Past and Present: Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII.Carlyle, Thomas
Philosophy
Past and Present: Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII.
Carlyle, Thomas
Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems
A free bridge for Emigrants: why, we should then be on a par with
America itself, the most favoured of all lands that have no
government; and we should have, besides, so many traditions and
mementos of priceless things which America has cast away. We could
proceed deliberately to 'organise Labour,' not doomed to perish unless
we effected it within year and day;--every willing Worker that proved
superfluous, finding a bridge ready for him. This verily will have to
be done; the Time is big with this. Our little Isle is grown too
narrow for us; but the world is wide enough yet for another Six
Thousand Years. England's sure markets will be among new Colonies of
Englishmen in all quarters of the Globe. All men trade with all men,
when mutually convenient; and are even bound to do it by the Maker of
men. Our friends of China, who guiltily refused to trade, in these
circumstances,--had we not to argue with them, in cannon-shot at last,
and convince them that they ought to trade! 'Hostile Tariffs' will
arise, to shut us out; and then again will fall, to let us in: but the
Sons of England, speakers of the English language were it nothing
more, will in all times have the ineradicable predisposition to trade
with England. Mycale was the _Pan-Ionian_, rendezvous of all the
Tribes of Ion, for old Greece; why should not London long continue the
_All-Saxon-home_, rendezvous of all the 'Children of the Harz-Rock,'
arriving, in select samples, from the Antipodes and elsewhere, by
steam and otherwise, to the 'season' here!--What a Future; wide as the
world, if we have the heart and heroism for it,--which, by Heaven's
blessing, we shall:
'Keep not standing fixed and rooted,
Briskly venture, briskly roam;
Head and hand, where'er thou foot it,
And stout heart are still at home.
In what land the sun does visit,
Brisk are we, whate'er betide:
To give space for wandering is it
That the world was made so wide.'[28]
Fourteen hundred years ago, it was by a considerable 'Emigration
Service,' never doubt it, by much enlistment, discussion and
apparatus, that we ourselves arrived in this remarkable Island,--and
got into our present difficulties among others!
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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