The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗
- Author: Winwood Reade
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for the products of European industry, our own among the rest,
that Russia should adjoin England in Asia as she adjoins
Germany in Europe—what a lamentable occurrence, what an
ominous event! In Central Africa it often happens that between
two barbarous. and distrustful nations there is a wide neutral
ground, inhabited by wild beasts, which prey upon the flocks
and herds on either side. Such is the policy which maintains
the existence of barbarous kingdoms between two civilised
frontiers.
The great Turkish and Chinese Empires, the lands of
Morocco, Abyssinia, and Tibet, will be eventually filled with
free, industrious, and educated populations. But those people
will never begin to advance until their property is rendered
secure, until they enjoy the rights of man; and these they will
never obtain except by means of European conquest. In British
India the peasant reaps the rice which he has sown; and the
merchant has no need to hide his gold beneath the ground. The
young men of the new generation are looking forward to the time
when the civil appointments of their country will he held by
them. The Indian Mutiny was a mutiny only, and not a rebellion;
the industrial and mercantile classes were on the English
side. There is a sickly school of politicians who declare that
all countries belong to their inhabitants, and that to take
them is a crime. If any country in Asia did belong to its
inhabitants, there might be some force in this objection. But
Asia is possessed by a few kings and by their soldiers; these
rulers are usually foreigners; the masses of the people are
invariably slaves. The conquest of Asia by European Powers is
therefore in reality emancipation, and is the first step
towards the establishment of Oriental nationality. It is
needless to say that Europe will never engage in crusades to
liberate servile populations; but the pride and ignorance of
military despots will provoke foreign wars, which will prove
fatal to their rule. Thus war will, for long years yet to come,
be required to prepare the way for freedom and progress in the
East; and in Europe itself, it is not probable that war will
ever absolutely cease until science discovers some destroying
force, so simple in its administration, so horrible in its
effects, that all art, all gallantry, will be at an end, and
battles will be massacres which the feelings of mankind will be
unable to endure.
A second expedient of Nature is religion. Men believe in the
existence of beings who can punish and reward them in this life
or in the next, who are the true rulers of the world, and who
have deputed certain men, called priests, to collect tribute
and to pass laws on their behalf. By means of these erroneous
ideas, a system of government is formed to which kings
themselves are subjected; the moral nature of man is improved,
the sciences and arts are developed, distinct and hostile races
are united. But error, like war, is only provisional. In
Europe, religion no longer exists as a political power, but it
will probably yet render service to civilisation in assisting
to Europeanise the barbarous nations whom events will in time
bring under our control.
A third expedient of Nature is inequality of conditions.
Sloth is the natural state of man; prolonged and monotonous
labour is hard for him to bear. The savage can follow a trail
through the forest, or can lie in ambush for days at a time;
this pertinacity and patience are native to his mind,; they
belong to the animals from whom he is descended: but the
cultivation of the soil is a new kind of labour, and it is only
followed from compulsion. It is probable that when domestic
slavery was invented, a great service was rendered to mankind,
and it has already been shown that when prisoners of war were
tamed and broken in, women were set free, and became beautiful,
long-haired, low-voiced, sweet-eyed creatures, delicate in
form, modest in demeanour, and refined in soul. It was also by
means of slavery that a system of superfluous labour was
established; for women, when slaves, are made only to labour
for the essentials of life. It was by means of slavery that
leisure was created, that the priests were enabled to make
experiments, and to cultivate the arts, that the great public
buildings of the ancient lands were raised. It was slavery
which arrested the progress of Greece; but it was also slavery
which enabled all the free men of a Greek town to be sculptors,
poets, and philosophers. Slavery is now happily extinct, and
can never be revived under the sanction of civilised authority.
But a European Government, ought perhaps to introduce
compulsory labour among the barbarous races that acknowledge
its sovereignty and occupy its land. Children are ruled and
schooled by force, and it is not an empty metaphor to say that
savages are children. If they were made to work, not for the
benefit of others, but for their own; if the rewards of their
labour were bestowed, not on their masters, but on themselves,
the habit of work would become with them a second nature, as it
is with us, and they would learn to require luxuries which
industry only could obtain. A man is not a slave in being
compelled to work against his will, but in being compelled to
work without hope and without reward. Enforced labour is
undoubtedly a hardship, but it is one which at present belongs
to the lot of man, and is indispensable to progress.
