Chapter III.

Mac held that our boasted (blasted) civilization was in many of its aspects nothing better than a huge fraud; that however admirable it might be in the abstract, in the concrete it meant simply this: increased luxury to the few, with increased distress to the many. The lives of the poor, he maintained, were getting year by year less and less worth living. The appalling wretchedness that existed side by side with all the luxury that unbounded opulence could devise, was the direct outcome of the thing we vainly call Progress, and not only constituted a strong indictment against it, but was an ever-increasing menace to the very existence of Society. To be sure, we in the Colonies had not yet come face to face with the same bad results which obtained in the older countries of Europe; but building on the same lines, we must sooner or later reach a similar condition.

In answer to Alick's remark on one occasion, that “With all its drawbacks, a civilized condition is surely preferable to a barbarous one,” he replied: “It ought to be, lad, it ought to be, but for a large proportion of the people, it unfortunately is not. I have lived with men in both conditions. I have seen the poor white labourer in the crowded cities of England toiling on from year to year, in his joyless gin-horse round earning little more page 18 than sufficed to keep him fit for further toil. I have seen him when the feebleness of age fell upon him, with no brighter hope in his breast than that of becoming, in his helplessness, a burden upon friends who, however willing, would be hardly fit to bear the load. In default of friends, I have seen the poor broken-spirited creature languish under the callous discipline of work-house officialdom, and the cheerless prospect of a pauper's grave. Yet such is the fate civilization ordains for myriads of those by whose labour it exists.

“Look, on the other hand, at the rude child of nature in his native wilds, as yet untainted by the vices of civilized man. Strong-limbed, bright-eyed, light-hearted, he enjoys to-day and has no fear for to-morrow. His wants are few, and for the most part, easily supplied. His necessary exertions are invariably conducive to the retention of vigorous health, on which happiness among all conditions of men must ever largely depend. Mark the lithe grace and freedom of his movements. Observe the gleeful readiness to extract pleasure from every trifling circumstance. See with what merry abandonment, on his return from the chase, he joins in the childish gambols of his ‘young barbarians,’ himself as young in spirit, and as laughter-loving as they. Beyond all question, the lot of this man, call him barbarian, savage—what you will—is a happier one than that of the pallid, careworn toiler in the health-destroying factories of civilization.”

“Would you then,” queried Alick, “advocate a return to barbarism?”

“By no means. I do not oppose civilization as such. I do not undervalue the greater knowledge, the scientific discoveries or the wonderful mechanical inventions of modern times. The multitude of labour-saving appliances they have placed at our disposal have added immensely to the wealth-producing power of mankind; and if the extra wealth so created were devoted, as it ought to be, to the general well-being, it would be a distinct blessing to the world. But as we judge a tree by its fruits, so must our page 19 modern system be tested by results. And what are its chief distinguishing features? The rapid accumulation of large individual fortunes on the one hand; on the other, a horde of poverty-stricken, prematurely-debilitated work-people! The wealthy become millionaires; the extra clever, or the extra fortunate follow hard upon their heels; while the great bulk of the masses, who are neither clever nor fortunate, retain but the heritage of despair (now fast growing into sullen hate), their lives a mere funeral procession to the grave.

“Parliaments, and laws, and Christian institutions notwithstanding, capital is the genuine ruler in all civilized communities, and as far as the poor hirelings in its pay are concerned, exercises an authority as despotic, and in many ways more atrociously cruel, than that of the kingly despots of the olden days. Yet we are told we are no longer a nation of serfs, but a free people, and in a thousand conjunctures are called on to exult over the many liberties we possess. As regards the major portion of the people, this is utter bosh, the mere empty conceit of ignorant or mercenary phrasemongers. The well-to-do only are free. I tell you that to-day the face of the poor man who strives to bring up his family honestly, is held as securely to the grindstone as if he were chained thereto by legal enactments. His service, though nominally free, is as truly forced as that of the veriest slave. He knows that the pittance he receives for his labour is all that stands between his little ones and the miseries of destitution. However hateful or unwholesome the servitude may be, therefore, yet is he so bound to it that what he chiefly fears is to be free, freedom in his case meaning the ‘sack,’ with all that want of employment implies to himself and family. And well does the greedy, grasping capitalist know the fact. He knows that this power of the sack is, in his hands, a whip that cuts as keenly as any ever wielded by Southern slave driver.

“Meanwhile, the people are practically helpless. If they turn to the Church they are told of the virtue of contentment, page 20 of the duty of pious resignation, and admonished to lay up for themselves treasures in heaven! The Clergy are so intensely respectable, and poverty is so very much the reverse, that between the shepherds and the sheep there seems a great gulf fixed. Small wonder that the attitude of such large numbers of the working classes towards the Church should be one of sullen indifference, or even active hostility, cherishing as they do the notion that their oppressors and the Clergy are practically allied. For the capitalist, also, is highly respectable, though his respectability is usually of different stuff. It is mainly the kind of article so much in vogue now-a-days, which consists in the things that a man has rather than in what he is—the respectability of the purse. It is in no sense respect-worthiness. Yet the two things are so confounded that, though the wealth on which his title to respectability is based, has been wrung in pitiless fashion from the unrewarded sweat of the poor, the gross injustice of his extortions is lost sight of, covered by the mantle of respectability as by a reputable robe of uprightness.

“This sort of thing, if continued, will ultimately bring even Mrs. Grundy into disrepute, and the Litany of honest men will read:—‘From all respectability, good Lord, deliver us.’

