Before we can imagine what may be lines of
possible advance, for the individual or the community,
we should base our ideas on observing what have
been the means of advance in the past. Many of
the Utopian visions which have been sketched by
different writers are in flagrant contradiction of all
history and human nature. It is at least far more
likely that gain in the future will be on similar lines
to those which have been successful in the past, rather
than on lines opposed to all previous growth.
The personal, rather than the communal, advance
is the main consideration, inasmuch as it is personal
initiative of the most able which helps the rest of the
community forward. The greatest improvements
are the result of a single mind, animating perhaps
a small group of similar minds. We all know how
such great benefits as prison reform, the abolition of
slavery, the restriction of child labour, and similar
movements of which the public are now proud, were
each originated by one mind, and worked by a small
group in the teeth of the bitterest opposition to start
with. It goes without saying that the same is the
case in all inventions; it takes not only an inventor,
but also a commercial organiser (seldom one and the
same man), to help the public to any improvement.
If ten thousand men could be picked out of any one
country, so as to remove the most fruitful minds, that
country would come to an entire standstill, and would
continue in mechanical repetition until a fresh generation
gave a chance of the rise of original minds.
Probably not more than one in a thousand minds
causes useful advance among the others. And the
majority of men lead automatic lives, of which the
reflexes have been trained by teaching and experience
to do what is required, and the daily actions are performed
without a single real thought, but only in
response to external stimuli of sights and orders. It
is therefore in the development of the able individuals,
and in giving every chance to such whenever they
arise, that the hopes of the great mass must lie.
It is perhaps not too much to say that all general
popular advance of the community at large is based
on the prevention of waste. Wherever waste exists
improvement is possible; and we need not trouble
ourselves much about the construction of the social
organism, so long as we can lay our finger on the
waste and check it. As with a machine we know the
amount of force that is put into it, and can see what
percentage is yielded up usefully in its output, so it is
with a community. The design of the nature and
quality of work done by the community or the
machine is another matter; though that again comes
under the head of waste if the quality is bad. We
will now look more precisely at the gains by
prevention of waste in health, life, energy, and
renewal.
The saving of health is one of the greatest steps
that has been made, as it has been suddenly performed
within a generation. Man had unconsciously conquered
bacteria to a great extent by the invention of
cooking, and by the experimental learning of cleanliness;
but the scientific attack on bacteria and protozoa
has given the prospect of preventing all epidemic
disease, and largely increasing the efficiency of man
in the most fertile countries. This advance means
the economic exploitation of the whole tropical regions,
which—with cheap transport—will provide an immense
fresh basis for the advantage of other lands. The
gain in antiseptic surgery, giving safety for operation
on all internal organs, as it only affects the small
proportion of sick and injured, is not of so much
general importance as the conquest of the microorganisms,
which have hitherto ruled the best part of
the world. It is in the complete domination over all
forms of life, however minute, that we shall find one
of the greatest lines for future advance. Only a small
band of workers, about one in a hundred million of
the world's population, has made this advance
possible.
The saving of life is another great step which will
give man far higher power; not only in the mere
hindrance of death, but far more in the increased
power of work per day. The power of continuity of
work is a growth of civilisation; and it is obvious that
a man who can do twelve hours' work per day, instead
of six hours, not only lives virtually twice as long, but
costs the community only half as much for what he
does. This continuity of work, or industry, is seen
in both high and low classes of work. Some races
can do more than twice as much agricultural work in
the day as others. The same is true of scientific or
commercial work. And there have been some of the
highest minds which could only work for two hours
a day, while others could work up to fourteen or
sixteen hours daily. This power of continuity of
work is obviously then a matter improvable by cultivation,
both in the individual and in the race; and as
it may easily double a man's effective life it is certainly
a line of great promise for the future.
Another direction for saving a portion of life is in
the rapidity of thought and action. It is easy to find
a difference of two or three times the amount of work
per hour between different men. All that we have
just said about the continuity of work applies to its
rapidity; and a large gain may be looked for in
cultivating pace and vigour. We need hardly note that
trades-union ideals would destroy instead of promoting
these most promising and fruitful lines of advance.
