Part 14 (1/2)
Thirdly, there is gradually coming about a transformation of social castes. One must speak carefully; for in the West we are supposed not to have castes. There is, however, an uncomfortable feeling that society is not one, that the two cities which Plato said would divide and destroy the true city of men are now established--the rich and the poor. I do not mean those with 3,000 a year, and those with 160 a year. It is not a question for the Exchequer. I mean that great numbers in all 'civilized' nations are ill-fed and ill-clothed from birth, and die prematurely. To perceive it is to desire action which perhaps no state can perform. But that we perceive it is something. Read the complacent rhymes of Lord Tennyson about 'freedom slowly broadening down' and then turn to contemporary literature, to Jean Richepin or John Galsworthy, and you will acknowledge that a common ideal of social reform has come into existence. We are at least restless in face of a social organization which wastes humanity during long years of peace almost as completely, though not so recklessly, as during a few months of war.
Something has been already done--English writers and English experience have given a motive power to Hungarian, Russian, Finnish, Turkish, Persian, and Indian democracy. Groups of men have claimed, for example in South America, their right to free development. And everywhere during the period of European peace the contact between nations was teaching every nation the force of its own character, while the new complexities of society were weakening the old dividing lines of caste between individuals.
In all these matters we seem to be moved by a desire for a freer social atmosphere. Whether law or administration changes or not, it is clear that most European nations have undergone in the years of peace from 1871 to 1914 considerable social changes. How far they are effective in all nations and in all cla.s.ses it is very difficult for a contemporary to judge. It may be that the social structure of the decorative upper fringe or of the bedraggled hem of society is much the same as it was before communication was easy and transit rapid. But the central body of European society is certainly changed; and, after all, between the sc.u.m and the dregs is the good soup.
Such are the changes which have been introduced into social life owing to the interdependence of nations. But we should not understand what has happened if we accepted the mere record of achievements. The future is built not only upon what we have done, but upon what we hope to do.
Reforms accomplished do not make us more satisfied to endure evil not yet reformed--for always working in the achieved present is the ideal which transformed the past into what we now see.
We may turn, then, to consider some general features of the force working in social reform which is not yet achieved. And for that purpose we put aside established law and custom to consider the implied att.i.tude.
Now that political privilege and inequality before the law are more or less removed, there is a greater concentration upon the underlying social injustice. We all accept it as good that the activities of government should not be for the benefit of the few, or that the money should not be drawn from one cla.s.s. We suppose at least that there should be one law for rich and poor.
To any one with a knowledge of history this seems an immense step since small cla.s.ses in every nation held political privilege, made law for others, and forced tribute from the majority. Not that all is justice and liberty. The law still, with n.o.ble impartiality, forbids both the millionaire and the pauper to steal bread. Of course it is not directed against the poor. The law never forbids the poor man to cheat the state out of more than 3,000 a year. Again, political power still depends on the social position of your cousins and your aunts. But something has been done.
We hear much more nowadays about social than about political or legal reform. That, in itself, is a sign of a change of att.i.tude. In the revolution of 1381 the crowds came marching to London swearing, in the words of the old chronicle, that there would be no peace in the land till each and every lawyer was slain. In the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 it was 'death to the politicians'. Now--it may be that we despair of lawyers or politicians, dead or alive. In any case the attention of those in every state who are moved by enthusiasm for a better society is concentrated less upon votes and laws than upon the distribution of well-being.
Secondly, there has been a transference of enthusiasm of the religious or poetic kind from the sphere of contemplation or aloofness to that of earthly and even material action. Ideals of social reform do not any longer involve a neglect of food and clothing: we are all more and more convinced that it is idle to preach culture to a starving man, or to talk of liberty to one whose whole life is a b.e.s.t.i.a.l struggle for bare food and covering. I speak of normal times. In England, France, and Germany, social betterment means giving to a greater number security of bare life, upon which alone the good life can be built.
It will be seen that I imply a disagreement with the Tolstoian conception of reform; in so far as that involves a neglect of food and clothing and generally of what are called material goods. That conception is not perhaps powerful among those who deal with what is usually called social reform. It is not 'modern', and it is also dependent upon a mistaken argument in ethical theory. An unfortunate confusion made by what is called Eastern, Stoic, or Mediaeval asceticism led to the idea that because the mind is more important than the body, the body has no importance at all. But we need not deal with this theory in detail, especially as the general att.i.tude of to-day is opposed to it. There is undoubtedly a concentration upon the bare necessities of human life with a view to discovering how these can be shared more generally.
