“You can’t,” answered Alcock with his mouth full, too intent on the victuals to be more explicit, “You can’t interfere—impunity—great law—nature—struggle—existence—survival—fittest.”
“Here, then,” said Fitzgerald who ate little and drank less, turning to Hawkesbury, “we are at one, I think, as opposed to the pure Scientists?”
“I do not believe,” Hawkesbury said, “and I do not think any Socialist believes, in carrying the initiative of the individual to the extent that Herbert Spencer would like. But we are not in favour of state interference. We want to nationalize things, the land, the unearned increment, the great public enterprises, but we include in this term the State also. The State at present means the tool of the Middle-class, worked by Capital and the Land Interest. This arrangement partakes too much of the nature of a political joint-stock company to please Socialists.”
“And you think,” asked Gildea, his hand on his wine glass, looking at Hawkesbury, “you think that when the People wins, as it of course ultimately will win, the control of things, that it will not work the State in its own interest, just as the Aristocracy did and as the Middle-class does?”
“You know,” Hawkesbury said, “I believe in the People! The People is the only unselfish part of society. Their one desire is for justice and mercy; and, when they could not get it themselves, they have always died readily for those who, they believed, wished to give it them. Herein lies the secret of all great popular devotions—from that of Christ to that of Napoleon.”
“I,” said Alcock, “do not believe in the People, as you call them, and their unselfishness has not yet come under my notice. The People, like everyone else, are led by what they believe to be their interests, their immediate interests, and our great effort should be, by giving them a good sound practical education, to get them to see that their true interest lies in e-volution and not in re-volution. Let us have a fair chance for everybody, and let the best men win.”
“Yes,” said Hawkesbury, with suppressed eagerness, “but the trouble is that, in this so-called free competition of yours, the best don’t win! In Nature the best win, I agree; but Civilization has complicating clauses that modify and all but change, what you rightly call, her great law—the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest.”
“I do not see that,” said Alcock, returning to his victuals which he had left for a few moments.
“I will give you an instance,” said Hawkesbury, “A, B, and C are three men who start as beggars in the market of free competition. A has the best wits, and A accordingly wins, and makes a fortune. Good: we applaud! Then A, B, and C all die, leaving sons D, E, and F, the best-witted of whom does not happen to be D, A’s son, but E, the son of B. Does E therefore win and make a fortune, and D sink down to his proper level with F? Not a bit of it! D has not only his own second-rate powers to help him: he has also the wealth which he inherits from his father. E, then, has no chance against him: the second-rate man with wealth overwhelms the first-rate man with beggary. What are the consequences, generally speaking? Why, that, instead of the best surviving, the second or third or fourth or fifth-best survive, and the market is drugged with successful mediocrity. Here, I think, is the delusion under which Herbert Spencer’s social philosophy labours: he does not see that Civilization, as we know it at present, is not a natural but an artificial state, and that therefore the laws which hold good in Nature by no means necessarily hold good in Civilization. Look at the bees or ants, whose Civilization is a natural and not, as ours is, an artificial one: do they encourage free competition with its inevitable concomitants of wealth and power accumulated in the hands of a few to the prejudice of the community? Not so. To each is assigned an equal, if varying, share in the economy of the community. With them work has its duty, and, as for idleness, it is not possible. But what duty has the successful business man, except to his own success? what duty has the wealthy aristocrat, except to his own pleasure?” There was a slight pause.