Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social Reform

by S. A. Barnett; Mrs. S. A. Barnett

It is urged further on the same side, (2) that the advertisement which is said to be necessary to promote association promotes only organisation, or that if it does promote association it fills it also with the party spirit, which is a corrupting influence.

Organisations, we have been lately told, are weakening real charitable effort. They have at once the strength and the weakness of the standing army system, they produce a body of officials keen to carry out their objects and careless of other issues, and they release individuals from the duty of serving the need they have recognised. That the sensational method of rousing the charitable activities has resulted in organisation rather than in association may be seen by reference to the Charities Register, with its long record of new societies and institutions. That it also inspires with party spirit the associations which it forms is more difficult of proof. Strong statements which are necessary to advertisement can hardly, though, be fair statements, and loud statements can rarely be exhaustively accurate. Where there is in the beginning neither fairness of feeling nor accuracy of thought there will be afterwards a repetition of the old theological hatred.

‘Ye know not what spirit ye are of,’ said Christ to His disciples, who, ignorant of His purpose, would have used force in His service against the Samaritans. The same party spirit still sometimes inspires those who hold grand beliefs and support great causes, the height and depth and breadth of which they have had neither time nor will to measure; and such a spirit degrades their character. It is not a gain to a man to be a Christian or a Liberal if by so doing he becomes certain that there is no right nor truth on the side of a Mohammedan or of a Tory. He has not, that is, risen to the height of his character: rather, as Mr. Coleridge says, ‘He who begins by loving Christianity better than the truth will proceed by loving his own sect or Church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.’ A teetotaller will not add so much to society by his temperance as he will take away from society if his character becomes proud or narrow.

Party spirit—the spirit, that is, which is roused and limited by some hasty view of truth or right—is likely to make men unjust and cruel, and so a method of reform which produces this spirit cannot be approved. In the name of the grandest causes, missionaries were in old times cruel, and philanthropists are in modern times unjust.

Lastly, (3) those who have claimed for sensationalism the parentage of some law have been met by the paradox that laws and institutions rarely exist till they have ceased to be wanted. In England public opinion condemns cruelty to animals, and so a society has been created. In Egypt, where the need is greater, but where there is no public opinion to condemn the cruelty, there is no society. Certain it is, at any rate, that the statute-book is cumbered with laws passed in a moment of moral excitement which remain without influence because they have never represented the true level of public opinion.

Where arguments are so urged for and against sensationalism it may be useful if, out of thirteen years’ experience of East London life, I shortly collect what seem to be some of the effects on character developed during this period.

The first effect which is manifest is the great increase of humanity in the richer classes. This is shown not only by talk, by drawing-room meetings, and by newspaper articles, but by actual service among the poor. The number of those who go about East London to do good is largely increased. The increase is, though, I believe, greatest among those philanthropists who aim to apply principles rather than to provide relief. There have always been people of good-will ready to give and to teach; there is now an increase in their numbers, but the marked increase is among those who, following Mrs. Nassau Senior, work registry offices, on the principle that friends are the best avenues by which young girls can find places; or, following Miss Octavia Hill, become rent collectors, on the principle that the relation of landlord and tenant may be made conducive to the best good; or, following Miss Nightingale, take up the work of nursing, on the principle that the service of the sick is the highest service; or, following the founders of the Charity Organisation Society, examine into the causes of poverty, on the principle that it is better to prevent than to cure evil; or, following Miss Miranda Hill, give their talents to making beauty common, on the principle that rich and poor have equal powers of enjoying what is good; or, following Edmund Denison, come to live in East London and do the duties of citizens, on the principle that only they who share the neighbourhood really share the life of the poor. In all these cases the increase began more than thirteen years ago, and it must be allowed that the development of humanity which they represent is not of that form which can as a rule be traced to the use of sensationalism.

Another effect I notice as generally present is increase of impatience.

The richer classes seeing things that have been hidden, and ignorant that any improvement has been going on, have taken up with ready-made schemes. Irritated that the poor should find obstacles to relief in times of sickness, they, in their hurry, give the pauper a vote, but leave him to get his relief under degrading conditions. Angry that children should be hungry, but too anxious to consider other things than hunger, they start an inadequate system of penny dinners which keeps starvation alive. Stirred by the news of uninhabitable houses, and insanitary areas, and brutal offences, they pass stringent laws and take no steps to see that the laws are administered. Affected by the thought that the majority of the people have neither pleasure-ground, nor space for play, nor water for cleanliness, they raise a chorus of abuse against London government, but do not deny themselves every day the bottle of wine or the useless luxury which would give to Kilburn a park or to East London a People’s Palace. Hearing that the masses are irreligious, means are supported without regard as to what must be the influence on thoughtful men of associating religion with things which are not true, nor honourable, nor lovely, nor of good report.

On all sides among persons of good-will there seems to be the belief that things done for people are more effective than things done with people. There is an absence of the patience—the passionate patience—which is content to examine, to serve, to wait, and even to fail, so long as what is done shall be well done.