Chapter VI: Part 6

There are millions of acres of these forests growing up in Britain now. There is a population growing thereon second to none in the country for healthy manhood and industrious, thrifty womanhood. Two generations of such a healthy state of things is enough to eliminate the supineness of so-called civilised life. I saw no complicated machinery. The axe and double-handed saw does well, if leisurely, all necessary work for a generation that is learning that speed is not essential to good workmanship or sustained trade! Light railways driven by electricity take the timber to its destination, but I noticed that few people travel in them. They have lost a restless spirit, being content with the interests provided by their environment. Learned in their craft and entertained by the practice of it, these foresters have little need for _books_, but I did hear that story-tellers visit them in winter time, and that they act plays among themselves, and well can I imagine the big log fires, the warm ale, the venison and fish suppers and the story-telling, delightful and simple, of these forest folk. I imagined that a new folklore was dawning and new poets might come out of this natural life. One thing we may be sure of. A new life will set in motion a new set of ideas; new, anyway, to modern minds, but ancient in their simplicity and growth under identical circumstances. I heard it said that this new life is productive of Romance, and is very satisfying to that part of the human that asks for it. There is a great deal left still in us which is closely allied to the instincts of our forefathers. The temptation to roam is less acute now. Romance, badly needed by all of us, is found in the new life. What a contrast this is to the impositions of ruthless industrialism, that Juggernaut, that tyrannical destroyer of agricultural life, that brutalising devastator of Beauty, that cold but systematised muck rake, which, while it pretended to give liberty, was making slaves, which, while it was providing a Health Minister, was destroying health, and while providing artificial wealth was destroying the soul of the people, because it was withdrawing them from simple and leading them to artificial pleasures, and so was breeding discontent. What is necessary for the future of England is industry less concentrated in cities, more extended over the whole country, and this industry of Forestry is one act in the new drama that is doing it.

The new life is recreating honesty and straight dealing. Once corrupt, Borough and County Councils are composed of honourable men, not of selfish _class legislators_. Jobbery, that fatal failing among tradesmen who formed the majority in the old system of municipal rule, is at a minimum, it was in a maximum. Unscrupulous agitators have been found out and given a dismissal. Trades unions, not in principle bad, only bad as far as they became decadent, played an artificial game, have been broken up by the people, who discovered before it was too late that a tyranny of the gravest character was being enacted and growing stealthily was ruining a class under the pretence of giving power to it. The great war proved that as a class tradesmen are untrustworthy; as individuals there is good in them, but the nature of their education being, “Get all you can, at whatever cost to your neighbour,” is a policy the reverse of a good one. As soon as these things were realised by the people they began to see straight. Blinkers were withdrawn from their eyes and they looked right and left for the cause of impending disaster. The people, led now by honesty and intelligence in place of crafty subterfuge, know that industry, not industrialism, is the key to happiness. By largely extended agriculture, the necessities, indeed, most of the luxuries of life, can be secured. More grass, more beasts, more cows, sheep and goats, more milk, more wool, more hides, more grain, more bread, more cheap and good houses for workmen and craftsmen. No smoke, more sun, hence a quicker ripening of grain and fruit. Hence finer energies, more vitality, and less discontent. The invasion of industrialism has been the creation of an enemy to light, to joy, to freedom. To turn a man into a machine is to contradict the first elements of his creation. To put him on a level with a screwdriver, a hammer, a grease-pot, is to lower him all round. Why does it lower him? Because it kills his individuality, blunts his ambition, and destroys his creative faculty. Hand labour is dignified, but a man reduced to the level of a machine is a cripple.

The industrious class, of which happily many remained, even under depressing environment and determined to earn honest money, emancipated themselves from their evil leaders who would, but for the remnant of honest men left, have destroyed their freedom. Never in the ugly history of agitators did they give themselves away more successfully than when they threatened to starve England by direct action to gain an addition to already good wages. At once, this was a little too much for the people. “If England starves, we shall,” was their logical conclusion. If production is strangled by unreasonable wages, the time will come when there is no money left to pay a reasonable wage. In revolution, it always happens that extremists break the bank they sought to enrich. The good sense at the bottom of the English character prevailed; and even if slowly, it overcame. The people began to see that once loosened from the chain their mischievous leaders had wound round them that antagonism between class and class is fatal to peace and progress, to realise that the rise in prices was the work of profiteering tradesmen, and to them the onus of the necessity for a rise in wages was chiefly due. The profiteering tradesman was their enemy, not the capitalist. Then they said among themselves, “We must get to work like honest men and give the best that is in us. We must improve and not strangle British trade, if we do we shall be the first to suffer.” We must not trust to foreign countries to produce for us, but produce for ourselves. He who trusts to purchase the necessities of life from foreign neighbours may some day find they have nothing to sell.

