§ 27

Athens at her great time was rich; Egypt, when the city of Memphis covered four times the area of London, was rich. Rome was rich, first by her agriculture; she began to decline when she ceased to grow corn, getting it from her colonies. Byzantium was full of gold when she enriched herself still more by the buildings she erected that live among the most treasured possessions of to-day. When Venice was producing her great architects and painters, her consummate builders and craftsmen, her merchants were rich, proud, too, of making their city as we now see it and know it, one of the most beautiful in the world. Florence and Genoa were rich when they took a high place in the arts and intellectual culture of all kinds. France was rich when she built her unsurpassed cathedrals; so was England at her prime when she gave us much more than has survived destruction of the beauty her artists and craftsmen created. Surely wealth was then used as a permanent means for a permanent supply of honour to which we bow now in the beauty that remains of the noble labours of great peoples. The men who acquired the means to do so spent money for national honour with the ambition to make their city or cities as attractive and beautiful as possible. They employed the greatest creators of their generation to leave their mark not only on the present but the future. The labours of the great spirits of the past are a heritage than which nothing can be greater or more valuable. Bad men as many of the Roman Pontiffs were, they used the wealth (not always honestly attained) with distinction, whether for the exaltation of the Church or not does not matter to us; they made Rome as we see it now (deducting the abominations of industrialism which deface the grand old city).

What do we go to Italy for? Not to hear discourses of politicians or to listen to Socialists talking about what they do not understand, or to see tramways blocking up narrow and picturesque streets. We have enough of those restless, fugitive obstacles here. We go to study the immortal works of art of all the centuries from Romulus to the 16th century of our era; a pretty wide field of interest and instruction, so richly provided is that highly endowed country. What do we go to Egypt for? Surely not to see the havoc Western ambitions in commercialism is causing, with very doubtful results upon the prosperity of the fellah; nor only to bask in her glorious sunshine, her pure air, not yet poisoned by the atmosphere of industrialism in promotion there and quite out of keeping with the distinction of that great country and the transcendent interests of its history; but to study, admire and learn from her remote past, that had so much to do with the formation of intellectual energy which gave birth to so much that is no less valuable now than it was in the past.

To us, overtaken by an artificial life, by a destructive force called Utilitarian, indiscriminating and reckless, the past has much to teach. It is all very well to sweep away traditions which the labours of our forefathers provided, under specious excuses, under plausible arguments; but what we destroy is irrevocable, and cannot be replaced. The mad course pursued by Industrialism has had disastrous effects; it has absorbed land that was under cultivation, it has broken up priceless records of the past by destruction of noble buildings, it has turned thousands of acres of valuable land into deserts, filled the air with poisonous fumes, darkened the face of the sun; it has sown squalor where once was order, and, above all, it has hardened our people, who have been on the verge of soul starvation; it has been turning them into machines. Industrialism has not forwarded Liberty, it has retarded it. Its tendency has been to make all men alike, to, as it were, take moulds of their minds, and sell the casts to the highest bidder. It has encouraged avarice on the one hand and extravagance on the other. Industrialism carried to excess is an incentive to war. It bears no relation to the Arts of Peace. It is a tyrant; wherever it goes it leaves a track of destruction as an invading army does. It has created a spirit of unrest, hence it is the enemy of research, of the arts, and of those faculties of a nation which make them intellectually great. By providing machinery it has crippled craftsmanship. While, in a narrow sense, it has provided occupation (and that word is used advisedly), industrialism has damped the spirit of creative labour. By turning out thousands of articles exactly alike its handmade machinery has almost swept the board of creative instincts, of good and discriminating taste, thereby leaving in its tracks little indeed of æsthetic value and rarely, perhaps, any work of craftsmanship in whatever trade that will be an honour to our generation in the judgment of the future. What the craftsman makes with his finely trained hand, inspired by a creative instinct which is his distinction, the machine can only copy badly. The man who made it had a soul which he used in his production which fulfilled it, gave it shape, made it interesting always, even if the workmanship were rough and ready; it reflected its producer, and so a work of art is produced and not the product of a dead machine.

To sum up (and they are hard words that are used) Industrialism is the enemy of the soul of a nation en masse; in particular of man, by killing his individuality, his productive genius, his observation, his loyalty to himself, his ambition for fame as a craftsman, the civilised progress of his country and last, not least, his liberty. To succeed (and who does not wish it success?) democracy depends upon the Demos. An unenlightened, self-indulgent, ignorant, uninspired, misdirected Demos must ruin the chances of a successful Democracy!