Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1897-08-20
R USKIN'S BELIEFS.
RELATIONS OF GOVERNMENT
AND PEOPLE.
The First Duty of Government Is to
See that the People Have Food, Fuel
and Clothes Principles of
Civilization.

The following sixteen principles OF
government were founded by John
Ruskin, the philosopher and thinker:
1. Any form of government will
work, provided the governors are real,
and the people obey them; and none
will work, If the governors are unreal,
or the people disobedient. If you mean
to have logs for kings, no quantity IN
liberty in choice of wood will be of any
profit to you; nor will the wisest or
best governor be able to serve you, II
you mean to discuss his orders instead
Of obeying them.
Q. The first duty OF government is
to see that the people have food, fuel,
and clothes. The second, that they
have means of moral and intellectual
education.
8. Food, fuel, and clothes can only
be got out of the ground, or sea, by
muscular labor; and no man has any
business to have any, unless he has
done, II able, the muscular work neces-
sary to produce his portion, or to rem
der las the labor Of a surgeon or ply
stefan renders), equivalent benefit to
life. 1t indeed saves both toll and time
that one man should dig, another bake,
and another tan; but the digger, baker
and tanner are alike bound to do their
equal days duty; and the business of
the government is to see that they have
done it, before it gives any one OF them
their dinner.
4. While the daily teaching of Gods
truth, doing of His justice, and heroic
bearing of His sword. are to be re-
quired of every human soul according
to its ability, the mercenary profess
sions of preaching, law-giving and
fighting must be entirely abolished.
5. Scholars, painters, and musicians.
may be advisedly kept, on due pittance,
to instruct or amuse the laborer after,
or at, his work; provided the duty be
severely restricted to those who have
high special gifts of voice, touch and
imagination; and that the possessors of
these melodious lips, light-fngered
hands, and lively brains, do resolutely
undergo the normal discipline neces-
sary to insure their skill; the people
whom they are to please, understand
ing, always, that they cannot employ
these tricksy artists without working
double tides themselves, to provide
them with beef and ale.
6. The duty of the government, as re-
CARDS the distribution of its work, is to
attend first to the wants of the most
necessitous; therefore, to take particu-
lar charge of the back streets of every
town, leaving the fine ones more or
less, according to their finery, to take
care of themselves. And it is the duty
of magistrates and other persons in
authority, but especially of all bishops,
to know thoroughly the numbers,
means of subsistence, and modes of life
of the poorest persons in the commun-
ity, and to be sure that they at least
are virtuous and comfortable; for If
poor persons be not virtuous, after all
the wholesome discipline of poverty,
what may be the state of the rich I'M
der their perilous trials and tempta-
tons? But, on the other hand, If the
poor are made comfortable and good,
the rich have a fair chance of enter
ing the kingdom of heaven also If they
choose to live honorably and decently
Z. Since all are to be made to labor
for their living, and 1t Is not possible
to labor without materials and tools,
these must be provided by the gov
eminent for all persons in the neces-
sary quantities. If bricks are to be
made, clay and straw must be pro-
vided; If sheep are to be kept, grass;
II coats are to be made, cloth; If
oakum to be picked, oakum. All these
raw materials, with the tools for work.
ing them, must be provided by the
at first free Of cost to
the laborer, the value Of them being
returned to them as the first fruits
of his toll; and no pawnbrokers or
usurers may be allowed to live by
lending sea to fishermen, air to fowl
ers, land to farmers, crooks to shep-
herds, or bellows to smiths.
8. When the lands and seas belong
ing to any nation are all properly di-
vided, cultivated, and fished, its popu-
lation cannot be increased, except by
food in exchange for USE
less articles; that is to say, by living
as the toy manufacturers Of some in
dependent nation, which can both feed
itself, and afford to buy toys besides.
But no nation can long exist in this
servile state. 1t must either emigrate,
and form colonies to assist in cult
waiting the land which feeds it, or be-
come entirely slavish and debased.
The moment any nation begins to i'm
port food, its political power and moral
worth are ended.
9. All the food, clothing, and fuel
required by men can be produced by