There is nothing in this that is new or original, it is the commonest common sense. It was by trying to escape labour and to put it into foreign hands and secure profit that England was growing idle. Trade was given over to the Germans, who, seeing they could produce more cheaply than the English because they paid lower wages, grew rich at the expense of England. England had the most industrious workmen in Europe, and the best, but by teaching them to shirk work, trades unions gave them away. In the new order this is changed. The workmen know now that to labour honestly brings not only pleasure but profit. The idle inherit poverty and discontent. The Germans said to themselves, “British labour in a state of unrest brings profit to us. Britain poor means Germany rich.” Germans are cunning.

§ 40

In a northern county, I heard the following talk. A group of typical blue-eyed artizans were sitting under an oak, enjoying their smoke after a hearty midday meal. The day was glorious; this English climate was at its best. One of them, evidently rather a leader of the others, was recounting memories. He was a fair old man, with something of the Dane in appearance, the kind of strong-spirited sensible character that the North supplies, a type of the men that made England strong. He said, speaking with a broad, pleasant North Country accent which I will not attempt to imitate: “The strikers were foolish fellows. I was a boy at the time. My father was dead against them. We had good wages, but we wasted them in selfish pleasures. We thought more about amusing ourselves than doing our duty, that is true. We had leisure, which we used badly. If we had chosen to do so, we could have got on quite well, but we were got hold of by unprincipled fellows a little more learned than we. They led us astray with promises to be rich _without work_. They turned our heads. It is true that food was dear by way of the rascal tradesmen--a lying lot they were. They hid behind their counters rabbits and such-like food because the Government was making them lower their prices when food got scarce.

“Now I see straight. Instead of striking we ought to have gone for the tradesmen. It was they who sent up the prices to profit by it while we were getting hungry. The lists of strikers the leaders published were all ‘bunkum,’ the majority did not want to strike. Now we have got rid of strike leaders, we see what they were--just men who wanted to get power to be in the House of Commons and play the gentleman at our expense. Now I know the difference between an honest master and the swaggering tyrants who pretended to be our friends. Give me for a master an educated gentleman, not a howling agitator, who out of our money built themselves fine houses. If we had known then what we know now, wild horses would not have made us ‘down tools.’ I see now, no capital, no labour. We had got into idle habits. Now we have changed, and see that honest work brings honest reward. Instead of dog-fighting, drinking, and low sports, in off times we do a bit of gardening, grow our own vegetables, and our missus and girls make their own frocks and weave the stuff on the old-fashioned looms I often heard my grandmother talk about. We are twice the men we were. A football match now and again is all very well, but making a business of games and gambling is ROT. And the best of it is that Parliament, where there was more talk than doing, didn’t work the change, we did it ourselves, setting to work like men, and gave up whimpering and grumbling like silly girls. I guess we took the wind out of the sails of the Germans and the rascally Bolsheviks. What the high up in authority were playing for was our votes, that’s all. We see straight through the politicians now, and don’t give them a vote, so the Talking House, I hear, is shut up, and a good thing too. We can keep some restraint over the chaps we have now at hand, and good ones they are. They pull the strings of the Commune effectually, where the tradesmen and suchlike folk out for themselves played what games they liked with us. There are good honest citizens on the Councils with no axes to grind, and they keep the axe-grinders straight. The Union leaders went too far for us when they threatened to starve England and tried to prevent milk from reaching our children. That was too much for us! We’ve got hearts and now we have got heads, and see through humbug like through a pane of glass. Since food is a reasonable price, we are satisfied with reasonable wages, and we have plenty of leisure, which we use profitably. Instead of only thinking of ourselves, we give a thought to the other chap, and that makes for union and fraternity.” These remarks, spoken with conviction, were received with applause. The man was the spokesman of the thought in the minds of his fellows. “That is Democracy.”

The English County Communes did well when they taxed the entrance of foreigners into local trades, and taxed all foreign goods (save Colonial) before permitting them to enter the country. Now there is plenty of work for all Britons, agricultural and industrial, and it will take a long time before the artificial liberty (so-called) has power again, because “The People” know their way about, and are no longer led by schemers and well paid “windbags.”

Before the change, which grew out of honest guiding, public opinion and education in its best sense was coming to a standstill. Parliament played with it in committee, the usual course when Ministers do not know what to do. New schemes for education wasted a lot of paper and ink, and cost the nation more than it could afford. Schemes which only played into the hands of the place-hunters came to little. Guidance is better than legislation, and immediate touch of class with class will do more to mend matters than a plethora of work of committees. The working class (inclusive) claimed a right to govern, and it is doing so now that it is learning to rule itself. All men, in whatever station, from the King to the humblest peasant, should be working men--anyway, the State demands that of them and rightly. The greatest crime to the State is indolence and idleness. The state has no need for them, or for those who, being so, are living on the earnings of their betters. Under the tyranny of commercial unrest every honest profession and trade was suffering (save the profiteers). The arts were suffering. A publisher had to think twice before he published a good book, a painter before he started a picture. The initial expenses had grown so large that under the best conditions only a very small margin of profit was left, scarce enough to keep body and soul together. Science was suffering because research can make no progress without capital. The expense of living to the most moderate consumer was becoming intolerable.

