“To prove to your lordship that it is no idle flattery—of which, indeed, I am incapable—that I am now addressing to you, I will at once inform you that every suggestion which your lordship’s first and grandest oration contained, has been carried out with complete success in Castelcicala. Anticipating the pleasure of being enabled this evening to give your lordship some account of the condition of the Castelcicalans, I had furnished myself with a copy of the memorable speech to which I have already several times alluded; and I will now explain in detail the results of your lordship’s views, as exemplified in their application to the Grand Duchy.”
The Prince produced a manuscript; and, spreading it before him, his Royal Highness continued in the ensuing terms,—addressing himself to a most attentive and delighted audience:—
“Your lordship stated that it was too frequently alleged that the industrious classes are thoughtless, improvident, ungrateful, and intellectually dull: but this assertion you emphatically denied; and you proceeded to reason thus:—‘Despair, produced by their unhappy condition, naturally led to dissipation in many instances; but were the working man placed in a position so that his livelihood should be rendered less precarious than it now was—were his labour adequately remunerated—were he more fairly paid by the representatives of property—were a scale of wages established, having a fixed minimum, but no fixed maximum, the increased comfort thus ensured to him would naturally remove from his mind those cares which drove him to the public-house.’—Well, my lord and gentlemen,” continued the Prince, “the suggestion has been adopted in Castelcicala: a fixed minimum for wages has been established—the lowest amount of payment ensuring a sum sufficient to enable the working man to maintain himself and his family in respectability. The results may almost be said to have been instantaneous. Crime diminished rapidly: statistical returns soon proved that intemperance experienced a remarkable decrease; and such was the falling off in the consumption of spirituous liquors, beer, and tobacco, that the Government found it necessary to grant a compensation to the licensed victuallers, publicans, and tobacconists who suffered by this change in the habits of the people. Even employers speedily began to recognise the advantage of the new state of things in the improved condition of their employed, the increase and the excellence of the labour they obtained, and the superiority of their agriculture or their manufactures. No maximum of wages has been fixed in Castelcicala; and when I left the country a month ago, those wages were higher than ever they were known to be before. The demand for labour has greatly increased; and, though the territory be densely populated, employment may be found for all. If a man be now a pauper or mendicant in Castelcicala, it must be either through physical infirmity, or through his unwillingness to work. Of this latter, however, we have comparatively few examples—emulation and patriotism acting powerfully in a country where so much happiness and such prosperity prevail. Now, with a slight alteration in your lordship’s speech, one of the most remarkable passages in that speech reads thus when applied to Castelcicala:—‘There is no fixed maximum of wages, because wages are always to be increased in proportion to the value of productive labour to employers: but there is a minimum established, to obviate the cruel and disastrous effects of those periods when labour exceeds the demand in the market. This is not considered unfair towards employers, because when the markets are brisk and trade is flourishing, they (the employers) reap the greatest benefit from that activity, and enrich themselves in a very short time; therefore, when markets are dull and trade is stagnant, they are still compelled to pay such wages as enable their employed to live comfortably. The profits gained during prosperous seasons not only enable employers to enjoy handsome incomes, but also to accumulate considerable savings; and as the best wages scarcely enable the employed to make any thing like an adequate provision for periods of distress, it is not deemed fair that the representatives of property should use the labour of the working classes just when it suits them, and discard it or only use it on a miserable recompense when it does not so well suit them. For the labour of the employed not only makes annual incomes for the employers, but also permanent fortunes; and the value of that labour is not calculated as lasting only just as long as it is available for the purpose of producing large profits. Labour is recognised in Castelcicala and positively stated to be the working man’s capital, and bears constant interest, as well as money placed in the funds—that interest of course increasing in proportion to the briskness of markets; but never depreciating below a standard value—much less being discarded as valueless altogether, in times of depression. A thousand pounds always obtains three per cent. interest, under any circumstances; and, at particular periods, is worth six or seven per cent. Labour is considered by the Castelcicalans in the same light. Stagnant markets diminish the profits of employers, but do not ruin them: if they do not obtain profit enough to live upon, they have the accumulations of good seasons to fall back upon. But how different used to be the case with the employed! To them stagnation of business was ruin—starvation—death;—the breaking up of their little homes—the sudden check of their children’s education—the cause of demoralisation and degradation—and the necessity of applying to the parish! All these terrible evils have been completely annihilated by the system introduced into Castelcicala. The supply and demand of labour are necessarily unequal at many times, and in many districts; and the Government has therefore adopted measures to prevent those frightful fluctuations in wages which carry desolation into the homes of thousands of hard-working, industrious, and deserving families. In fact, a law has been passed to ensure the working-man against the casualty of being employed at a price below remuneration.’—Thus, my lord, you perceive that so far your views have been most successfully carried out: they are no longer a theory—I have seen them reduced to positive practice; and I pledge myself most solemnly and sacredly to the admirable working of this enlightened reformatory system.”
“Would that I could see my own fellow-countrymen rendered thus happy—raised thus high in the social sphere—and thus tenderly cared for by their rulers!” exclaimed Lord Ellingham, in the impassioned tone of the most earnest and heart-felt sincerity.
“The day must come,” observed the Prince of Montoni, “when the English people will recognise all the grand truths which you enunciated nineteen years ago from your place in the House of Lords. And, if in England you have failed to convince the aristocracy and the landowners of the wickedness of the course they are pursuing,—are not your labours in some degree rewarded by the knowledge that your lordship’s plans have been carried out to the very letter in the Grand Duchy of Castelcicala,—yes, and carried out too with such unequivocal success?”
