are only two; for Hoxton and Haggerston, there is only one; for the
vast region of Marylebone and Paddington, only one; for Whitechapel,
'and her daughters,' two; for Shoreditch and Bethnal Green, one; for
Southwark and Blackfriars, one; for the towns of Hampstead, Highgate,
Camden Town, Kentish Town, Stratford, Bow, Bromley, Bermondsey,
Camberwell, Kensington, or Deptford, not one. And yet each one of
these places, taken separately, is a good large town. Stratford, for
instance, has 60,000 inhabitants, and Deptford 80,000. Only half a
dozen theatres for three millions of people! It is quite clear,
therefore, that there is not yet a craving for dramatic art among our
working classes. Music-halls there are, certainly, and these provide
shows more or less dramatic, and, though they are not so numerous as
might have been expected, they form a considerable part of the
amusements of the people; it is therefore a thousand pities that among
the 'topical' songs, the break-downs, and the comic songs, room has
never been found for part-songs or for music of a quiet and somewhat
better kind. The proprietors doubtless know their audience, but
wherever the Kyrle Society have given concerts to working people, they
have succeeded in interesting them by music and songs of a kind to
which they are not accustomed in their music-halls.

The theatre, the music-hall, the public-house, the Sunday excursion,
the parks--these seem almost to exhaust the list of amusements. There
are, also, however, the suburban gardens, such as North Woolwich and
Rosherville, where there are entertainments of all kinds and dancing;
there are the tea-gardens all round London; there are such places of
resort as Kew and Hampton Court, Bushey, Burnham Beeches, Epping,
Hainault and Rye House. There are also the harmonic meetings, the
free-and-easy evenings, and the friendly leads at the public-houses.
Until last year there was one place, in the middle of a very poor
district, where dancing went on all the year round. And there are the
various clubs, debating societies, and local parliaments which have
been lately springing up all over London. One may add the pleasure of
listening to the stump orator, whether he exhorts to repentance, to
temperance, to republicanism, to atheism, or to the return of Sir
Roger. He is everywhere on Sunday in the streets, in the country
roads, and in the parks. The people listen, but with apathy; they are
accustomed to the white-heat of oratory; they hear the same thing
every Sunday: their pulses would beat no faster if Peter the Hermit
himself or Bernard were to exhort them to assume the Cross. It is
comic, indeed, only to think of the blank stare with which a British
workman would receive an invitation to take up arms in order to drive
out the accursed Moslem.

As regards the women, I declare that I have never been able to find
out anything at all concerning their amusements. Certainly one can see
a few of them any Sunday walking about in the lanes and in the fields
of northern London, with their lovers; in the evening they may also be
observed having tea in the tea-gardens. These, however, are the better
sort of girls; they are well dressed, and generally quiet in their
behaviour. The domestic servants, for the most part, spend their
'evening out' in taking tea with other servants, whose evening is in.
On the same principle, an actor when he has a holiday goes to another
theatre; and no doubt it must be interesting for a cook to observe the
_differentiæ_, the finer shades of difference, in the conduct of a
kitchen. When women are married and the cares of maternity set in, one
does not see how they can get any holiday or recreation at all; but I
believe a good deal is done for their amusement by the mothers'
meetings and other clerical agencies. There is, however, below the
shop girls, the dressmakers, the servants, and the working girls whom
the world, so to speak, knows, a very large class of women whom the
world does not know, and is not anxious to know. They are the factory
hands of London; you can see them, if you wish, trooping out of the
factories and places where they work on any Saturday afternoon, and
thus get them, so to speak, in the lump. Their amusement seems to
consist of nothing but walking about the streets, two and three
abreast, and they laugh and shout as they go so noisily that they must
needs be extraordinarily happy. These girls are, I am told, for the
most part so ignorant and helpless, that many of them do not know even
how to use a needle; they cannot read, or, if they can, they never do;
they carry the virtue of independence as far as they are able, and
insist on living by themselves, two sharing a single room; nor will
they brook the least interference with their freedom, even from those
who try to help them. Who are their friends, what becomes of them in
the end, why they all seem to be about eighteen years of age, at what
period of life they begin to get tired of walking up and down the
streets, who their sweethearts are, what are their thoughts, what are
their hopes--these are questions which no man can answer, because no
man could make them communicate their experiences and opinions.
Perhaps only a Bible-woman or two know the history, and could tell it,
of the London factory girl. Their pay is said to be wretched, whatever
work they do; their food, I am told, is insufficient for young and
hearty girls, consisting generally of tea and bread or
bread-and-butter for breakfast and supper, and for dinner a lump of
fried fish and a piece of bread. What can be done? The proprietors of
the factory will give no better wage, the girls cannot combine, and
there is no one to help them. One would not willingly add another to
the 'rights' of man or woman; but surely, if there is such a thing at
all as a 'right,' it is that a day's labour shall earn enough to pay
for sufficient food, for shelter, and for clothes. As for the
amusements of these girls, it is a thing which may be considered when
something has been done for their material condition. The possibility
of amusement only begins when we have reached the level of the well
fed. Great Gaster will let no one enjoy play who is hungry. Would it
be possible, one asks in curiosity, to stop the noisy and mirthless
laughter of these girls with a hot supper of chops fresh from the
grill? Would they, if they were first well fed, incline their hearts
to rest, reflection, instruction, and a little music? The cheap
excursions, the school feasts, the concerts given for the people, the
increased brightness of religious services, the Bank holidays, the
Saturday half-holiday, all point to the gradual recognition of the
great natural law that men and women, as well as boys and girls, must
have play. At the present moment we have just arrived at the stage of
acknowledging this law; the next step will be that of respecting it,
and preparing to obey it, just now we are willing and anxious that all
should play; and it grieves us to see that in their leisure hours the
people do not play because they do not know how.

