The Labor enquirer., 1884-11-15
How Art Has Been Debauched
Under tile Competitive
system.
Commerce Has Hecome Of Very
Great Importance, an Art
of Very Little.
We Are But Ilaying a Part Played
in MANY a Tale in the
Worlds History.
fBr w!lLLIAN MonFIs.l

tBY W!tLLIAsl MoRFIs.l 5
My friends. l want you to look int
the relation of Art to Commerce, usini
the latter word to express what is gen
orally meant by it; namely, that system
of competition in the market which j
indeed the onlv form which most peo
pie now a days 5uppoHe that Commera,
can take. !
Now whereas there have been times
in the worlds history when Art helc
the supremacy over Commerce; wher
Art was good deal, and Commerce. a
we understand the word, was a very
little; so now on the contrary it will bt
admitted by all, fancy, that Commerc'
has become Of very great Importance
and Art of very little.
say this will be generally admittsd
but different persons will hold very diff
ferent opinions not only as to whether
this is well or ill., but even as to what il
really means when We say that Com
merce has become Of supreme import
ance and that Art haa sunk into an un-
important matter.
Allow me to give you my opinion o.
the meaning of it: which will lead me
on to ask you to consider what remedies
should be applied fer curing the evils
that exist in the relations between Art
and Commerce.
Now to speaE. plainly it seems to me
that the supremacy Of Commerce las We
understand the word) is all evil, and i
very serious one; and should call it ar
unmixed evil--but for the strange con
tinuity of life which runs through al
historical events, anc by means of which
the very evils of such and such a period
tend to abolish themselves.
For to my mind it means this: that
the world of modern civilization in its
haste to gain very inequitably divided
material prosperity has entirely sup
pressed popular Art or in, other words
that the greater part of the people have
no share in Art-which as things now
are must be kept in the hands of few
rich or weIl-to-do people, who we may
fairly say need it less and not more than
the laborious workers.
Nor is that al the evil, nor the worst
of it; for the cause of this famine OF
Art is That whilst people work through
out the civilized world as laboriously as
ever they did, they have lost-in losing
an Art which was done by and for the
people-the natural solace Of that labor
a solace which they once had, and al
WAYS should have; the opportunity o.
expressing their own thoughts to theil
fellows by means of that very labor, by
means of that daily work which nature
or long custom, a second nature, does in
deed require Of them, but without mean
ing that it should be an unrewarded and
repulsiye burden.
But, through strange blindness and
error in the civilization Of these latter
days, the worlds work, almost all of il
the work some share of which should
have been the helpful companion o.
every man-has beeome such burden
which every man if he could would
shake off. have said that people work
no less laboriously than they ever did
but should have said that they work
more laborionsly.
The wonderful machines which in the
hands of just and foreseeing men woulo
have been used te minimize repulsiVe
labor and to give pleasure-or in Other
words added life--to the human race
have been &C. used on the contrary thai
they have driven all men into frantic
haste and hurry thereby destroyllns
pleasure, that Is life, on all hands; they
have instead of tightening the labor o
the worknien, intensified it, and thereby
added more weariress yet TO the burder
which the poor have to carry.
Nor can it he pleaded for the system
of modern civilization that the mere
material or bodily gains of it balance the
loss of pleasure which it has brought
, upon the world for as I hinted before
!1ose gains have been so unfairly divided
~ en- rich and pool
g. nsifed, so that ii
-. Ef2ig~. but most of al
people c" f-r.l espectacle is ex
Let them ha, y =, living street b,
-:.-d Or-people of ths