"But education——"
"Endangers the tranquillity of the community at large. It unsettles their minds, loosens the bonds that holds them to their native soil, provokes all manner of outrage. Think of the Tories, the Peep-o'-Day Boys, the Hearts of Steel and other ruffianly hordes of banditti that disturbed Ireland before the rebellion."
"But education is the watchword of civilisation," exclaimed Stark.
"You think so; but like every half-truth, the idea is abominably dangerous. What do you do? Under the name of Liberty, you invite to your naked shores the German, the Frenchman, or any other needy and worthless adventurer who goes a-wandering. You announce that the feudal services required by the great from the humble in Europe are banished from your country. You tell the new-come immigrants that lie—you, who keep your heel upon the black and fill your pockets with the proceeds of his misery! A race of slave-dealers to trumpet Liberty!"
Stark flushed and felt the hit.
"I grant some truth there. Please God, we'll live to see that plague-spot healed. But our constitution is sound; we shall throw our ailments off. To deny knowledge to your own people—that is a worse disease. Consider the epidemic you will breed!"
"You are ignorant of history, Mr. Cecil Stark. We have centuries of experience on which to base our judgment. What think you fostered the naval rebellion of fifteen years agone? As a sailor that will interest you. Why, the pen-and-ink gentry aboard His Majesty's ships of war! They made a mutiny with their devilish doctrines scratched on paper and spread in secret from vessel to vessel. How shall we suppress concerted action in the multitude, if every Jack among 'em learns to read and write? Consider the sedition that must spring from such an abandoned state. No, let the poor work, not think. These people are only too ready to believe that their penury is the result of our oppression, and grows incompatible with the rights of man. Then what follows?"
"They'll do as we did and cast off their chains for ever," declared the sailor.
"You would support anarchy then?"
"And yet you yourself, sir, give your own workers more than the usual wage, and pay the women as women were never paid elsewhere—so Kekewich informed me."