Britain for the British

by Robert Blatchford

So with other dependants of the rich. The duke's gardeners could find work in public parks for the people; the artists, who now sell their pictures to private collections, could sell them to public galleries; and some of the decorators and upholsterers who now work on the rich men's palaces might turn their talents to our town halls and hospitals and public pavilions. And that reminds me of a quotation from Mr. Mallock, cited in Merrie England. Mr. Mallock said—

Let us take, for instance, a large and beautiful cabinet, for which a rich man of taste pays £2000. The cabinet is of value to him for reasons which we will consider presently; as possessed by him it constitutes a portion of his wealth. But how could such a piece of wealth be distributed? Not only is it incapable of physical partition and distribution, but, if taken from the rich man and given to the poor man, the latter is not the least enriched by it. Put a priceless buhl cabinet into an Irish labourer's cottage, and it will probably only add to his discomforts; or, if he finds it useful, it will only be because he keeps his pigs in it. A picture by Titian, again, may be worth thousands, but it is worth thousands only to the man who can enjoy it.

Now, isn't that a precious piece of nonsense? There are two things to be said about that rich man's cabinet. The first is, that it was made by some workman who, if he had not been so employed, might have been producing what would be useful to the poor. So that the cabinet has cost the poor something. The second is, that a priceless buhl cabinet can be divided. Of course, it would be folly to hack it into shavings and serve them out amongst the mob; but if that cabinet is a thing of beauty and worth the seeing, it ought to be taken from the rich benefactor, whose benefaction consists in his having plundered it from the poor, and it ought to be put into a public museum where thousands could see it, and where the rich man could see it also if he chose. This, indeed, is the proper way to deal with all works of art, and this is one of the rich man's greatest crimes—that he keeps hoarded up in his house a number of things that ought to be the common heritage of the people.

Every article of luxury has to be paid for not in money, but in labour. Every glass of wine drunk by my lord, and every diamond star worn by my lady, has to be paid for with the sweat and the tears of the poorest of our people. I believe it is a literal fact that many of the artificial flowers worn at Court are actually stained with the tears of the famished and exhausted girls who make them.

To say that the extravagance of the rich finds useful employment for the poor, is more foolish than to say that the drunkard finds useful employment for the brewers.

The drunkard may have a better defence than the duke, because he may perhaps have produced, or earned, the money he spends in beer, whereas the duke's rents are not produced by the duke nor earned by him.

That is clear, is it not? And yet a few weeks since I saw an article in a London weekly paper in which we were told that the thief was an indispensable member of society, because he found employment for policemen, gaolers, builders of gaols, and other persons.

The excuse for the thief is as valid as the excuse for the duke. The thief finds plenty of employment for the people. But who pays the persons employed?

The police, the gaolers, and all the other persons employed in catching, holding, and feeding the thief, are paid out of the rates and taxes. Who pays the taxes? The British public. Then the British public have to support not only the police and the rest, but the thief as well.

What do the police, the thief, and the gaoler produce? Do they produce any wealth? No. They consume wealth, and the thief is so useful that if he died out for ever, it would pay us better to feed the gaolers and police for doing nothing than to fetch the thief back again to feed him as well.