Ministers played cup and ball with legislation by first attempting to exercise control over prices, then withdrawing control, thereby leaving a new muddle to be dealt with. We all know Æsop’s satiric fable of blowing hot and cold with the same breath, but that is exactly what Government did. Who, putting two and two together, could, with the most kindly feeling, respect a weak policy which so well imitates the first Fable of Æsop, “The Man, the Boy, and the Ass”? wherein first the man was criticised for riding, then the boy for doing the same, then both for carrying the ass, which finally, was cast into a river and so disposed of. Compromise followed compromise, until the whole country lost confidence in their rulers, who, without a policy, were always watching which way the cat would jump. During the war we were better off than after it. After it was over the curtain had to be pulled up and the players to come forward, but no cheers for them. We saw the men who had made the muddle, which they were trying by every compromise to clear up. “The People,” seeing the paralysis of Government, took the matter into their hands and set to work to clear the situation by restoring industry, and they set to reform themselves by a sensible mode of living, not in sections only, but as a part of a great scheme in which everybody, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, was individually concerned. No amount of legislation made in the talking house, could reform a people unwilling for reform. “The People” saw their mistakes and set themselves to rectify them. The rich resolved to use their wealth for the public benefit; the leisurely their leisure to instruct, or, I like better the word, to guide the less cultivated minds; and young men on whose education large sums of money had been expended, instead of wasting energies on sport and a lazy club or society life, turned to make themselves factors of usefulness in a great national cause. Thus, the general tone of the nation rose rapidly from apathy to activity, from selfishness to altruism.

§ 41

Heavy taxation and inflated rates were telling upon production, and it was said, not once, but very generally: “We do not care to give away 50 per cent. of our earnings and hard-earned interest on a little money put by for old age and study, to a wasteful, shuffling Government, for whose follies in the past we are called upon to pay. We want, and mean to have, a real Democracy, not sham bureaucratic Government pulled by red tape and the impulses of impetuous politicians, who rush their fences when mounted upon lame hacks, trusting to Providence to land them on the other side, if possible, without a scratch. It has been known that riders have lost their seats in this proceeding.” The foregoing are not opinions created by the relator of this Dream, but constantly heard expressed by all sorts and conditions of men and spoken in public as well as in private; as such, together with more, equally trenchant and sensible, they represent the public opinion of the new Communes.

Dreams, like life, have distasteful moments. Even in them there are degrees of interest, commonplace situations, truisms, and paradox. But one has no choice, things are chosen for one, and in the sequence provided. Sometimes a very disorderly sequence! Subjects in a dream are arranged with anything but mathematical precision. Perhaps that constitutes half their charm. Everybody knows that the unexpected happens in life, as in dreams. The unexpected is, in this case, that the intellectual level in Britain rises higher and higher. The arts and sciences are taking their place in the new kingdom, and this, if it be true, is not an unnatural evolution, but a movement in the direction of survival of the fittest. The barbarous period of the near past was, in a sense, an accident. If, for a while, the influence of mental morphia prevailed, instincts were too strong to be permanently dulled. The spirit that was in the men who made our great cathedrals, who furnished our country with the most beautiful and desirable parish and village churches in all Europe, if unproductive, was not dead. The labours of generations of scholars, if put into the background in times of hurry-scurry, of facilities of swift locomotion, hence of restlessness, have not been thrown away. We were in such a desperate state of going to and fro that few found time to pause and think, to ask themselves the question if it were all worth while? If man, as a creative creature with a lot of the Angel in him, was mistaking Means for Ends? Means there were, and coming so swiftly that they jostled one another. So swiftly was every facility absorbed and made use of to acquire wealth (honestly or dishonestly didn’t matter) that the people were swept off their balance and became as atoms driven hither and thither in chaos. They mistook chaos for kosmos, licence for liberty, astuteness for intellect, the transient for permanency, and small things for great ones. The cry was, Agriculture does not pay. Of course it did not under the unnatural conditions of the time. Once upon a time 3 or 5 per cent. was good interest. When 10 per cent. was demanded, and much more hoped for, only gambling could provide it. Agriculture, the first need to be demanded, was pushed out of the field by Industrial Gambling. Ignorance of cause and effect, of the lessons to be got from History, blinded the eyes of gamblers to the fact that the fall of Roman power, while becoming almost universal, can be traced to the cessation of corn growing in the Agro Romano. Trusting her Colonies to provide grain led to idleness. A people, in the first place agricultural, released from an effort of their genius, became dilapidated and political; they exchanged Labour for luxury, easy getting for dignified control, and Rome became extravagant, and so, by degrees, she fell a victim to barbarians. She fell from a high to a low estate. Once a victor, and then a victim to the worst plague from which a nation can suffer: Idleness and greed for money without paying the price for it, Labour!

