OCTOBER 17, 1919

No. 4668

THE ATHENÆUM

A

A JOURNAL OF

SCIENCE AND

STRIKES

CERTAIN similarity may be

LITERATURE,

THE ARTS

Needless to say, such unseemly conduct was forbidden, but with what success records do not appear to relate. Still, the rebellious and

made out between the CONTENTS conspiring craftsmen might have

strike as

1025 1026

1028

1028

1028

1029

...

1030

1021

1034

A Watershed of History, by George Saunders 1032
A Disillusioned Romantic
Humour and Heaviness
War-Paint and Feathers
King and Scholar
LITERARY NOTES...
NINETY YEARS AGO

a politicoindustrial weapon and the heavy gun as a military weapon; in each case its development as an arm of offence has been remarkably rapid during the last generation. When Thorold Rogers wrote, in 1884, strikes had been so uniformly unsuccessful that many economists held that this form of industrial combination had had no effect in bringing about such rises in wages as had taken place. Many military experts of that time would undoubtedly have staked their reputations, and even their money, on the power of such forts as those of Namur and Liége to resist any form of artillery. Thirty years later siege guns had not only demolished those forts, but had blown ring fortresses into the category of military antiquities: and strikes had proved so effective that capitalists had begun to lose faith in the defensive power of unmasked rings and vested interests, and to take refuge in that blessed invention of the war, camouflage.

1035

1036

1036

1037

pleaded the example of their spiritual superiors. For what was the Interdict but a prodigious strike? Or 1026 again, when the clergy combined to refuse payment of taxation for the defence of the realm, this was a strike, and, moreover, an undoubted strike against the community; while King Edward's retort of outlawry was a lock-out which speedily brought them to reason. On a smaller scale there was the case of the monks of Winchester, who on some quarrel with their bishop-of which the cause has slipped my memory— suspended their services to organize 2 procession, not round the town with banners, but round the triforium, widdershins (i.e. from west to east, against the course of the sun and the port), with crosses reversed. An even better case occurred at Oxford in 1288, when the masters forced the Bishop of Lincoln to accept their nominee as Chancellor by going on strike and refusing to lecture till he did so.

1037 1047

1038
1039

The Necessity of Theories, by André Lhote 1039
1010
Exhibitions of the Week

MUSIC:

...

...

Landscape with Figures, by Edward J. Dent 1041
A Barmecide Feast
Concerts

DRAMA:

Shylock and the Ghetto

CORRESPONDENCE:

1042 .1042

1043

"Le Latin Mystique "-Who wrote "The
Suspicious Husband"?--Pseudonyms 1043, 1044

FOREIGN LITERATURE:

The Psychology of the Spanish People
Back to Machiavelli ...
Eduard Bernstein's Reminiscences...
LIST OF NEW BOOKS

Metaphors are kittle cattle to
drive, and easily ridden to death,
but one more point of similarity
between strikes and guns must be
made. Both were known, in feeble form, in
mediæval times, being then noisy and alarming
rather than destructive, and often more dangerous
to the user than to the enemy; for the fifteenth-
century cannon frequently burst and landed its
gunner in hospital, and the fifteenth-century strike
with still greater regularity landed its leaders in gaol.
As early as 1350 cannon had taken their place in the
armies of England, and it had become the custom
among the clothworkers of London, if there was any
dispute between a man and his master, for such a
man" to go to all the men within the City of the same
trade, and then, by covin and conspiracy between
them, they would order that no one among them
should work, or serve his own master, until the said
master and his servant had come to an agreement."

...

1045 1046 1047 1048-1051

The University of Oxford, however, had still earlier earned fame and enforced regard for its privileges by that further development of the strike the secession. When that hot-tempered monarch King John had hanged for murder three clerks who were not only innocent, but also members of the University, the entire body, masters and students, to the alleged number of three thousand, migrated to Cambridge and Reading and elsewhere.

Most famous of all secessions in history was, of course, that in the early days of the Republic at Rome, not long after the king that "was callit Archy" (presumably by his intimate friends, as the outside world knew him better as Tarquin) had been expelled, when the plebeians "past ovre the river of Anien to the sacrate montane thre myles fra Rome," and there "garnist thare tentis with maist sober trinschis and fowseis and held thame self quiet certaine dayis"; to the great alarm of the patricians, who,