In transport from place to place the movement at
fifty miles an hour instead of five means a gain of
several years of life to most men. But here we have
probably reached the useful limits, as any possible
further saving would not yield much more time.
The saving of energy is another form of the
question of continuity of work. The ideal of work—as
varied as possible, and as interesting as possible—being
the joy of life and the greatest good, is an aim
hardly yet grasped by more than a very few persons.
To the majority, work is a hateful thing, to be done
solely in order to get means for enjoyment in some
other way. This essentially savage and uncultivated
ideal needs to be steadily rooted out by the better
adaptation of work to the individual. An education
which started by cultivating the natural interests,
using them for mental development, and only superadding
what further knowledge was really requisite
for life, would greatly help to eradicate the false and
low idea of work which prevails. There is a common
feeling that business cannot be interesting in itself;
but there are few, if any, businesses which if intelligently
followed will not yield scope for some real
interest of observation and study. The greater
application of mind to the work of life will leave
far less scope for fruitless amusement and—as a
great painter remarked—"there is nothing of interest
in life to be compared with work."
To minds which are incapable of continuity of
work, or of relaxation by variation of work, mere
amusements are needful. Darwin's health prevented
more than two hours' work a day, and the flimsiest of
novels was his needful relaxation. But the need of
amusement for this purpose must be taken as the
index of incapacity for continuity—as an unfortunate
failure of mental and physical health—as a disastrous
defect when it occurs along with great abilities which
can only thus work at low speed. The same may be
said of athletics; the need of physical exercise outside
of work is an index of incapacity for physical health
adapted to the work, an unfortunate failure of those
who are of defective condition. The idea that no one
can be too strong and robust is a wild exaggeration;
physical strength needs to be proportioned to the
nature of work, and a slender wiry man will do far
better for indoor life than a plethoric mass of brawn
and muscle which needs much exercise to keep in
health. Unlimited robustness is not an absolute
good, to be pursued at all costs, or else we should
make every schoolboy a Hun, living without shelter,
and feeding on flaps of raw meat which form the only
saddle of his horse. In brief, the need of athletics
shows a weakness of body to be remedied, or a
physical over-development unsuited to the person's
work in life; it is the mark of unfitness, and the need
ceases so soon as a man is adapted to his work. The
need of spending any considerable time on amusement
is the sign of an incapacity, which has to be
removed by strengthening the mind in the individual
or in the race. The passion for amusement is the
sure evidence of a defective education, which has left
the mind incapable of continuity, or bare of interests.
An important advance therefore lies in better use of
the time which is at present wasted in fruitless action
of mind or body; better adaptation and education for
the work of life will gradually raise the standard so
that this form of waste will be avoided. We do not
expect a uniform type of horse to be equally adapted
to draught or hunting or racing; and similarly we
ought to specialise on different types of men fitted
for agriculture, or mechanical work, or office work.
The great subject of the waste by renewal of the
population in each generation has an immense variety
of aspects; but the essential importance of it is seen
when we reflect that about half the labour of the
world is swallowed up in this renewal. The burden
of production, of rearing, of education, and the waste
and loss in the process, exceeds that of any other
activity, such as supply of food or shelter, for the
adult. Hence any possible saving in this great mass
of labour, or reduction of waste, is of the first
importance to the individual and the race.
Those who have proposed temporary marriage
hardly seem to have considered that one of the
most important economies adopted, perhaps dating
from a pre-human period, was that of permanent
marriage. This saved at a stroke the enormous loss
of time and energy in the rivalries of repeated mating.