§ 42

If Rome thus suffered, why should it be impossible or even unlikely that a modern nation following the same road would not pay the penalty! The desire to get rich at all costs did not only endanger internal commerce and growth, but, affecting the whole soul of the nation, blinded to all other matters. Literary standards were lowered, Research was starved for want of funds; discoveries of the power and mightiness of the Past were known only to a comparatively few, rather held in contempt as Faddists, or, at the best, harmless lunatics who grasped at a shadow and lived in a Phantom world of their own making. Hence, compared with the great nations of antiquity, Britain was providing little or nothing by which future generations could gauge her creative intelligence or weigh it against her ephemeral conquests. There is no surer sign of the decadence of a nation than the cessation of Artistic activity. Politicians are but “will o’ the wisps” in comparison with creative Artists. They are but makeshifts, come to-day, gone to-morrow. What care we for the Politics of Bacon, or whether Shakespeare was a Liberal or Conservative? We know Milton was a Puritan; that does not matter, because he was a Poet.

§ 43

Where are the law givers of the Elizabethan period? Dead letters. That period is known and loved for the Poets it made, as well as for discoveries by travellers and men of science. It was a time of great craftsmanship also. It was a period of refined taste, when people were not aware of the Treasures they were making for the future to enjoy. The ambition to do that was quite outside the calculation of the recent Philistines. “It is good enough for me.” “It will last my time.” “It serves my purpose.” “I am a plain man!” Well, we all know that you are a plain man, and a selfish, stagnant man as well, and a person that leads to nothing, a brick wall at the end of the narrow footway on which you press your unprogressive feet; your only use is that you provide a subject for satire which Carlyle and Ruskin knew so well how to employ.

§ 44

Trade is _much_ but not _everything_; it is noble when honestly pursued, but may be entirely the reverse. Trade is for the provision of food, clothing, warmth and sanitation. The service of Science is to protect Health, to soften suffering, to add to our knowledge of the wonders of the world we live in, to use its genius for construction, not destruction, to, if possible, prolong life, not destroy it, to make it happier, not sadder, to reveal the mysteries of Movement, of Light, of Force, to tell us, however little, of the Heavens and the Treasures still concealed in the little globe on which we stand. This is much, and would seem to be enough to occupy Science day and night. But there is another side to Science which is deplorable.

To invent engines, gasses, and substitutes for nature’s products from poisonous chemicals, is to abuse her genius, to fructify misery and accelerate pain. When doing these things Science brutalizes herself, distorts herself and renders herself a nuisance. By inventing engines to destroy, Science encourages mankind’s worst instincts, and by doing so is not advancing but delaying progress. Science can be every bit as harmful as beneficial; she can be as great a curse as a blessing. If the Great War did not teach that it has failed to teach one of its profoundest lessons.

§ 45

The Germans, through the aid of their scientific men, carried War to a depth of horror never before known. God help the world if Science is again so employed next time, maybe, to the extinction of the human race, certainly it will be to the extinction of all loveliness that God and man have created. A few days ago I read noble words of Anatole France to a teachers’ union: “_Arouse the hatred of hate_,” “glorify Love and Work,” “Burn all books that _teach Hate_.” “The hour has come for us all to be citizens of the World, but first of our own land, or to see civilization perish.” “Train intelligent workers, experts in the Arts they practice, knowing what they owe to the community of the nation and to the World. Teach Reason, Intelligence, Wisdom; the teachers of the future must teach the Love of Peace and the Hatred of War.” These are strong words from a great man.

By ingenious invention of destructive agents Science has been glorified by War. Why? Because she has lined pockets with ill-gained wealth; but, in reality, Science has debased herself. I would go a step further. I would, if I could, destroy every tradition which could prop up Science to do the like again. I would teach children that when Science misconducts herself she is on the side of an evil, not good, power.

§ 46

If a League of Nations is to succeed, the wings of Science must be cut, her reckless flight, curtailed. Science has, by adaptation of peaceful to aggressive purposes, committed a crime against herself. She has used her children to be poisoners and murderers. Germany set the example, under the title “Kultur,” a wolf in sheepskin. Science, perverted from her noble initial intentions, became popular; she became the means for fabulous fortunes; piles of money was the price paid for her ghastly cleverness. A not very enviable class wore diamonds, drove expensive cars and clad themselves in costly furs; that is how they went into mourning for the slain. Science, pressed on by commercial greed, lost a friend when War ceased. What hideous contemplation; the slaughter of our children paying a hundred per cent. profit.

