Riallaro: The Archipelago of Exiles

by Godfrey Sweven

“Then did it begin to dawn upon the consciousness of our ancestry that the worst of all diseases had, though mitigated in virulence, been still left to fester in the human system. What was the use of curing the body, if the spirit were left to gather to it and transmit foul thought and emotion? The educated and responsible classes came to feel that the true problem was yet unsolved; nay, that, though they had purified their systems of hereditary diseases, the poor and neglected and improvident still nursed them and propagated them in the meaner suburbs of the town and in the poverty-stricken districts and villages of the country. Reformers applied their enthusiasm to educating the proletariat, and it seemed at first as if Limanora were about to be transformed. The annual bill of criminality was reduced, and many of the artisans and labourers learned the lesson of providence, and rose into the class of the well-to-do. Most of these soon admitted the physiological truths of heredity into their system as part of their conscience, and if they had disease of the lungs or heart or brain or nerve, they kept from marriage and generation, lest it should be transmitted.

“But there still remained the foul social fringe of the community, dabbled in the mire of improvidence, pauperism, hereditary disease, and criminality, and this was the part of the population that increased most rapidly still. It was an eating cancer in the body of the state. Its members refused education for themselves and their children, or, if they took it, used it as a new and refined weapon against their self-restraining, law-abiding neighbours, or against the commonweal as a whole. The true source of all the infection of the state was still uncleansed. The medical rulers who had managed affairs so well for several generations were unable to come at this incurable plague-spot. What was to be done? The most drastic remedies were proposed, and had their various advocates. The exterminators were never anything but a small party, because of the general sense of humanity in the people. The mutilators became more influential, especially amongst the party that attached themselves to the doctors; but they never approached the really practical sphere of politics. Both continued mere parties of theorists, ridiculed and sometimes abhorred and execrated.

“At last there came a great religious reformer who spent his whole energies on the pauper and criminal skirts of society. He took up the altruistic motive and element in human nature, and set it in complete antagonism to the egoistic and individualistic. He connected it with the idea of God, and taught it as the utterance of the Deity. At first he implied that the utterance was given through all nature, but, forced on by his more superstitious followers, he had finally to announce himself as the special mouthpiece of this divine doctrine. The whole country was soon in a blaze, and great was the fervour of the proletariat. Their millennium seemed to have come. They marched about in great bands celebrating his praises. Many of them had their dormant powers stirred to eloquence. Even the ruling classes looked with favour on the movement, and some of the well-to-do joined in it.

“Then came the inevitable demand for practical doctrine that arises in the career of every successful prophet. What was he going to do for the poor and oppressed? What was to be the permanent solution of the problems of pauperism and criminality? The state, it was true, allowed a pittance to all who were completely stranded and appealed to its officers; but there was the brand of disgrace on the dole; every man or woman who took it slunk away from the sight of others. How was the world to be regenerated, if the horror of charitable mechanism was not to be removed? There could be no millennium without stern facing of this problem.

“He took the plunge. He declared for equal division of the wealth of the country. His mission soon became a crusade against, not merely the wealthy, but the well-to-do. All goods were to be held in common. No more was there to be inequality of position or possession. Property was a sin, to be prosperous and provident a crime, the crime of theft from the poor. The only possessions they should allow to be treasured up were the spiritual wealth in the garner of God. Beyond death there lay the only property that was worth having, happiness and serenity in the divine dwelling-place. No man should be allowed to appropriate or lay up other treasure. God would look after His own here; and none should want. It was the rankest folly, if not blasphemy, to save or hoard worldly treasure against the needs of the future.

“One or two of the prosperous amongst his followers came and laid their money at his feet; but most turned away from him, when they heard him shatter at a word all they had toiled for night and day during their weary lifetime. He denounced them as faithless and worldlings, unworthy to have followed in his footsteps.

“The governing classes took alarm and watched his movements with every precaution against outbreak; but the posse of converted highwaymen and brigands guarded him; and it was said that not a few secret murderers were in the band. They feared that he might be assassinated, and that his followers might then be left to the tender mercies of the law. He elevated their lives for the time by the religious fervour he infused into them. Whosoever saw them spoke of them as new men. It is true that he had adopted their own practical creed, antagonism to property, and had thus attached them to him by bonds of community; but he sublimated it, and, as long as the throb and transport lasted, raised them to something that seemed his own religious platform.

“There were symptoms of dissension in some, when they came to see that the world was not transfigured, whilst others, who had low, vulpine natures to begin with, sneaked round his camp to see where they could betray to their own profit. These latter, the rich hypocrites and machiavellis hired as assassins. The fall of their saviour under the blow of a midnight dagger at first paralysed the new enthusiasts; but soon there came the full revenge of all martyrdoms. The doctrine that had to be met by the knife of the assassin was surely strong. Many of the ardent youth of the governing classes looked into it and found it noble. They and some who had been secret followers of the popular leader openly espoused his faith, and put themselves at the head of the bewildered proletariat.

“The nation was suddenly involved in civil war. It was clear that the one side had nothing and the other everything to lose. If the new socialists won, then the rich and the governors would be reduced to the ranks; all they had gained through long generations would have to be surrendered for division. It was worth a struggle. Indeed, it must be a struggle for very life. Their worldly cunning came to their aid. Most of them were above the mean resources of treachery, were noble in every sense of the word, and refused to listen to anything but open combat. But the foxy diplomats suborned one of the youthful leaders and made him their agent in the camp of the enthusiasts; they sent their hirelings in to join the enemy. There was in the first battle a bold front offered by the socialists; but the traitors deliberately gave way and fled, and soon the raw half-disciplined artisans and labourers were in rout. The converted thieves returned to their plunder, and the poverty-stricken to their misery.

“Then a strange thing happened. To turn the flank of the new religion the gilded classes adopted it, and began to worship the martyr as divine. The more sincere of his followers were satisfied with the change, and settled down to their old life of discontent or content. The world took shelter under the beliefs of this hater of the world. His creed was emasculated of its socialism and altruism in deed, but was accepted in word. It became the symbol of all that was gorgeous and tyrannical. Magnificent temples rose for its worship; and in them haughty priests officiated. He who had been the apostle and prophet of the poor became the god of the rich and powerful. The new religion had left the nation not much better than it had been.