Fors Clavigera (Volume 6 of 8): $b Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great BritainRuskin, John
General
Fors Clavigera (Volume 6 of 8): $b 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
Now the St. George’s Company propose to themselves,—and, if the God
they believe in, lives, will assuredly succeed in their proposition,—to
put an end to this rascally and inhuman state of things, and bring
about an honest and human state of them, instead. And they have already
actually begun the accumulation of a National Store of good and useful
things; by the collection and administration of which, they are not
themselves to derive any gain whatsoever, but the Nation only.
We are, therefore, at present, as I said at first, a company
established for a charitable purpose; the object of charity being the
entire body of the British nation, now paying taxes to cheating
capitalists. But we hope to include, finally, in our ranks a large
number of the people themselves, and to make quite a different sort of
people of them, carrying out our company’s laws, to the abolition of
many existing interests, and in abrogation of many existing
arrangements.
And the laws which we hope thus to see accepted are none of them new;
but have been already recommended by all wise men, and practised by all
truly prosperous states; nor is there anything whatever new in the
modes of administration proposed;—and especially be it noted, there is
nothing of the present leader’s fancies, in any part or character of
the scheme—which is merely the application, to our nationally diseased
thoughts and practices, of the direct precepts of the true sages of
past time, who are every one of them in harmony concerning all that is
necessary for men to do, feel, and know.
And we hope to establish these laws, not by violence, but by obeying
them ourselves, to the extent of which existing circumstances admit;
and so gradually showing the advantage of them, and making them
acceptable to others. Not that, for the enforcement of some of them,
(the abolition of all manufactures that make the air unwholesome, for
instance,) we shall hesitate to use the strong hand, when once our
hands are strong. But we shall not begin by street riots to throw down
our neighbour’s chimneys, or break his machinery;—though what we shall
end in doing—God knows, not I,—but I have my own thoughts concerning
it; not at present needing exposition.
The Companions, for the most part, will remain exactly in the condition
of life they held before entering the Society; but they will direct all
their powers, and some part of their revenues, in that condition, to
the advance of its interests. We hold it shortsighted and ruinous
policy to form separate institutions, or attempt the sudden
establishment of new systems of labour. Every one of us must use the
advantages he now possesses, whatever they may be, and contend with the
difficulties arising out of his present position, gradually modifying
it, as he can, into conformity with the laws which the Society desires
may be ultimately observed by all its members.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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