“The information which your Royal Highness now imparts, gives me the most unfeigned pleasure,” said the Earl. “I had indeed read and heard of the recent grand improvements which had taken place in that Italian State where there is a Throne surrounded by Republican Institutions: but I was not aware—indeed, the loftiest flights of vanity never could have suggested to me that my views and theories had in any way contributed to the prosperity of the Model State, as the Liberals in England now denominate Castelcicala.”
“To convince you, my lord, how far your ideas have been applied to the elevation of Castelcicala to its present proud eminence,” said the Prince, “I will again refer to a passage in your lordship’s ever memorable speech, and point a few contrasts. ‘In England the poor are not allowed to have a stake in the country:’ I have shown you that the very reverse is the case in the Grand Duchy. ‘In England there are no small properties: the land is in the possession of a few individuals comparatively; and thus the landed interest constitutes a tremendous monopoly, most unjust and oppressive to the industrious classes.’—In Castelcicala the law of primogeniture is annihilated; there no man can leave his estate solely to his eldest son; it must be divided amongst all his male children equally, a charge being fixed upon it for the support of his daughters. Thus the territory is rapidly undergoing a process of sub-division, which admits thousands to the enjoyment of a real stake in the country, and breaks down the tremendous monopoly of the landed interest. In Castelcicala, moreover, ‘property is compelled to maintain labour as long as labour seeks for employment and occupation.’ What now, then, is the condition of the Castelcicalan people? Being well treated, rendered free, and having every possible avenue opened to them for the attainment of real property, ‘the working-classes are not driven by their cares and troubles to the excessive use of alcoholic liquors; they do not become demoralized by being compelled to migrate from place to place in search of employment—they are not forced to go upon the tramp, sleeping in hideous dens of vice, where numbers are forced to herd together without reference to age or sex: they are not unsettled in all their little arrangements to bring up their children creditably and with due reference to instruction;—they are not made discontented, anxious for any change no matter what, vindictive towards a society which renders them outcasts, and sullen or reckless in their general conduct.’—On the contrary, they feel settled in their condition; they know that the cottage which constitutes their home, is not held upon a precarious tenure: they never feel the sickening conviction that if they have bread and meat to-day, they may have only bread to-morrow, and no food at all the day after. The industrious classes in Castelcicala are no longer the mere slaves and tools of the wealthy classes: they are no longer retained in bondage—no longer kept in absolute serfdom by an oligarchy. I now pass to another subject,” said the Prince: “and here again I refer to the speech of the Earl of Ellingham—applying to Castelcicala the observations which he used in reference to England. The Castelcicalan industrious classes, then, ‘were ground down by indirect taxes, in which shape they actually contributed more to the revenue, in proportion to their means, than the rich. The only luxuries which the poor enjoyed, and which had become as it were necessaries—namely, tea, sugar, tobacco, beer, and spirits,—were the most productive sources of revenue. If aristocrats reproached the poor for dirty habits, as he well knew that it was their custom to do, he would ask them why soap was made an article subject to so heavy a tax? It was a contemptible fallacy to suppose that because the poor contributed little or nothing in the shape of direct taxation to the revenue, they were positively untaxed. The real fact was that the poor paid more in direct taxes than the rich did in both direct and in indirect ways, when the relative means of the two parties were taken into consideration.’—Such was the state of the industrious classes of Castelcicala until their voice was heard in the legislative assemblies; and all taxes upon the necessaries of life were speedily removed. Luxuries alone were left to bear the weight of taxation—the duties upon carriages, livery servants, armorial bearings, hunters, racers, hounds, and foreign wines being doubled.”
The Prince of Montoni paused; and the Earl of Ellingham exchanged a rapid but significant glance with Mr. Hatfield—for they both remembered the time when, nineteen years previously, and when the latter lay on the bed in Old Death’s house, they had conversed upon the best means of ameliorating the condition of the suffering millions.
His Royal Highness, finding that his auditors were most anxious that he should continue his explanations, and perceiving that Sir John Lascelles had become especially interested therein, resumed his subject in the following manner:—
“The inequality of the laws, and their incongruity, severity, and injustice towards the poor, long constituted a crying evil in Castelcicala. ‘Every advantage was given to the rich in the way of procuring bail in those cases where security for personal appearance was required; but no poor man could possibly give such security. He must go to prison, and there herd with felons of the blackest dye. Perhaps on trial his innocence would transpire; and then what recompense had he for his long incarceration—his home broken up during his absence—and his ruined family? It was possible—nay, it often happened that a man would lie thus in prison for four or five months previously to trial; and during that period it would be strange indeed if he escaped gaol contamination.’—In order to remedy these evils, vast facilities were afforded in respect to bail, the respectability and not the monied qualifications of the sureties being considered. Thus a working man may be bailed by any two of his associates who can obtain a good character from their employer: this of course applies to charges of a lighter kind, heavier responsibility being required where a serious accusation is involved. But even should an accused have to go to prison until his trial, he is not placed in a felons’ gaol: he is not, while still untried, subjected to that indignity and contamination. He is confined in a building having no connexion with a prison, and termed A House of Detention. Again, the judges have the power to order a compensation to every one whose innocence transpires on trial; and I must inform you that the trial may take place as soon after committal as the individual chooses. All depends on the speed which he makes in getting up his defence. When committed, he is asked if he have the means of retaining counsel: if he prove to the magistrate that he is poor, a barrister is immediately provided for him. The trial may come on the very next day; for there are local Courts throughout the Grand Duchy, and these courts have no recess—no holiday. Were I, on my return to Castelcicala, to inform a person not well acquainted with English laws and customs, that in this very same enlightened England a man may languish several months in a common gaol awaiting his trial, I should scarcely be believed.”