Now the average man, in the world as it wags, is a farm-labourer, an artisan, a mill-hand, a navvy. He has untrammelled freedom of contract to follow the plough on another man's land, or to work twelve hours a day in another man's factory, for that other man's benefit—provided always he can only induce the other man to employ him. If he can't, he is at perfect liberty to tramp the high road till he drops with fatigue, or to starve, unhindered, on the Thames Embankment. He may live where he likes, as far as his means permit; for example, in a convenient court off Seven Dials. He may make his own free bargain with grasping landlord or exacting sweater. He may walk over every inch of English soil, with the trifling exception of the millions of acres where trespassers will be prosecuted. Even travel is not denied him: Florence and Venice are out of his beat, it is true; but if he saves up his loose cash for a couple of months, he may revel in the Oriental luxury of a third-class excursion train to Brighton and back for three shillings. Such advantages does the régime of landlord-made individualism afford to the average run of British citizen. If he fails in the race, he may retire at seventy to the ease and comfort of the Union workhouse, and be buried inexpensively at the cost of his parish.
The average woman in turn is the wife of such a man, dependent upon him for what fraction of his earnings she can save from the public-house. Or she is a shop-girl, free to stand all day from eight in the morning till ten at night behind a counter, and to throw up her situation if it doesn't suit her. Or she is a domestic servant, enjoying the glorious liberty of a Sunday out every second week, and a walk with her young man every alternate Wednesday after eight in the evening. She has full leave to do her love-making in the open street, and to get as wet as she chooses in Regent's Park on rainy nights in November. Look the question in the face, and you will see for yourself that the mass of mothers in every community are dependent for support, not upon men in general, but upon a single man, their husband, against whose caprices and despotism they have no sort of protection. Even the few women who are, as we say, "independent," how are they supported, save by the labour of many men who work to keep them in comfort or luxury? They are landowners, let us put it; and then they are supported by the labour of their farmers and ploughmen. Or they hold North-Western shares; and then they are supported by the labour of colliers, and stokers, and guards, and engine-drivers. And so on throughout. The plain fact is, either a woman must earn her own livelihood by work, which, in the case of the mothers in a community, is bad public policy; or else she must be supported by a man or men, her husband, or her labourers.
My day-dream was, then, to make every woman independent, in precisely the same sense that women of property are independent at present. Would it give them a consciousness of being unduly controlled if they derived their support from the general funds of the body politic, of which they would be free and equal members and voters? Well, look at similar cases in our own England. The Dukes of Marlborough derive a heavy pension from the taxes of the country; but I have never observed that any Duke of Marlborough of my time felt himself a slave to the imperious taxpayer. Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace is justly the recipient of a Civil List annuity; but that hasn't prevented his active and essentially individualist brain from inventing Land Nationalisation. Mr. Robert Buchanan very rightly draws another such annuity for good work done; but Mr. Buchanan's name is not quite the first that rises naturally to my lips as an example of cowed and cringing sycophancy to the ideas and ideals of his fellow-citizens. No, no; be sure of it, this terror is a phantom. One master is real, realisable, instant; but to be dependent upon ten million is just what we always describe as independence.
THE END.
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