The Labor enquirer., 1884-11-15

lIeaSOnaDie, Dut which ii acteQ ON WOui(
Involve such change as would. defea
Commerce that is would put Association
instead of Competition, Social order in
stead of Individualist anarchy.
Yet / have looked at this claim by th,
light of history and my own conscience
and it seems to me 30 looked at to be .
most Just claim, and that resistance to i
means nothing short Of a denial Of tht
hope Of civilization.
This then is the claim: 1t isright anc
necessary that all men should have worf
to do which shall be worth doing, and
be of itself pleasant to do; and which
should be done under such conditions
as would make itneither over-wearisome
nor oyer-anxious.
Turn that claim about as / may, think
of it as long IS can, / cannot find thai
| it is an exorbitant claim yet again I say
| if Society would or could admit it, the
face of the world would be changed dis.
content and strife and dishonesty would
be ended. To feel that we were doing
work useful to others and pleasant to
ourselves, and that such work and Its
due reward could not fail u.s. What
serious harm could happen to US then
And the price to be paid for so making
the world happySis Revolution; Social
ism instead of Lsissez faire.
How can we of the middle classes
help to bring such state of things
about, state of things as nearly as pos
sible the reverse of the present state oi
things?
The reverse; no less than that For
first. the work must be worth doing.
Think what change that would make
in the world / tell you Ifeel dazed at
the thought of the immensity of work
which is undergone for the making Of
useless things,
I It would be an instructive days work
for anyone of us who is strong enough
to walk through two orthree of the prin,
cipal streets of London on a week day,
and take accurate note of everything in
the shop windows which is embarrassing
or superfuous to the daily life of Sc
rious man. Nay, the most of these
things no one, serious or unserious,
wants at all only foolish habit makes
even the.lightest- minded of US suppose
that he wants them, and to many people
even of who buy them, they are obvious
encumbrarfces to real work, thought and
pleasure. But beg you to think of the
enormous mass of men who are occupied
with this miserable trumpery, from the
engineers who have had to make the
machines for making them, down to the
-hapess clerks who sit day-long year
after year in the horrible dens wherein
the wholesale exchange of them is trans
acted, and the shopmen, who not daring
to call their souls their own, retail them
amidst numberless insults which they
must not resent, to the idle public which
doesn't want them, but buys them to be
bored by them and sick to death of
them.
I am talking of the merely useless
things; but there are other matters not
merely useless, but actively destructive
and poisonous, which demand a good
price in the market for instance adul-
terated food and drink. Vast is the
number of slaves whom competitive
Commerce employs IN turning out in
famies such as these. But quite apart
from them there is an enormous mass of
labor which is Just merely wasted ;
many thousands of men and women
making NOTHING with terrible and in
human toll which deadens the soul and
shortens mere animal life itself.
All these are the slaves of what is
called luxury, which in the modern
sense of the word comprises a mass OF
sham wealth, the invention of competi-
tive Commerce, end enslaves not only
the poor people who are compelled to
work at its production, but also the fool
ish and not over-happy people who buy
it to harass themselves with its encum-
brance.
Now if we are to have popular Art, or
indeed Art of any kind, we must at
once and for all be done with this lux
ury it is the supplanter, the changeling
of Art; so much 80 that by those who
know of nothing better 1t has even been
taken for Art. the devine solace OF
human labor, the romance of each days
hard practice of the difficult art of liv-
ing.
But say Art cannot live beside it,
nor self-respect in any class Of life. Eff
feminacy and brutality are its. compan'
ions on the right hand and the left
This, first of all, we of the well-to- dc
classes must get rid of if we are serious
in desiring the new birth of Art ; and
if not then corruption is digging ter
rble pit of perdition for society, from
which indeed the new birth may come,
but surely from amidst of terror, VIC
lence and misery.
Indeed if it we're but Kidding ourseI'
YES, the well-to do people, of this noun
tain of,rubbish, that would be some
thing worth doing: things which every
body knows are of no use; the very capi'
talists know well that there is no genu-