to take into account? Are we to set aside history? Are we to discard the Bible? Is there no God?
Mr. Blatchford, you speak towards the end of your book of “the glory that they call God:” is this an incoherency, or has it a meaning? If God and glory are interchangeable, has glory nothing to do with the land and the people? If so, has glory no voice in the problem of what they are here for, and why they are as they are—a state so far removed, as we all admit, from what they should be in?
Don’t take my bluff talk amiss, Mr. Blatchford. You will see that, in my opinion, you don’t look widely enough in discussing the problems you have undertaken to solve. I don’t know what you think of Shakespeare. He said, “There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will,” or something to that effect. You must have some sort of faith in this, in view of the place you give to “glory.” Allow it a little place then. Don’t talk like an atheist. If the country and the people are not all that we would like, let us not forget the antecedent Divinity that shapes our ends. The evil state of things cannot be the result of accident. There must be something behind or below the problem that ought not to be ignored. If any knowledge of this is attainable, it is one of the “facts” to be considered—for which it appears to me you leave no room.
I have filled my sheet, so I must leave the rest to my next letter—Your practical friend,
JOHN SMITH.