Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne: Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of WorkRuskin, John
Philosophy
Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne: Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work
Ruskin, John
Social sciences; Working class -- Great Britain
155. Without depending anywise upon nomenclature, yet holding it
important as a sign and record of the meanings of things, I may tell
you further that I should call the elected supreme judges, "Princes";
the hereditary judges, "Lords"; and the officers of public guidance,
"Dukes"; and that the social rank of these persons would be very
closely correspondent to that implied by such titles under our present
constitution; only much more real and useful. And in conclusion of
this letter, I will but add, that if you, or other readers, think it
idle of me to write or dream of such things; as if any of them were in
our power, or within possibility of any near realization, and above
all, vain to write of them to a workman at Sunderland: you are to
remember what I told you at the beginning, that I go on with this part
of my subject in some fulfilment of my long-conceived plan, too large
to receive at present any deliberate execution from my failing
strength; (being the body of the work to which 'Munera Pulveris' was
intended merely as an introduction;) and that I address it to you
because I know that the working men of England must, for some time,
be the only body to which we can look for resistance to the deadly
influence of moneyed power.
I intend, however, to write to you at this moment one more letter,
partly explanatory of minor details necessarily omitted in this, and
chiefly of the proper office of the soldier; and then I must delay the
completion of even this poor task until after the days have turned,
for I have quite other work to do in the brightness of the full-opened
spring.
156. P.S.--As I have used somewhat strong language, both here and
elsewhere, of the equivocations of the economists on the subject of
rent, I had better refer you to one characteristic example. You will
find in paragraph 5th and 6th of Book II., chap. 2, of Mr. Mill's
'Principles,' that the right to tenure of land is based, by his
admission, only on the proprietor's being its improver.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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