p. 52My Dear Mr. Blatchford,
I am sorry you should say such strong things against the Government of England as I find in your tenth letter. I like to agree with you when I can, but I cannot agree with you when you suggest, in a string of questions, that this is a country where the idle men are rich and the industrious men poor, and men are rewarded not for goodness or usefulness but for successful selfishness. That some rich men are idle is true, of course; but there are thousands upon thousands more of poor men who are idle. So, it is true that many industrious men are poor, but it is also true that none are more industrious than many of our rich men. As for men being “rewarded for successful selfishness” and “not for goodness and usefulness,” I cannot imagine you soberly persisting in this with all the facts brought to your memory.
God knows there is nothing to glory of in the present constitution of English society; but let us be just and candid. “Honour to whom honour is due.” There is nothing more universally execrated among Englishmen than selfishness If ever they get a real chance, it is not reward they bestow on this article, unless you consider the duckpond and a howl “the due reward of their deeds.” Reward, in the sense of honour and remuneration, are sometimes dealt out, either by the spontaneous action of grateful public opinion, or by the authorities acting officially—Magistrates, Parliament, the Government, or the Queen; but the rewards in these cases are never for “successful selfishness,” but invariably for something “good and useful.” I am surprised it p. 53 should be necessary to remind you of this. What you deny is actually what takes place: “useful and good men are honoured and rewarded.” “Workers” on the average get much more than the idlers.
I am not going to maintain that England is a well-governed country when judged by an ideal standard. I am not going to contradict you when you allege that “English society is not a just society;” but I do maintain that your statements require serious qualification. The injustices do not lie where you place them. You lay them at the door of the idle classes, as you call them. You say these classes do nothing to produce the wealth they consume; this is not true. I have shown in my last letter that though they do not lift the bricks with their own hands, they contribute a number of conditions that are essential to create the opportunity for the labourer doing so. They contribute brain power, social culture, and economic stability; all of which are essential to the production and utilization of wealth. Therefore, they contribute to that production.
Then you complain that industry and self-sacrifice are often poor, while idleness and selfishness are often rich. The complaint is without point, because the converse is true also; idleness and selfishness are often poor, and industry and self-sacrifice are often rich. The idle and the selfish are far more numerous among the lower classes than among the rich. There is more industry and self-sacrifice to be found (proportionately to their numbers) in the ranks of English wealth and culture than among those who live by labour. Some of the noblest specimens of manhood and womanhood are to be found in those ranks. I do not say that all of those who belong to the upper classes or the bulk of them are answerable to this description, but many such are to be found.
The fact is, many of your questions and statements are thrown away by misapplication. You fling them indiscriminately at one class when they apply to others as well. There are all sorts and conditions of men in all classes, and it is a mistake, of which I should not have expected a cute man like you to be guilty, to generalise from exceptional cases.
You ask by what means the poor are deprived of the wealth which they create. Here again are “whopping” fallacies, right on the top of one another. The poor do not create the wealth by p. 54 themselves, and they are not deprived of the share that belongs to them. The poor contribute to the creation of wealth, but only as an ingredient in a situation having many elements, all of which are essential. Rich men supply the means of production and the market for consumption, without which there would be no creation of wealth. The poor could not work without the means of working, and the market for the disposal of what they make. The poor get their share of what is produced, and a large share; they get the wages, which is the largest share; the rest goes to others who help in the process. It is pretty much a case of share and share alike; no doubt the shares are sometimes unequally distributed; such is life and we cannot alter it.
Then you say the rich get their riches by prerogative. This is a needlessly objectionable way of putting it. You should say, by law; alter the law if you can, but while the law is law, give it its right name. Prerogative is only an accessory in the situation, Every man has it in some shape or form. It goes with a man’s rights in all matters. It is your prerogative to go out and come in as you please, and do as you like, in a free country. It is so because the law recognises your right to do so. So it is the prerogative of a nobleman to possess and let the land which he holds, because the law recognises his right. Call things by their right names. Covering them up by vague and obscure terms is what in some quarters is called “blarney.” I should not like to accuse you of blarney, but sometimes your statements have a wonderful resemblance to that article.
Then you go on to say that Parliament upholds prerogative. Here again is a peep of the same article; you should say, “upholds law.” Is it a just ground of complaint that Parliament should uphold law? you may not like the particular law it upholds, but that is another question. Law is law, but do not quarrel with it or nickname it. Law is a fact to be taken into account as much as any fact in nature. Parliament is an institution resting on the consent of the fellow-citizens who have appointed them. If they are a Parliament of landlords, they are what the country has made them, and perhaps the country has not made much of a mistake in this. Landlords are much more likely to make good members of Parliament than men without property, because their wealth insures the culture needful to qualify for legislation and gives them a sense of p. 55 responsibility for the safety of the state which a man cannot possess who has nothing. If the Parliament of landlords are jealous of enacting laws that would undermine this system, it is their prerogative to protect what they may consider a good thing. It is one of the rights of a free country. I fancy Mr. Blatchford would do the same thing if he were in the same position. It is notorious that as soon as working men become proprietors, they become as jealous of the interests of property as any landlord, and sometimes more so.
You say you want a Parliament of working men. You will never get it. How could you expect such a thing? It is contrary to nature. Working men have not the mental qualifications necessary for enacting law. It is no insult to them to state simple facts which the intelligent among them recognise. Their own order shrink from appointing members of their own body, except in a few cases; in this they exercise a reasonable discernment. To qualify a man to have charge of the public interests, he must have a wide knowledge of those interests and the conditions affecting them. He must have breadth of culture and a width of intellectual view; a refinement of taste, a generosity of sentiment, and a maturity of experience that are not possible in the limited channel of manual occupation.
Your suppositions about the corn and the spades and potatoes and the shoemakers, &c., are very pretty; and the principle of exchange which you advocate might be worked out in a quiet country side with a few people, though I fancy, even there, there would be hitches. But when you come to the mass of commerce and the complex conditions of a highly organised life, these simple principles are no longer capable of application. Human nature is not equal to it. Its poor faculties get lost in the maze of the subtleties, and the complicacies that arise, even if it could be trusted to be disinterested. The calculation of values becomes abstruse and difficult with the best intention to be honest; and here is where the main bias would assert its sway; self-interest would give the twist. If there was no competition, you say we should hear nothing about falling markets. Perhaps not, but maybe we should hear of rising ones. In the absence of the present powerful stimulus to production, there might often arise scarcity. The scarcity would send prices up. How far up? You p. 56 could not fix a limit. There could be nothing to check the movement. It would depend upon the men at the head. The fixing of the prices would be in the hands of officials, and they would be guided by whatever considerations were most powerful for the moment. Here is where the weakness of your plan would come in.
The evils you bemoan are great. Your suggested remedies are ingenious. Your opinion of human nature is chivalrous. Your desire to succour its distress is admirable. Your enthusiasm on behalf of your schemes is beautiful. But the problem is deeper and more difficult than you imagine. It cannot be solved without an amount of insight, iron resolution, and incorruptible goodness at present unattainable in human affairs. It must appear to all thoughtful minds very certain that any attempt to solve it on Socialist lines must end in disaster from which nothing human could rescue us. I utter these sentiments at the risk of being regarded as
Your “silly” friend,
JOHN SMITH.