Compare, for instance, the young workman with the young gentleman--the
public schoolman, one of the kind who makes his life as 'all round' as
he can, and learns and practises whatever his hand findeth to do. Or,
if you please, compare him with one of the better sort of young City
clerks; or, again, compare him with one of the lads who belong to the
classes now held in the building of the old Polytechnic; or with the
lads who are found every evening at the classes of the Birkbeck. First
of all, the young workman cannot play any game at all, neither
cricket, football, tennis, racquets, fives, or any of the other games
which the young fellows in the class above him love so passionately:
there are, in fact, no places for him where these games can be played;
for though the boys may play cricket in Victoria Park, I do not
understand that the carpenters, shoemakers, or painters have got clubs
and play there too. There is no gymnasium for them, and so they never
learn the use of their limbs; they cannot row, though they have a
splendid river to row upon; they cannot fence, box, wrestle, play
single-stick, or shoot with the rifle; they do not, as a rule, join
the Volunteer corps; they do not run, leap, or practise athletics of
any kind; they cannot swim; they cannot sing in parts, unless, which
is naturally rare, they belong to a church choir; they cannot play any
kind of instrument--to be sure the public schoolboy is generally
grovelling in the same shameful ignorance of music; they cannot dance;
in the whole of this vast city there is not a single place where a
couple, so minded, can go for an evening's dancing, unless they are
prepared to journey as far as North Woolwich. Not one. Ought it not to
be felt and resented as an intolerable grievance that grandmotherly
legislation actually forbids the people to dance? That the working men
themselves do not seem to feel and resent it is really a mournful
thing. Then, they cannot paint, draw, model, or carve. They cannot
act, and seemingly do not care greatly about seeing others act; and,
as already stated, they never read books. Think what it must be to be
shut out entirely from the world of history, philosophy, poetry,
fiction, essays, and travels! Yet our working classes are thus
practically excluded. Partly they have done this for themselves,
because they have never felt the desire to read books; partly, as I
said above, we have done it for them, because we have never taken any
steps to create the demand. Now, as regards these arts and
accomplishments, the public schoolman and the better class City clerk
have the chance of learning some of them at least, and of practising
them, both before and after they have left school. What a poor
creature would that young man seem who could do none of these things!
Yet the working man has no chance of learning any. There are no
teachers for him; the schools for the small arts, the accomplishments,
and the graces of life are not open to him; one never hears, for
instance, of a working man learning to waltz or dance, unless it is in
imitation of a music-hall performer. In other words, the public
schoolman has gone through a mill of discipline out of school as well
as in. Law reigns in his sports as in his studies. Whether he sits
over his books or plays in the fields, he learns to be obedient to
law, order, and rule: he obeys, and expects to be obeyed; it is not
himself whom he must study to please: it is the whole body of his
fellows. And this discipline of self, much more useful than the
discipline of books, the young workman knows not. Worse than this, and
worst of all, not only is he unable to do any of these things, but he
is even ignorant of their uses and their pleasures, and has no desire
to learn any of them, and does not suspect at all that the possession
of these accomplishments would multiply the joys of life. He is
content to go on without them. Now contentment is the most mischievous
of all the virtues; if anything is to be done, and any improvement is
to be effected, the wickedness of discontent must first be explained
away.

Let us, if you please, brighten this gloomy picture by recognising the
existence of the artisan who pursues knowledge for its own sake. There
are many of this kind. You may come across some of them botanizing,
collecting insects, moths and butterflies in the fields on Sundays;
others you will find reading works on astronomy, geometry, physics, or
electricity: they have not gone through the early training, and so
they often make blunders; but yet they are real students. One of them
I knew once who had taught himself Hebrew; another, who read so much
about co-operation, that he lifted himself clean out of the
co-operative ranks, and is now a master; another and yet another and
another, who read perpetually, and meditate upon, books of political
and social economy; and there are thousands whose lives are made
dignified for them, and sacred, by the continual meditation on
religious things. Let us make every kind of allowance for these
students of the working class; and let us not forget, as well, the
occasional appearance of those heaven-born artists who are fain to
play music or die, and presently get into orchestras of one kind or
another, and so leave the ranks of daily labour and join the great
clan or caste of musicians, who are a race or family apart, and carry
on their mystery from father to son.

