It must be plain to us that any wholesale conversion and sudden awakening of the social conscience in Ruskin’s direction is not to be expected. Neither the intellectual conviction, nor the moral power to carry it out if formed, will be produced except in a few instances, here and there. The astonishment and delight with which we hear of the doings of exceptional employers show how rare they are. Every year, of recent years, has seemed darker and darker to some of us, in noting the treatment of public affairs by the wealthy, and the extent to which “Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind.” Nor is it possible to an employer, even if intellectually convinced and morally sound, to raise his wages much above the rate paid by his competitors, to avoid drawing from the business wherewithal to pay interest on capital, nor, generally, to improve quality, with or without improving price. We must fall back on legislation, on democratic conviction expressed by the organ of the national will, to bring about any portion of this scheme. We shall have to move all together, if we move at all. Take a comparative trifle, trifling compared to these large proposals--the weekly half-holiday. This can only be taken by all or none of a given trade in a given town; or take the Bank Holidays, popular benefits only to be won on the floor of the House of Commons, and which cost so much effort that a certain worthy banker has been canonized for his labours in obtaining St. Lubbock’s Day. Yet I am of Ruskin’s mind thus far--that any growth of an enlightened moral sentiment will most easily permeate the voting masses from individuals of the educated classes. Ruskin cherished no delusions about it. He says: “You need not think that even if you obtained a majority of representatives in the existing Parliament, you could immediately compel any system of business, broadly contrary to that now established by custom. If you could pass laws to-morrow, wholly favourable to yourselves, as you might think, because unfavourable to your masters, and to the upper classes of society, the only result would be that the riches of the country would at once leave it, and you would perish in riot and famine. Be assured that no great change for the better can ever be easily accomplished, or quickly; nor by impulsive ill-regulated effort, nor by bad men; nor even by good men, without much suffering.”[82] The scheme as a whole has never been systematized, nor worked out in detailed proposals. Still less has it been hinged on to our present social structure. It is a prophetic forecast, an inspiration of genius; it is a bow of glorious hue set in the clouds. When Ruskin wrote his economics the view was that by each man doing the best for himself the general good was automatically best advanced--an unseen hand behind human activities arranged the world’s welfare with nothing but individual selfishness to do it with.