| | | | | Like the costume of the clergy, the popular conception of | any class of men seems generally to lag a generation or so | behind the actual state of things. When every trace of | intellectual life had vanished a century back from the | Universities, they still exercised a powerful influence over | the country in their older character of seats of learning. | Thirty years ago, when the race of three-bottle men was | fast vanishing before a new spirit of speculation and | asceticism, a fellow of a college was still identified in | popular estimation with port and prejudice. And now that, | by a natural reaction, the Universities are throwing off day | by day more of their academical character in the pursuit of | the practical, the public mind makes its corresponding | advance and arrives at a conception of fellows of colleges | as men of recluse habits, dreamers or pedants, strange in | any case to the actual business of the world. This may | perhaps account for the reception which these Essays | on Reform ~~ proceeding, as they are known to do, | from a small group | | either of fellows of colleges or of men otherwise connected | with the Universities ~~ have met with in some quarters. | The question, we are told, is one of figures and facts, and | mere philosophic considerations are altogether out of place | in it. It would be easy to answer that figures and facts do | not in this matter seem to have their assumed weight with | the so-called practical Englishman. It was noticed, for | instance, the other day how little importance the working-classes | seemed to attach to the question of redistribution of | seats, the most urgent ~~ if figures go for anything ~~ of all | the Reform questions of the day. Nor is this indifference to | the practical side of Reform confined to the working-classes. | The most obstinate defenders of the present state of | the representation run away as pertinaciously as its | opponents to theories and speculations, and the fight rages, | not over facts and figures, but over

"the tyranny of | numbers,

or

"the advance of democracy."

| Indeed it is only our English shame at being found out to be | speculative that would exclude from public discussion the | grounds on which we really take any interest in the | question, and on which, as a matter of fact, we argue it over | every dinner-table. Assuming, however, that Englishmen | have a horror of the merely philosophic treatment of such a | subject, it would be hard to see shy the lawyer or journalist | or author who happens to be a fellow of a college is more | likely to be a mere philosopher than his practical critics. | His position is indeed the very opposite of that of the | clergy, to a knowledge of whose character and tendencies | this belief in the unpractical pedantry of all University men | may perhaps be attributed. As a rule, the men who take | orders are not men who have been much influenced by their | University life. It is only at its close that they have been | caught up and stiffened into a class by ecclesiastical | influences which are without any connexion with their | previous career. The lay fellow of a college, on the other | hand, moulded as he is by the life and studies of his | university, is generally taken from it at the very moment | when they would cramp and injure him, and individualized | by contact with the world. Whether as barrister or doctor or | journalist, he represents, for a short time it may be, perhaps | the most valuable section of the intellectual class ~~ those, | we mean, who are free from the thralldom of the mere | details of study, and not as yet buried in the details of | business and life; and who are therefore of all men best | qualified to act as mediators between the speculative few | and the practical many. A glance over the list of writers of | these Essays would be enough to show that the majority are | men of this stamp, connected with the Universities by the | honorary tie of distinctions won there, but men already | engaged in the actual work of the world. So little indeed are | they conscious of any peculiarly speculative power, that | one of them stands on … | to some of Mr. | Dicey's readers hardly worth claiming at all; the interest of | the Essays certainly lies altogether outside of any contests | between thinker and thinker. What they set before us with | remarkable force is the strength of a demand for reform | which knits together two classes at first sight so unlike, and | yet between which there is so much similarity, as the | artisan and the intellectual classes, and which springs out of | the alienation of both from the present state of English | politics. Incidentally they show the different shapes which | the demand takes in the one and the other, and the very | various currents of thought which even in this small group | of essayists unite into one common stream of feeling on the | subject. | It is a danger, the seriousness of which we are quick to | recognize in the case of our neighbours, when any distinct | section of the community stands aloof from what should be | the common political life and interest of all. The class | which is estranged can hardly fail to grow more and more | disloyal to the institutions among which it lives, and thus to | become a real danger to their secure development; while | the habit of mere tacit and ineffectual opposition, and the | loss of the healthy stimulus of political action, either dwarf | it into mere aestheticism and effeminacy, or stiffen it into | social isolation and exclusiveness. Nor is the effect less | prejudicial on the nation at large, for, in addition to the | actual loss of one of the many influences which should | have borne their weight on public opinion and the | administration of affairs there is created a morbid tendency | to secession on the part of minorities, instead of what has | so often proved an invigorating struggle towards eventual | success; while the party which is for the time in a majority | loses more and more the inducement which the presence of | defeated but still struggling opponents always affords to | that political moderation which is to a State what courtesy | and self-restraint are to society. It is strange that those who | are so alive to the danger which threatens American | institutions from the supposed withdrawal of the upper ten | thousand from all participation in public affairs, should be | blind to the double danger which threatens our own. The | merely traditionary character off much of the rough abuse | which falls from the lips of the leaders of the | working-classes ~~ abuses which is no doubt unreal enough, | or it would fall rather on the middle-classes than on the | aristocracy ~~ need not blind us to the increasing alienation | of the whole body of the artisans from English politics. | There are truer tests than words; we can see signs of | alienation in the distrust which the artisans evince towards | Parliament, and in the reluctance with which Parliament | touches any question that affects their class. There is no | question which, if it followed the bent of its own | inclinations, the House of Commons would sooner attempt | to settle than the questions of the organization of labour, of | trades unions, and of strikes; yet this great assembly of | capitalists and employers shrinks instinctively from | meddling with it, or even with the projects of arbitration | and conciliation which spring out of it. The workmen, on | the other hand, show a profound distrust of Parliamentary | action, nor do they scruple to display their distrust to | Parliament itself. In addition, for instance, to their demand | of members who should really represent their interests on | the Committee which is now investigating the trade | outrages at Sheffield, they require that representatives of | each trade shall be present when the affairs of that trade are | discussed. Mr. Leslie Stephen | says truly enough, | The result of all this is that we have a State within a | State. The artisan class, excluded from the political | organization of the country, constructs a gigantic | organization of its own; discusses its own interests ~~ since | they receive no discussion elsewhere ~~ in its own circle, | and from a necessarily selfish point of view; loses more and | more its sense of adhesion to England; and, in the effort to | substitute a loyalty to its own class throughout the world | for patriotism, ends in becoming weakly cosmopolitan, and | in shaping a foreign policy of its own, which, whether wise | or foolish, stands in sharp contrast with the foreign policy | of our actual Governments. To all this we have perhaps got | accustomed; but what is new to many is the growing | alienation of a class very distinct from the class of artisans | ~~ we mean the class which is represented by the authors | of these Essays. No-one | who has watched them can have | failed to see in the younger generation of thoughtful men a | tendency to