The gain to the race by leaving the members free for
continuous work is greater than the loss by reproducing
inferior stocks. There is no need for the
system to have been intentionally adopted for this
purpose; but merely a race which economised the
time of repeated mating would soon oust a race in
which it was customary. For this reason any fancied
reconstruction of society without permanent marriage
is entirely futile; even if it could be universal, yet
the advantage given to the lazy and emotional type
of man above the continuous worker would soon pull
down the race. One frequent argument for a more
revocable union is the number of divorces effected
or desired. But nearly all such are among people
whose judgment in any other line of life would
certainly not be trusted, and who habitually get into
trouble over other communal obligations. To abolish
marriage for their benefit would be as reasonable as
allowing all debts to be repudiated because such
people cannot pay their I.O.U.'s. There is moreover
a great gain in permanent marriage when judiciously
effected, by the new mental pivot of a sense of permanent
ensurance of various of the conditions of life,
which liberates the attention of both parties from a
large number of points, and leaves each free to concentrate
attention on a partial phase of feelings and
duties. It is a far higher and a spiritual counterpart
of a successful business partnership, where each
member trusts the other to manage a different part
of the affair. All this mental economy and help
would be impossible without permanence.
Another wastage which has been greatly reduced in
modern times is that of high birth rate and high death
rate. The allusions in mediaeval times show a state
much like that now described among the Slovenes,
where incessant maternity is only balanced by the
reduction of children due to filth, neglect, and bad
conditions. The modern ideal of a small family carefully
tended is an immense advance, both for the
individual life and for the saving of waste. But its
benefits should be sought and not commanded. If
the neglectful, dirty, and wasteful stocks of low type
in our midst let their children die off, it is the only
balance to their overgrowth, which would soon outnumber
the better class of population. The right
end to begin at is by insisting on hard work and tidy
living, under penal enactments; the saving of the
children may then be left to take care of itself. To
begin at the sentimental end, as is now the fashion, is
to degrade the whole race by swamping it with the
worst stocks.
The line of progress in invention is the remorseless
"scrapping" of poorer machines. The more serious
the progress becomes, the more scrapping needs to be
done. We must not be surprised then if a sign of
human progress of mind and body should be the
large number of inefficients who are thrown out of
work on the scrap heap of society.
In another direction advance has been made by
general lengthening of the stages of life. The early
marriage and early deaths of past times brought the
cost of renewal at every twenty years, which was a
much severer tax on the community than renewal
in thirty or forty years. There is probably also a
great benefit in the higher development of parents
before each generation. It is well recognised how the
later children of a family are more able, and of a more
finished quality than the earlier; great examples of
such a view in older literature being Joseph and
David, and in our own history, Alfred. The longer
growth of mind before each generation appears to be
a great gain of advance for the race. Among the
lower races, by far the most advanced are those like
the Zulu, which have a long period of hard training
and active life before settling down to family
duties.
The often debated problem dealing with the human
refuse of bad stocks is one which presses most on an
advanced civilisation. We will not do like the Christian
Norseman, when he put the ne'er-do-weel family
into a wide grave in the churchyard, and wiped his
hands of them. We will not even leave them to
exterminate themselves by their own follies, vices,
and ignorance. But if the state takes up the burden
of such wastrels it must have an entire control of
them. Responsibility without rule is worse than rule
without responsibility. The only safe course is a
rigorous enforcement of parental duties; with the
alternative of penal servitude in state workshops, the
mother and children together, the father elsewhere.
There is no middle course, of semi-maintenance by
school meals, which will not injure the children by
their being correspondingly neglected at home, injure
the parents by lowering the spur of necessity to work,
and injure the state by flooding it with the worst
types.
Much more drastic treatment of the unfit has been
advocated, as by Dr. Rentoul. In a future period of
civilisation a logical course of treatment might have a
chance of adoption; but in our age any serious
changes of the habits of thought and action will not
be tolerated, unless brought about very gradually
under small influences, such as we have noticed as
acting through taxation. What we need is to try to
give effect to the gospel of giving to him that hath, and
taking away from him that hath not. The most likely
opening for such a line of advance would be giving
partial state maintenance to the best stocks, so as to
ensure large returns from them, and taxing down the
worst stocks—exactly the opposite course to the
present craze. Let us try to realise if there be a
practical system for this advance.
