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'I had not meant,' Seacorts went on, 'to have told this story to Sprigsby. Considering his position it was not a fair thing to have done, and I began to feel hot the very moment afterwards, for I could see in an instant that I had made him very angry, or more hurt than angry-I was puzzled to tell which. He explained it himself in another moment, as he rose suddenly from the ground and took his stick, "Nix!" he said; "why Nix is my own brother-in-law." Ah, me, for the perils that beset the unguarded speaker. I was thoroughly embarrassed for a moment, but a happy inspiration came to me, and I took the bull by the horns. "Well," I said, "I'm sorry I spoke; but. what I have told you is, all the same, the truth, and I'm sorry you've a brother-in-law with such a singularly unfortunate manner. If I hadn't been talking to such a thorough gentleman as yourself, I should have been very much annoyed at such a slip of the tongue; but I know that you must see the thing I mean. Mr. Nix has too grand a way with him, and a natural air of command which is terribly out of keeping with an ex officio friend of the people." I was driven to lie -I couldn't help myself; but my lie worked upon Sprigsby like magic, and though he would not admit it, entirely healed the wound. Poor fellow, I doubt if he was ever so flattered in his life as by what I then said to him. This little incident, however, brought our political discussion to a close, for I would not dare to continue on what had become such tender ground. I could, therefore, not redeem my promise of showing him how the Conservative party might easily go to the country with a cry just as popular as could the wildest Radicals. But what I did not say to Sprigsby, I could say with less embarrassment here.'

'But, my dear fellow,' said the newly-created peer, our great difficulty lies in this simple fact, that we are too high-minded to descend to agitation. We don't understand this sort of thing. We are-well-well as a matter of fact, we're too gentlemanly for it.'

'I hope,' said Seacorts, we may never have any need to take to it. I hope the common sense of the country may be only so sound and stable that there will be no need for our applying to it any sensational correctives. But if there be any ground for the vague alarms which, as we all know, are disturbing many people if the future force in politics is to depend on sensational appeals addressed directly to the imagination of multitudes, as the Radical party are, beyond doubt, flattering themselves; then I should wish it to be realised by our party, and as soon as possible, that this is a game at which both parties can play, and that once let them take to real hard hitting, the Conservative blows would be probably much the hardest. Even at the present moment, despite all that is said on the other side, the English people is instinct with latent Conservatism. They have inherited it; it has been bred in them; it is the transmitted temperament of centuries, and they cannot get rid of it

lightly, even if they would. Take, for instance, that one great point that I have already spoken of, the home-the family, and marriage. Does anyone mean to say that the English nation, as a whole, has not a profound and passionate reverence for home and the marriage tie? Why, even the collier who kicks his wife would resent another man kicking her, and would resent still more another man making love to her. Under the hard outer skin of the whole English people there is a tissue of nerves of most extreme sensitiveness, and Radicalism will feel its weakness the moment it pricks this. The home is only one point. Property is another. The Englishman, poor or rich, adores property. One of the greatest desires of the poor is very often to accumulate; and even the man who never wished to save, would not submit to the tyranny that would make his saving a crime. It is to such a tyranny that Radicalism leads; and it is on this fact that I would, if necessary, fix the eyes of the people. I could show them that Radicalism, if consistent, must come to that; or else, if it is not consistent, then it is merely what I have just said it is, a class-selfishness, or a class-petulance, of the meanest and least popular kind, masquerading in a set of principles which it neither endorses nor understands. Some people fear Continental Socialism. In England I at least should not fear it. It would be powerful in England only as long as its real meaning 'was undistinguished. Without fear, then, and with the utmost confidence, I should direct the attention of the English to the whole programme of the Socialists; I should show them, what they would not be slow to see, that it was but the explicit statement of what Radicalism says implicitly; and I should then show them the tyranny that this programme embodied. It will break up your homes, I should say, it will rifle your money-boxes, it will whip you to your work, and it will whip you back to your play. It will leave you nothing you can call your own. It professes to be based on the abolition of property; and truly it will show itself even better than its word. It will not only take from a man his money, but his home, his wife, his children, his friends, and his affections, his choice, his freedom, and his will.'

'But,' said Mrs. Hervey, even suppose all this to be implied in Socialism, we always hear that it has made great way on the Continent. What reason have you for supposing that if it once reaches England it will not have equal influence here?'