Politicians may plan elaborate games. Complicated moves may look as if checkmate was certain. No legislator, singular or plural, will stop War. All Wars come from the commercial element in the first place. War is made now for a purpose, and if we look that purpose straight in the face it is “More money.” Plutus has been the god of the modern world. As long as he reigns Wars will be. Politicians and lawyers may try to wriggle out of it, but The Truth has a disagreeable habit of cropping up. Sophistry may do its best to hide it or drown it; it may be hidden but not destroyed. There is only one way to stop War; to make people abominate it, scorn it as a stupid reckless destroyer. Once there was chivalry, even a kind of noble beauty in its conduct, which, superficially, redeemed it. The South African War was a war to acquire diamonds; it was purely commercial, hidden by sophistry under a garb of protection of public interest. It was not public, but private commercial success which produced a shameful disaster which came near to wreck England. When we are really civilized and are engrossed in the Arts of Peace, when we are all bent upon making the world a desirable place by making Life growingly attractive, growingly efficacious for all the classes, War will cease to have any attractions. When the beauty quite possible to life is insisted upon by the exerted will of an entire people united in Fraternity, united in schemes for the betterment of moral status, of honour and of industry, War will cease, and not till then. When we would clean out a pond, it is no use to scrape its surface of slime; slime on the surface is only a superficial sign of trouble. The bottom must be cleansed, that is where the real trouble is. It is of little use to adorn a chair with fanciful design when its legs are rotten, they must be made strong. The mass of the people is as the clean bottom of a pond is to its surface, the chair to its legs. They must be strengthened and purified by education, which is not arrived at by a parrot-like repetition of facts or theories, but which teaches the whole duty of man to man, hence to God. That is what our new Education is trying to do. The child being father to the man, we try to take him in hand at once, and through him re-establish honour, sobriety, industrious habits which will lead his highest instincts and teach him that he must be master of himself, to which, having attained, he will be a guide, philosopher and friend to his and after generations. Make the people love Beauty as a sign to goodness, ugliness as a signpost to Evil. If that education fails none will succeed.

This discourse was delivered by an Expert. He was no amateur in Science; it was only that his fine mind was free from disillusion. Right and wrong are on different planes. They are disconnected, and he, being honest as well as gifted, had no intention of making a compromise between them! He has a great following in the New Life, and is a progressive power not only in his own but in all the Communes of England.

§ 47

We have seen that Forestry has been reinstated, and under what pleasant, profitable circumstances it grows. Now my dream takes me on, and my spirit peregrinates in other localities and seeks enlightenment. Windswept moors, and places where bogs are prevalent, prove difficult antagonists to agriculture as generally practised. It is true that what the Italians call “_terra ingrata_,” literally translated, “unyielding soil,” is in England as well as in Italy an obstinate problem, which it will take time to solve. In such counties where there is much of this unyielding soil, science is trying to find remedies or uses to which it can be put. Science is busy with experiments. Effort is being made to discover what trees (if any) can be planted with advantage in such districts; so far, the pine is in favour. In the meantime, much more use is made of peat for many purposes, as fuel for instance, and manure for gardens and the growth of flowers and shrubs, which answer at once to its fructifying influence. Extending my spirit flight through the length and breadth of the land, I see that no land capable of growing grain is out of service. Grain for bread, grass for cattle and sheep, unpolluted rivers where ample supplies of fish are obtainable, and the nation is provided against starvation, even in time of another War.

§ 48

“We are looking ahead now,” said one to another. “We are facing, not avoiding, the consideration of anxious possibilities.” “Each Commune of Britain is busy with problems to solve which will make us safe in emergencies; the policy of ‘Wait and See,’ than which none could be more dangerous to welfare, is treated (as it should be) with contempt. ‘Up and doing’ has taken its place; we have had enough of fallacious epigrams as catch words for opportunists.” The River Severn, one of the most productive in England, has been taken from German hands and is producing a goodly yield of food. There was a prejudice against “coarse fish as an article of food; we are returning to an old English habit of using it.” In old days most of the monasteries were erected near a river; where that was not possible, lakes were dug out and plentifully supplied with fish. We have returned to use an important and nourishing food in localities where it can be employed, and a great and growing industry is proving a success, it is feeding a large section of the people. Sea fishermen did not like it at first; it appeared to be an innovation of their right, but since it has proved not to interfere with their business it is accepted.

§ 49

There are many “practical” schemes being initiated. My dream leads me now into matters not generally called “practical,” but are necessary to a great nation. We all know (any way), who have read History what we owe to-day to the Monastic system, which, with all its abuses, did save learning. Monasteries were the Cabinets of tradition, without which we might now be barbarians, and it was by no means all for good they were suppressed. To Henry VIII. is not due all the mischief which Cromwell completed. The lands belonging to the Church were regarded with envy by the State before the coming of those two powerful autocrates. Every one knows that, but every one does not realise the debt we owe to a concentrated life going on amid war and rapine. Good things, if once they have been proved good and useful, are apt to crop up again. If not used exactly as they were, if the principle which started them no longer prevails, if their recurrence is not on the lines of what was called the “religious life,” the results they achieved may be copied in a New Age and under a fresh inspiration.