“Nor do they fare better at the hands of the politicians. The science of politics, despite the long experience of mankind, is still in a very crude condition. In every country statecraft has been made to subserve the interests of the few, as against those of the many. Its chief end and object has always been the preservation of the existing Order; or when change became inevitable, to secure that the sacred rights of Property should in no wise suffer. The rights of Poverty—the interests of the unpropertied poor, have ever been beyond its scope. Patriotism has, in its practical results, meant substantially the maintenance of order, that is, of such order as for the time being obtained. Such changes as have been effected, have left the power of Capital, and the helplessness of Poverty, more pronounced page 21 and more antagonistic than ever. As in warfare the weak become the prey of the strong, so in peace the poor remain the legitimate quarry of the rich. It is evident that patriotism, as so defined, can exist among the poor, that is, among the great body of the people, only in proportion to their ignorance, and that, as the latter is dissipated, the former must decay. This result is rapidly approaching. Everywhere we see signs of fermentation among the masses. Everywhere the question is being asked whether true patriotism does not dictate the destruction, rather than the preservation of the present Order. We have Nihilism in Russia, Socialism in Germany, Communism in France, and Internationalism in Spain and Italy; while in England and America, the extreme types of Trades Unionism are yearly becoming more and more imbued with International and Socialistic sentiments.

“I tell you what lads, one of these days we'll be having such a rattling up of the dry bones of Society as will produce chaos. But out of that chaos will arise a new Order more permanent, because more equitable than the present, in which the selfish individualism now rampant in Society will give place to a loyal regard for the common weal.

“All the signs of the times indicate that a violent convulsion is impending. We may deplore the violence, but the social upheaval that seems now inevitable will be no child's play, and can scarcely be accomplished by pacific methods. Possibly the violence may be lessened, and the raging elements in a measure controlled, by the advent of some capable, far-seeing statesman, who will resolutely set himself to grapple with the social and industrial problems that now cry aloud for solution. But such a statesman, if successful, will be phenomenal, one whose name will ring through the ages as the chief benefactor of his kind. He will be no mere time-serving, phrase-loving politician, but a man—above all things, a Man—whose head is clear, and whose sympathies are wide and deep; who will spurn the traditional cobwebs of individualism, and strong in the people's support, will refuse to be fettered by the paltry exigencies of Party.”

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“But,” remarked Alick, “I've heard it maintained that the inequalities existing in Society are but the natural result of freedom among men of unequal capacity; that while the strong and clever must rise by virtue of superior abilities, the weak and the stupid must necessarily go to the wall; that, in fact, the state of things we complain of only exemplifies the natural law of the survival of the fittest.”

“Survival of the fittest be damned!” growled Mac. “Don't you see that if that contention were well founded, we should have no alternative but to accept the present condition of things, with all the evils, moral and physical, with which it is beset, as the best obtainable? Nay, the very evils themselves would have to be accepted as the necessary results of natural law, and by no means, therefore, to be combated or done away with. Such reasoning would be fatal to all improvement, and would inevitably lead to the conclusion that ‘Whatever is, is right.’ No, no! There is implanted in the great heart of humanity a divine discontent with injustice, a saving impulse (everywhere hindered by individual selfishness) to right what is wrong, and give to every man his due. I have no quarrel with the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. That doctrine is the expression of sound natural law, and would, in a just social system mean the survival of the best. The law of modern society, on the contrary, means to a large extent the survival of the least fit, the survival of the greedy, the extortionate, the overreaching, the unscrupulous,—the survival of the worst. As thing now stand, worth and wealth are almost synonymous terms. The man who succeeds in the world, is the man who shows most conspicuously the talent for making money. He who acquires most wealth is accounted most worthy of survival. Success in life is measured by the standard of pounds shillings and pence. The nobler, more chivalrous qualities are at a discount, fit only for the silly fools who go to the wall, and the great god Mammon is the presiding deity of the day.

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“There's N,—for instance, who made his first ‘rise’ as the keeper of a way-side grog shanty, where ‘lambing down’ was an every-day occurrence. He then moved to town where he increased his pile by running a large ‘Family hotel,’ without boarders, but with a lucrative bar trade. He is now a cut above the beer shop, of course, having become a big city landlord, eminently respectable, and having no connection with the trade beyond deriving from it a large proportion of his income in the shape of hotel rents.

“There's P—again, who used to shine as a dealer in mining shares. His superior cheek, and amazing powers of misrepresentation, soon raised him above the level of his class—a class by no means deficient in the qualities that distinguish the ‘fittest.’ Wherever there were pigeons to be plucked, there was P—in the midst of them, ready to perform the operation with all the skill of an adept. No trick was too mean for him; no lie too audacious. None could promote a bogus company, or dispose of a salted claim, with more innocent assurance than he. The result of it all was, that in a short time he was able to retire from the business with his nest effectually feathered. He is now a City Magnate, an influential money lender, with shares in every concern that pays a steady dividend.

“Such men as these ‘survive’ and become the founders of families. Nor will such families be at any social disadvantage in mixing with the wealthy progeny of those other ‘survivors’ who earned their title to rank among the ‘fittest’ by expert gridironing, or the adroit manipulation of political railways, whereby the value of their lands was enhanced, and their fortunes established. The moral stigma attaching to their foundation is lost sight of—obscured in the glamour that surrounds success.

“Thus we see that the mode in which wealth is acquired, is of minor importance compared with the great fact of possessing it; ‘success’ being the crucial test by which ‘fitness’ is determined.

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“Believe me lads, if moral worth and fitness were conjoined, and justice had unimpeded sway, not a few of society's fittest would be fit only for universal execration. Survival of the fittest! Good Heavens! fit for what? Fit only to beguile the simple, and oppress the week; fit only — ugh!” — Here followed a burst of vigorous invective, altogether too strong for reproduction.