We are fully aware of the immense social danger in the desire for riches; but that is no objection to the desire for bread and clothing and the bare necessities of human life. And the seemingly materialistic enthusiasm which will gradually transform our semi-b.e.s.t.i.a.l civilization is no less poetic or religious than any Eastern aloofness or Tolstoian simplicity. Poetry is not all rhyming couplets: religion is not all for the intellectually or artistically incompetent. So, a world in which twenty per cent. of humanity did not slowly starve to death would not necessarily be less worthy of admiration. Nor would religion disappear if every one were healthy, unless religion means the result of neurasthenia or dyspepsia or premature ageing. No doubt there is some exaggeration in this element of the common social ideals. Not even a poor man lives on bread alone; and it is indeed possible to have a perfectly well-fed society which would be quite barbarous. But we must regard the fine flower of culture as purchased at too high a price if, for the sake of a few connoisseurs and courtiers not to say bourgeois plutocrats, the majority in every nation must lack a bare human life.
Some declare that the division between nations is more important than that between the rich and the poor. It may be so; but the only reason must be that what the few have, the many, however dimly, may hope to share or may be induced to think they do share. Humanity is infinitely gullible. But in every nation there is rising a murmur which may yet become an articulate cry.
The writers of modern Utopias in their detailed conception of what is desirable may speak only for themselves; but it is a sign of the common enthusiasm that they all attach so much importance to organization and to physical health. This indicates that we all, in every nation, look forward, however vaguely, to a society in which human life shall be less difficult for the majority to obtain. We speak sometimes of the redistribution of leisure--August Bebel made it one of the chief articles of his creed. But this as an ideal does not indicate any desire that the dock-labourer should have time to loaf in a club, or his wife time to play bridge, except in so far as time to loaf is an opportunity for some other employment than the mere struggle for food. There is nothing inevitable in a situation which makes the development of most of the human faculties a privilege of a few and an impossibility for the greater number. Nor is it correct to suppose that the half-starved and the ill-clothed should be satisfied with being 'virtuous', and leave it to others, possibly wicked and certainly far from simple, to cultivate art and science.
Nor again is it absurd to hope for a world in which all should have at least the opportunity for the development of any faculties they may possess. The social gain would be immense. It would be like the change from a harmony which is produced by a few amateurs to one of a full orchestra.
Thirdly, it is increasingly evident that no one state or nation can act effectively in social reform unless it acts in concert with others.
Treaties of commerce, common prison legislation, and common measures for sanitation and medicine have proved effective because they are in the nature of things. They are necessary means for the desired prosperity even of the most selfish and segregated state.
But ignorance and prejudice and irrational violence spread as easily as disease or crime. Knowledge is not secure until it is widespread; and civilization perishes, which is segregated in a world of barbarism.
Therefore education also, in its widest sense, must be contrived in common. Not merely school systems influenced by foreign ideas, but the very atmosphere of thought must change in harmony among all nations, if we are not to go toppling down into the abyss from which by painful centuries we have ascended.
This ideal of social reform then seems to be agreed upon between some men of all nations, that more common action should be taken. It is not a vague sentiment for the abolition of conflict between states; nor is it a pious aspiration for peace. It is the clear perception that the state cannot fulfil its functions in modern life if it continues to act as isolated or segregated. That for which the state itself stands cannot be attained even within the frontiers of one state by any state acting alone.
This is not the place to distinguish those subjects upon which states should act together from those on which they should act separately. That is simply the problem as to the limits of political regionalism. The fact which is sufficient for our argument here is that certain forces, chiefly economic, have come into existence in recent years, which disregard state boundaries. In concrete terms, these are international trusts and international labour interests. But it is increasingly evident that these cannot be effectively dealt with by any one state acting separately. The isolated sovereign state of earlier times is simply helpless before the elaborate world-system of economics; and control can only be secured by an established world-system of politics.
The states, one supposes, exist for justice and liberty. Divided, they will perish or become mere playthings in the hands of non-moral economic 'interests'.
To save itself and all it stands for, the state must cease to pose as a possible opponent to any other state, and must deliberately co-operate in an increasing number of reforms.
It is better to put into the coldest terms a conception which has too often hitherto proved futile, because it arose rather from vague discontent, than from the perception of a definite evil. The fire of enthusiasm must indeed work upon that conception before any effective change can be made in the att.i.tude of governments or of peoples. But enthusiasm will be wasted if we cannot pause to see against what we are contending.