§ 50

Action and reaction are inevitable. Extended activities lead to complications and concentrated action to simplicity. Thus men, inclined towards quiet more than to jostle in the crowd, find it necessary to retire to find peace to work out their destinies, and in groups--in groups because continued solitude is paralysing, as much to mental as physical activity. There be men who are born in scholarship whose intuition is to research, they are the vessels that hold learning, but not seldom they pour it out with difficulty. They give it out drop by drop; they are to a nation what foundations are to a building. In a sense they are passive. History, Archæology, indeed, all the ologies, Art in its various branches, and Science in hers, cannot get along without silent strenuous workers who are as disinterested a race as our social system provides. Mostly poor, they live in solitude, receiving little encouragement. If they happened to have a small steady income it was heavily taxed. What with income, super-taxes and rates, what remained of small income, at the best, was reduced to less than that of an unskilled labourer. The New Communes seek these valuable men, who, when found, are presented with a “living wage.” Thus, some of the most valuable servants of the State are, at least, placed upon a financial basis with unskilled labour.

§ 51

There is another group of indispensable servants to the State which was neglected, whose wages were less than the modern menial--the teachers. They are men whose education has been costly to their parents, who, in more cases than not, could ill afford the drain upon their resources. While miners, servants, even ignorant boys employed by publishers to wrap up books for distribution, were getting wages out of all proportion to the work they were doing, these “teachers” went quietly on with their useful labour, unnoticed and ill-paid. They formed a large class of intelligence and usefulness which constituted The New Poor!!! While the Government was conceding principle after principle to “strikers” and to a whole army of unreasonable discontent, the men who were working quietly for the cause of Education remained outside the sympathy of Government “Officials.” Under the New Commune a better and more just system is at work. They are treated, having been chosen and selected with care, as public servants, and as such they are paid; at least, they are now upon a scale of pay equal to the scullery maid of the past. “The profiteers,” often as ignorant as grasping, drove about the country in expensive motor cars, while the makers of England, from an intellectual point of view, were disregarded, even treated with contempt, because the balance at their bankers was small, probably nil, while that of Profiteers was such that their ladies were in diamonds and furs, and Borough Councillors thrived upon the Rates.

Now, let me remember and state what, in my dream, such men are doing, as public servants, for the previously unestimated value of education for that part of the community which is called Labour. In one of the most beautiful parts of Kent, once “the Garden” of England, under the slope of its backbone, on which is the Pilgrims Way, the road from London to Canterbury, is to be seen a straggling group of buildings, evidently erected gradually as accommodation demanded. The starting place was an old barn, one of those magnificent but simple buildings which were next to the church in importance and only second to it in noble proportions and dignified aspect. In a way, those old Tythe barns represented the people and their agriculture as faithfully as the churches their reverence and sacred traditions.

§ 52

Once the storehouse for grain, the Tythe barns were the meeting place for landlords, their tenants, and country folk; the flail made delightful music at threshing time. In them county dances were held and seasons celebrated. Before the Town Hall was, they were. In the new life the Tythe barn was used, in the first instance as a dwelling place for a kind of Franciscan order, not bound by an oath or dedicated to any sectarian creed; it is a place of retirement for scholars as well as for communal activity. By degrees the little community grew. New buildings, inexpensive but sanitary, have been added; surrounding land purchased and cultivated with the specialties common to the soil of Kent--Fruit and Hops. Hops especially, because the New World repudiates “Kultur,” and no longer substitutes for that fragrant and desirable fruit deleterious chemical products which agents interested in a “Company” exploited against the original article. The noisy, smoky threshing machine does not visit here; grain is threshed by the flail. The occupiers of these buildings subsist upon their own land; cows and goats give them milk; they make their own bread, and brew their own light beer, and wines got from the elder, the pear, apple and some sweet grapes grown and flourishing well in sunny aspects.

§ 53

The community established here is voluntary, mostly composed of men of small incomes, large intelligence, and varied pursuits. Being in a sense public servants, they only pay a nominal tax to the Commune for the use of the land, and no income _tax_ is levied from them. Intellect contributes what money cannot buy.

