Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
Day's-wages for day's-work? continues he: The Progress of Human
Society consists even in this same. The better and better
apportioning of wages to work. Give me this, you have given me
all. Pay to every man accurately what he has worked for, what he
has earned and done and deserved,--to this man broad lands and
honours, to that man high gibbets and treadmills: what more have
I to ask? Heaven's Kingdom, which we daily pray for, _has_ come;
God's will is done on Earth even as it is in Heaven! This _is_
the radiance of celestial justice; in the light or in the fire
of which all impediments, vested interests, and iron cannon, are
more and more melting like wax, and disappearing from
the pathways of men. A thing ever struggling forward;
irrepressible, advancing inevitable; perfecting itself, all
days, more and more,--never to be _perfect_ till that general
Doomsday, the ultimate Consummation, and Last of earthly Days.
True, as to 'perfection' and so forth, answer we; true enough!
And yet withal we have to remark, that imperfect Human Society
holds itself together, and finds place under the Sun, in virtue
simply of some _approximation_ to perfection being actually made
and put in practice. We remark farther, that there are
supportable approximations, and then likewise insupportable.
With some, almost with any, supportable approximation men are
apt, perhaps too apt, to rest indolently patient, and say, It
will do. Thus these poor Manchester manual workers mean only, by
day's-wages for day's-work, certain coins of money adequate to
keep them living;--in return for their work, such modicum of
food, clothes and fuel as will enable them to continue their work
itself! They as yet clamour for no more; the rest, still
inarticulate, cannot yet shape itself into a demand at all, and
only lies in them as a dumb wish; perhaps only, still more
inarticulate, as a dumb, altogether unconscious want. _This_ is
the supportable approximation they would rest patient with, That
by their work they might be kept alive to work more!--_This_ once
grown unattainable, I think, your approximation may consider
itself to have reached the insupportable stage; and may prepare,
with whatever difficulty, reluctance and astonishment, for one of
two things, for changing or perishing! With the millions no
longer able to live, how can the units keep living? It is too
clear the Nation itself is on the way to suicidal death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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