But, as regards any place or institution where the people may learn or
practise or be taught the beauty and desirability of any of the
commoner amusements, arts, and accomplishments, there is not one,
anywhere in London. The Bethnal Green Museum certainly proposed unto
itself, at first, to 'do something,' in a vague and uncertain way, for
the people. Nobody dared to say that it would be first of all
necessary to make the people discontented, because this would have
been considered as flying in the face of Providence; and there was,
besides, a sort of nebulous hope, not strong enough for a theory, that
by dint of long gazing upon vases and tapestry everybody would in time
acquire a true feeling for art, and begin to crave for culture. Many
very beautiful things have, from time to time, been sent
there--pictures, collections, priceless vases; and I am sure that
those visitors who brought with them the sense of beauty and feeling
for artistic work which comes of culture, have carried away memories
and lessons which will last them for a lifetime. On the other hand, to
those who visit the Museum chiefly in order to see the people, it has
long been painfully evident that the folk who do not bring that sense
with them go away carrying nothing of it home with them. Nothing at
all. Those glass cases, those pictures, those big jugs, say no more to
the crowd than a cuneiform or a Hittite inscription. They have now, or
had quite recently, on exhibition a collection of turnips and carrots
beautifully modelled in wax: it is perhaps hoped that the
contemplation of these precious but homely things may carry the people
a step farther in the direction of culture than Sir Richard Wallace's
pictures could effect. In fact, the Bethnal Green Museum does no more
to educate the people than the British Museum. It is to them simply a
collection of curious things which is sometimes changed. It is cold
and dumb. It is merely a dull and unintelligent branch of a
department; and it will remain so, because whatever the collections
may be, a Museum can teach nothing, unless there is someone to expound
the meaning of the things. Why, even that wonderful Museum of the
House Beautiful could teach the pilgrims no lessons at all until the
Sisters explained to them what were the rare and curious things
preserved in their glass cases.

Is it possible that, by any persuasion, attraction, or teaching, the
walking men of this country can be induced to aim at those organized,
highly skilled, and disciplined forms of recreation which make up the
better pleasure of life? Will they consent, without hope of gain, to
give the labour, patience, and practice required of every man who
would become master of any art or accomplishment, or even any game?
There are men, one is happy to find, who think that it is not only
possible, but even easy, to effect this, and the thing is about to be
transferred from the region or theory to that of practice, by the
creation of the People's Palace.

The general scheme is already well known. Because the Mile End Road
runs through the most extensive portion of the most dismal city in the
world, the city which has been suffered to exist without recreation,
it has been chosen as the fitting site of the Palace. As regards
simple absence of joy, Hoxton, Haggerston, Pentonville, Clerkenwell,
or Kentish Town, might contend, and have a fair chance of success,
with any portion whatever of the East-end proper. But, then, around
Mile End lie Stepney, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, the Cambridge Road,
the Commercial Road, Bow, Stratford, Shadwell, Limehouse, Wapping, and
St. George's-in-the-East. Without doubt the real centre, the [Greek:
omphalos] of dreariness, is situated somewhere in the Mile End Road,
and it is to be hoped that the Palace may be placed upon the very
centre itself.

Let me say a few words as to what this Palace may and may not do. In
the first place, it can do nothing, absolutely nothing, to relieve the
great starvation and misery which lies all about London, but more
especially at the East-end. People who are out of work and starving do
not want amusement, not even of the highest kind; still less do they
want University extension. Therefore, as regards the Palace, let us
forget for a while the miserable condition of the very poor who live
in East London; we are concerned only with the well fed, those who are
in steady work, the respectable artisans and _petits commis_, the
artists in the hundred little industries which are carried on in the
East-end; those, in fact, who have already acquired some power of
enjoyment because they are separated by a sensible distance from their
hand-to-mouth brothers and sisters, and are pretty certain to-day that
they will have enough to eat to-morrow. It is for these, and such as
these, that the Palace will be established. It is to contain: (1)
class-rooms, where all kinds of study can be carried on; (2) concert
rooms; (3) conversation-rooms; (4) a gymnasium; (5) a library; and
lastly, a winter garden. In other words, it is to be an institution
which will recognise the fact, that for some of those who have to work
all day at, perhaps, uncongenial and tedious labour, the best form of
recreation may be study and intellectual effort; while for
others--that is to say, for the great majority--music, reading,
tobacco, and rest will be desired. Let us be under no illusions as to
the supposed thirst for knowledge. Those who desire to learn are even
in youth always a minority. How many men do we know, among our own
friends, who have ever set themselves to learn anything since they
left school? It is a great mistake to suppose that the working man,
any more than the merchant-man or the clerk-man, or the tradesman, is
ardently desirous of learning. But there will always be n few; and
especially there are the young who would fain, if they could, make a
ladder of learning, and so, as has ever been the goodly and godly
custom in this realm of England, mount unto higher things. The Palace
of the People would be incomplete indeed if it gave no assistance to
ambitious youths. Next to the classes in literature and science come
those in music and painting. There is no reason whatever why the
Palace should not include an academy of music, an academy of arts, and
an academy of acting, in a few months after its establishment it
should have its own choir, its own orchestra, its own concerts, its
own opera, and its own theatre, with a company formed of its own
_alumni_. And in a year or two it should have its own exhibition of
paintings, drawings, and sculpture. As regards the simpler amusements,
there must be rooms where the men can smoke, and others where the
girls and women can work, read, and talk; there must be a debating
society for questions, social and political, but especially the
former; there must be a dancing school, and a ball once every week,
all the year round; it should be possible to convert the great hall
into either theatre, concert-room, or ball-room; there must be a bar
for beer as well as for coffee, and at a price calculated so as to pay
just the bare expenses; there must be a library and writing-room, and
the winter garden must be a place where the women and children can
come in the daytime while the men are at work. One thing must be kept
out of the place: there must not be allowed to grow up in the minds
even of the most suspicious the least jealousy that religious
influences are at work; more than this, the institution must be
carefully watched to prevent the rise of such a suspicion; religious
controversy must be kept out of the debating-room, and even in the
conversation-rooms there ought to be power to exclude a man who makes
himself offensive by the exhibition and parade of his religious or
irreligious opinions.