So interesting was the appearance of this little nest of disinterested men, so lively in surroundings, so snug in its suggestion of quiet concentrated life, that my spirit sought to examine it. It is high summer; the corn and fruit are ripening; the hop gardens are laden with fragrance. It is that time of year when repose seems to take the place of agricultural activity; the sun is hot, the air full of the hum of bees. It is the midday of the year when, as the old pagans told, the gods sleep. The sun, no longer hidden by smoke, is doing his work, preparing for the gathering time, fruitful autumn! Something after an old monastery it is. A refectory, and a kitchen built after the plan of that at Glastonbury, denote a goodly company to feed. Every member of the order has his sleeping cell. Those whose avocations are primarily studious have a study to themselves. It is noon, a bell rings. Soon the refectory is full, accommodated to hold fifty or sixty men of different ages and occupations. One could easily pick out the scholars from the active workers. There appeared to be no servants, so called; the cook was of the order; they waited upon themselves. What is the main business of the Order? It is “teaching.” The Prior, or he in priority, is a distinguished old man. I noticed or learnt by listening, that sectarian creeds did not exist here. They were just Christians, _i.e._, who work for others, give of their experience and knowledge freely and abundantly. The Athenic academy must have been something like this modern adaptation of Plato’s republic; who knows if there be not a Socrates among them?

There are artists and craftsmen as well as historians, and music plays its part, for in the refectory is an organ. Sweet music came from its pipes during dinner. The number I saw was not inclusive; many of the order were away in different parts of the county teaching. I heard that every county in Britain contains a similar Order of Teachers. The subjects taught, answer to the needs of the County. The Prior has power to choose from and send teachers where he pleases; in this sense he is an autocrat. The object is to instil Agricultural peasants with high Ideals of their life as such, and to enlighten Industrial districts by History. So much of the old agitation and mistrust on the part of the people was the result of _ignorance_. It was to combat ignorance and to place high ideals before the people that the Order was founded. Within an easy walk for the pedestrian, my spirit flew the distance in less than a second. I found myself in a village. It reminded me of one that in my waking youth I remember before the giant Industrialism had sprawled his uncouth body there, and with his great ungainly feet had trodden down grass, corn and fruit trees, pulled down ancient buildings to erect factories, and turned a place of gardens into ash heaps. The horrid remnants of his invasion have been eradicated. Everything seemed to record peace. The country at peace, the people at peace. I went into the village school; there I saw one of the order instructing. No birch rod was suspended on its whitewashed walls; I looked for it, remembering Dr. Johnson’s homage to the Rod, but saw none. The boys and girls were being led, not driven; interested, not forced; they were being taught the dignity of Labour and the criminality of laziness. Taught self-respect they were, and to abominate not only low actions, but dishonest impulses. From every cottage I heard the music of the loom. In the fields the sound of happy song prevailed. They rivaled the thrush and the blackbird, did those merry workers. They were merry with the birds, joining them in song.

§ 54

In dreams, seasons change places. Suddenly it is autumn, harvest time, a festival time when people are gay as they set out to gather the fruit of their ploughing and sowing.

It is the same village, but the aspect is in a degree changed. The repose of summer has given way to the activity of autumn, or rather to the approach of it. The harvest is in full swing. The male population is busy with _Sickle_ and _Scythe_. I did not see the mechanical cutter; the New Communes find that the old system provides more work for the agricultural class, which has grown numerically since it became evident that Britain must feed itself with its own products as much as possible. This has led to greater importance being attached to agriculture than to industrialism, which is now an aid, not an obstruction to agriculture. The village forge is busy; scythes and sickles are being ground, new ones are in the making, fresh shoes are preparing for farm horses; wheels, of great carts to carry the grain and straw, are being set in order. A merry place is the forge, with its lusty bellows, bright fire and brilliant sparks like stars, dancing up the chimney. Everybody is alert. The parson, the schoolmaster, the doctor and land owner will take part in the great event of cutting and storing the precious products of the soil. I noticed several of “The Order” have come up to lend a hand. The great Barn is prepared to receive the golden result of a fine harvest. It has been a summer of sun; the corn is so ripe it shines like copper. The straw is strong, good for hat makers and those occupied in the use of that precious material.

How they work, the strong fellows; with what a heart they gather their own from the beneficent earth; it shall not be sold elsewhere until enough has been stored for the use of the Parish. The New Communes have an excellent habit of looking after _their own people first_, a bad commercial economy, according to old habits, but it answers well because it is just. Plenty of pure light beer is brewed, and pure because brewers are not permitted to adulterate it (if they did so here they would be punished as “forgers”); casks of this, and of home-made cider, have been carted to the cornfields. If the workers do stagger a bit no one blames them; anyhow, they have not been drinking poison, as they did in the past. When the golden harvest moon rises full in a purple sky, they fall to dancing and merriment, and sing folk songs, but before midnight they are at rest, for at daylight they must be up and at it again.