We should need a Board of Health in each area of
about 10,000 inhabitants, composed of three examining
doctors. Every child on leaving school, or at
about fifteen, should be examined, merely by a glance
at the greater bulk of normal cases, but carefully in
extreme cases. The finest 5 per cent. both mentally
(shown by school-leaving certificates) and physically
as well, should be premiated by assisted higher education
of suitable type. The worst 10 per cent. should
be remanded to a training school where physical and
mental development would be scientifically carried
out, and as much profit as possible made from their
labour toward self-support. This would reclaim the
hooligan class effectually before they run amuck, and
help on those who need care and assistance to get a
good footing in life. No course could possibly be
kinder for the weaklings. At the age of twenty a
further examination of both the best and the worst
classes should ensue. The best half of the most able
should receive a certificate granting them practically
free support for all children they may have after they
have reached the age of twenty-five. The worst half
of the most incapable, or 5 per cent. of all, should be
required to report residence during their lives to the
Board of Health of their district, and informed that if
they had any children they must pay a heavy fine, or
else go into servitude. This would practically mean
the segregation of the lowest class of the unfits under
compulsory work. It would be cheaper to the state
to keep them thus at work, than to pay poor rates to
maintain this submerged twentieth and their helpless
families.
In all these proposals there would be no Socialistic
constraint of the great majority, which is normal in
mind and body. But such attention to the unfit
would be merely adding a porch to the poorhouse, the
hospital, and the asylum, and there sorting over the
material which can be possibly saved from a bad end.
The nine-tenths of people who were ordinary would
be thus left even more free for individual growth than
they now are, when hampered by the inefficient
residue.
We might not exclude the thought of another
favourite idea of some reformers which in a modified
shape might be allowed to gradually take root. Since
Spencer Wells familiarised the world with an operation
for which he will always be remembered, hundreds
of women have gladly improved their health by a
safe treatment, which, if anything, threatened to
become too fashionable. Every woman who was, as
above, required to report her residence as being unfit,
and being liable to heavy penalties on having children,
should be offered the option of perfect freedom if she
chose the operation. The marriage of such women,
with men who were condemned as unfit, would
entirely free both parties from reporting and inspection
in future, and give the best prospect of happy lives to
the weakest and less capable of the community, free
from what would be only too truly "encumbrances"
to such people. This course might give a permanently
safe line of improvement, without any consequent
stigma or hardship in the world around; and so gentle
a change—beneficial to the individual as well as the
community—seems not outside of future possibilities.
At least such a course would be the more practicable
form of such a proposed change. Of course, no such
legislation would be complete in its action, and
evasions would often occur. But if it checked even
one half of the growth of bad stock it would be an
enormous gain.
We now turn to other lines of advance from the
communal point of view. The old system of community,
in which all the nations of northern Europe
lived, was based on each man being his brother's
keeper; every one was liable to fines if any relative
committed a crime, in proportion to their closeness of
relation. To this succeeded individual responsibility,
both in property and in penalties. This raises the
question whether it is possible to separate property
and penalty in communism. At present the tendency
is to a state communism, begun by heavy death
duties and taxation (for a variety of purposes which
the taxed do not use or require), amounting to a
quarter of all property. If this system is extended,
and property becomes more largely hypothecated to
public purposes, then when a man is condemned in
heavy damages or fines his neighbours will suffer by
reduction of the rateable property. Will it not be
thought more fair for his relatives to be responsible
for the public loss? And if so, we indirectly revert
to the payment by relatives of a share of all fines.
To anyone who has had experience of combined
labour, it is obvious how two people working together
do not perform twice as much as one alone. There
is always a loss by one waiting on the action of
another; and it appears as if the amount of work
done only increased as the square root of the number
of people working together. Hence the group-work of
communistic taste is very wasteful. This is practically
seen among the Slavs in Russia, where communal agriculture—which
is extolled by its admirers—produces
far less per acre on fine land, than is obtained by individual
agriculture on poor land in England. Again
it is notorious how the Irishman who goes to work
apart among individualist people, then flourishes as he
never does when held down by the communal claims
socially enforced among his own countrymen. This
is the root of the success of the Irish out of their own
land. Thus we see how communal action is the more
wasteful form of labour; and how it was a great
advance for man when he made individual success
entirely depend upon individual labour.
