But the principal point of all to be kept in view is that in every idle arm and shoulder throughout the country there is a certain quantity of force, equivalent to the force of so much fuel; and that it is mere insane waste to dig for coal for our force, while the vital force is unused; and not only unused, but, in being so, corrupting and polluting itself. We waste our coal and spoil our humanity at one and the same instant. Therefore, whenever there is an idle arm, always save coal with it, and the stores of England will last all the longer. And precisely the same argument answers the common one about "taking employment out of the hands of the industrious laborer." Why, what is "employment" but the putting out of vital force instead of mechanical force? We are continually in search of means of strength—to pull, to hammer, to fetch, to carry; we waste our future resources to get power, while we leave all the living fuel to burn itself out in mere pestiferous breath and production of its variously noisome forms of ashes! Clearly, if we want fire for force, we want men for force first. The industrious hands must have so much to do that they can do no more, or else we need not use machines to help them: then use the idle hands first. Instead of dragging petroleum with a steam-engine, put it on a canal, and drag it with human arms and shoulders. Petroleum cannot possibly be in a hurry to arrive anywhere. We can always order that and many other things time enough before we want it. So the carriage of everything which does not spoil by keeping may most wholesomely and safely be done by water-traction and sailing vessels, and no healthier work nor better discipline can men be put to than such active porterage.
2. In employing all the muscular power at our disposal, we are to make the employments we choose as educational as possible. For a wholesome human employment is the first and best method of education, mental as well as bodily. A man taught to plough, row or steer well, and a woman taught to cook properly and make dress neatly, are already educated in many essential moral habits. Labor considered as a discipline has hitherto been thought of only for criminals; but the real and noblest function of labor is to prevent crime, and not to be Reformatory but Formatory.
3. The third great principle of employment is, that whenever there is pressure of poverty to be met, all enforced occupation should be directed to the production of useful articles only, that is to say, of food, of simple clothing, of lodging, or of the means of conveying, distributing, and preserving these. It is yet little understood by economists, and not at all by the public, that the employment of persons in a useless business cannot relieve ultimate distress. The money given to employ riband-makers at Coventry is merely so much money withdrawn from what would have employed lace-makers at Honiton, or makers of something else, as useless, elsewhere. We must spend our money in some way, at some time, and it cannot at any time be spent without employing somebody. If we gamble it away, the person who wins it must spend it; if we lose it in a railroad speculation, it has gone into some one else's pockets, or merely gone to pay navvies for making a useless embankment, instead of to pay riband or button makers for making useless ribands or buttons; we cannot lose it (unless by actually destroying it) without giving employment of some kind, and therefore, whatever quantity of money exists, the relative quantity of employment must some day came out of it; but the distress of the nation signifies that the employments given have produced nothing that will support its existence. Men cannot live on ribands, or buttons, or velvet, or by going quickly from place to place; and every coin spent in useless ornament, or useless motion, is so much withdrawn from the national means of life. Whereas every coin spent in cultivating ground, in repairing lodgings, in making necessary and good roads, in preventing danger by sea or land, and in carriage of food or fuel where they are required, is so much absolute and direct gain to the whole nation. To cultivate land round Coventry makes living easier at Honiton, and every house well built in Edinburgh makes lodgings cheaper in Glasgow and London.
4th, and lastly. Since for every idle person some one else must be working somewhere to provide him with clothes and food, and doing therefore double the quantity of work that would be enough for his own needs, it is only a matter of pure justice to compel the idle person to work for his maintenance himself. The conscription has been used in many countries to take away laborers who supported their families from their useful work, and maintain them for purposes chiefly of military display at public expense. Since this had been long endured by the most civilized nations, let it not be thought that they would not much more gladly endure a conscription which should seize only the vicious and idle already living by criminal procedures at the public expense, and which should discipline and educate them to labor, which would not only maintain themselves, but be serviceable to the commonwealth. The question is simply this: we must feed the drunkard, vagabond, and thief. But shall we do so by letting them rob us of their food, and do no work for it; or shall we give them their food in appointed quantity, and enforce their doing work which shall be worth it, and which, in process of time, will redeem their own characters, and make them happy and serviceable members of society?[130]
The different classes of work for which bodies of men could be consistently organized might ultimately become numerous; these following divisions of occupation may at once be suggested.
1. Road-making.—Good roads to be made wherever needed, and kept in constant repair; and the annual loss on unfrequented roads in spoiled horses, strained wheels, and time, done away with.
2. Bringing in of Waste Land.—All wastelands not necessary for public health, to be made accessible and gradually reclaimed.
3. Harbor-Making.—The deficiencies of safe or convenient harborage in our smaller ports to be remedied; other harbors built at dangerous points of coast, and a disciplined body of men always kept in connection with the pilot and lifeboat services. There is room for every order of intelligence in this work, and for a large body of superior officers.
4. Porterage.—All heavy goods not requiring speed in transit, to be carried (under preventive duty on transit by railroad) by canal boats, employing men for draught, and the merchant shipping service extended by sea; so that no ships may be wrecked for want of hands, while there are idle ones in mischief on shore.
5. Repair of Buildings.—A body of men in various trades to be kept at the disposal of the authorities in every large town for consistent repair of buildings, especially the houses of the poorer orders, who, if no such provision were made, could not employ workmen on their own houses, but would simply live with rent walls and roofs.