The Galaxy, April, 1877 Part 10

That Arcadian simplicity worked for a while, but inevitably the magic of cheap labor made itself felt--it was potent--it came, it saw, it conquered. And now the best information I have convinces me that the squalor, filth, recklessness, and happiness are nearly or quite equal to what they are in the n.o.ble cities of Manchester and Glasgow in England. Should Mr. Trollope revisit those scenes of his youth, he would be as much delighted as any Englishman could permit himself to be with anything outside his "Merrie England" at the delectable advances made there.

He would find labor cheap and cotton cheap--as cheap as they are in his beloved Manchester. He would find, as in his beloved Manchester, that they made more than they could sell; which is the secret of cheapness.

He would find that in that small elysium, in the year 1874, they made 135,000,000 yards of cotton cloth, which gospel of cotton they were then spreading abroad over all the earth, sending some of it to his beloved Manchester. He would learn also that there was invested there some $20,000,000 of good money of the realm, a large proportion of which paid no dividends; which also is an excellent method of securing cheapness. He would find all "narrow-minded regulations" quite done away with, and the full liberty of the subject enjoyed by all; that people staid "out nights" according to their own sweet wills; that men slept when they pleased and where they pleased, and with whom they pleased--women too for that matter; and that life was as free and pleasant as his good English heart could wish. He would find that the old-fashioned, narrow-minded New England stock had disappeared--not being cheap enough--and their places were fully supplied with a delightful conglomeration of gentlemen and ladies who had fled from poor Ireland, from the Azores, from Germany, from pastoral Acadie; and here and there he would note the pigtail of the frugal Chinese, the _avant courier of a better time coming_.

Thus he would find that Lowell, having rid herself of narrow-minded notions, having followed reverently in the footsteps of his ill.u.s.trious Manchester, was _a success indeed_.

And _Lynn_ too. She discovered thirty years ago the surprising swiftness of "teams," whereby six or eight men working in partnership, each one doing only one thing, say one a welt, and another a bottom, and another the eyelets, etc., could put a shoe through in one-eighth the time of the old "one-man" way. Millions of shoes were made, and shoes were cheap. Much money flowed in, and life was lovely at Lynn.

But Paradise pales if too long continued. The sewing-machines came, and McKaye was a G.o.d--for the master. One man with his machine could do the work of twenty or forty men in the teams. Shoes were now amazingly cheap. The Crispins wept, the master laughed, and the making of shoes went merrily on. And what became of the Crispins? They struck! and then--they disappeared, vanished, went too "where the woodbine twineth." They too were not wanted. Let them get themselves out of the way! the Chinese are coming!

They got much consolation from a certain set of preachers, who a.s.sured them it was all right--"Laws of trade, you know," "cheap shoes good for the ma.s.ses," "water will find its level," "the ma.s.ses in Africa will now be able to wear shoes," "the best government is _no_ government,"

"all one great brotherhood," "every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost."

Paradise was just beyond their noses, and it lay just here: "When things get very cheap every man will only work three hours a day. All men can play the rest of the time, or they can cultivate their _minds_!" "Beautiful! Beautiful! Hosannah to the highest!" was what every disbanded Crispin ought to have said; but, foolish man as he was, he kept saying, "My _body_ is hungry, and I have no work, and I will steal some food--or become a broker! You had better look out."

But luckily the Southern war came, and it made places for a good many men, and the "Government" (not us men and women)--the Government paid _the bills_, and so we were tided over. And now we have got the bills, and we have got cheap labor too! And we are as near to "no government"

as any people ever was except wild Indians; and that we know--for the doctrinaires say so--is Paradise. If it is not that, what in Heaven's name is it?

There was once a notion that the men who had knowledge, and experience, and strength, should think for and act for those who had not; in short, that those who were strong should protect and care for the weak. The father in some countries--not all--yet does pursue this plan; he is head and master of his household, and is expected to know how to act and what to do better than his boys and girls.

We have exploded that idea. Under this "best government upon which the sun ever shone," we have made discoveries. We find that children know what _they_ want better than their fathers; that women are really stronger than men, have larger brains, more sense, more heart, and more purity; and that when women and children both vote (mistress Biddy too) the world will go right--for they--the pure, the honest--_will_ "holler out gee!"

This old paternal or family government was a _despotism_, tempered with love, to be sure, but a despotism not to be tolerated in an enlightened age. Shovel it out, shovel it out!

It is a sad fact that children now, while wiser and purer than their fathers, are not physically quite so strong. But it is found that the pistol puts the holders upon a _perfect equality_, and that is the thing to be aimed at. The redress of the weak is therefore in the pistol, which I expect to see in every child's pocket soon. The tyrant man will then be degraded to his place. With women voting, and children holding pistols, men and fathers will be pulled down from the pedestal they have usurped so long.

