§ 8

The English workman is still “au cœur” honest; he cannot help it; tradition of honesty flows in his veins still. If he is ignorant, the direction of his instincts is honest. He was the best and most highly respected workman in Europe; other nations envied him. An English cabinet, an English knife, English cloth, English needlework were the envy of every foreigner. Why was the praise of English workmanship so highly praised and prized by other nations? Because her workmen were the most honest and skilled in Europe. I say “were.” Are they so still? No! But they may again become so if they are true to their noble tradition and to themselves, and no longer permit evil counsel to draw them away by specious and plausible promises.

The noble instincts of the English craftsman I am old enough to remember. Once, and not so long ago, his work was his conscience, he believed in it and did it with all his might. It was a habit of mind which ruled him and made him free. Why do I write “free”? Because being an honest workman, he did not fear competition. He had an ideal, which was to give the best labour for a good wage. He was simple, he took pride in his work. He had his Utopia, which was to labour to the enth of his power to do honour to himself, his family and country. Good work was encouraged then and commanded the market of the world! Economically, irrespective of honour, the workman was right. The best work will always command the best market in the long run. Honesty was the motto on the standard of the Englishman. He had an image in his mind and up to it he strove to arrive. He liked perfection and strove to reach it. In that sense he was an artist plus craftsman, an imaginative worker distinct from a machine. To have told a bricklayer he must only lay a given number of bricks a day, or that doing bad work was good for all-round trade, would have been to insult him. So his work had a soul in it; the pleasure he took in its doing was reflected. It was a pleasure to regard it. I remember hundreds of workmen like that when I was a boy, men with whom one could make friends, in whom there was good fellowship and no mistrust. There was a bond of union. We were workmen; he and I were only differentiated by the nature of Trade; he of the plough, the shovel, the saw or what not, I of the pencil, brush or scalpel, that was all.

We had the same soul and sense of honour, he to drive a straight furrow, dig a good trench, I to do a good drawing or picture. My fellow-workmen, if they think for themselves, and they are quite capable to do that, will recognise that to preach “equality” is one thing; it sounds attractive; it is, in fact, a mare’s nest, a will-o’-the-wisp; it is unreachable, in the first place; in the second, if it were reached, to-morrow would provide inequality. Were the scales of Fate adjusted every morning, in the evening they would be unbalanced. If it were possible to attain equality it would ruin the world; it would paralyse effort; it would reduce mankind to a system of self-indulgence, lassitude, and, finally, to imbecility. Giving up that word as hopeless, we will retain one of the popular triad—“Liberty,” as including “Fraternity.” Yet while we urge “liberty” we must beware of its caricature, “licence,” the arch-enemy of Fraternity and Liberty. Licence is, in fact, the grossest form of tyranny. We might, indeed, exclude the term “liberty,” which includes Fraternity, which excludes Licence.