Mankind grows because men desire to better themselves in life, and
this desire proceeds from the inequality of conditions. A time
will undoubtedly arrive when all men and women will be equal,
and when the love of money, which is now the root of all
industry, and which therefore is now the root of all good, will
cease to animate the human mind. But changes so prodigious can
only be effected in prodigious periods of time. Human nature
cannot be transformed by a coup d’etat, as the Comtists and
Communists imagine. It is a complete delusion to suppose that
wealth can be equalised and happiness impartially distributed
by any process of law, Act of Parliament, or revolutionary
measure. It is easy to compose a pathetic scene in a novel, or
a loud article in a magazine by contrasting Dives lunching on
turtle at Birch’s with Lazarus feeding on garbage in a cellar.
But the poor man loses nothing , because another man is rich.
The Communist might as well denounce one man for enjoying
excellent health, while another man is a victim to consumption.
Wealth, like health, is in the air; if a man makes a fortune he
draws money from Nature and gives it to the general stock.
Every millionaire enriches the community. It is undoubtedly the
duty of the government to mitigate so far as lies within its
power, the miseries which result from overpopulation. But as
long as men continue unequal in patience, industry, talent, and
sobriety, so long there will be rich men and poor men — men
who roll in their carriages, and men who die in the streets. If
all the property of this country were divided, things would
soon return to their actual condition, unless some scheme could
also be devised for changing human nature; and as for the
system of the Commune, which makes it impossible for a man to
rise or to fall, it is merely the old caste system revived; if
it could be put into force, all industry would be disheartened,
emulation would cease, mankind would go to sleep.
It is not, however, strange that superficial writers should
suppose that the evils of social life can be altered by changes in
government and law. In the lands of the East, in the Spain and
Portugal of the sixteenth century, in the France of the
eighteenth century, in the American Colonies, and in England
itself, whole classes were at one time plunged by misgovernment
into suffering of body and apathy of mind. But a government can
confer few benefits upon a people except by destroying its own
laws. The great reforms which followed the publication of “The
Wealth of Nations” may all be summed up in the word Repeal.
Commerce was regulated in former times by a number of paternal
laws, which have since been happily withdrawn. The government
still pays with our money a number of gentlemen to give us
information respecting a future state, and still requires that
in certain business transactions a document shall be drawn up
with mysterious rites in a mediaeval jargon; but, placing aside
hereditary evils which, on account of vested interests, it is
impossible at once to remove, it may fairly be asserted that
the government of this country is as nearly perfect as any
government can be. Power rests upon public opinion, and is so
beautifully poised that it can be overthrown and replaced
without the business of the state being interrupted for a day.
If the Executive is condemned by the nation, the press acts
with irresistible force upon the Commons; a vote of censure is
passed and the rulers of a great empire abdicate their thrones.
The House of Lords is also an admirable Upper Chamber; for if
it were filled with ambitious men elected by the people it
would enter into conflict with the Commons. And as for the
Royal Image it costs little and is useful as an emblem. The
government of England possesses at the same time the freedom
which is only found in a republic, and the loyalty which is
only felt towards a monarch.
Some writers believe that this monarchy is injurious to the public and
argue as follows: There are no paupers in America, and America is a
republic. There are many paupers in England, and England is a monarchy.
Therefore England should imitate America. It may astonish these writers
to learn that America is in reality more of a monarchy than
England. Buckingham Palace is a private dwelling; but the White
House, though it has none of the pomp, has all the power of a
Court. The king of America has more to give away than any king
of Great Britain since the time of Charles the Second. He has
the power to discharge of his own good pleasure and mere motion
every ambassador, every consul, every head of department, every
government employé, down to the clerk on two hundred dollars a
year, and to fill their places with his own friends. In America
the opinion of the public can with difficulty act upon the
government. The press has no dignity, and very little power.
Practices occur in the House of Representatives which have been
unknown in England since the days of Walpole. If the prosperity
of a country depended on its government, America would be less
prosperous than England. But in point of fact America is the
happiest country in the world. There is not a man in the vast
land which lies between the oceans who, however humble his
occupation may be, does not hope to make a fortune before he
dies. The whole nation is possessed with the spirit which may
be observed in Fleet Street and Cheapside; the boys sharp-eyed
and curious, the men hastening eagerly along, even the women
walking as if they had an object in view. There are in America
no dull-eyed heavy-footed labourers, who slouch to and fro from
their cottage to their work, from their work to the beer-house,
without a higher hope in life than a sixpence from the squire
when they open a gate. There are no girls of the milliner class
who prefer being the mistresses of gentlemen to marrying men of
their own station with a Cockney accent and red hands. The
upper classes
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