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disputes between nations should be strongly supported; but the existing condition of all the great civilized governments renders it certain that, so long as the ruling and military classes exist, and are allowed to possess the almost absolute powers they now exercise, war, as the ultimate mode of settling national disputes, will not

cease.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE AND THE WAY OUT OF IT 1

I. THE FARMERS

In the early years of the century, English readers enjoyed the perusal of many American works of fiction dealing with the rural life of the Eastern States in those almost forgotten days when railways and telegraphs were unknown, when all beyond the Mississippi was "the far west," when California and Texas were foreign countries, and when millionaires, tramps, and paupers were alike unknown. They introduced us to an almost idyllic life, so far as rude abundance, varied occupations, and mutual help and friendliness among neighbours constitute such a state of existence. Almost all the necessaries and many of the comforts of life were obtained by the farmer from his own land. He had abundance of bread, meat, and poultry, with occasional game. Of butter, cheese, fruit, and vegetables there was no lack. He made his own sugar from his maple trees, and soap from refuse fat and wood ashes; while his clothes were the produce of his own flocks, spun, and often dyed, woven, and made at home. His land contained timber, not only for firing, but for fencing and house-building materials, as well as for making many of his farm implements; and he easily sold in the nearest town enough of his surplus products to provide the few foreign luxuries that the family required. The farmer of that day worked hard, no doubt, but he had also variety and recreation, and there was none of that continuous grinding, hopeless toil, that appears to characterize the life of the Western farmer to-day. As a rule, his farm was his own, unburdened by either rent or mortgage. Year by year it increased in value, and if he did not get rich he was at least able to live in comfort and to give his sons and daughters a suitable start in life. In those days wages of all kinds were high; food was cheap and abundant; and the strange phenomenon-yet so familiar and so sad a phenomenon now-of men seeking for work in order to live, and seeking it in vain, was absolutely unknown.

1 This chapter appeared in the Arena (Boston U.S.A.), of March and April, 1893. It deals with the problem mainly from an American point of view; but for that very reason it is specially instructive to us, because similar evils have arisen there under conditions which are often alleged, by English writers, to be the remedy for them.

The impression of general well-being and contentment given by these tales was confirmed by the narratives of travellers and the more solid works of students of society. All agreed in telling us that not only the pauperism of Europe, but even ordinary poverty or want, were quite unknown. The absence of beggars was a noticeable fact ; and except in cases of illness, accident, or old age, occasions for the exercise of charity could hardly arise. The extraordinary contrast between this state of things and that which prevailed in Europe had to be accounted for, and several different causes were suggested. A favourite explanation on both sides of the Atlantic was, that it was a matter of political institutions. On the one hand, it was said, you have a Republican government, in which all men have equal rights and no privileged classes can oppress or rob the people; on the other, there is a luxurious court, a bloated aristocracy, and an established church, quite sufficient to render a people poor and miserable; and this was long the opinion of the English radicals, who thought that the cost of the throne and of the church was the chief cause of the poverty of the working classes. Others maintained that it was entirely a matter of density of population. Europe, it was said, was overpeopled; and it was prophesied that, as time went on, poverty would surely arise in America and become intensified in Europe. More philosophical thinkers imputed the difference to the fact that there was an inexhaustible supply of unoccupied and fertile land in America, on which all who desired to work could easily support themselves; and that, all surplus labour being thus continually drawn off, wages were necessarily high, as the only means of inducing men to work for others instead of for themselves. When the accessible land was all occupied, it anticipated that America would reproduce the phenomena of poverty in the midst of wealth which are prevalent throughout Europe.

was

It is needless to point out that these anticipations have been realized far sooner and far more completely than were ever thought possible. The periodical literature of America teems with facts which show that the workers of almost every class are now very little, if any, better off than those of the corresponding classes in England. For though their wages are nominally higher, the working hours are longer; many necessaries, especially clothing, tools, and house rent, are dearer; while employment is, on the whole, less continuous. The identity of conditions as regards the poverty and misery of the lower grades of workers is well shown by the condition of the great cities on both sides of the Atlantic. The description of the dwellers in the tenement houses of New York, Boston, and Chicago exactly parallels that of the poorer London workers, as revealed in the "Bitter Cry of Outcast London," in the "Report of the Sweating Commission," and in cases of misery and starvation recorded almost daily in the newspapers. In both we find the same horrible and almost incredible destitution, the same murderous hours of labour, the same starvation wages; and the official statistical outcome of this misery is almost the same also. The English registrar-general records that considerably over one tenth of all the deaths in London occur in the workhouses, while nearly the same proportions receive pauper burial in New York.1

Henry George, in his great work Progress and Poverty, declares in his title page that there is, in modern civilization, "increase of want with increase of wealth;" and in Book V., Chapter II., he traces out the causes of "the persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth." 1 See James B. Weaver's Call to Action, p. 369.

The truth of this latter statement stares us in the face in every country, and especially in every great city, of the civilized world; no one can have the hardihood to deny it. But people are so dazzled by the palpable signs of wealth and luxury which everywhere surround them; so many comforts are now obtainable by the middle classes, which were formerly unknown; so many and so wonderful have been the gifts of science in labour-saving machinery, in the means of locomotion and of distant communication, and in a hundred arts and processes which add to the innocent pleasures and refinements of life; and again, so jubilant are our legislators and our political writers over our ever-increasing trade and the vast bulk of yearly growing wealth, that they cannot and will not believe in the increase, or even in the persistence of an equal amount of poverty as in former years. That there is far too much cruel and grinding poverty in the midst of our civilization, they admit; but they comfort themselves with the belief that it is decreasing; that bad as it is, it is far better than at any previous time during the present century, at all events; and they scout the very notion that it is even proportionally as great as ever, as too absurd to be seriously discussed.

These good people, however, believe what they wish to believe, and persistently shut their eyes to facts. Even in Great Britain it can, I believe, be demonstrated that there is actually a greater bulk of poverty and starvation than one hundred or even fifty years ago; probably even a larger proportion of the population suffering the cruel pangs of cold and hunger. I need not here go into the evidence for this statement, beyond referring to two facts. There has, during the last thirty or forty years, been an enormous extension of the sphere of private charity, together with a judicious organization calculated to minimize its pauperizing effects.

Besides the marvellous work of Dr. Barnardo and General Booth, there are in London, and in all our great cities, scores of general and hundreds of local charities; while the numbers of earnest men and women who devote their lives to alleviating the sorrows and sufferings of the poor,

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