Another question is what form of government will
most favour the strong breeds and the new strains of
ability as they arise? Certainly any system which
ties the actions of one person with those of others is
detrimental to ability. The better man is held back
by the co-operation with others, by their lower
example, and by their direct disfavour. Any communistic
tie is unfavourable to advance; and it was a
great step in favour of new and improved variations
when each individual stood entirely on his own
resources, and was not bound by his inferior kin. In
every way, therefore, individualism was a line of
advance for men in the past; and the principles
which are involved promise that it will yet likewise be
the main line of future advance. If we look practically
at which class of government is associated with
advance of ideas, of inventions, and new types of
thought, let us put on one hand the more individualist
countries, America, England, Germany, and
perhaps France, and on the other hand the more
communist countries, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland,
Greece, Australia, and especially New Zealand. Can
we question for a moment which type of country is
most advancing the intellect and abilities of man?
But we must not forget that Union is strength, the
motto that Belgium strangely took on separating from
Holland; and combined action has great advantages.
In this view the beneficial combination is that to
which all contribute without one being a hindrance
to the other. How far can these benefits be gained without
loss to the improved individual? The main principle
is that all combinations must be entirely voluntary,
and have no suspicion of coercion about them.
Where even "peaceful persuasion" comes in, ability
is crushed, and the whole community is the loser by
it. Coercive union of individuals is the unpardonable
sin against human nature, because it kills the hopes
of the future. The safe line of advance is combination
by large clubs for every purpose, with healthy rivalry
between similar institutions—benefit clubs, co-operative
stores, co-operative works, holiday clubs, and
insurance of all kinds. Every inducement should be
held out to join in such combinations, giving them
the assistance and security of official auditors, as is
provided for friendly societies at present Every line
in which any class can profitably unite for economic
action, on an entirely voluntary basis, and without
any tie on the individual beyond his share in the
enterprise, is a clear gain to society. In this way the
taxation for these ends would fall on those who
benefit by them, and not on those who do not want
them. Thus the individual would be free to take, or
leave alone, the benefits provided; and many purposes
to which taxation is now applied would be far
better effected by gigantic clubs of those classes who
want such assistance. Taxation must be strictly
limited to those purposes in which all persons must
necessarily share, such as protection and justice.
Hence a future line of advance lies in a great
development of purely voluntary co-operation in any
one class, in order to obtain the advantages of combination.
In one direction it is clear what immense
savings might be thus effected. Co-operative purchase
of supplies and cooking, with distribution of hot
meals to subscribers, would save perhaps a third of
the cost of living to the working classes. And if the
prepaid weekly subscriptions might be deducted
before wages were received, such a system would go
far to solve the question of proper feeding of children.
Again, the education of hand-workers in the subject
of economics can be best furthered by the experience
gained in co-operative works, and even on this ground
alone every encouragement should be given to such
combinations of workers.
Another line of advance now coming into practical
view is the use of various nationalities, according to
their abilities for different kinds of works in foreign
countries. We have seen, in Europe, Italian miners
taken to many lands for tunnelling and submarine
work, we have Norwegians largely employed in our
shipping, and English engineers find many careers
abroad. Of recent years the great mass of cheap
skilled labour of China and Japan has been getting
its due share of the world's work. The infamous
manner in which the Chinese have been treated in
America is apparently now nearly at an end; the
Republic where all men are free and equal will be
coerced into fairness by the reasonable refusal to take
American goods as long as the Americans will not
take Chinese labour. In British Columbia the
Japanese are objected to because they are more
industrious, more economical, more sober and quiet
than the white, who, as their inferior in these principal
respects, cannot bear their competition. The Americans
are likewise trying to prevent their industry,
while at the same time wishing to make the Panama
Canal with Chinese labour; in this they will
probably be rebuffed, unless the whole national
position is put on a fair basis. The objections to
Chinese labour in South Africa have never been put
on the real fact—tacitly felt, though unexpressed—that
the white dreads the competition of an economical
people. First they were said to be tortured in slavery,
a lie which served its big political purpose until it
was found that they would not leave; then the
danger of public crime and burglary was put forward,
until it was shown that there were fewer criminals in
proportion than among other inhabitants; then a cry
of immorality was raised, until the Colonial Secretary
stated that the Kaffirs who would replace them had
just the same habits. Now the Transvaal refuses to
destroy its own welfare by the falseness of playing
with any of these cries; but such hatred to free
labour has all served the political ends which were
intended by an unscrupulous party that revels in
keeping a conscience. Meanwhile the Prussian Board
of Agriculture desires to import Chinese agriculturists
into Germany; and it will be strange if the great
German coalfields in South Wales are not run by the
cheapest labour that can be obtained. We have no
laws to prevent Chinese working freely in England,
and we cannot afford to wreck our great China trade
by starting a gross injustice of exclusion.
