THE QUEEN IN BRIDAL DRESS
He has become, in fact, more independent, more responsible; he knows so much more that he feels his own ignorance; he is not so easily led by a demagogue; it is not so easy to inflame his passions; he thinks and asks questions; he is better fed, better clothed; he walks more upright; he is no longer a machine; he understands the power of combination; he sits at the table of his parish council on equal terms with the squire and the vicar; he no longer regards his native village as the place to which he is bound; he has friends in various parts of the world; they come home from time to time and they tell him of these countries—Republics all, except in name—where there are no squires and no landlords; and he asks himself whether it is better to stay on in the old place, or to try for a bigger thing beyond the seas.
Changed as he is, and certain to change yet more and more in the immediate future, do not forget that the English working-man, even of the town, feels a great shrinking about leaving the old home. In a village this seems natural; the place is calm and lovely, the ancient church with its gray tower standing in the churchyard, where the rooks and pigeons and blackbirds keep up a continual chorus; the village green, the village inn, the gabled cottages, the gates that lead to the Hall, the fields and hedges, the stream, and the hills, and the hanging woods—these things enter into the very heart and soul of the Englishman; he loves them all, he cannot choose but love them, though he would not know how to express his affection; in the churchyard he knows the mounds that belong to his own people; in the tavern he sits among his cronies on the polished settle beside the fire, his mug before him, his pipe in his mouth. In his heart he wants no other life. These things he could not find in America or Australia or New Zealand. Yet he is changed, and if you wait for twenty years you will no longer recognise him for what he was. He is getting a touch from America, a thought from Australia, a custom from New Zealand; he will be a citizen of the world, and, if I read the signs aright, he will become before another generation the owner and the master of agricultural England.
Painting by Sir George Hayter
THE MARRIAGE OF THE QUEEN TO PRINCE ALBERT
Let us leave the village and turn to the town.
There are two books in our literature which tell of English factory life in the early part of this century. One of these is Disraeli’s Sybil; the other is Mrs. Trollope’s Michael Armstrong. I fear that these two books are not read so much as they should be; partly, perhaps, because we do not love to dwell too much on the shameful side of history. The condition of the working-man before the Victorian era is indeed a very shameful part of history. The record of the factory and the mine is very black. Let me show you something of what it was. I tell you beforehand, that the story proves that power over his fellow-men must never be entrusted to any man; for he will abuse that power—he will become an oppressor and a tyrant.
He began this oppression with the children. He has a mill, a factory, a mine; in which he made the children work. He worked them so cruelly; he gave them such long hours, such poor food, such wretched clothing, that he lowered the vitality of these unfortunate children so that an epidemic broke out among them; it carried off thousands. This frightened the owner of these children, because, if they all died, what would become of his mill?
Then the House of Commons interfered—very reluctantly—because to stand between the master and his man was felt to be a dangerous innovation. It interfered, however, and passed a law which forbade children under nine to be employed in a factory, and limited their hours to twelve, exclusive of an hour and a half for rest and food; so that by this merciful Act a little girl of ten might be, and actually was, made to work from six in the morning till half-past seven at night. Can one conceive a readier method of destroying strength, youth, self-respect, everything? But the injured millowner got over this law. He was not forced to make the children work continuously. He therefore made the children work in relays, so that they had half the night as well as half the day to work in. This went on for thirty years before the nation was moved by the injustice and cruelty of the thing. An Act was passed that no children should work between 8.30 P.M. and 5.30 A.M.; that children under thirteen should not work more than 48 hours a week or eight hours a day; and that those under eighteen should not work more than 68 hours a week or 11⅓ hours a day. As I told you, the man who had the power exercised it cruelly, heartlessly, ruthlessly, for the conversion of his people into slaves.