The People’s Committee were compelled to accept these imperfect concessions. The limit of time for opposing the Bill had arrived. No rich or leisured resident showed the slightest concern in this measure. The remark had been made to me by a high London authority: ‘If your townspeople really consider this such a bad Bill, then they have nothing to do but to put their hands in their pockets and raise the money to oppose it.’ This remark shows how little rich people, high in authority, know of the conditions of life in a fashionable lodging-house town. The work of revising this Bill—work necessarily incomplete—had been done by burgesses of moderate means and overwhelmed by private cares, and the time needed for this public work had been stolen from sleep. There was neither possibility of withdrawing a Bill on which much public money had been already expended, nor of raising the heavy sums of money necessary to carry on legal opposition to it.
Thus, a new Corporation Bill of most retrograde character has been forced upon the town—a Bill which greatly strengthens the official or bureaucratic organization, removes much of the control of ratepayers over expenditure, plays into the hands of a centralizing Government, establishes protective duties on the necessaries of life, and vexatiously interferes in various ways with the legitimate personal liberty of the inhabitants.
The latest ‘Battle of Hastings,’ in 1885, has ended in defeat.
This familiar narrative of late experience in one of our little towns is now given for a practical purpose.
A similar course of things appears to be taking place in all our towns, large and small. Unchecked, this neglect of social duty and thoughtless submission to official formalism must steadily deteriorate our national character. It can only be checked by the voluntary organization of individuals who will resolutely battle for the Theocratic principle of human rights against the selfish demagogueism of party strife. The plainest fact in history is the Divine Moral Government of the world. A nation given up to selfishness and lust always degenerates and perishes, and is replaced by new races. This is the great lesson of the ages. We only fail to read it because the method of action of the Creative Power is so much grander and surer than the methods of our individual action. But all that is strongest and noblest in our human nature can be but a faint reflection of what is immeasurably stronger and nobler in the Almighty Creative force. The careful study of our own human needs measured and limited by the needs of all other human beings is the foundation of all growth. This mutual limitation and government of human rights by human duties is Theocracy. It alone can be a permanent form of Government, for a righteous democratic rule must inevitably be Theocratic rule.
If the Churches cannot yet see that the education of the people in their municipal life is the urgent need of the age, if political parties are too corrupt or self-seeking to learn the same lesson, then help must come from other sources. Perhaps women ratepayers not yet entangled in party politics, and men who have risen above them may hear the Divine voice which speaks to them, and may kindle a little sacred fire which will grow into a beacon-light to the nation.
It is now urgently necessary to consider the way in which organizations of householders may be gradually formed in all our municipalities, for the purpose of mutual education and legitimate criticism.
An unofficial organization, sufficiently suited to respond promptly to any sudden municipal call, has really become of vital importance. The animating centre of such organizations must be three or four earnest, unselfish persons (a true Theocratic brotherhood) who will carefully study municipal or social questions, and plan and initiate a work of gradual education, particularly addressed to women voters and our poorer ratepayers. I especially mention women because nothing has been done for their enlightenment as to the new duties laid upon them in 1867. It is a noteworthy fact that when 2,000,000 more men were lately placed on the register, the most active efforts of the Cobden Club and others were at once given to instruct these new voters after party fashion, but no effort whatever has been made directly to instruct the hundreds of thousands of women to whom the municipal vote, the corner-stone of our political system, was given in 1867.
There are questions of policy having a large and important national bearing which need to be studied by united householders. Few persons know clearly what should be the direct action and indirect influence of a Town Council—its duty to resist encroachment by the central government; its duty to encourage the interest and action of burgesses in their own institutions, and to diminish the number of irresponsible officials; its duty to consider the public purse as a solemn trust, and to invite careful study of municipal accounts.
The abolition of obsolete practices, the consideration of changes or adaptation to modern needs of municipal regulations, need consideration by householders.