"despair of the republic,"

to stand | aloof from practical politics, to feel more at home among | the institutions of Switzerland or American than among | those of England. Their alienation is based on grounds very | different from those of the artisans. They complain of the | want of definite principles in our policy at home and | abroad, of the persistent clinging to old traditions even | when they have been professedly abandoned, of the | suspension of effective reforms, of the timidity in dealing | with the social and ecclesiastical questions of the day, of | the pitiful considerations that are suffered to interfere with | the commencement of a real system of national education, | of the indifference shown to the degradation, ignorance, | and crime of the vast masses of population in town and | country ~~ in a word, a want of statesmanship. Nothing, | they contend, can be done with parliament as it is. | says Sir George Young, | The | impulse given in 1832 is spent, and no new impulse has | taken its place. The Essayists believe that the first result of | a reconstitution of parliament would be a restoration of this | practical self-confidence, a gift of boldness to solve the | pressing questions of the day. The very sense that it was a | new body would give a new aspect to the problems with | which it had to deal, and, in addition to the actual impulse | of

"new blood,"

there would be the feeling that | Parliament was not reconstituted for nothing. | It is this new stimulus to practical politics which the | Essayists look for, not merely in the direct results on | parliament of its own reconstruction, but in the removal of | influences which now prevent the natural play of existing | institutions, and especially in the new force that would be | gained by utilizing the energies of the artisan class in the | service of the State. In one of the ablest and most | statesmanlike of the Essays Mr. Rutson is so far from | wishing to alter the social balance that he looks simply to | the proper development of existing social forces for the | results which he desires. Through the bondage of the | counties and the political apathy of the smaller boroughs, | the territorial aristocracy ~~ the very class which, form | their opportunities of culture and leisure, might be looked | up to as the leaders and motive force of the nation ~~ have | become the representatives, not indeed of the true | Conservative elements of society, but of a small privileged | social class which usurps their name. The work of progress | is thus thrown on what is, in the nature of things, the true | Conservative class ~~ the professional men and | tradespeople of the towns; and it is wonderful how, with | their imperfect education and the narrowness of sympathy | which their position necessitates, they should have done so | much. The truth is that their efforts have actually been in | the direction of their interests, and that as yet they have | pushed on reforms because, either economically or socially, | the reforms of late years have specially affected their class. | But of all the present classes of society, the middle-class, | comfortable and well satisfied in itself, and without the | higher training which would allow the class above it to look | out of itself to larger considerations of the national good, is | the last to which the State has a right to look for the | impulse which is necessary for wholesome political | progress. For this impulse the Essayists look to the class of | artisans. They point to their power of organization, their | freedom from the senseless jealousy of administrative | action, their readiness to deal with social questions, their | very enthusiasm and sentiment, as forces which should be | gathered in to the aid of public affairs. We need not discuss | these points, ably as they are put by Mr. Hutton; but it is | remarkable how, in his discussion of them, and indeed | throughout these Essays, the real difficulty of the inclusion | of the artisan class is not once touched upon. The difficulty | is their own relation to the classes beneath them. The | question of labour is not one merely between the capitalist | and the artisan; it is a matter of strife and heartburning | between the trades unionist and the unskilled labour. If a | parliament of employers excludes from its consideration | the interests of the higher workman, it would be just as | difficult to induce a Parliament in which the spirit of the | artisan was predominant to treat with fairness the claims of | the bricklayer's labourer or the dock labourer. There is a | rift on either side of the artisan class, and it is deeper below | than above; the artisan is really more connected in feeling | and interest with the small shopkeeper than he is with the | unskilled workman. What is a sullen grudge and dull sense | of injury now, on the part of the latter, at the trade rules | which exclude him jealously from remunerative | employment, would become a far keener feeling when the | class whose monopoly practically shuts him out from the | chance of rising in the world had sheered right away into | the mass of the governing classes. No severance of classes | would perhaps be so permanently dangerous as that which | should break up the people into the two great masses of the | educated and the uneducated; and yet the extension of | education would only embitter the question of labour by | bringing out into stronger light the exclusive and | protectionist system of the trade societies. The strife over | labour ~~ hushed perhaps between the working-man and | the capitalist ~~ would have to be fought out on a lower | level; the cry would be for universal suffrage, and the first | result of universal suffrage would be the destruction of the | Trades' Unions by the classes which they now shut out | from the labour market. What strikes us most in these | Essays is the unconsciousness they show of the existence of | a class beneath the artisan ~~ at any rate of any possible | political future for these great masses of unskilled labour. | But is is certain that any theory of the extension of the | suffrage which concentrates itself wholly on the | comparatively small and exclusive artisan class will, | however practically useful, be philosophically inadequate | to the thorough settlement of the question of Reform.