It must be by a slip of the pen such as naturally occurs amidst the glow
of an enthusiastic description that the writer speaks of people as
enabling others to subsist by their expenditure. It is clear that people
can furnish subsistence to themselves or others only by production. A
rich idler may appear to give bread to an artist or opera girl but the
bread really comes not from the idler but from the workers who pay his
rents; the idler is at most the channel of distribution. The munificence
of monarchs who generously lavish the money of the taxpayer is a
familiar case of the same fallacy. This is the illusion of the Irish
peasant whose respect for the spendthrift "gentleman" and contempt for
the frugal "sneak" Mr. Greg honours with a place among the serious
elements of an economical and social problem.
But not to dwell on what is so obvious how many let me ask, of the
possessors of inherited wealth in England or in any other country,
fulfil or approach Mr. Greg's ideal? I confess that, as regards the mass
of the English squires the passage seems to me almost satire. Refined
taste and expanded intellect, promptness to discern and aid striving
merit and unearned suffering, life surrounded with all that art can do
to render it beautiful and elegant, the best productions of intellect
gathered from all intellects and ages--I do not deny that Mr. Greg has
seen all this, but I can hardly believe that he has seen it often, and I
suspect that there are probably people not unfamiliar with the abodes of
great landowners who have never seen it at all. Not to speak of artists
and art, what does landed wealth do for popular education? It appears
from the Popular Education Report of 1861 (p. 77) that in a district
taken as a fair specimen, the sum of L4,518, contributed by voluntary
subscription towards the support of 168 schools, was derived from the
following sources:
169 clergymen contributed L1,782 or L10 10 0 each
399 landowners " 2,127 " 5 6 0 "
2l7 occupiers " 200 " 18 6 "
102 householders " 181 " 1 15 6 "
141 other persons " 228 " 1 12 4 "
The rental of the 399 landowners was estimated at, L650,000 a year.
Judging from the result of my own observations, I should not have been
at all surprised if a further analysis of the return had shown that not
only the contributions of the clergy but those of retired professional
men and others with limited incomes were, in proportion, far greater
than those of the leviathans of wealth.
To play the part of Mr. Greg's ideal millionaire, a man must have not
only a large heart but a cultivated mind; and how often are educators
successful in getting work out of boys or youths who know that they have
not to make their own bread?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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