'I have many reasons,' said Seacorts. 'Nations, like individuals, have their special characters, and they command our trust or distrust in something the same way. The character of England is totally distinct from that of any Continental nation. It has been brought up in a different way, and its temper is the result of very different experiences. Between the aristocracy and the people of England there has never been any deep feud. Their mutual relationships have been almost unique in their kindliness; and such hard words

as may have been passed between them have rather proved the fundamental good feeling than so much as tended to disturb it. Such has been, and such is still, the characteristic of our nation; and in virtue of a temper like this England may still have an august mission before her. It may be hers to teach other nations, amongst all the excitement caused by maddening and impossible hopes, what is the rational, the sober, the humane course to pursue. And her past history will be a comment on her present example. She will stand forth as the embodiment of a sound and profound Conservatismas, in literal truth, a saviour of society. But she will stand forth as more than this. She will declare that the reason why she is thus conservative is that she has always also been liberal. She is conservative because she has always been giving herself the best things to conserve. This is what I trust England will do; and the thought and the hope that she may do so is a thought fit to inflame the purest possible patriotism and the legitimate self-interest of all, from the lowest to the highest. Her only enemy is this diseased modern Radicalism, which is at present doing all it can to debauch the national imagination, and which, instead of taking as its aim the amelioration of inequalities, is trying to excite hopes of an impossible or a suicidal equality. Happily it will find in this country that it has set a hard task to itself; it will find, too, that its foes are they of its own household. In the ranks of these modern Radicals are to be found, we are told, not a few of our farmers. If this be true, what sort of farmers are they? Are they the farmers who lived in plenty because they lived in simplicity, or the farmers who a single bad season can paralyse, because they are always straining their incomes that they may make a show of gentility? They belong, I believe, chiefly to this latter class; and if they wish to live in a certain style I do not know that I have any right to blame them. But should such men raise any voice against our aristocracy, or demand any land reform of a socialistic tendency, then I should say to the people this: "Can you believe that such men as these are sincere in their protestations? Can you believe that on any sound principles they disapprove of an aristocracy, when the chief aims to which all their ambition is directed is to make their own lives an extremely unsuccessful imitation of it?" That is the sort of question I should like to put to the people. And yet no-I am wrong. I do not mean what I am saying. It is the question of all others I should not like to put. The thing of all others that I should really most shrink from is the use of any language that should set class against class. I have a large acquaintance amongst farmers myself; and the British farmer is full of admirable qualities. What you were saying, Lord, is, I believe, quite true; and the British farmer at heart is as sound an aristocrat as any of us, and he respects his landlord's position because he respects his own. True Conservatism would conciliate every class, and true Liberalism would show it the way to do 80. The great aim that States should have now before them, is not to destroy claims, or to shift classes, but to bring each class to its best; to give opportunity to all who can rise, and rational contentment to all who cannot, or to all who have no ambition to do so. And if I were ever again to address a constituency, the gist of my appeal would be very much like this: "I belong to a party that makes no irrational promises. We don't tell you that we have any nostrums for making this world a paradise. We believe, on the contrary, that there will be always suffering and disappointments in it. But at the same time we have all-we have every one of usmuch that we would not lose; and we have much also that we certainly can mend. If, then, we have any good things that we treasure -homes, family ties, or religion-let us guard these things like Conservatives; if there are evils that we see our way to removing, let us try to remove them, like Liberals; and what we do not wish to conserve, but what we see no way to removing-these things let us bear like men.",

W. H. MALLOCK.

ART NEEDLEWORK.

I.

DEAR SIR, It is indeed well for the women of England without employment, or who when employed are only half paid, that public attention should be claimed for the question of their right to live, and their means for obtaining a maintenance according to their abilities.

If a woman is not strong enough to be a maid of all work, if she is not smart enough to wait behind a counter, nor ingenious enough to make bonnets, nor clever enough to keep a lodging-house, nor sufficiently educated to be a governess, nor sufficiently intellectual to translate foreign books into moderately good English, nor yet strong-minded enough to write novels that will sell, what is she to do? In each of these occupations the struggle for the survival of the fittest' is most severe, and those whom nature and education have not made strong enough to succeed must starve, or be supported by private charity, which is degradation, or by public charity, which means the workhouse. It has been said, and echoes through all time, that a woman's proper avocation is to 'suckle fools,' &c. But many more women are born than are needed for this laudable purpose; and so Providence has arranged that there should be a good many to spare for inferior uses. If the laws of marriage should be revolutionised (and the deceased wife's sister would be the thin end of the wedge), perhaps a moderate bigamy might be legalised, and so more fools would be the consequence, and more women would find occupation. Meanwhile the wisdom of ages only suggests one other alternative, 'Go spin, you jades.'

Women did spin, and they wove and worked too within the last fifty years, till steam, and the power loom, and machine embroidery wrested from them their 'woman's work,' and gave it to the strong man, that thenceforth all textile inventions should be manufactured by thousands of yards, to be paid for cheaply, and sold only a little

This paper was written in reply to a letter asking information, and stating that a series of articles upon the remunerative employment of gentlewomen was contemplated for this Review.-ED.

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