A lady writing in a review in the early ’seventies describes life in the country house, with its futile routine of heavy meals, sport, card-playing, and vacuous inanities which take the place of conversation, all very much as it is to-day. The writer speaks with dismay of gowns costing sixty guineas and of £1000 a year spent on clothes. But these figures are almost negligible compared with the sums spent nowadays. It is only through occasional actions in the courts that the outside public get an idea of what is actually spent, and it is surprising that there are not more disclosures, considering the mountainous debts that are piled up in West End shops. But the shopkeepers are very reluctant to lose a really leading customer, and they know how to meet the inconvenience of not being promptly paid. A typical case may be given of an article of clothing, the cost price of which was nine guineas, being sold for £28 7s. There may be delay in payment, but there appears to be compensation in the profit.
When one hears of the woman who spent last year £36 5s. on a hat, or another who gave £1250 for a sable cape, it is not the isolated action of criminal folly that chiefly strikes one, but it is that the hat and the cape act as indicators of the sort of price such women are in the habit of paying for their clothes, a large supply of which are in the market ready to meet this artificial demand. Moreover, the habit of extravagance, especially as regards female clothing, is catching and runs through all classes once the example is set. It is a common enough and very depressing sight to see absurdly elaborate clothes, which are cheaper imitations of the latest fashions, worn by women of the lower middle-class, whose deplorable want of education is shown by their inability even to pronounce their mother tongue. They watch the rich, and gather from what they see that fine feathers make fine birds, and it is not on them that the blame should rest.
Vanity exists and insists on being satisfied. It is no good blinking the fact. Luxuries, in one form or another, will continue to be produced. But there is no reason why we should not stem the current lest it swell to danger point. There are many well-known historical examples of the enervating and degenerating effect of luxury on national life, and the modern tendency towards an increased production of these indulgences should be combated not only as a moral weakness, but as an integral factor in the general economic problem. When one considers what real comfort of living, with all the necessary intellectual and artistic equipage, opportunities for amusement, and domestic convenience, can be secured to-day at a comparatively moderate sum, it makes the wild and profligate extravagance the more inexcusable and the more futile.
Anyhow, let us abandon once and for all the foolish and ignorant attitude of regarding this display as a desirable form of industrial stimulus which should be fostered and encouraged. Preaching and writing against it has never been of the smallest avail, but it has been necessary to deal with it here as a very important, if not predominating, element in the analysis of the rich man’s conceptions of his duties.
In addition to luxuries of establishment, clothes, and food there is a complicated ritual of sport which in this country reaches an almost incredible pitch. It has been estimated that forty-five millions are permanently invested in the apparatus of sport, and an income of over forty millions spent annually upon it. We need not discuss all the intricacies of the numerous branches of sport, observing where its effect is healthy and where harmful. No one will contend that the most expensive forms of it are by any manner of means the best. But the most obvious harm to be noted in this connection is the amount of land which is taken away from agriculture for sporting purposes. Landlords often keep up their shooting at a great loss, amounting to something like five to ten pounds per bird shot, all for the sake of having the shooting and asking friends down for a few days in the year to enjoy it. It is gravely regarded as an essential part of the education of a young man in this particular world to learn how to shoot. No question, even with respect to his education or possible professional career, is treated with more seriousness than the moment he first handles a gun, and family advice is sought as to how and when encouragement can be given to the development of this essential qualification which, coupled with a knowledge of bridge, will make him a desirable visitor in any country house.
At card-playing, which occupies a vast amount of time in the lives of the rich, sums amounting to hundreds are often lost or gained by one person in one evening. But of the various sinks which help to drain away their money, horse-racing almost holds the first place. There are no statistics to show how many people have been ruined by it, or how many have been lured into a life of gambling by their success in the betting ring. But its popularity is certainly on the increase, as we can see by looking at the number of horses that have run under the rules of racing in the last thirty years. In 1878 there were 2097; in 1908 this figure had risen to 3706. The number of larger race meetings advertised in advance have more than doubled since 1881 (78 in 1881, 164 in 1909). Some sort of estimate of the money spent on it, apart from betting, can be gathered from the amounts won. In 1908 the winning owners secured between them nearly a quarter of a million pounds, the sums won by the first thirty-six amounting to £246,001 15s., the largest total secured by one owner being £26,246.[7]
The populace are invited to join in this pursuit, though, of course, they must be railed off to prevent too close contact with those who come in coaches and motor-cars. The crowd is vaguely supposed to be having a good time, and any attack on horse-racing is met by hackneyed arguments about “keeping up the national sport” or “improving the breed of horses,” and perhaps, again, the objection of unemployment for jockeys and bookies might be dragged in.
It does not appear, however, to be a good method of improving the human breed. In observing the crowd on a race-course, whether it be the well-dressed portion or the ill-dressed, the betters or the bookies, neither a deep knowledge of humanity nor a very close power of observation into physiognomy is required to note the prevalence of a remarkably low type. But a still more vivid impression of what the pleasures of racing mean can be gained by going out on the road in the evening towards the scene of a large race meeting when the people are returning. Brakes and carts in endless procession will pass you loaded with men shouting in the excitement of semi-drunkenness, or with heaps of humanity sodden and silent in complete intoxication. Outside every public-house on the roadside traps await those who are squandering their gains on further refreshment or soothing the despair of losses in the temporary oblivion of drink. The localities where there is an annual race week suffer considerably, the inhabitants become infected by the gambling and betting mania, and during the actual days of the races the place is infested by the lowest dregs of the riff-raff who journey about from one race meeting to another. This so-called sport produces the lowest possible type; it degrades many who take part in it with sinister rapidity, it encourages fraud and deception, it is a canker of rottenness in public life, and it receives the highest sanction and patronage.
Many people are present at a race meeting without being conscious that it is attended by any evil consequences. They go to meet their friends, perhaps putting an occasional sovereign on a horse to give them some interest in the racing. To them the crowd is a natural part of the proceedings, the heavy bets of the ring an amusement. To have been there is something to boast of, and conveys the idea that they have associated with smart people. Thoughtless, as in so many of their other pursuits, they accept the whole proceeding as a recognised sport and they inquire no further. The philosophy of these people is the prevailing philosophy: “Do not examine below the surface, or you are bound to find something disagreeable. Take things as they come; skim the cream off the top; avoid that which is unpleasant or difficult to explain; and above all things, do what others do.”
Yachting, which also runs away with a great deal of money, comes under a very different category. It is a health-giving and often strenuous occupation, and the seamen employed are, anyhow, deriving incidentally some positive benefit from the life they lead. Nevertheless, out of the 4655 private yachts registered in the current year (an increase of over 3500 in the last forty years),[8] only a very small proportion are actually navigated by owners who have any knowledge or love of seamanship. The great majority are floating houses of luxury (viz. a 700-ton steam yacht, for which £25 a day is paid for coal when in use), or racing yachts, mere toys used to minister to the fanciful pleasures of the rich.