When the corn harvest is reaped and stored, the English vintage begins. Hop gardens in plenty are cultivated here. Every woman and child, besides all grown ups, who can be spared from the farms, are engaged in gathering the lovely green fruit. Hop gathering is one of the pleasantest of all agricultural operations. The scent of the fruit produces a charm as the scent of poppies does, a lotus-eating charm of quiet not excitement. The alleys between the stately hop poles bending under the weight of fruit are dotted with tints as of flowers, for the women’s and children’s garments are bright coloured, woven at home and dyed by the village dyers. Here is seen _the natural life_, for which man was created, from the labour of whose hands bread shall be eaten. No pale, sickly faces are seen here, no discontented looks, no morbid longings for a rich idle life prevail; instead of that are ruddy cheeks, beaming smiles, neighbourly greetings and happy songs are heard “_through daylight hours_.” Winter comes, no less beautiful than summer, only different. Work changes its character. The fruitfulness of summer depends upon winter labour. Not only labourers plough, the parson, clerk and “Gentlemen” plough. This reminds me that in this Dream of a purified and clean England there is no class of “Gentlemen,” because all who labour are such. A man who did not take part in the manual labour (in some measure, at least) would not be regarded with respect. Even those whose occupations demand care of their hands put in a certain amount of hard labour. Practice being better than precept, and fraternity being best of all, this habit succeeds.

§ 55

Now, winter is in full swing, the days are short, evenings long, but not dull. The Village Church, well warmed, is used for concerts, when not for them educational addresses are given by members of “The Order.” The big schoolroom is used for dances and play acting. It is considered by Village Communes that their duty is to help recreation as well as encourage labour. Concise little plays have been written by scholars of “The Order.” They make no fuss about scenery; what they do take pains with is the playing, which, in winter, forms a conspicuous item of education. It has been deemed wisest that the plays shall be simple and, above all, CLEAN minded. It is the object of the Village Communes that their people remain simple, which means not stupid, but innocent. As far as I have travelled I have been made aware that “Cinemas” are under strict control. It has been argued and decided that amusements may prove fatal to development. In no sense of priggishness, but as a proper protection. Cinemas are not permitted to show crime; they are used, as other enjoyments are, to excite the nobler not ignoble features of life.

We need not go to Germany now for basket-weaving, straw-plaiting and so on. That ancient industry is restored to England, which had let it slip, with too many others, into the hands of the Teutons an industrious people when the English were getting idle and were trying to live on other people’s earnings and labour, and more shame to them for it. It is the object of the Community so to conduct affairs that the idle are the exception, not the rule as they were growing to be some time ago. While those occupied in the affairs of the Communes are strict (for what is the use of Government if it is ductile, compromising and weak?), they are not autocratic, save in the sense that having framed laws, with consideration they carry them into effect. They do not make a law until they are sure it is a just one, and one which is necessary for the good of the people as a whole, not only for a section of it.

§ 56

This principle has done away with Class Legislation, which was proving a grave danger to the well being of England. Of course, it stands for sense that every County is not ruled alike. There must be Industrial districts as well as Agricultural, but they are not permitted to invade each other. As far as possible Industrial districts are not divorced from Agriculture. Now that the smoke fiend is no more Industrial districts can have their gardens, and the people can grow their vegetables and fruit with security. This has been made possible, as we have seen, for each person is master of his own little bit of land, which he is taught to cultivate, and which if he does not it is taken away from him and given to someone else who will use it. Once a year (if necessary more often) the leaders of Communes meet in conclave somewhere in the centre of England. There they consider the laws. In that way conditions are kept clear from becoming stereotyped. Men of various adaptabilities shake brains with each other. This becomes a habit and prevents isolation, because the national interest is the County interest extended. If Agriculture is to be the first consideration the main essential without which the nation might starve, Industrialism had to be checked, but not destroyed. It had to be put in its proper place, not as an autocratic ruler, but a useful servant.

Nuisances produced by Industrialism are sternly dealt with. No factories are permitted in Agricultural districts or to be planted in the centre of towns among dwelling houses or where they might be a nuisance. There is no hardship in that decision, it is just, that is all. Borough and Village, as well as City Councils, are now so represented that jobbery is put out of court. Not only is the body of the people considered, but the soul of the Nation is encouraged to enlarge and expand. Men have got to see that, and to act on it. All forms of religion are equally regarded. There is no State Church or State monopoly. It was a blow to the narrow brain, this was; it wrenched power from inquisitors and took the wind out of the sails of doctrinaires. But it is proved to have been wise, because there is more, not less, religion than there was. It is simplified on the broad basis of belief in God. The Devil gets a poor look in now. Religious persecution was one of his choicest allies. The Devil found in it admirable matter for his schemes, for it promoted hate, not love. The noblest Greek philosophy teaches that love was the first created abstract power, and what philosophy is better calculated to make men of us than that is? The story of the Garden of Eden teaches us that God made perfect beauty, which, by folly, man, in his inquisitive, greedy pursuit of wealth, attempted to destroy.

He had to become poor to buy back what he had lost; he had to labour to create a new Garden, and that is what the New Life is struggling to do. Not a less, but a more beautiful Garden than the first is being created. Now it is to be made for the many. We have history to teach us what to avoid, and what to cling to, and it is one of the chief duties of men versed in history to teach it to their less favoured fellows, and that the New Order is striving to do.