If objections are felt—by a people so immoral as
ourselves—to the toleration of any habit of foreign
residents, let it be legislated upon equally for all
nationalities in England. In this way the Canadians
expelled the rowdy negroes who had taken refuge
with them in the days of slavery. A rigid and
impartial punishment of rowdyism cleared out the
undesirable negro, and left the inoffensive behind.
The only possible course of safety is not by any
laws directed against any one race; for when such
laws break down in the growth of the future there
will be a terrible economic—if not political—catastrophe.
Rigid laws to check evils of all inhabitants
of a country alike are sound and safe, and will
prevent most of the objectionable results of immigration,
Jewish, Italian, Chinese, or any other. With
such laws a great advance can be made by the free
use of that kind of labour which is most adapted to
the work, whatever source it may come from. Such
must inevitably be the course of the distant future;
and those who play with holding what they please to
call a "white man's land" will find that "mean
whites" of hot countries are wholly inferior to other
races which are fitted for such a position. Bret Harte
has well stated "the conscious hate and fear with
which inferiority always regards the possibility of
even-handed justice, and which is the key-note to
the vulgar clamour about servile and degraded
races."
Another subject which has seemed to be a most
promising line of advance is that of the reduction or
abolition of warfare. We must not limit our view
in this to open and direct violence, there are other
forms of warfare quite as effective, and causing as
much, or more, misery in the total. The warfare of
trade is always going on, each nation is pushing its
neighbours as much as it can for its own benefit.
Some gain benefit by closed markets and bleeding a
monopoly, others benefit by open markets, and each
fights for what it wants by trade methods backed
with force. The free trader honestly believes that all
this can and should be abolished by each country
producing what it is best fitted for, and a tacit or
legal understanding that there is to be no trade
rivalry on the various lines thus assigned to different
countries. Such would be the only system which
could abolish trade warfare. Under such a system
advance would be greatly checked, if not killed.
Look at the history of quinine; only twenty years
ago it was 10s. an ounce, and the growers (though
competing among themselves) did not think they
could improve the process or reduce the price. The
chemist in Europe stepped into the market and
smashed the old system by much cheaper artificial
quinine. But the growers, sooner than be ruined,
invented extraction by petroleum, and brought down
the price to 1s. 6d. an ounce. Now here were two
acts of violent trade warfare between countries; the
result being such an improvement that instead of one
of the most life-saving medicines being a luxury, it
can now be used six times more freely than before.
Without trade war this would never have come about.
Free trade implies free competition, and that is
trade-warfare.
Another form of trade war is holding a country
for the sake of a monopoly of trade, thus enabling a
group of manufacturers—say of France—to tax all
the inhabitants under their government, especially in
colonies—as Algiers, Madagascar, Tahiti, &c. This
is simply a form of tribute, like the taxation levied
by Rome on various conquered countries; it holds
back the taxed countries. If other countries wish to
get a share of that trade they will have to fight, by
trade or by violence, to conquer the right to join in it.
And a trade war which shut, say, all English markets
to France, until all French markets were open to
England, would not violate any economic principle.
It is meeting force by force, exclusion by exclusion;
and no shudder at our using trade war ourselves will
prevent for an instant the trade war which is used
against us. Our principles will not weigh a feather
in other nations' practice. But warfare is a temporary
measure, and retaliation must only be temporary.