As for the teaching of the classes, we must look for voluntary work
rather than to a great endowment. The history of the College in Great
Ormond Street shows how much may be done by unpaid labour, and I do
not think it too much to expect that the Palace of the People may be
started by unpaid teachers in every branch of science and art:
moreover, as regards science, history and language, the University
Extension Society will probably find the staff. There must be,
however, volunteers, women as well as men, to teach singing, music,
dancing, sewing, acting, speaking, drawing, painting, carving,
modelling, and many other things. This kind of help should only be
wanted at the outset, because, before long, all the art departments
ought to be conducted by ex-students who have become in their turn
teachers, they should be paid, but not on the West-end scale, from
fees--so that the schools may support themselves. Let us not _give_
more than is necessary; for every class and every course there should
be some kind of fee, though a liberal system of small scholarships
should encourage the students, and there should be the power of
remitting fees in certain cases. As for the difficulty of starting the
classes, I think that the assistance of Board School masters, foremen
of works, Sunday schools, the political clubs, and debating societies
should be invited; and that besides small scholarships, substantial
prizes of musical and mathematical instruments, books, artists'
materials, and so forth, should be offered, with the glory of public
exhibition and public performances. After the first year there should
be nothing exhibited in the Palace except work done in the classes,
and no performances of music or of plays should be given but by the
students themselves.

There has been going on in Philadelphia for the last two years an
experiment, conducted by Mr. Charles Leland, whose sagacious and
active mind is as pleased to be engaged upon things practical as upon
the construction of humorous poems. He has founded, and now conducts
personally, an academy for the teaching of the minor arts; he gets
shop girls, work girls, factory girls, boys and young men of all
classes together, and teaches them how to make things, pretty things,
artistic things. 'Nothing,' he writes to me, 'can describe the joy
which fills a poor girl's mind when she finds that she, too, possesses
and can exercise a real accomplishment.' He takes them as ignorant,
perhaps--but I have no means of comparing--as the London factory girl,
the girl of freedom, the girl with the fringe--and he shows them how
to do crewel-work, fretwork, brass work; how to carve in wood; how to
design; how to draw--he maintains that it is possible to teach nearly
every one to draw; how to make and ornament leather work, boxes,
rolls, and all kinds of pretty things in leather. What has been done
in Philadelphia amounts, in fact, to this: that one man who loves his
brother man is bringing purpose, brightness, and hope into thousands
of lives previously made dismal by hard and monotonous work; he has
put new and higher thoughts into their heads; he has introduced the
discipline of methodical training; he has awakened in them the sense
of beauty. Such a man is nothing less than a benefactor to humanity.
Let us follow his example in the Palace of the People.

I venture, further, to express my strong conviction that the success
of the Palace will depend entirely upon its being governed, within
limits at first, but these limits constantly broadening, by the people
themselves. If they think the Palace is a trap to catch them, and make
them sober, good, religious and temperate, there will be an end. In
the first place, therefore, there must be a real element of the
working man upon the council; there must be real working men on every
sub-committee or branch; the students must be wholly recruited from
the working classes; and gradually the council must be elected by the
people who use the Palace. Fortunately, there would be no difficulty
at the outset in introducing this element, because the great factories
and breweries in the neighbourhood might be asked each to elect one or
more representatives to sit upon the council of the new University. It
'goes without saying' that the police work, the maintenance of order,
the out-kicking of offenders, must be also entirely managed by a
voluntary corps of efficient working men. Rows there will undoubtedly
be, since we are all of us, even the working man, human; but there
need be no scandals.

I must not go on, though there is so much to be said. I see before us
in the immediate future a vast University whose home is in the Mile
End Road; but it has affiliated colleges in all the suburbs, so that
even poor, dismal, uncared-for Hoxton shall no longer be neglected;
the graduates of this University are the men and women whose lives,
now unlovely and dismal, shall be made beautiful for them by their
studies, and their heavy eyes uplifted to meet the sunlight; the
subjects or examination shall be, first, the arts of every kind: so
that unless a man have neither eyes to see nor hand to work with, he
may here find something or other which he may learn to do; and next,
the games, sports, and amusements with which we cheat the weariness of
leisure and court the joy of exercising brain and wit and strength.
From the crowded class-rooms I hear already the busy hum of those who
learn and those who teach. Outside, in the street, are those--a vast
multitude to be sure--who are too lazy and too sluggish of brain to
learn anything: but these, too, will flock into the Palace presently
to sit, talk, and argue in the smoking-rooms; to read in the library;
to see the students' pictures upon the walls; to listen to the
students' orchestra, discoursing such music as they have never dreamed
of before; to look on while His Majesty's Servants of the People's
Palace perform a play, and to hear the bright-eyed girls sing
madrigals.

