The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

new markets should be established

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