The Return of Don Quixote

by Chesterton Gilbert

And all this first hubbub, the two noblemen who had been named sat as still and stiff as mummies; though the reason of the rigidity might differ. Lord Seawood was simply gaping; he wore such an expression as the human head might wear if the body were suddenly blown away from under it and it were left hanging in midair. The judge might be joking; but it was not so that a judge should joke. And if he was not joking . . . where was earth and air and sky? But Lord Eden, curiously enough, sat quite unmoved and his archaic smile if anything deepened. He seemed, in his grim way, quite gratified. It was almost as if he had guessed what was coming. For the next moment the Arbiter went on.

“The principle is approved, that is, so far as that statement of it goes. Here again it is essential to understand such statements with a certain logical precision. If we are defining or describing a Craft or Trade, as it originally was and as it reasonably should be, that is the statement and we ask no other. The government of such a craft or trade rests of right with the master craftsmen and master traders. But the old order recognised other rights as well; and among them the right of private property. The craftsman worked and the trader traded with his own private property. In a case like the present, we must admit that even if the abstract right of management ought to belong to the workers, the materials do still in fact belong to the three men I have named.”

“That’s better,” came the Archerian aside like a sort of explosive sigh; and old Seawood’s head began to nod tremulously and doubtfully like that of a Chinese doll. But the hard head of Eden remained motionless, with its hard and confident smile.

“Broadly speaking,” continued the expositor, “medieval ethics and jurisprudence affirmed the principle of private property with rather more elaboration and modification than most modern systems, till we come to the system called Socialism. It was generally admitted, for example, that a man might be actually or apparently in possession of property to which he had no right, because it had been acquired by methods condemned by Christian morals; as, for example, by usury. There were also laws against what was called forestalling and other methods for securing the whole of any particular material in the market. Outside such crimes, however, which were often severely punished by the pillory and even by the gallows, the personal possession of wealth was accepted as normal; and I cannot see any reasonable doubt that the personal wealth of these three persons is what is actually being employed in this industry. It is, I may remark, the greater part of their personal wealth. Two of them are the titular owners of large landed estates; but these have grown less and less profitable and are partly mortgaged. The wealth which makes them all wealthy men comes from the successful operations of the Coal-Tar Colour and Dye Company, in which they own most of the shares. Those operations are so successful that over the whole of this country, and practically over the whole of the industrialised world, the only type of artists’ colours, crayons, pastels and so on that are sold and used come from the chemical works where these by-products are used. It only remains to ask by what form of commercial enterprise such a superiority has been achieved.”

A curious change had come over the audience by this time. Most of them, lulled by the familiar phrases of the magnificent prospectus or commercial report, had nodded themselves almost into a slumber of agreement. But, what was much more remarkable, for the first time Lord Seawood was smiling; and Lord Eden was not.

“It so happens that an accident, or rather an adventure (one of the most honourable adventures of the new Comrades of this Realm) has revealed the facts about a typical test case. We actually have before us the history of a master Craftsman of the older sort; one who undoubtedly compounded his own pigments with his own hands and in accordance with his own taste and judgment; and who produced thereby a particular article which the best artists of his time regarded as unique and which later artists have tried in vain to replace. The article is not sold by the Coal-Tar Colour and Dye Company. The man is not in any way profited, or even employed, by the Coal-Tar Colour and Dye Company. What has happened to that Masterpiece? What has happened to that Master?

“From information laid before me by the gallant gentlemen I have mentioned, I am in a position to say what happened to them. The man was beaten down to a condition of beggary, was so much broken by despair as to be accused of insanity; and it is perfectly clear that the methods employed to drive him from his shop and his livelihood were the methods of which I have spoken; the buying up of materials before they could reach him, the cutting off of his supplies, the cutting down of his prices by a conspiracy to undersell and all the rest. I need not describe them more generally than I have done already; by saying that among our fathers the men who did these things could be pilloried or hanged. The men who have done these things to-day are the three shareholders of this Company; the three Masters of this Trade.”

Then he named the three again formally and at length in a hard voice; but upon the name of Lord Seawood his voice seemed for an instant to break. He did not look at any face in the crowd.

“On this second point, therefore, the Court of Arbitrament decides that the private property employed in this business is not lawfully acquired; and cannot plead, as it normally would, the privilege of just possession. To sum up, it is decreed, first that the craft should be ruled by its fully enfranchised members, subject to any just claim of property; and second, that the claim of property made in this case is not just. We shall adjudge to the Guild–.”

Old Seawood sprang up as if galvanised; and a simple sort of vainglory deeper than all Victorian vanities came gasping to the surface like a drowning thing. He forgot even the snobbish fear of snobbishness.