[1884.]

THE ASSOCIATED LIFE. [The substance of this paper was delivered as the
presidential speech at the opening of the Hoxton Library and
Institute.]

It has seemed to me--for reasons which I hope to make clear to
you--that the present occasion, the opening of our newly-acquired
Place of Gathering, is one on which something may be said upon the
subject of the Associated Life--that is to say, on the union, or
combination of men, or of men and women, in order to effect by
collective action objects--objects worthy of effort--impossible for
the individual to attempt.

It would seem at first sight that combination should be the very
simplest thing in the world. It is self-evident that those who want
anything have a much better chance of getting it if they join together
in order to demand it, or to work for it. Like one or two other simple
laws of human nature, this, though the simplest, is the hardest to get
people to understand and to accept. Nothing is so difficult as to
persuade people to trust each other, even to the extent of standing
together and sticking together and working together in order to get
what they want.

The first association of men was forced upon them for protection, I
wonder how many ages--hundreds of thousands of years--it took to teach
men to join together in order to protect themselves against
starvation, wild beasts, and each other. The necessity of
self-preservation first made men associate, and changed hunters into
soldiers, and turned the whole world into a camp. It was war, which
brought men together; it was war which taught men the necessity of
order, discipline, and obedience; without the necessity for fighting,
without the military spirit, no association at all would now be
possible. A vast number of men practically use modern safety at this
day for the purpose of being fighters, every man against his
neighbour. Just as no one would, even now, do any work but for the
necessity of finding food for himself and his family, so no one would
ever have begun to stand side by side with his neighbour but for the
absolute certainty that he would be killed if he did not.

Let us, however, consider a more advanced kind of association, that of
men united for purposes of trade and profit. The craftsman of the
town, who made things and sold them, found out by the experience of
some generations that his only chance, if he would not become a slave,
was to combine with others who made the same things for the same
purposes. He therefore formed--here in London, as early as the Saxon
times an association for the protection of his craft--a
rough-and-ready association at first, a religious guild or fraternity,
something which should persuade men to come together as friends, not
rivals, what we should now call a benefit society, gradually
developing into an association of officers, a constitution, and rules;
growing by slow degrees into a powerful and wealthy body, having its
period of birth, development, vigour, and decay. In illustration of
such an association, I will sketch out for you the history of a
certain London Company--what was called a Craft Company; a society of
working-men who were engaged upon the same craft; who all made the
same thing: as the Company of Bowyers who made bows, or of Fletchers
who made arrows. The society began first of all with a Guild of the
Craft, such as I have just mentioned; that is to say, all those who
belonged to the Craft--according to the custom of the time, they all
lived in the same quarter and were well known to each other--were
persuaded or compelled to belong to the Guild. Here religion stepped
in, for every Guild had its own patron saint, and if a craftsman stood
aloof, he lost the protection and incurred the displeasure of that
saint, so that, apart from considerations of the common weal, terror
of how the offended saint might punish the blackleg forced men to
join. Thus, St. George protected the armourers; St. Mary and St.
Thomas the Martyr, the bowyers; St. Catharine the Virgin, the
haberdashers; St. Martin, the sadlers; the Virgin Mary, the
cloth-workers, and so on. On the saint's day they marched in
procession to the parish church and heard Mass; every year each man
paid his fees of membership; the Guild looked after the sick and
maintained the aged of the Craft. The next step, which was not taken
until after many years, and was not at first contemplated, was to
obtain for the Guild--_i.e._, for the Craft--a Royal Charter. This
favour of the Sovereign conferred certain powers of regulating their
trade; and, this once obtained, we hear no more of the Guild--it
became absorbed into the Company. The religious observances remained,
but they were no longer put forward as the chief 'articles' of
association. The powers granted by Royal Charter were very strong. The
Company was empowered to prohibit anyone from working at that trade
within the jurisdiction of the City who was not a member of the
Company; it could prevent markets from being held within a certain
distance of the City; it could oblige all the youth of the City to be
apprenticed to some Company; it could regulate wages and hours of
work; it could examine the work before it could be sold; and it could
limit the number of the workmen. The Company, in fact, ruled its own
trade with an authority from which there was no appeal. On the other
hand, the Company exercised a paternal care over its members. When
they were sick, the Company provided for them; when they became old,
the Company maintained them; if any became dishonest, the Company
turned them out of the City. You, who think yourselves strong with
your Trades Unions (things as yet undeveloped and with all their
history before them), have never yet succeeded in getting a tenth part
of the power and authority over your own men that was excercised by a
City Company in the time of Richard II. over its Livery.