T

being "richt pensive in thare myndis," sent Menenius
Agrippa, "ane richt facound oratoure," to talk to
them. He, it will be remembered, told them the
fable of how "the remanent members of the body
tuke hie indignacioun agains the wame, thinkand
richt unworthy that thare hail sollicitude, thare hale
labour and besyness was direkkit to na uthir fyne
bot alanerlie for the plesere of the wame," and success-
fully pointed the moral of “this intestyne seditioun.”
Agrippa's fable might have been told with even greater
propriety to the bakers of Coventry, who in 1484 "in
gret nombre, riottesly disposed, assembled theym
and unlawefully confedered, and sodenly departed
oute of the seid Cite unto Bakynton [most suitable
of sites!], levyng the seid Cite destitute of bred;
wherthorough not only straungers resortyng to the
seid Cite and the inhabitauntes of the same were
unvittailled, in gretly noysyng the seid Cite and
villany and reproche of the seid Maire and all the
officers thereof." Whatever the cause of this rebellion,
it collapsed ignominiously, and the bakers, possibly
finding it impossible to live by taking in each other's
baking, returned to Coventry and paid a heavy fine.
Bakers were also concerned in a strike conspiracy
at Dover in 1546, when they, with the brewers,
coopers, carpenters, etc., employed on the King's
work, obstinately refused to work any longer unless
they had their full pay, and if any "for his lewdnes
was sent to prison, all the rest would remain idle
which maner of dealing
until he was released;
semed in no wise to be suffred in any one man, moche
lesse in a wilfull multitude"; so orders were given
for the arrest of the ringleaders. This was a case of
striking for wages due-as two centuries and a half
earlier Gunnora, laundrymaid to the first English
Prince of Wales, declined to get on with the washing
until her wages were paid; but in 1677 it is recorded
that a party of men went through Trowbridge with a
fiddler, calling on all who were on their side to follow
them, their object being to raise wages for working
twelve hours a day from 6s. to 6s. 6d. a week. Need-
less to say they were unsuccessful, and their outrageous
demand was treated with scorn; just as when, in
1790, the needy knife-grinders, or rather scissors-
grinders, of Sheffield struck for higher wages, their
masters retorted, in the spirit if not in the actual
words, "We give you sixpence? We will see you
damned first!" and did actually see five of them
L. F. SALZMAN.
safely lodged in gaol.

DISILLUSION

ON BEING
BEING ECONOMICAL

OCT

comfort

he has

withou

buys.

ability

accum

never

in his

his im

his ide

uses t scribe

Cover

Ma of he

no m

of th

appli

HE newspapers send up a cry for greater economy, and the individual, who has been pinched for the last five years, wonders how much longer he will be able to meet the increased cost of living. The expense of the summer holiday is now over, and the problems of the second half of the financial year confront every owner of a not too well-lined purse. Some people have a gift for making both ends meet over any circumference, some cannot rest content unless there is considerable selvage to spare, and others, whether in fat years or in lean, are by nature incapable of finishing up on the right side of the ledger. The first class is rewarded by the success of its contrivance, however weary its process may have been; the second, if unduly apprehensive and tending to the miserly, is to be congratulated on attaining peace of mind, if only temporary, at each balancing of accounts; but the third, though it gains more precarious enjoyment, ever heedless of the day of reckoning, is the one really to be pitied. It suffers agonies and embarrassments untold, yet is unable to find a reason for its failure or a cure for its errors. Yet the members of this class are often really the most admirable in their attitude to money. Those who make both ends meet, either to a nicety or with something to spare, are apt to become too absorbed in their problem. They feel uneasy at the sight of money passing from themselves to others; they handle their purses shrewdly, inserting welltrained, meticulous fingers which can be trusted not to pull out half-a-crown when two shillings will do; and they take out their cheque-books with a sigh, fearfully glancing at the balance neatly noted in the counterfoil. They can undertake nothing without counting the cost. If they fall into the temptation of an expensive pleasure, a slight shadow is cast over their enjoyment, and they are checked in their enterprises by the friction between coin and pocket. But the gay spenders whose outlay, without being truly wild and reckless, is always a little larger than their receipts, are the people to whom money is neither a god nor a cherished possession, but only a means to agreeable ends. If the end is mere personal enjoyment of a sensual kind, they have the lie in the soul and deserve the bitter reward of their own folly. But these fine, careless spenders are usually less selfish and more generous than the successful economists. They have warm impulses and gratify them without a qualm: money enables them to give substance to their ideas and reality to their imaginations. It is just a medium, like petrol to a motor cylinder, and they use it to the last drop without thinking of the level in the tank, for their ideas are always in advance of their capacities, and when one child of the imagination is being clothed a hundred others are born in the process. To such a one shopping is an endless temptation. He-and more often she cannot set his face sternly towards one article and bear it stonily away, looking neither to the right nor to the left. He cannot resist some particularly attractive accompaniment, some appropriate gift for a friend, some sudden apparition of a long-felt want, some inevitable improvement for the

How weary Love has grown! See how she lies
Careless who sees her bosom, or whose lips
Steal her once-guarded treasures-how her eyes
Droop on her wan cheeks, while her tired hand grips
Half madly yet half languidly upon

The blossoms plucked that morning long ago
When she first wandered forth where meadows shone
With all the glad surprise and morning glow
Of youth. Come, let us gently pass her by,
For thus, asleep, she may forget her shame,
Her garments torn, and her lost ecstasy.
Yes, let her sleep who has outlived her fame.
And then, perchance, 'mid that uneasy rest

comfort of life. He seldom knows how much money he has on him to begin with, and he pours it out without counting, thinking not of it, but of what it buys. He runs up a bill quite confident in future ability to pay, only to be astounded later by the accumulated audacity of his confidence. He will never be mean, for his pocket is in his clothes-not in his heart: comparative poverty will not starve his imagination, and no wealth will be too great for his ideas. It is his tragedy that his wealth is always too small for them, since, seeing all the admirable uses to which money can be put, he cannot circumscribe himself to the poor few which his income will

cover.

