I was told also—the newspapers said it, and it must be true—that Mr. Mundella, an enterprising M.P., and a devout worshipper of the new god, who is a vast producer at Nottingham of stockings and hosiery of every sort—had found it best—well, absolutely necessary—in order to compete with the new disciples in Germany, to remove a part of his machines and machinery to Germany, and make his stockings there, in order that those ridiculous and cheap Germans should not quite put a stop to his trade. It was whispered about that French-made tools were being bought and brought into England for use there, and it was said openly that American saws, vises, and axes were playing the very deuce; and now, just after the triumphs of the "Centennial," Englishmen are writing home that Yankee silks will also play another very deuce with them if they don't get more and cheaper labor. I see too, by late letters from England, that they propose to cheapen iron by putting cheap Chinese labor into the iron works!
And yet in Germany they cry out that they have a panic, and that trade is dull, and people will persist in failing, and that other people won't buy all they can make; they too are at their wits' ends. There must be something wrong, the "doctrinaires" say, about the gases. Trade is not free enough, or labor is not cheap enough, or they have too much or too little paper money, or they don't try woman suffrage. At any rate the new gospel is right—must be right, because if you obey the laws of trade and buy cheap and sell dear, you are sure to be happy.
And France—it is frightful to think of France. Steeped in stupidity and enveloped in Cimmerean fog, she resists the new gospel. She will not send her missionaries abroad over the world; she will not build great factories and temples; she will not take her whole people from their small farms, where they raise great surpluses of food, to put them into the new temples; she does not even work her land with steam, nor does she hanker for the cheap (and nasty) things which England and Germany are so ready, willing, and anxious to pour into every household; indeed, will not have them at all. Oh, the economic condition of France makes the heart of the enlightened priest of the new gospel weep. France has taken no steps to introduce the cheap labor of Ireland or China, or even of Africa—right at her doors—into her own wretched country, and there is no sign that she will. What feeling but contempt can the sincere doctrinaire entertain for France?
It would be indeed strange—and yet it is not wholly impossible—that England and Germany and the United States, all of whom have for centuries been cursing work, and crying out against work, and doing all manner of things to get rid of work, and educating their best and wisest not to do it—it would be indeed strange if some day they should be crying out, "Give us work, in God's name." Strange, but not wholly impossible.
We come back now to our own country—to the
Land of the free, and the home of the blest.
We are the child of England, and we revere, we love, we emulate her. We adopt her methods, we worship her god. We follow in her footsteps, and emulating her example, we send out missionaries to extend the gospel of trade; we love to buy cheap and sell dear; we love to scheme; we delight in speculation, for that is an intellectual operation. We have been taught for centuries that the mind is divine, the body devilish. We do well, therefore, to despise the devilish body and exalt the godlike soul. We do well to depress and belittle the hand, and to glorify and enlarge the head. We do well to say it, and to make men believe it if we can, that the "pen is mightier than the sword" or the plough. We do well to convert our boys and girls into exaggerated heads, even if they are useless, because we thus exalt them toward gods. We do well to leave out of view all just balance between head and hand because that is common and vulgar. We do well to say that the man who says a good thing is greater than he who does a good thing, for the spiritual is divine, and the earthly is base!
Keeping in view the short time we have possessed this land, we may fairly arrogate to ourselves what England has long claimed for herself, great "progress." We have created more great cities, more luxurious habits, more free whiskey, more useless railroads, more brokers' boards, more wild-cat banks, more swindling mining companies, more political jobs, more precocious boys and more fast girls, more bankrupt men and more nervous women than any country known in history. Following the "example of our illustrious predecessor"—England—we have done one thing of which we are justly proud, and the full account of which, illustrated with pictures, our "Government" (as we facetiously call it) has published in some ten fine volumes. And what is the example we followed? It is this: England, having possessed herself of the vast kingdom of India, found a production there of opium very lucrative to her and very desirable to many of the Chinese, who enjoyed the smoking of the pleasing drug. England greatly desired to sell this drug to China, for it was all in the interest of trade. One fine day some Chinese emperor or mandarin took it into his meddling head to check or forbid the freedom of this trade: and then the virtue, the religious fervor of the devoted Briton was roused. Ninety-three thousand chests of good merchantable opium, worth many taels, was not a dogma to be trifled with, not even by the Emperor of the Flowery Kingdom. What! Should trade be impeded by this yellow Mantchu, this devotee of Confucius, this long-eyed heathen, because he had some sentimental notions about his people's morals or manners? Good heavens! Could trade stand that? By no means. Persuasion must bring him to his senses if he had any. Persuasion was tried, and various iron arguments were used. They battered down Canton, they assaulted and took the cities of Amoy, Chusan, Ningpo, Woosung, Shanghai, Nanking; and thus the English missionaries kept on persuading until at last the heathen Chinee yielded: was persuaded to pay $12,000,000, to open the ports of Canton, Amoy, Foochoo, Ningpo, Shanghai to trade; to welcome all future opium with open arms; to make the good Queen Victoria a present of the port of Hong Kong; and so on and on. Thus, under the persuasion of a fraternal war, "trade, civilization, and Christianity" made themselves safe in the high places of China; since which happiness has bourgeoned there if not in England!
Could our youthful but pious nation do better than follow this illustrious example? Certainly not. Something must be done. If China could thus be persuaded to trade by the English, poor little Japan might be persuaded to trade by the United States. We could but try. We did, and Perry sailed away, with his ships and his cannons, to try. The Japs were benighted, foolish, and weak. They declined, and said, "No, we don't want any of your trade. We make all we want, and don't care either for your religion, your opium, your whiskey, or your stovepipe hats."
"But," said the gallant Perry, "that is a wicked sentiment. The brotherhood of nations is the cornerstone of modern civilization. Trade is divine, and stovepipe hats mark the intellectual races. We are your brothers. God has made of one blood all the nations of the earth. If you will not be our brothers, and trade, we shall be obliged to shoot. Don't want to, but must. One—two—three. Bang!"