Then, in order to maintain the dignity of the Craft, a livery was
chosen, the colours of which were worn by every member. On their
saint's day, as in the old days of the Guild, the Company marched in
great magnificence, with music and flags and new liveries, with their
wardens, officers, schoolboys, almsmen, and priests, to church. After
church they banqueted together in the Company's Hall, a splendid
building, where a great feast was served, and where the day was
honoured by the presence of guests--great nobles, city worthies, even
the Lord Mayor, perhaps, or some of the Aldermen, or the Bishop, or
one of the Abbots of the City Religious Houses. Every man was bidden
to bring his wife to the feast of the Company's grand day--if not his
wife, then his sweetheart, for all were to feast together. During
dinner the musicians in their gallery made sweet music. After dinner,
actors and tumblers came in, and they had pageants and shows, and
marvellous feats of skill and legerdemain.

Ask yourselves, at this point, whether it is possible to conceive of
an institution more purely democratic than such a company as
originally designed. All the craftsmen of every craft combining
together, not one allowed to stand out, electing their own officers,
obeying rules for the general good, building halls, holding banquets,
and creating a spirit of pride in their craft. What more could be
desired? Why do we not imitate this excellent example?

Yet, when we look at the City Companies, what do we find? The old
Craft Companies, it is true, still exist; they have an income of many
thousands a year, and a livery, or list of members, in number varying
from twenty to four hundred, and not one single craftsman left among
them. What has become, then, or the Association? Well, that remains,
the shadow remains, but the substance has long since gone. Even the
craft itself, in many cases, has disappeared. There are no longer in
existence, for instance, Armourers, Bowyers, Fletchers, or Poulterers.

What has happened, then? Why did this essentially democratic
Company--in which all were subject to rules for the general good, and
none should undersell his brother, and the rate of wages and the hours
of labour were regulated--so completely fail?

For many reasons, some of which concern ourselves: it failed, because
the members themselves forgot the original reason of their
combination, and neglected to look after their own interests; it
failed, because the members were too ignorant to remember, or to know,
that the Company was founded for the interests of the Craft itself,
and not for those of the masters alone or the men alone. Now every
Association must needs, of course, have wardens or masters; it must
needs elect to those posts of dignity and responsibility such men as
could understand law and maintain their privileges if necessary before
the dread Sovereign, his Highness the King. The men they necessarily
elected were therefore those who had received some education,
master-workmen--their own employers--not their fellows. It speedily
came about, therefore, that the masters, not the men, ruled the hours
of work, the wages of work, the quantity and quality of work: the
masters, not the craftsmen, admitted members and limited their number.
Do you now understand? The officers ruled the Company of the Craftsmen
for the benefit of the masters and not the men. Nay, they did more.
Since in some trades the men showed a disposition, on dimly perceiving
the reality, to form a union within a union, the masters were strong
enough to put down all combinations for the raising of wages as
illegal; to attempt such combinations was ruled to be conspiracy. And
conspiracy all unions of working men have remained down to the present
day, as the founders of the first Trades Unions in this country
discovered to their cost. So the men were gagged; they were silenced;
they were enslaved by the very institution that they had founded for
the insurance of their own freedom. The thing was inevitable because
they were ignorant, and because, if you put into any man's hands the
power of robbing his neighbour with impunity, that man will inevitably
sooner or later rob his neighbour. I fear that we must acknowledge the
sorrowful fact that not a single man in the whole world, whatever his
position, can be trusted with irresponsible and absolute power--with
the power of robbery coupled with the certainty of immunity.

Well, in this way came about the first enslavement of the working man.
It lasted for three hundred years. Then followed a time of comparative
freedom, when, the wealth and population of the city increasing, the
craftsmen found themselves pushed out beyond the walls, and taking up
their quarters beyond the power of the Companies. But it was a freedom
without knowledge, without order, without forethought. It was the
freedom of the savage who lives only for himself. For they were now
unable to combine. In the long course of centuries they had lost the
very idea of combination; they had forgotten that in an age we call
rude and rough they possessed the power and perceived the importance
of combination. The great-grandchildren of the men who had formed this
union of the trade had entirely forgotten the meaning, the reason, the
possibility, of the old combination. In this way, then, the Companies
gradually lost their craftsmen, but retained their property.

One very remarkable result may be noticed. Formerly, the Lord Mayor of
London was elected by the whole of the commonalty. All the citizens
assembled at Paul's Cross, and there, sometimes with tumult and
sometimes with fighting, they elected their mayor for the next year.
But since every man in the City was compelled to belong to his own
Company, to speak of the commonalty meant to speak of the Companies.
Every man who voted for the election of Lord Mayor was therefore bound
to be a liveryman--_i.e_., a member of a Company. This restriction is
still in force; that is to say, the City of London, the richest and
the greatest city in the world, now allows eight thousand liverymen,
or members of the Companies, to elect their chief magistrate.

Why do I tell over again this old threadbare tale? Perhaps, however,
it is not old or threadbare to you: perhaps there are some here who
learn for the first time that association, trade union, combination,
is a thousand years old in this ancient city. I have told it chiefly,
however, because the history should be a warning to you of London;
because it shows that association itself may be made the very weapon
with which to destroy its own objects; in other words, because you
must find in this history an illustration or the great truth that the
forms of liberty require the most unceasing vigilance to prevent them
from becoming the means of destroying liberty. The Companies failed
because they could be, and were, used to destroy the freedom of the
very men for whose benefit they were founded. At present, as you know,
some of them are very poor indeed: those which are rich are probably
doing far more good with their wealth in promoting all kinds of useful
work than ever they did in all their past history.

