Mr. Punch has seldom been more disgusted—and that is saying a good deal in these days—than by the low, sordid, Philistine, anticosmopolitan agitation on the subject of the International Exhibitions.
He will endeavour to express himself calmly on the topic, but gives no pledge that he will not be induced to use strong language.
British manufacturers and vendors complain (he hates people that complain of anything) that the Foreigner is unduly and unjustly favoured by the directors of these Exhibitions. "Foreigner!" At the outset, that word is in itself offensive. All mankind are Brothers, more or less. But let that pass.
The Foreigner is allowed to bring to South Kensington whatever wares he pleases, and to exhibit them to the best advantage at handsome stalls, for which he pays no rent. To the Exhibition the British public is invited by every official blandishment—fête, flower-show, and music are among the attractions—and for several months the very best and most opulent portion of society is thus brought to be tempted by the Foreigner's productions.
Furthermore, the Foreigner is allowed to deprive the Exhibition of its character as an Exhibition, and to make it a shop. For he may sell anything which he has brought over (whether it be part of his show, or any other article which it has occurred to him as likely to be acceptable), and the purchaser may take it away at once. This is coarsely described as entirely departing from the theory that it was by the display and comparison of wares that the interests of Art were to be promoted. It is irreverently urged that the accomplished Prince who originally devised those Exhibitions would never have sanctioned their being converted into Shops and Bazaars.
The British manufacturers and vendors condescend to urge that this is not giving them fair play, that the Foreigner is helped in every way to sell his goods, and that the Briton who pays rent for his own shop, and heavy taxes for the support of the State, is rendered all the less able to do so, by reason that custom is drawn away from him in favour of those who pay neither rent nor taxes.
Mr. Punch regrets to find that Leading Men of business take these narrow views, and that the representatives of some of the most eminent firms in England have met under the auspices of the Lord Mayor, also a man of business, to assert that the system is unjust. It may be thought that when such men deliberately protest against anything, they may be supposed to have good reasons for their protest. But this is a commonplace way of thinking.
Let us try and rise above mere material views, and let the holy and genial rays of the sun of cosmopolitanism warm up our insular hearts. All mankind are Brothers, as has been already observed, and who would grudge his brother anything? Why should the British person be considered in the matter? Talk of his paying taxes—well, he does not like to pay them—and if he is ruined, he will not be called upon to pay them any more. That is a detail beneath contempt. What Mr. Punch is so ashamed of, is the chill and callous British nature, which refuses to recognise the holiness of universal philanthropy, and clings to old-fashioned ideas of a man's duty to his own family and his own nation. The Englishman who could see in the prosperity of the Rue de Rivoli no compensation for the ruin of Regent Street, is so low in the scale of civilisation that we blush to call him countryman.
Mr. Punch has no such sordid feelings, and his noble heart will leap with generous joy to behold the wealthy pouring out their gold on the counter or at the stall of his Foreign Brothers at South Kensington, and if his British Brother is, as he thinks, unfairly used and impoverished, let him find consolation in the thought that we are all the same "flesh and blood." Let him mention this to Mr. Lowe's tax-collector, and it is certain that the latter will, like Sterne's angel, drop a gentle tear on the charge he was going to make, and blot it out for ever.