Fors Clavigera (Volume 1 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great BritainRuskin, John
General
Fors Clavigera (Volume 1 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain
Ruskin, John
Aesthetics; Conduct of life; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class -- Great Britain
I have before noted to you, indeed, that, in a broad sense, nobody has
a right to have opinions; but only knowledges: and, in a practical
and large sense, nobody has a right even to make experiments, but
only to act in a way which they certainly know will be productive of
good. And this I ask you to observe again, because I begin now to
receive some earnest inquiries respecting the plan I have in hand,
the inquiries very naturally assuming it to be an "experiment," which
may possibly be successful, and much more possibly may fail. But it
is not an experiment at all. It will be merely the carrying out of
what has been done already in some places, to the best of my narrow
power, in other places: and so far as it can be carried, it must be
productive of some kind of good.
For example; I have round me here at Denmark Hill seven acres of
leasehold ground. I pay £50 a year ground-rent, and £250 a year
in wages to my gardeners; besides expenses in fuel for hothouses,
and the like. And for this sum of three hundred odd pounds a year
I have some pease and strawberries in summer; some camellias and
azaleas in winter; and good cream, and a quiet place to walk in,
all the year round. Of the strawberries, cream, and pease, I eat
more than is good for me; sometimes, of course, obliging my friends
with a superfluous pottle or pint. The camellias and azaleas stand
in the anteroom of my library; and everybody says, when they come in,
"How pretty!" and my young lady friends have leave to gather what they
like to put in their hair, when they are going to balls. Meantime,
outside of my fenced seven acres--owing to the operation of the great
universal law of supply and demand--numbers of people are starving;
many more, dying of too much gin; and many of their children dying
of too little milk; and, as I told you in my first Letter, for my
own part, I won't stand this sort of thing any longer.
Now it is evidently open to me to say to my gardeners, "I want no
more azaleas or camellias; and no more strawberries and pease than are
good for me. Make these seven acres everywhere as productive of good
corn, vegetables, or milk, as you can; I will have no steam used upon
them, for nobody on my ground shall be blown to pieces; nor any fuel
wasted in making plants blossom in winter, for I believe we shall,
without such unseasonable blossoms, enjoy the spring twice as much
as now; but, in any part of the ground that is not good for eatable
vegetables, you are to sow such wild flowers as it seems to like,
and you are to keep all trim and orderly. The produce of the land,
after I have had my limited and salutary portion of pease, shall be
your own; but if you sell any of it, part of the price you get for
it shall be deducted from your wages."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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