The great danger would be in establishing a permanent
system of taxation of foreign productions, which
would be worked to the utmost by trades unions at
home, in order to enable them to bleed the country
to death by high prices. This terrible danger of
ruin is the main reason against protective duties,
though seldom, if ever, noticed in public discussion
of the subject.
Another form of warfare is the relative burden of
armaments. This may be called slow combustion, in
contrast to the open flame of war. Now if there is no
joint limitation—as at present—the most long-sighted
and powerful nation stands to win at this game; the
result is the same as if actual war were in progress,
but the terrors and destruction of war are avoided.
But if there be a joint limitation of armament—as
some hope may be established—it must be on such a
basis that no one state is left in a condition of clear
superiority to another, otherwise it would tie the
inferior state to be in a permanently inferior condition.
And the qualities which will win will be subterfuge,
evasion, and bad faith; whichever state contrives to
be better prepared than another behind the agreement
will stand to win when the war does come. In the
unlimited condition the qualities win which are those
best for mankind in all other respects; in the limited
condition the qualities will win which are worst for
mankind otherwise. The real fact is that great
armaments are like great states, a needful condition
of the new speed of communication. When it took
two or three months to move an army from central
Europe to England, we had two or three months to
prepare; when it takes only two or three days we
must be always prepared. No one can put the clock
back, and steam is the end of small armaments.
Within a generation of quick transport being started,
big armaments were found needful, and will never
cease to be needful. Great permanent combinations
of states are the only line of relief under the new
conditions, which bind mankind for ever in the
future.
Let us look now at direct war. What are the
qualities which tell for success, looking to the wars of
recent times with which we are familiar? In the
brains of the army the main qualities have been (1)
Foresight; (2) Combining power; (3) Honesty;
(4) Imagination; (5) Skill; and in the muscle of the
army (6) Physique; (7) Industry; (8) Tenacity. In
short, success in war requires precisely the same
qualities as success in peace. Even if the cause is
bad, yet it is the best man all round that wins. In
each case recently the winner has been the better
power for future civilisation. War then may be
defined as the concentration into a year of the same
results which would take place by economic causes
within perhaps a generation or a century. So far as
violent changes are undesirable—as we have noticed
before—so far war is undesirable. But on the purely
humanitarian view it may be better to flee before one's
enemies for three months than have three years'
famine; it may be better to kill 100,000 in a brief
campaign than starve a million during a whole
generation by bad trade owing to slow economic
changes. War strikes the imagination and impresses
the thoughtless with its horror, but a starving peace
may be a far more painful process.
It is difficult to see that any of the causes of trade
war, armament war, or open war are at all likely to
be less in the future than they have been in the past;
and if the causes are the same we must expect like
effects. Nor do we see that any result of these
different kinds of war is injurious to that character of
man which is requisite for his advance in better lines.
Each of these forms of competition tends to give an
advantage to the best qualified race, and to promote
the most beneficial strains of character. On the
general principle that slow evolution is preferable to
violent changes we must look for advance by intensified
trade war rather than by armaments, and by the
strain of armament rather than by open war.
A direction in which great improvements of organisation
may be attained would be in better adaptation
of checks. So far as possible, checks should be
abolished by establishing interests in the same direction
between different parties. The profit-sharing
movement is an excellent beginning of what needs to
be fully and exactly carried out. The checks of
inspection, which have been so greatly multiplied
lately, are peculiarly liable to abuses; and a system
of fewer and far superior inspectors, much less inspection,
and much heavier penalties to correspond, would
in the long run prove the safer line. The great check
by popular election is very wasteful, a general election
costing the country over a million pounds in various
ways. Precisely as fair a check would be gained by
summoning one in a hundred of the electors by lot at
the day of election; and the nursing of a constituency
would be much diminished.