There followed, I said, a long period in which association among
working men was absolutely unknown. The history of this period, from a
craftsman's point of view, has never been written. It is, indeed, a
most terrible chapter in the history of industry.

Imagine, if you can, crowded districts in which there were no schools,
or but one school for a very few, no churches, no newspapers or books,
a place in which no one could read; a place in which every man, woman
and child regarded the Government of the country, in which they had
not the least share, as their natural enemy and oppressor. Among them
lurked the housebreaker, the highway robber, and the pickpocket. Along
the riverside, where many thousands of working men lived--at St.
Katherine's, Wapping, Shadwell, and Ratcliff--all the people together,
high and low, were in league with the men who loaded and unloaded the
ships in the river and robbed them all day long. What could be
expected of people left thus absolutely to themselves, without any
power of action, without the least thought that amendment was possible
or desirable? Can we wonder if the people sank lower and lower, until,
by the middle of the last century, the working men of London had
reached a depth of degradation that terrified everyone who knew what
things meant? Listen to the following words, written in the year 1772:

'To paint the manners of the lower rank of the inhabitants of London
is to draw a most disagreeable caricature, since the blackest vices
and the most perpetual scenes of villainy and wickedness are
constantly to be met with there. The most thorough contempt for all
order, morality, and decency is almost universal among the poorer sort
of people, whose manners I cannot but regard as the worst in the whole
world. The open street for ever presents the spectator with the most
loathsome scenes of beastliness, cruelty, and all manner of vice. In a
word, if you would take a view of man in his debased state, go neither
to the savages nor the Hottentots; they are decent, cleanly, and
elegant, compared with the poor people of London.'

This is very strongly put. If you will look at some of Hogarth's
pictures you will admit that the words are not too strong.

Union had long since been forbidden; union was called conspiracy;
conspiracy was punishable by imprisonment. If men cannot combine they
sink into their natural condition and become savages again. All these
evils fell upon our unfortunate working men as a natural result of
neglect first, and of enforced isolation. Union was forbidden. During
all these years every man worked for himself, stood by himself; there
was no association. Therefore, there followed savagery. There was no
education. Had there been either, association or rebellion must have
followed. The awakening of associated effort took place at the
beginning of the French Revolution. It was caused, or stimulated, by
that prodigious movement; and the first combinations of working men
were formed for political purposes. Since then, what have we seen?
Associations for political purposes formed, prohibited, persecuted,
formed again in spite of ancient laws. Associations victorious; we
have seen Trades Unions formed, prohibited, formed again, and now
flourishing, though not quite victorious. And the spirit of
association, I cannot but believe, grows stronger every day. In this
most glorious century--the noblest century for the advancement of
mankind that the world has ever seen, yet only the beginning of the
things that are to follow--we have gained an immense number of things:
the suffrage, vote by ballot, the Factory Acts, abolition of flogging,
the freedom of the press, the right of public meeting, the right of
combination, and a system of free education by which the national
character, the national modes of thought; the national customs, will
be changed in ways we cannot forecast; but since the national
character will always remain British we need have no fear of that
change. All these things--remember, all these things; every one of
these things--is the result, direct or indirect, of association.
Think, for instance, of one difference in custom between now and a
hundred years ago. Formerly, when a wrong thing had to be denounced,
or an iniquity attacked, the man who saw the thing wrote a pamphlet or
a book, which never probably reached the class for whom it was
intended at all. He now writes to the papers, which are read by
millions. He thus, to begin with, creates a certain amount of public
opinion; he then forms a society composed of those who think like
himself; then, for his companions, he spreads his doctrines in all
directions. That is our modern method; not to stand up alone like a
prophet, and to preach and cry aloud while the world, unheeding,
passes by, but to march in the ranks with brother soldiers, exhorting
and calling on our comrades to take up the word, and pass it on--and
when the soldiers in the ranks are firm and fixed to carry that cause.

