The Commonweal/Volume 1/Number 1/Signs of the Times
SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
When a cause or a man is caricatured, there is hope for the cause or the man. Our cause has made enough stir in the stagnant and noisome pool of modern society to have reached even Punch. Nearly half a column of that decourously-dull periodical (Jan. 17th) containing one lonely joke, is devoted to the unconscious propaganda of our principles.
The same number contains a picture of the “middle-man (illegible text) sucking the life out of the hare”—what think you? The hare Proletariat? Nay, truly. The hare Free Trade. Think of the imagery, workers!
If Mr. Punch could read the signs of any other Times than that of Printing House Square, he would make his worn-out hare, the Worker, run to death by the greyhound Capital; for his middle-man whose foot rests on Profit, he would have Society itself; and the rising sun, labelled Trade, would be the sun of International Organisation of the working classes.
Two prices of £5 each have been offered for competition (loathsome word!) among the students under the University Settlement Scheme at Toynbee Hall, Cambridge Street, E. One is for an Essay on Sir Thomas More. The other is on “The Possibilities ⟨of⟩ Productive Co-operation as a Solution of the Labour Question.” Among the books recommended to the competitors for the latter ⟨are⟩ Sedley Taylor's “Profit Sharing,” Henry George's “Progress and Poverty,” Ferdinand Lassalle's “Working Men's Programme;” Rob(illegible text) Owen's Report.
“An anthropologist,” writing in the Pall Mall, puts forward the vi(illegible text) arrived at, he states, after a wide study of the habits and constitution of aboriginal races, that the cause of the decadence and extinction of such races lines not so much in zymotic diseases or alcohol as in the unnatural clothing forced upon them by the missionary and trade(illegible text). An earnest appeal is made in the connexion on behalf of the rude Papuan, an appeal which we fear has little chance against the laws ⟨of⟩ commercial greed and swindling which form “civilisation.” The cruelty which forces tropical and sub-tropical races to sheathe themselves in European “shoddy,” as the “anthropologist” himself admits, is the necessary outcome of the “opening up” of their lands to that commercial enterprise of which the missionary is but the “religious” exponent.
Among this month's “protectorate” is one over the coast-(illegible text) Pondoland. The (illegible text) course; (illegible text) like it. They are, (illegible text) ever, assured by the leading Lateral organ that the English Government is acting quite within its rights; that a “protectorate” (illegible text) necessarily means annexation, &c., &c. The project was one ⟨of⟩ the hearts of so many “civilisers and Christianisers” of savag(illegible text) of all times and of all countries. It is now adopted by the (illegible text) Government which has hitherto professed a lofty superiority to such ideas.
“Self-supporting Penny Diners” is one of the latest contradictions in which our middle-class philanthropists are indulging. The report of the meetings of a few of these “friends” of the poor on January 19th is sorry reading. “No unusual distress,” cry some of them, without a word of comment on the frightful condition of things that makes the distress existing “usual.” “Distress decidedly greater than usual,” whisper others.
There is a desire to keep out the pauperising element, of course, and, equally of course, and far more logically, a tendency to “convert the penny dinners into meals provided gratis.” The “desire” apparently is that of the philanthropists. The “tendency” is that of social evolution.
After all this report on the lines of that essentially bourgeois institution, the Charity Organisation Society, it is refreshing to hear that a Conference on “How to Improve the Condition of the Poor” was held ⟨in⟩ Clerkwell on January 20th. Resolutions strongly condemning the actions of the Society, whose name is its condemnation, were passed.
“Fluctuations of Trade” is a fluid sort of phrase that covers a multitude of ignorances. This is, according to the capitalist press, the phrase in examination of the distress that is now stalking through the land.
Yet for one word of warning from the user of the phrase we should be grateful. To say that the perennial distress, with its occasional exacerbations, is even temporarily remediable by the Government finding work for the people, is to mislead.
“If the Socialistic dream is ever to be realised, it must be (illegible text) establishing such a complete re-organisation of society as can only be achieved by a long and laborious process.”—Weekly Dispatch, Jan. 18.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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