In Darkest England and The Way Out [43]
specific for Despair. When all else fails Society will always undertake to feed, clothe, warm, and house a man, if only he will commit a crime. It will do it also in such a fashion as to render it no temporary help, but a permanent necessity.
Society says to the individual: "To qualify for free board and lodging you must commit a crime. But if you do you must pay the price. You must allow me to ruin your character, and doom you for the rest of your life to destitution, modified by the occasional successes of criminality. You shall become the Child of the State, on condition that we doom you to a temporal perdition, out of which you will never be permitted to escape, and in which you will always be a charge upon our resources and a constant source of anxiety and inconvenience to the authorities. I will feed you, certainly, but in return you must permit me to damn you." That surely ought not to be the last word of Civilised Society.
"Certainly not," say others. "Emigration is the true specific. The waste lands of the world are crying aloud for the application of surplus labour. Emigration is the panacea." Now I have no objection to emigration. Only a criminal lunatic could seriously object to the transference of hungry Jack from an overcrowded shanty--where he cannot even obtain enough bad potatoes to dull the ache behind his waistcoat, and is tempted to let his child die for the sake of the insurance money--to a land flowing with milk and honey, where he can eat meat three times a day and where a man's children are his wealth. But you might as well lay a new-born child naked in the middle of a new-sown field in March, and expect it to live and thrive, as expect emigration to produce successful results on the lines which some lay down. The child, no doubt, has within it latent capacities which, when years and training have done their work, will enable him to reap a harvest from a fertile soil, and the new sown field will be covered with golden grain in August. But these facts will not enable the infant to still its hunger with the clods of the earth in the cold spring time. It is just like that with emigration. It is simply criminal to take a multitude of untrained men and women and land them penniless and helpless on the fringe of some new continent. The result of such proceedings we see in the American cities; in the degradation of their slums, and in the hopeless demoralisation of thousands who, in their own country, were living decent, industrious lives.
A few months since, in Paramatta, in New South Wales, a young man who had emigrated with a vague hope of mending his fortunes, found himself homeless, friendless, and penniless. He was a clerk. They wanted no more clerks in Paramatta. Trade was dull, employment was scarce, even for trained hands. He went about from day to day seeking work and finding none. At last he came to the end of all his resources. He went all day without food; at night he slept as best he could. Morning came, and he was hopeless. All next day passed without a meal. Night came. He could not sleep. He wandered about restlessly. At last, about midnight, an idea seized him. Grasping a brick, he deliberately walked up to a jeweller's window, and smashed a hole through the glass. He made no attempt to steal anything: He merely smashed the pane and then sat down on the pavement beneath the window, waiting for the arrival of the policeman. He waited some hours; but at last the constable arrived. He gave himself up, and was marched off to the lock-up. "I shall at least have something to eat now," was the reflection. He was right. He was sentenced to one year's imprisonment, and he is in gaol at this hour. This very morning he received his rations, and at this very moment he is dodged, and clothed and cared for at the cost of the rates and taxes. He has become the child of the State, and, therefore, one of the socially damned. Thus emigration itself, instead of being an invariable specific, sometimes brings us back again to the gaol door.
Emigration, by all means.
Society says to the individual: "To qualify for free board and lodging you must commit a crime. But if you do you must pay the price. You must allow me to ruin your character, and doom you for the rest of your life to destitution, modified by the occasional successes of criminality. You shall become the Child of the State, on condition that we doom you to a temporal perdition, out of which you will never be permitted to escape, and in which you will always be a charge upon our resources and a constant source of anxiety and inconvenience to the authorities. I will feed you, certainly, but in return you must permit me to damn you." That surely ought not to be the last word of Civilised Society.
"Certainly not," say others. "Emigration is the true specific. The waste lands of the world are crying aloud for the application of surplus labour. Emigration is the panacea." Now I have no objection to emigration. Only a criminal lunatic could seriously object to the transference of hungry Jack from an overcrowded shanty--where he cannot even obtain enough bad potatoes to dull the ache behind his waistcoat, and is tempted to let his child die for the sake of the insurance money--to a land flowing with milk and honey, where he can eat meat three times a day and where a man's children are his wealth. But you might as well lay a new-born child naked in the middle of a new-sown field in March, and expect it to live and thrive, as expect emigration to produce successful results on the lines which some lay down. The child, no doubt, has within it latent capacities which, when years and training have done their work, will enable him to reap a harvest from a fertile soil, and the new sown field will be covered with golden grain in August. But these facts will not enable the infant to still its hunger with the clods of the earth in the cold spring time. It is just like that with emigration. It is simply criminal to take a multitude of untrained men and women and land them penniless and helpless on the fringe of some new continent. The result of such proceedings we see in the American cities; in the degradation of their slums, and in the hopeless demoralisation of thousands who, in their own country, were living decent, industrious lives.
A few months since, in Paramatta, in New South Wales, a young man who had emigrated with a vague hope of mending his fortunes, found himself homeless, friendless, and penniless. He was a clerk. They wanted no more clerks in Paramatta. Trade was dull, employment was scarce, even for trained hands. He went about from day to day seeking work and finding none. At last he came to the end of all his resources. He went all day without food; at night he slept as best he could. Morning came, and he was hopeless. All next day passed without a meal. Night came. He could not sleep. He wandered about restlessly. At last, about midnight, an idea seized him. Grasping a brick, he deliberately walked up to a jeweller's window, and smashed a hole through the glass. He made no attempt to steal anything: He merely smashed the pane and then sat down on the pavement beneath the window, waiting for the arrival of the policeman. He waited some hours; but at last the constable arrived. He gave himself up, and was marched off to the lock-up. "I shall at least have something to eat now," was the reflection. He was right. He was sentenced to one year's imprisonment, and he is in gaol at this hour. This very morning he received his rations, and at this very moment he is dodged, and clothed and cared for at the cost of the rates and taxes. He has become the child of the State, and, therefore, one of the socially damned. Thus emigration itself, instead of being an invariable specific, sometimes brings us back again to the gaol door.
Emigration, by all means.