“Our ideal can only be realized with a Government that gives some éclat to those who are connected with it and which creates distinctions outside of wealth. We feel an antipathy to a society in which the merit of a man and his superiority to another can only be revealed under the form of industry and commerce; not that trade and industry are not honest in our eyes, but because we see clearly that the best things (such as the functions of the priest, the magistrate, the savant, the artist, and the serious man of letters) are the inverse of the industrial and commercial spirit, the first duty of those who follow them being not to try to enrich themselves, and never to take into consideration the venal value of what they do.”
This I understand, provided that the priest, magistrate, savant, artist, and serious man of letters are faithful to this “first duty;” provided that they “never take into consideration the venal value of what they do;” but there are tradesmen in the highest professions. All that can be said against trade is that its object is profit. Then it follows that every profession followed for profit has in it what is objectionable in trade, and that the professions are not noble in themselves but only if they are followed in a disinterested spirit. I should say, then, that any attempt to fix the degree of nobleness of persons by the supposed nobleness of their occupations must be founded upon an unreal distinction. A venal clergyman who does not believe the dogmas that he defends for his endowment, a venal barrister, ready to prostitute his talents and his tongue for a large income, seem to me to have in them far more of what is objectionable in trade than a country bookseller who keeps a little shop and sells note-paper and sealing-wax over the counter; yet it is assumed that their occupations are noble occupations and that his business is not noble, though I can see nothing whatever in it of which any gentleman need be in the slightest degree ashamed.
Again, there seem to be most unreal distinctions of respectability in the trades themselves. The wine trade has always been considered a gentlemanly business; but why is it more respectable to sell wine and spirits than to sell bread, or cheese, or beef? Are not articles of food more useful to the community than alcoholic drinks, and less likely to contribute to the general sum of evil? As for the honesty of the dealers, no doubt there are honest wine-merchants; but what thing that is sold for money has been more frequently adulterated, or more mendaciously labelled, or more unscrupulously charged for, than the produce of European vintages?[7]
Another wonderful unreality is the following. People desire the profits of trade, but are unwilling to lose caste by engaging in it openly. In order to fill their pockets and preserve their rank at the same time they engage in business anonymously, either as members of some firm in which their names do not appear, or else as share-holders in great trading enterprises. In both these cases the investor of capital becomes just as really and truly a tradesman as if he kept a shop, but if you were to tell him that he was a tradesman he would probably resent the imputation.
It is remarkable that the people who most despise commerce are the very people who bow down most readily before the accomplished results of commerce; for as they have an exaggerated sense of social distinctions, they are great adorers of wealth for the distinction that it confers. By their worship of wealth they acknowledge it to be most desirable; but then they worship rank also, and this other cultus goes with the sentiment of contempt for humble and plodding industry in all its forms.
The contempt for trade is inconsistent in another way. A man may be excluded from “good society” because he is in trade, and his grandson may be admitted because the grandfather was in trade, that is, through a fortune of commercial origin. The present Prime Minister (Gladstone) and the Speaker of the House of Commons (Mr. Arthur Peel) and many other men of high position in both Houses may owe their fame to their own distinguished abilities; but they owe the leisure and opportunity for cultivating and displaying those abilities to the wits and industry of tradesmen removed from them only by one or two generations.
Is there not a strange inconsistency in adoring wealth as it is adored, and despising the particular kind of skill and ability by which it is usually acquired? For if there be anything honorable about wealth it must surely be as evidence of the intelligence and industry that are necessary for the conquest of poverty. On the contrary, a narrowly exclusive society despises the virtue that is most creditable to the nouveau riche, his industry, whilst it worships his wealth as soon as the preservation of it is compatible with idleness.
There is a great deal of unreal distinction in the matter of ancestry. Those who observe closely are well aware that many undoubted and lineal descendants of the oldest families are in humble social positions, simply for want of money to make a display, whilst others usurp their coats-of-arms and claim a descent that they cannot really prove. The whole subject is therefore one of the most unsatisfactory that can be, and all that remains to the real members of old families who have not wealth enough to hold a place in the expensive modern aristocracy, is to remember secretly the history of their ancestors if they are romantic and poetical enough to retain the old-fashioned sentiment of birth, and to forget it if they look only to the present and the practical. There is, indeed, so little of the romantic sentiment left in the country, that even amongst the descendants of old families themselves very few are able to blazon their own armorial bearings, or even know what the verb “to blazon” means.
Amidst so great a confusion the simplest way would be not to think about rank at all, and to take human nature as it comes without reference to it; but however the ancient barriers of rank may be broken down, it is only to erect new ones. English feeling has a deep satisfaction in contemplating rank and wealth combined. It is that which it likes,—the combination. When wealth is gone it thinks that a man should lock up his pedigree in his desk and forget that he has ancestors; so it has been said that an English gentleman in losing wealth loses his caste with it, whilst a French or Italian gentleman may keep his caste, except in the most abject poverty. On the other hand, when an Englishman has a vast fortune it is thought right to give him a title also, that the desirable combination may be created afresh. Nothing is so striking in England, considering that it is an old country, as the newness of most of the great families. The aristocracy is like London, that has the reputation of being a very ancient city, yet the houses are of recent date. An aristocracy may be stronger and in better repair because of its newness; it may also be more likely to make a display of aristocratic superiorities, and expect deference to be paid to them, than an easy-going old aristocracy would be.
What are the superiorities, and what is the nature of the deference?