We know that women have more virtue than men (?), and that children have more purity, and therefore, knowing well the "good, the true, and the beautiful," they must and shall govern the land. They shall be tyrannized no longer.

And so, as New England has cut into old England, and has set her own machinery and steam to work making many things cheaper than old England can make them, and bids fair to starve out some of her garrisons of workers, just in the same way have Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati, and Chicago taken it into their heads to set their machinery and steam to work; and now torrents of hats, and shoes, and woollens, and cottons, and clothing, and furniture, and stoves, and pots are pouring out of those nests of industry, so that even they are beginning to cry out, "Why don't you buy what we want to sell, and thus make _us_ rich?"

If, then, we in New England refuse to buy--refuse to buy at profitable prices the productions of old England--what does England propose to do with her millions of non-food-producing workmen? She demands free trade; says we are fools for not opening our ports and accepting with effusion the blessings of cheap goods she would so willingly send us?

She does not quite like to open _our_ ports, as she did those of China, nor does she incline at present to carry into France the civilizing influences of her cheap looms at the point of the bayonet. _She_ must answer the question, not I.

And in New England--if that "West," with its fertile fields and its surplus food, will go to making cheap shoes and cheap cotton, and will not see how much happier she would be if she would only make corn and pork and swap them with New England for shoes and cotton--what will New England, what will Ma.s.sachusetts do with her 507,034 workers who do not produce their own food? This is rather a vital question to those men and women who have no food. It is rather vital too to the capital invested in mills and machines in Lowell and elsewhere.

I come back now to my first proposition for the cure of the ills of life--_cheap labor_.

If trade be the true G.o.d, let us worship him; if to buy cheap and sell dear be the true gospel, let us extend that; if to convert men and women into tenders to machines be really the perfection of human nature, let us import the wild African and the heathen Chinee rapidly, largely, for nothing can be cheaper than they. Let us get ready our ships; let us open the ports of Dahomey, and Congo, and Canton, and Shanghai; let us exchange whiskey and tobacco for able-bodied men and women; let us fill this land with the black men and the copper men; let us perfect our civilization, for those men and those women can live cheap and work cheap; and if _white_ men and _white_ women do go to the wall--why should they not?

Gentle reader, you ask what is the _moral_?

I reply, Does not our civilization demand _cheap cotton_ and not great _men and women_? Clearly it does.

Does it not demand free _pauper immigration_? Clearly it does.

Does it not demand cheap _Chinese immigration_? Clearly it does.

Does it not demand free _pauper_ and free _Chinese voting_? Clearly it does.

Does it not demand that "Trade" shall be G.o.d, and the _laws of supply and demand_ shall rule? Clearly it does.

Does it not call this "progress"? Clearly it does.

And is not all this leading us directly to--_Heaven_ or to _h.e.l.l_?

Clearly they are.

And you, gentle reader, can decide which.

CHARLES WYLLY ELLIOTT.

THE TWO WORLDS.

Two mighty silences, two worlds unseen Over against each other lie: For ever boundlessly apart have been, For ever nigh.

In one is G.o.d Himself, and angels bright Do congregate, and spirits fair; And, lost in depths of mystic light, Our Dead dwell there.

All things that cannot fade, nor fall, nor die, Voices beloved, and precious things foregone, Float up and up, and in that silence high, With G.o.d grow one.

No barren silence, nay, but such as over Lips that we love its spell may fling, Where tender words like nested swallows hover, Ere they take wing.

Sometimes from that far land there comes a breeze, Soft airs surprise us on our way, As dew-drops from above; then on our knees We fall and pray.

And oft in some low crimson coast of cloud We deem we see its far-off strand: Our hearts, like shipwrecked sailors, cry aloud, "The Land! the Land!"

And side by side that other world unknown, Drenched in unbroken silence lies, World of ourselves, where each one lives alone, And lonely dies.

With our unuttered griefs, our joys untold, Our mult.i.tudinous thoughts swift throng, We dwell; one silence them and us doth fold All our life long.

Out from those depths there comes a cry of pain.

Ah, pitifully, Lord, it calls, "Behold the sorrows of our hearts!" and then-- A silence falls.

Nought but the narrow strip doth lie between Of sounding surf that men call life; Yet none can pa.s.s between those worlds unseen, And end the strife.

Die down, die down, O thou tormented sea!

Suffer my silent world to fill With voices from that land which cry to me, "We love thee still."

In vain: I hear them not! but o'er my loss Comes an apocalyptic voice, "There shall be no more sea, and thou canst cross."

Rejoice! rejoice!

ELICE HOPKINS.

SISTER ST. LUKE.