Lastly, let us look at the final type to which man
will probably be led by natural survival. This
enquiry is limited throughout to those qualities which
are the product of external causes; and no attempt
is made to estimate the more spiritual side of man or
his higher mental development. For that we have
not the same physical basis of research, and it would
be a fruitless mixture to include such considerations—however
important—in an enquiry which by its scope
might be similarly applicable to lower organisms.
We are therefore dealing here only with the physical
basis of civilisation.
For the sake of safety from aggression and prevention
of small quarrels, federations of great size must
prevail; while those federations which allow for the
greatest diversity between the states will prove more
adaptable and vigorous. Similarly, states which
allow of the greatest diversity of life to the individual
will succeed best, by the promotion of the most
vigorous strains. More systematic law will be needed
between states. This may perhaps be on the line of
all contracts being on the seller's law, and all marriage
on the husband's law, regardless of change of residence;
and all contracts being suable on their own
law in any state.
The greatest empires have in the past allowed great
diversity between states. Persia left each land to its
own laws, and only required the control of a satrap, a
small tribute, and unification of army and navy. Rome
interfered very little with local law, and left the principal
cities autonomous throughout the empire.
Britain has carefully preserved local law where a
system existed, as in India, the Cape, and many
varieties nearer home, even in England itself. The
United States have kept local laws of states and local
legislatures. Hence it is likely that groups of states
with great variety of type will prevail, only unified
by a common system of defence and compulsory
taxation for that purpose. It is even conceivable that
such a system might be established in England, if the
Privy Council was supplemented by Colonial ex-ministers
of long standing, and was granted powers
of assessment over all parliaments for the common
defence.
The type of man which must prevail is that of the
greatest industry and greatest individuality; each
man belonging to many voluntary societies for
various united benefits. Agriculture, the main industry
of man, will be far more elaborate and economical;
as much so as the present Chinese system, or even
carried to further detail with machinery. And the
unlimited supply of atmospheric nitrates, now in
sight, will also greatly increase production. Profit-sharing
or the shareholding of all workers must
gradually prevail in all industries. The growth of
rapidity of thought and action, and the economy of
organisation, will enable a living to be earned with
perhaps half a day's labour, or less. The large
balance of time, beyond that which will be needed for
bare necessities, will be spent on a much greater
development of natural resources and conveniences of
life; each man will thus enjoy the result of an
immense accumulated capital of improvements and
benefits. In short, each one will be rich, either by
the cheapness of articles or abundance of money, a
merely relative question. The accumulated wealth
of improvement will leave a smaller profit on labour,
or in other words capital will command a very low
interest. Therefore there will be less inducement to
work for saving; and hence spare time will be more
readily employed in the personal quest of knowledge,
and enlargement of mental interests, in literature, in
science, in history, and in the arts, or among the less
capable in mere amusements. But the higher the
social organisation and reward of ability, the more
intense will be the weeding of the less capable, and
the more highly sustained will be the general level of
ability.
That fluctuation will occur is inevitable; but it will
be gradually understood that the utmost freedom of
labour and communication is the only way to allow
changes to be gradual, and so to avert the great and
disgraceful catastrophes of forcible migration of
hordes. Hence there will tend to be an incessant
flow of labour from country to country, assisted by
international labour bureaus: thus the wage of any
given ability will be equalised over the world, and
hence prices of all produce will equalise also. The
whole of this action will further enforce the power
of ability, and tend to end or mend the less capable.
We must, then, look for a world with approximately
equal civilisation and prices in all lands; but with
each people developed in their own lines of ability, in
accord with climate and conditions, to such a point
that no other people can compete with them in their
own conditions. The equatorial races tending to
have less initiative and vigour than those of colder
climates, the equatorial lands will therefore tend to
be each attached to a temperate land which will
supply more energy to their development; while a
steady drift of population from colder to hotter lands
will take place, as for a generation or two they will
retain a greater vigour. Thus the tropics will be the
seat of the keenest competition and extinction of
races; while the borders of the arctic regions will
always afford most room for human increase.
So far as peoples turn their backs on the inevitable
goal, they will have to painfully retrace their course,
or else disappear by extinction; while the peoples
who move toward the lines of success will be the
fathers of the future. Will they be found in East or
West?
