In Darkest England and The Way Out [148]
good discipline amongst this class of people.
We are of just the opposite opinion. We think that it would --nay, we are certain of it, and we speak as those who have had considerable experience in dealing with the lower classes of Society. We have already dealt with this difficulty. We may say further--
That we do not propose to commence with a thousand people in a wild, untamed state, either at home or abroad. To the Colony Over-Sea we should send none but those who have had a long period of training in this country. The bulk of those sent to the Provincial Farm would have had some sort of trial in the different City Establishments. We should only draft them on to the Estate in small numbers, as we were prepared to deal with them, and I am quite satisfied that without the legal methods of maintaining order that are acted upon so freely in workhouses and other similar institutions, we should have as perfect obedience to Law, as great respect for authority, and as strong a spirit of kindness pervading all ranks throughout the whole of the community as could be found in any other institution in the land.
It will be borne in mind that our Army system of government largely prepares us, if it does not qualify us, for this task. Anyway, it gives us a good start. All our people are trained in habits of obedience, and all our Officers are educated in the exercise of authority. The Officers throughout the Colony would be almost exclusively recruited from the ranks of the Army, and everyone of them would go to the work, both theoretically and practically, familiar with those principles which are the essence of good discipline.
Then we can argue, and that very forcibly, from the actual experience we have already had in dealing with this class. Take our experience in the Army itself. Look at the order of our Soldiers. Here are men and women, who have no temporal interest whatever at stake, receiving no remuneration, often sacrificing their earthly interests by their union with us, and yet see how they fall into line, and obey orders in the promptest manner, even when such orders go right in the teeth of their temporal interests.
"Yes," it will be replied by some, "this is all very excellent so far as it relates to those who are altogether of your own way of thinking. You can command them as you please, and they will obey, but what proof have you given of your ability to control and discipline those who are not of your way of thinking?
"You can do that with your Salvationists because they are saved, as you call it. When men are born again you can do anything with them. But unless you convert all the denizens of Darkest England, what chance is there that they will be docile to your discipline? If they were soundly saved no doubt something might be done. But they are not saved, soundly or otherwise; they are lost. What reason have you for believing that they will be amenable to discipline?"
I admit the force of this objection; but I have an answer, and an answer which seems to me complete. Discipline, and that of the most merciless description, is enforced upon multitudes of these people even now. Nothing that the most authoritative organisation of industry could devise in the excess of absolute power, could for a moment compare with the slavery enforced to-day in the dens of the sweater. It is not a choice between liberty and discipline that confronts these unfortunates, but between discipline mercilessly enforced by starvation and inspired by futile greed, and discipline accompanied with regular rations and administered solely for their own benefit. What liberty is there for the tailors who have to sew for sixteen to twenty hours a day, in a pest-hole, in order to earn ten shillings a week? There is no discipline so brutal as that of the sweater; there is no slavery so relentless as that from which we seek to deliver the victims. Compared with their normal condition of existence, the most rigorous discipline which would be needed to secure the complete success of any new individual organisation
We are of just the opposite opinion. We think that it would --nay, we are certain of it, and we speak as those who have had considerable experience in dealing with the lower classes of Society. We have already dealt with this difficulty. We may say further--
That we do not propose to commence with a thousand people in a wild, untamed state, either at home or abroad. To the Colony Over-Sea we should send none but those who have had a long period of training in this country. The bulk of those sent to the Provincial Farm would have had some sort of trial in the different City Establishments. We should only draft them on to the Estate in small numbers, as we were prepared to deal with them, and I am quite satisfied that without the legal methods of maintaining order that are acted upon so freely in workhouses and other similar institutions, we should have as perfect obedience to Law, as great respect for authority, and as strong a spirit of kindness pervading all ranks throughout the whole of the community as could be found in any other institution in the land.
It will be borne in mind that our Army system of government largely prepares us, if it does not qualify us, for this task. Anyway, it gives us a good start. All our people are trained in habits of obedience, and all our Officers are educated in the exercise of authority. The Officers throughout the Colony would be almost exclusively recruited from the ranks of the Army, and everyone of them would go to the work, both theoretically and practically, familiar with those principles which are the essence of good discipline.
Then we can argue, and that very forcibly, from the actual experience we have already had in dealing with this class. Take our experience in the Army itself. Look at the order of our Soldiers. Here are men and women, who have no temporal interest whatever at stake, receiving no remuneration, often sacrificing their earthly interests by their union with us, and yet see how they fall into line, and obey orders in the promptest manner, even when such orders go right in the teeth of their temporal interests.
"Yes," it will be replied by some, "this is all very excellent so far as it relates to those who are altogether of your own way of thinking. You can command them as you please, and they will obey, but what proof have you given of your ability to control and discipline those who are not of your way of thinking?
"You can do that with your Salvationists because they are saved, as you call it. When men are born again you can do anything with them. But unless you convert all the denizens of Darkest England, what chance is there that they will be docile to your discipline? If they were soundly saved no doubt something might be done. But they are not saved, soundly or otherwise; they are lost. What reason have you for believing that they will be amenable to discipline?"
I admit the force of this objection; but I have an answer, and an answer which seems to me complete. Discipline, and that of the most merciless description, is enforced upon multitudes of these people even now. Nothing that the most authoritative organisation of industry could devise in the excess of absolute power, could for a moment compare with the slavery enforced to-day in the dens of the sweater. It is not a choice between liberty and discipline that confronts these unfortunates, but between discipline mercilessly enforced by starvation and inspired by futile greed, and discipline accompanied with regular rations and administered solely for their own benefit. What liberty is there for the tailors who have to sew for sixteen to twenty hours a day, in a pest-hole, in order to earn ten shillings a week? There is no discipline so brutal as that of the sweater; there is no slavery so relentless as that from which we seek to deliver the victims. Compared with their normal condition of existence, the most rigorous discipline which would be needed to secure the complete success of any new individual organisation