In Darkest England and The Way Out [173]
apprentices, starved weavers thievish valets; an entirely broken population, fast tending towards the treadmill. But the persuasive sergeant came, by tap of drum enlisted, or formed lists of them, took heartily to drilling them; and he and you have made them this! Most potent effectual for all work whatsoever, is wise planning, firm, combining, and commanding among men. Let no man despair of Governments who looks on these two sentries at the Horse Guards and our United Service clubs. I could conceive an Emigration Service, a Teaching Service, considerable varieties of United and Separate Services, of the due thousands strong, all effective as this Fighting Service is; all doing their work like it--which work, much more than fighting, is henceforth the necessity of these new ages we are got into! Much lies among us, convulsively, nigh desperately, struggling to be born."--("Past and Present," page 224.)
"It was well, all this, we know; and yet it was not well. Forty soldiers, I am told, will disperse the largest Spitalfields mob; forty to ten thousand, that is the proportion between drilled and undrilled. Much there is which cannot yet be organised in this world, but somewhat also which can--somewhat also which must. When one thinks, for example, what books are become and becoming for us, what operative Lancashires are become; what a Fourth Estate and innumerable virtualities not yet got to be actualities are become and becoming, one sees organisms enough in the dim huge future, and 'United Services' quite other than the redcoat one; and much, even in these years, struggling to be born!"--("Past and Present," page 226.)
"An effective 'Teaching Service,' I do consider that there must be; some education secretary, captain-general of teachers, who will actually contrive to get us taught. Then again, why should there not be an 'Emigration Service,' and secretary with adjuncts, with funds, forces, idle navy ships, and ever-increasing apparatus, in fine an effective system of emigration, so that at length before our twenty years of respite ended, every honest willing workman who found England too strait, and the 'organisation of labour' not yet sufficiently advanced, might find likewise a bridge built to carry him into new western lands, there to 'organise' with more elbow room some labour for himself? There to be a real blessing, raising new corn for us, purchasing new webs and hatchets from us; leaving us at least in peace; instead of staying here to be a physical-force Chartist, unblessed and no blessing! Is it not scandalous to consider that a Prime Minister could raise within the year, as I have seen it done, a hundred and twenty millions sterling to shoot the French; and we are stopped short for want of the hundredth part of that to keep the English living? The bodies of the English living, and the souls of the English living, these two 'Services,' an Education Service and an Emigration Service, these with others, will have actually to be organised.
"A free bridge for emigrants! Why, we should then be on a par with America itself, the most favoured of all lands that have no government; and we should have, besides, so many traditions and mementos of priceless things which America has cast away. We could proceed deliberately to organise labour not doomed to perish unless we effected it within year and day every willing worker that proved superfluous, finding a bridge ready for him. This verily will have to be done; the time is big with this. Our little Isle is grown too narrow for us; but the world is wide enough yet for another six thousand years. England's sure markets will be among new colonies of Englishmen in all quarters of the Globe. All men trade with all men when mutually convenient, and are even bound to do it by the Maker of Men. Our friends of China, who guiltily refused to trade in these circumstances--had we not to argue with them, in cannon-shot at last, and convince them that they ought to trade? 'Hostile tariffs' will arise to shut us out, and then, again, will fall, to let us in; but
"It was well, all this, we know; and yet it was not well. Forty soldiers, I am told, will disperse the largest Spitalfields mob; forty to ten thousand, that is the proportion between drilled and undrilled. Much there is which cannot yet be organised in this world, but somewhat also which can--somewhat also which must. When one thinks, for example, what books are become and becoming for us, what operative Lancashires are become; what a Fourth Estate and innumerable virtualities not yet got to be actualities are become and becoming, one sees organisms enough in the dim huge future, and 'United Services' quite other than the redcoat one; and much, even in these years, struggling to be born!"--("Past and Present," page 226.)
"An effective 'Teaching Service,' I do consider that there must be; some education secretary, captain-general of teachers, who will actually contrive to get us taught. Then again, why should there not be an 'Emigration Service,' and secretary with adjuncts, with funds, forces, idle navy ships, and ever-increasing apparatus, in fine an effective system of emigration, so that at length before our twenty years of respite ended, every honest willing workman who found England too strait, and the 'organisation of labour' not yet sufficiently advanced, might find likewise a bridge built to carry him into new western lands, there to 'organise' with more elbow room some labour for himself? There to be a real blessing, raising new corn for us, purchasing new webs and hatchets from us; leaving us at least in peace; instead of staying here to be a physical-force Chartist, unblessed and no blessing! Is it not scandalous to consider that a Prime Minister could raise within the year, as I have seen it done, a hundred and twenty millions sterling to shoot the French; and we are stopped short for want of the hundredth part of that to keep the English living? The bodies of the English living, and the souls of the English living, these two 'Services,' an Education Service and an Emigration Service, these with others, will have actually to be organised.
"A free bridge for emigrants! Why, we should then be on a par with America itself, the most favoured of all lands that have no government; and we should have, besides, so many traditions and mementos of priceless things which America has cast away. We could proceed deliberately to organise labour not doomed to perish unless we effected it within year and day every willing worker that proved superfluous, finding a bridge ready for him. This verily will have to be done; the time is big with this. Our little Isle is grown too narrow for us; but the world is wide enough yet for another six thousand years. England's sure markets will be among new colonies of Englishmen in all quarters of the Globe. All men trade with all men when mutually convenient, and are even bound to do it by the Maker of Men. Our friends of China, who guiltily refused to trade in these circumstances--had we not to argue with them, in cannon-shot at last, and convince them that they ought to trade? 'Hostile tariffs' will arise to shut us out, and then, again, will fall, to let us in; but