Nor is this the worst. The worst is the exclusion from society of the people who do not choose to torture and degrade themselves in order to keep up appearances and who are probably the best people of all. The interference of wealth and its exigencies with social enjoyment is I suspect a heavy set off against squirearchical patronage of intellect and art.
Those who believe that the distribution of wealth is more favourable to happiness and more civilizing than its concentration will of course vote against laws which tend to artificial concentration of wealth such as those of primogeniture and entail. This they may do without advocating public plunder though it suits plutocratic writers to confound the two. For my own part I do not feel bound to pay to British plutocracy a respect which British plutocracy does not pay to humanity. Some of its organs are beginning to preach doctrines revolting to a Christian and to any man who has not banished from his heart the love of his kind and we have seen it when its class passions were excited show a temper as cruel as that of any Maratist or Petroleuse. But so far from attacking the institution of property [Footnote: The Saturday Review some time ago charged me with proposing to confiscate the increase in the value of land. I never said anything of the kind nor anything I believe that could easily be mistaken for it.] I have as great a respect for it as any millionaire can have and as sincerely accept and uphold it as the condition of our civilization. There is nothing inconsistent with this in the belief that among the better part of the race property is being gradually modified by duty or in the surmise that before humanity reaches its distant goal property and duty will alike be merged in affection.
A TRUE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY.
The vast works of the railway and steamboat age called into existence, besides the race of great engineers, a race of great organizers and directors of industry, who may be generally termed Contractor. Among these no figure was more conspicuous than that of Mr. Brassey, a life of whom has just been published by Messrs. Bell and Daldy. Its author is Mr. Helps, whose name is a guarantee for the worthy execution of the work. And worthily executed it is, in spite of a little Privy Council solemnity in the reflections, and a little "State Paper" in the style. The materials were collected in an unusual way—by examining the persons who had acted under Mr. Brassey, or knew him well, and taking down their evidence in shorthand. The examination was conducted by Mr. Brassey, jun., who prudently declined to write the biography himself, feeling that a son could not speak impartially of his father. The result is that we have materials for a portrait, which not only is very interesting in itself but, by presenting the image of beneficence in an employer, may help to mediate between capital and labour in a time of industrial war.
Mr. Helps had been acquainted with Mr. Brassey, and had once received a visit from him on official business of difficulty and importance. He expected, he says, to see a hard, stern, soldierly sort of person, accustomed to sway armies of working-men in an imperious fashion. Instead of this he saw an elderly gentleman of very dignified appearance and singularly graceful manners—"a gentleman of the old school." "He stated his case, no, I express myself wrongly; he did not state his case, he understated it; and there are few things more attractive in a man than that he should be inclined to understate rather than overstate his own case." Mr. Brassey was also very brief, and when he went away, Mr. Helps, knowing well the matter in respect to which his visitor had a grievance, thought that, if it had been his own case, he should hardly have been able to restrain himself so well, and speak with so little regard to self-interest, as Mr. Brassey had done. Of all the persons whom Mr. Helps had known, he thought Mr. Brassey most resembled that perfect gentleman and excellent public man, Lord Herbert of Lea.
Mr. Helps commences his work with a general portrait. According to this portrait, the most striking feature in Mr. Brassey's character was trustfulness, which he carried to what might appear an extreme. He chose his agents with care, but, having chosen them, placed implicit confidence in them, trusting them for all details, and judging by results. He was very liberal in the conduct of business. His temperament was singularly calm and equable, not to be discomposed by success or failure, easily throwing off the burden of care, and, when all had been done that could be done, awaiting the result with perfect equanimity. He was very delicate in blaming, his censure being always of the gentlest kind, evidently reluctant, and on that account going more to the heart. His generosity made him exceedingly popular with his subordinates and work-men, who looked forward to his coming among them as a festive event; and, when any disaster occurred in the works, the usual parts of employer and employed were reversed—the employer it was who framed the excuses and comforted the employed. He was singularly courteous, and listened to everybody with respect; so that it was a marked thing when he went so far as to say of a voluble and empty chatterer, that "the peas were overgrowing the stick." His presence of mind was great; he had in an eminent degree, as his biographer remarks, what Napoleon called "two o'clock in the morning courage," being always ready, if called up in the middle of the night, to meet any urgent peril; and his faculties were stimulated, not overcome, by danger. He had a perfect hatred of contention, and would not only refuse to take any questionable advantage, but would rather even submit to be taken advantage of—a generosity which turned to his account. In the execution of any undertaking, his anxiety was that the work should be done quickly and done well. Minor questions, unprovided for by specific contract, he left to be settled afterwards. In his life he had only one regular law-suit. It was in Spain, about the Mataro line, and into this he was drawn by his partner against his will. He declared that he would never have another, "for in nineteen cases out of twenty you either gain nothing at all, or what you do gain does not compensate you for the worry and anxiety the lawsuit occasions you." In case of disputes between his agents and the engineers, he quietly settled the question by reference to the "gangers."