Madame de Warens, lavish of her person as well as of her purse, was one of these, as Rousseau, himself no miser, did not scruple to point out. His description of this amiable, if ruinous quality in his mistress is applicable to so many whom we know:

Ses

Elle étoit née pour les grandes affaires talents ont été déplacées; ce qui eût fait sa gloire dans une situation plus élevée a fait sa perte dans celle où elle a vécu. Dans les choses qui étoient à sa portée, elle étendoit toujours son plan dans sa tête et voyoit toujours son objet en grand. Cela faisoit qu'en employant des moyens proportionnés à ses vues plus qu'à ses forces elle échouoit par la faute des autres; et son projet venant à manquer, elle étoit ruinée où d'autres n'auroient presque rien perdu.

There are some fortunate individuals who seem able to snap their fingers in the face of prudence with impunity. Their motto is always to do themselves well and to have the best of everything, as well as to give it, because, as they say, it pays in the end. If they cast any bread upon the waters-they would cast nothing but the finest new wheaten loaf-it will return to them well buttered. They go to the best hotels, where they meet people who are of use to them their sumptuous trappings give them assurance which shows their capabilities in their best light. They are the Rolls-Royces among men, who need a flood of petrol or they are useless. The strange thing is that they usually get it without difficulty. But wce betide the runabouts of this world who, not having the Rolls-Royce temperament, use its maxims as their own sophisms! That the best always pays is only true if you can pay for the best, or get somebody to do so for you; and an unwillingness to spoil a ship for a ha'porth of tar is only justified if your income runs to something larger than a rowing boat.

Nevertheless, whatever trouble unwarranted expenditure of money may bring to all except the lucky few, it is questionable whether economy in its essence is a virtue, however valuable it may be as a safeguard. The word is often used as if it were synonymous with thrift, which it is not. It strictly means good management and avoidance of waste. As such it is praiseworthy, but can hardly be exalted to the plane of loving-kindness or genius. Thrift, too, is only praiseworthy within limits. Old Grandet was far less admirable than poor cousin Pons. After all, there is nothing particularly virtuous in checking expenditure irrespective of its possible object, for wealth is only energy, and to keep it idle is to withdraw it from the community for a time. The fact that money is one of the few forms in which energy can

be stored without deterioration for an indefinite time has given a special dignity to the saving propensity when applied to money. Somebody benefits by it in time, so that the effort of thrift always appears to be justified. In other activities, not altogether logically, we are not so apt to look on thrift with admiration. The man who carefully measures the energy that he puts into a task is not the best workman, and the artist who doles out his talent has usually little enough to draw upon. Genius at work has always been extravagant, both of intellectual energy and bodily health, and we habitually forget our debt to this great extravagance which enriches us when. we reflect reproachfully on the lesser extravagance which only ruined our benefactor. When we judge Byron we seldom take into account what he spent on "Don Juan," nor do we remember how much of his greater self Benvenuto Cellini put into a silver cup when we hold up our hands over his immoralities. The profusion of Mozart and Schubert is their glory, and not their shame; and what economy could have produced the cathedral at Rheims ?

Economy at its best is the power of extracting the most from any given amount of energy or power. There are few better examples of economy than the good motor-driver who, by care of his machine, by cunningly adjusting his levers, by taking his corners slowly, by nursing his machine up hills and easing it on declines, obtains the maximum mileage from a gallon of petrol and has the smallest bill of repairs. A bad example of economy is the owner of a motor who refrains from using it because petrol and rubber are so dear. But if a dead machine be left out of the question, and the man himself be taken as the power unit, it is interesting to speculate where true economy comes in. In one sense the question is easy, for society can always be regarded as a system in which a few individuals are the drivers and the majority are the driven, so that the economy of the capitalist and the factory owner is the same as that of the motor-driver, the faculty of getting the best out of his unit by reasonable care and adjustment, in which a steady drip from the oil-tap of courtesy and consideration is no unimportant item. But the question is more complicated when restricted to the individual. Here the driver and the engine are one, and science has not yet discovered nor has philosophy divulged where the directing mind ends or the mere machine begins.

Who is the true economist of himself? Is it the man who treats his body with respect, clothing it well, feeding it judiciously, resting it when tired, diverting it when bored, keeping plenty of energy in hand for emergencies and taking all major repairs, promptly to the doctor?, Possibly he is, and yet it would seem that in spending so much forethought on conserving physical energy he may be wastefully spending the much more precious and volatile energy of the spirit. England is full of these good bodyeconomists. They keep fit, they look rosy and well, they get through their daily task with the ease of a smoothly running engine and forget all aboutit over their evening rubber. A healthy Englishman is a pleasant sight, and the community cannot afford to do without him, but one is at times visited with doubts as to

Not hills endure. All bases are sea-sport.
Scared to their height, the staggered Heavens count
For each live lamp, that grimly burns to ice,
A million stanched. Death blows his shunless mort
Across the mystic waters, as they mount

To grip the narrow grave where Nature lies.

F. V. BRANFORD.