The National Being: Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity Part 5

To be indifferent to the possibilities of human life, to ignore the problem, is to turn our back on heaven, which fashioned the spirit of man in its image. If the spirit of man has likeness to Deity, it means that if it manifests itself fully in the world, the world too becomes a shadowy likeness of the heavens, and our civilizations will make a harmony with the diviner spheres. We give still a service of lip belief to the Scriptures, yet active faith we have not. But they are true, yesterday, today, and for ever; and we have still the root of the matter in us, for when any one utters out of profound conviction his faith, there are always mult.i.tudes ready to respond. What really prevents an organic unity in Ireland is the economic individualism of our lives. The science of economics deals with the efforts of men to mine out of nature the food, minerals, and materials necessary to preserve life. There is nothing more certain than that where men work alone or only with the aid of their families they are little higher than the animals. When they tend to unite civilization begins. Then arise the towers, the temples, the cities, the achievements of the architect and engineer. The earth is tapped of its arcane energies, the very air yields to us its mysterious powers. We control the etheric waves and send the message of our deeds across the ocean. Yet in the midst of these vast external manifestations of power, mult.i.tudes of men and women live in squalor, isolated in their labors, living in the slums of cities; and this, if we examine it, comes about because the organization of human energies into a harmonious unity is not complete. There is really no lack of food, clothing, building material, land. Nature has provided bountifully for more myriads than we are likely to see peopling the earth. But people compete with each other and undersell each other, and those who labor are mulcted of their due, and instead of turning to the earth--the inexhaustible mother--and working unitedly for the common weal, they continue that fierce compet.i.tion and stultify each other's efforts and reduce each other to wretchedness. Humanity is a house divided against itself. Those who feel this to be true must gather round any movement which gives a hope for the future, which indicates a policy by which the organic unity of society in Ireland might be attained, and our people work harmoniously to make beauty and health prevail in our civilization. What each gives up to society in the making of a civilization he gets back a thousandfold. Now, the co-operative movement alone of all movements in Ireland has aspired to make an economic solidarity in Ireland. Whatever the aims of other movements may be--and many of them have high ideals and are necessary for the spiritual and intellectual development of our people--there is none of them which has for aim the unity of economic life. They all leave untouched this problem--how are we to organize society so that people will not be in conflict with each other, will not nullify each other's efforts, but all will conspire together for unity, so that none shall be forgotten or oppressed or left out of our brotherhood? The policy I put forward is incomplete and imperfect, and it must necessarily be so, being mainly the work of one mind, and to complete it and perfect it there must be many minds and many workers fired by the ideal. But I have indicated in some completeness how the rural population could be co-operatively organized, federated together, and how the urban population could be organized and brought into a harmony of economic purpose with the folk of the country. Within the limits of object these suggestions amount to a policy for the nation.

If the tragic condition of the world leaves us unstirred, if we draw no lessons from it, if there is no fiery stirring of will in Ireland to make it a better place to live in, then indeed we may lose hope for our country. Let us remember the most scornful condemnation in Scripture was not given to the evil but to the indifferent: "Because thou art neither hot nor cold I will spew thee out of my mouth." Let us not be the Laodiceans of Europe, listless and indifferent to human needs, swallowing our whisky and our porter, stupefying our souls, while our poor are sweated; letting the children of our cities die with more carelessness about life than the people of any other European country, with sectarian organization's crawling in secrecy like poisonous serpents through the undergrowth of swamps and forests. The co-operative movement is at least open and ideal in its aims and objects. It is national and not sectional. It seeks the triumph of no section but the unity of our people, where unity alone is possible. Our intransigents and extremists of all parties are not hurt or wounded by their adhesion to the co-operative ideal. We may make up our minds that the stubborn Irish temperament will never be overcome, but it may be won, and the movement which invites all parties and creeds into its ranks and gives them the largest opportunities of working together and understanding each other, gives also the largest hope of the gradual melting of old bitterness into a common tolerance where what is best essentially wins; for all true triumphs are triumphs not of force, but the conquest by a superior beauty of what is less beautiful. We should aim at a society where people will be at harmony in their economic life, will readily listen to different opinions from their own, will not turn sour faces on those who do not think as they do, but will, by reason and sympathy, comprehend each other and come at last, through sympathy and affection, to a balancing of their diversities, as in that mult.i.tudinous diversity, which is the universe, powers and dominions and elements are balanced, and are guided harmoniously by the Shepherd of the Ages.

THE END