In order to find the key to Mr. Brassey's character, his biographer took care to ascertain what was his "ruling passion." He had none of the ordinary ambitions for rank, title, or social position. "His great ambition—his ruling passion—was to win a high reputation for skill, integrity, and success in the difficult vocation of a contractor for public works; to give large employment to his fellow-countrymen; by means of British labour and British skill to knit together foreign countries; and to promote civilization, according to his view of it, throughout the world." "Mr. Brassey," continues Mr. Helps, "was, in brief, a singularly trustful, generous, large-hearted, dexterous, ruling kind of personage; blessed with a felicitous temperament for bearing the responsibility of great affairs." In the military age he might have been a great soldier, a Turenne or a Marlborough, if he could have broken through the aristocratic barrier which confined high command to the privileged few; in the industrial age he found a more beneficent road to distinction, and one not limited to the members of a caste.
Mr. Brassey's family is stated by his biographer to have come over with the Conqueror. If Mr. Brassey attached any importance to his pedigree (of which there is no appearance) it is to be hoped that he was able to make it out more clearly than most of those who claim descent from companions of the Conqueror. Long after the Conquest—so long, indeed, as England and Normandy remained united under one crown—there was a constant flow of Norman immigration into England, and England swarms with people bearing Norman or French names, whose ancestors were perfectly guiltless of the bloodshed of Hastings, and made their entrance into the country as peaceful traders, and, perhaps, in even humbler capacities. What is certain is that the great contractor sprang from a line of those small landed proprietors, once the pillars of England's strength, virtue and freedom, who, in the old country have been "improved off the face of the earth" by the great landowners, while they live again on the happier side of the Atlantic. A sound morality, freedom from luxury, and a moderate degree of culture, are the heritage of the scion of such a stock. Mr. Brassey was brought up at home till he was twelve years old, when he was sent to school at Chester. At sixteen he was articled to a surveyor, and as an initiation into great works, he helped, as a pupil, to make the surveys for the then famous Holyhead road. His master, Mr. Lawton, saw his worth, and ultimately took him into partnership. The firm set up at Birkenhead, then a very small place, but destined to a greatness which, it seems, Mr. Lawton had the shrewdness to discern. At Birkenhead Mr. Brassey did well, of course; and there, after a time, he was brought into contact with George Stephenson, and by him at once appreciated and induced to engage in railways. The first contract which he obtained was for the Pembridge Viaduct, between Stafford and Wolverhampton, and for this he was enabled to tender by the liberality of his bankers, whose confidence, like that of all with whom he came into contact, he had won. Railway-making was at that time a new business, and a contractor was required to meet great demands upon his organizing power; the system of sub-contracts, which so much facilitates the work, being then only in its infancy. From George Stephenson Mr. Brassey passed to Mr. Locke, whose great coadjutor he speedily became. And now the question arose whether he should venture to leave his moorings at Birkenhead and launch upon the wide sea of railroad enterprise. His wife is said, by a happy inspiration, to have decided him in favour of the more important and ambitious sphere. She did so at the sacrifice of her domestic comfort; for in the prosecution of her husband's multifarious enterprises they changed their residence eleven times in the next thirteen years, several times to places abroad; and little during those years did his wife and family see of Mr. Brassey.
A high place in Mr. Brassey's calling had now been won, and it had been won not by going into rings or making corners, but by treading steadily the steep path of honour. Mr. Locke was accused of unduly favouring Mr. Brassey. Mr. Helps replies that the partiality of a man like Mr. Locke must have been based on business grounds. It was found that when Mr. Brassey had undertaken a contract, the engineer-in-chief had little to do in the way of supervision. Mr. Locke felt assured that the bargain would be not only exactly but handsomely fulfilled, and that no excuse would be pleaded for alteration or delay. After the fall of a great viaduct it was suggested to Mr. Brassey that, by representing his case, he might obtain a reduction of his loss. "No," was his reply, "I have contracted to make and maintain the road, and nothing shall prevent Thomas Brassey from being as good as his word."
As a contractor on a large scale, and especially as a contractor for foreign railroads, Mr. Brassey was led rapidly to develop the system of sub-contracting. His mode of dealing with his sub-contractors, however, was peculiar. They did not regularly contract with him, but he appointed them their work, telling them what price he should give for it. They were ready to take his word, knowing that they would not suffer by so doing. The sub-contractor who had made a bad bargain, and found himself in a scrape, anxiously looked for the coming of Mr. Brassey. "Mr. Brassey," says one of the witnesses examined for this biography, "came, saw how matters stood, and invariably satisfied the man. If a cutting taken to be clay turned out after a very short time to be rock, the sub- contractor would be getting disheartened, yet he still persevered, looking to the time when Mr. Brassey should come. He came, walking along the line as usual with a number of followers, and on coming to the cutting he looked round, counted the number of waggons at the work, scanned the cutting, and took stock of the nature of the stuff. "This is very hard," said he to the sub-contractor. "Yes, it is a pretty deal harder than I bargained for." Mr. Brassey would linger behind, allowing the others to go on, and then commence the following conversation: "What is your price for this cutting?" "So much a yard, Sir." "It is very evident you are not getting it out for that price. Have you asked for any advance to be made to you for this rock?" "Yes, sir, but I can make no sense of them." "If you say that your price is so much, it is quite clear that you do not do it for that. I am glad that you have persevered with it; but I shall not alter your price, it must remain as it is; but the rock must be measured for you twice. Will that do for you?" "Yes, very well indeed, and I am very much obliged to you, Sir." "Very well, go on; you have done very well in persevering, and I shall look to you again." One of these tours of inspection would often cost Mr. Brassey a thousand pounds."