We are now witnessing one of the most remarkable, one of the most
suggestive, signs of the time--a time which is, I verily believe,
teeming with social mange--a time, as I have said above, of the most
stupendous importance in the history of mankind. We read constantly,
in the paper and everywhere, fears, prophecies, bogies of approaching
revolution. Approaching! Fears of approaching revolution! Why, we are
in the midst of this revolution, we are actually in the midst of the
most wonderful social revolution! People don't perceive it, simply
because the revolutionaries are not chopping off heads, as they did in
France. But it has begun, all the same, and it is going on around us
silently, swiftly, irresistibly. We are actually in the midst of
revolution. Everywhere the old order of things is slipping away;
everywhere things new and unexpected are asserting themselves. Let me
only point out a few things. We have become within the last twenty
years a nation of readers--we all read; most of us, it is true, read
only newspapers. But what newspapers? Why, exactly the same papers as
are read by the people of the highest position in the land. Perhaps
you have not thought of the significance, the extreme significance, of
this fact. Certainly those who continually talk of the ignorance of
the people have never thought of it! What does it mean? Why, that
every reasoning man in the country, whatever his social position,
reads the same news, the same debates, the same arguments as the
statesman, the scholar, the philosopher, the preacher, or the man of
science. He bases his opinions on the same reasoning and on the same
information as the Leader of the House of Commons, as my Lord
Chancellor, as my Lord Archbishop himself. Formerly the working man
read nothing, and he knew nothing, and he had no power. He has now,
not only his vote, but he has as much personal influence among his own
friends as depends upon his knowledge and his force of character, and
he can acquire as much political knowledge as any noble lord not
actually in official circles, if he only chooses to reach out his hand
and take what is offered him! Is not that a revolution which has so
much raised the working man? Again, he was, formerly, the absolute
slave of his employer; he was obliged to take with a semblance of
gratitude whatever wages were offered him. What is he now? A man of
business, who negotiates for his skill. Is not that a revolution?
Formerly he lived where he could. Look, now, at the efforts made
everywhere to house him properly. For, understand, association on one
side, which shows power, commands recognition and respect on the
other. None of these fine things would have been done for the working
men had they not shown that they could combine. Consider, again, the
question of education. Here, indeed, is a mighty revolution going on
around us: the Board Schools teaching things never before presented to
the children of the people; technical schools teaching work of all
kinds; and--a most remarkable sign of the times--thousands upon
thousands of working lads, after a hard day's work, going off to a
Polytechnic for a hard evening's work of another kind. And of what
kind? It is exactly the same kind as is found in the colleges of the
rich. The same sciences, the same languages, the same arts, the same
intellectual culture, are learned by these working lads in their
evenings as are learned by their richer brothers in the mornings. In
many cases the teachers are men of the same standing at the University
as those who teach at the public schools. There are, I believe, a
hundred thousand of these ambitious boys scattered over London, and
the number increases daily. If this is not revolution, I should like
to know what is. That the working classes should study in the highest
schools; that they should enjoy an equal chance with the richest and
noblest of acquiring knowledge of the highest kind; that they should
be found capable actually of foregoing the pleasures of youth--the
rest, the society, the amusements of the evenings--in order to acquire
knowledge--what is this if it is not a revolution and an upsetting? As
for what is coming out of all these things, I have formed, for myself,
very strong views indeed, and I think that I could, if this were a
fitting time, prophesy unto you. But, for the present, let us be
content with simply marking what has been done, and especially with
the recognition that everything--every single thing--that has been
gained has been either achieved by association, or has naturally grown
and developed out of association.

Through association the way to the higher education is open to you;
through association political power has been acquired for you; through
association you have made yourselves free to combine for trade
purposes; through association you have made yourselves strong, and
even, in the eyes of some, terrible; it remains in these respects only
that you should make, as one believes you will make, a fit and proper
use of advantages and weapons which have never before been placed in
the hands of any nation, not even Germany; certainly not the United
States.

But what about the other side of life--the social side, the side of
recreation, the side which has been so persistently ignored and
neglected up to the present day? Now, when we look round us and
consider that side of life we observe the plainest and the most
significant proof possible of the great social revolution which is
among us; plainer, more significant, than the success of the Trades
Unions. For we see sprung up, already a vigorous plant, the associated
life applied to purposes above the mere material interests. You have
made them safe, as far as possible, by your unions. The social and
recreative side of life you have now taken over into your keeping, you
order recreation which shall be as music or as poetry in your
associated lives, harmonious, melodious, rhythmic, metrical. All that
I have said to-night leads up to this, that the Associated Life is
necessary for the enjoyment and the attainment of the best and the
highest things that the world can give, as the Guild and the Company
formerly, and the Trade Union is now, for the safeguarding of the
craft. In entering upon this new association, men and women together,
learn the lessons of the past. Be jealous of your democratic lines.
Let every step be a step for the general interest. Let the individual
perish. Let the wishes and intentions of your founders be never lost
to sight. Be not carried away by religion, by politics, by any new
thing; never lose the principles of your association.

And now, I ask, when, before this day, has it been recorded in the
history of any city that men and women should unite in order to
procure for themselves those social advantages which up to the present
have been enjoyed only by the richer class, and not always by them?
When, before this time, has it been reported that men and women have
banded themselves together resolved that whatever good things rich
people could procure for themselves, they would also make for
themselves? Since the magistrates refused to allow dancing, one of the
most innocent and delightful amusements, they would arrange their own
dancing for themselves without troubling the magistrates for
permission. Since going to concerts cost money, they would have their
own musicians and their own singers. Since selection of companions is
the first essence of social enjoyment, they would have their own rooms
for themselves, where they would meet none but those who, like
themselves, desired education, culture, and orderly recreation. In one
word, when, in the history of any city, has there been found such a
combination, so resolute for culture, as the combination of men and
women which has raised this temple, this sacred Temple of Humanity?
You are, indeed, I plainly perceive, revolutionaries of the most
dangerous kind. As revolutionaries you are engaged in the cultivation
of all those arts and accomplishments which have hitherto belonged to
the West-end; as revolutionaries you claim the right to meet, read,
sing, dance, act, play, debate, with as much freedom as if you lived
in Berkeley Square. Where will these things stop?

[1893.]

[Illustration.]

End of Project Gutenberg's As We Are and As We May Be, by Sir Walter Besant