them so, because it is full of injustice, and abuses of all kinds, and
will never be better till men are thoroughly discontented. I don’t see
these evils so strongly as you do; don’t believe in heroic remedies; and
would sooner see people contented, and making the best of society as they
find it. In fact, I was born and bred a Tory, and can’t help it.”
I remember it all very vividly, because it was a great grief to me at
the time, chiefly because I was very anxious to have him with us; but,
partly, because I had made so sure of getting him that I had boasted of
it to our Council, which included several of our old school and college
friends. They were delighted, knowing what a valuable recruit he would
prove, and now I had to make the humiliating confession, that I had
reckoned without my host. He continued to pay his subscription, and to
get his clothes at our tailors’ association till it failed, which was
more than some of our number did, for the cut was so bad as to put the
sternest principles to a severe test. But I could see that this was done
out of kindness to me, and not from sympathy with what we were doing.
But my disappointment had at least this good result, that it opened
my eyes thoroughly, and made me tolerant of opposition to my own most
earnest, and deepest, convictions. I have been what I suppose would be
called an advanced Liberal ever since I was at Oxford, but have never
been able to hate or despise the old-fashioned Tory creed; for it was
the creed of almost the kindest, and bravest, and ablest man I have ever
known intimately—my own brother.
I must, however, add here, that he always watched with great interest the
social revolution in which he could not take an active part. In 1851, the
Industrial and Provident Societies’ Act, under which the co-operative
societies of different kinds first obtained legal recognition, was
passed, chiefly owing to the exertions of Mr. Ludlow and other members
of our old Council. There are now more than 1,000 societies registered
under that Act in England alone, doing a yearly business of ten millions
and owning property of the amount of £2,500,000 and upwards; and as he
saw the principle spreading, and working practically, and, wherever
it took root, educating the people in self-control, and thrift, and
independence, he was far too good an Englishman not to rejoice at, and
sympathise with, the result, though I doubt whether he ever quite got
over the feeling of distrust and anxiety with which he regarded even a
peaceful, and apparently beneficent, revolution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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