A DREAM OF ENGLAND

§ 1

My body lay asleep. My Spirit was free! Unconscious cerebration led it where it willed. Free as a bird, my winged soul made its way with no impediment. Without ears I heard, without eyes I saw, without hands I touched, without restraint I observed. My Spirit created images—it was an absolute monarch! Nothing denied its progress, no walls forbid entry, and nothing clouded its vision. More real, not less, than before, was every scene presented in the journeys of my Spirit. Is this real Life? Is this unreality Reality? It seemed so to be. Innumerable impressions on a long life become facts. The dream of sixty years was being realised every moment. What I saw and touched was tangible. Nothing was vague. It was a lifetime concentrated into a moment. “A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday, seeing they pass as a thief in the night.” Time was obliterated. Each of my senses was acute. I enjoyed beauty with a vivacity I had only dreamed of, the scent of flowers as I had not known before. I loathed the stenches of man’s making, for there was pain as well as pleasure to my acute sensibilities; in this state the Spirit is in a kind of Purgatory, half in, half out, of the world! half in Heaven, a bit in Hell. Dante tells it all. Virgil, Homer and Milton sang of it; the Golden Age lived it. Mankind has longed for it. To satisfy the longing man has created an Ideal existence the other side of the Grave. Not satisfied with that which is uncertain, we desire the Ideal life here, and as my Spirit gathers intimacy with what I see, hear and feel, the Ideal is dawning! “There is more in dreams than we wot of.” How can we tell that Truth is not the master of dreamland? “Hypnos” and “Somnos” may be brothers who conduct us into a land of accomplishment. Are they prophets? I hope so, when they lead where they lead me. Maybe such a dream as mine may come to be an abiding reality; that is why I tell it? England would be better and happier if it did. If there were no such place as Utopia, should we want to get there?

The money-grabbers have theirs, an unlimited supply of gold; the sensualists theirs, unlimited, unrestrained sensuality; the realist his, and what a tiresome place it would be; the idealist seeks his. Utopia is a real place, not in the clouds, but here, somewhere, if we choose to recognise it. If it were not so, the soul, created before the body, would not seek it. When we give a party we do so to please our friends, and doing so to gratify ourselves. The Idealist casts the seeds of live ideas. He knows they will fall on sterile as well as productive soil. The Idealist is an optimist. Having tested his ideal, probably through suffering, he believes in its efficacy. May be he believes in its general acceptance finally, because he is confident of the ultimate conquest of “the best!”

§ 2

Now to my dream! A moment I hovered over my sleeping body: I left it to travel on the wings of my soul. In front of me is a City. A part of it—the most elevated—is enclosed by a high wall, pierced for eight gates, closed at night. Its plan is octagonal. Within it there rise high buildings and towers. They are constructed of stone and brick, mostly of stone, for the region is volcanic. The slopes of the hill descending to the undulating ground are richly furnished with fruit trees, and ample vegetable gardens. It is spring time! Rich is the blossom whose scent the sweet pure air brings to me. The air is as clear as crystal. As I hovered over the enclosed part of the City, I heard a hum, pleasant to the ear as that of bees; it proceeded from within the stately buildings. Yes! It was machinery, complex and wonderful. How is it that those vast wheels, those intricate valves and long straps spreading as spider’s web, are moved, and so silently? Science has discovered how to convert noise to silence. Science had been practical, she had set herself a problem, and she had solved it! What appeared to be inevitable had been conquered.

But how is generated the power to propel this gigantic movement—and silently? Science had discovered how to collect and use electric currents, whose power is greater than steam, to move, in perfect rhythmical order, the heaviest, most complicated machinery. I searched for, but found no ash-heaps. How can this be? Science had discovered how to separate heat-giving properties of all fuel from the waste. Where is the smoke? There was none! What, then, are those noble towers for? Partly for ventilation, partly as store rooms. Science had said: “It is time I set to work to use the forces of Nature with discretion. I have discovered many useful things, but, being in too great a hurry, have made much havoc with them; I have destroyed much that was lovely in the world in my haste to provide ‘facilities.’ I have been very clever and very stupid. It is time I made a new departure. I must no longer be a nuisance. I must set to, to order my going, that in my track I create blessings, not curses. I see it now. It is in my power, if I exert it, to render unpleasant things pleasant. In my mad zeal for discovery, I forgot adaptation. I forgot that it lay in my genius to use it unharmfully. Now I set to work and try to make the world pleasant again, much as it was before I became too proud, too inconsiderate and dominating.

Alone I cannot do this! I have been too long separated from Art, too closely wedded to utility, which, though I do not divorce, I make obedient. Indeed, I rather scorned Art, and ridiculed those who stood in the way of my reckless march! I know now that I am responsible in a measure for the soul of Man, as well as the use of nature’s forces. ‘Only I matter’ has been my motto. I take Art to me, which, more than all else, presents the Soul of Man, and say we must be sisters, not antagonists. That I have brought evil into dominion I now know. From me, have been born hideous means to destroy life, property, and the gentler happiness of mankind. Foul gases to suffocate, explosives to be a curse to humanity to facilitate destruction in War-time. I have been a kind of earthquake, indiscriminating and cruel! I have destroyed more than preserved! What an odd creature I am!! I make wounds, then I heal them. I mangle bodies, and set them together again. With one hand I cut the world to pieces, with the other heal the wounds I’ve made. I have torn out eyes and replaced them as well as I could, with blind ones. Queer creature that I am. In making artificial light, I hid the sun. I subverted the natural order by turning day into night and night into day. I invented all kinds of implements for agriculture while I was killing vegetable life. I have been unguided by Art, yet I am entirely artificial! It is true that man has used me foolishly. He would have me to be Peace Maker and War Lord. He has abused my genius because he fancied that I only could satisfy his material ambitions and bring him wealth. What I made for his service he has used for murder and suicide! It is plain to me now! The blinkers are off and I see the right way.”

I listened while Science spoke, and gathered that she had become wise! Will men grow wiser with her? What I see here seems to promise it! I went on with my invisible peregrinations. The people of the City have not their homes where their daily labour is; after that is finished they go to their homes below the gardens, which entirely encircle the acropolis of Labour and the City. Hours for Labour are sufficient for all purposes not extreme. Eight hours do they labour, eight hours they sleep, eight hours for pastime and home industries. Home industries are many. Eight hours’ factory labour leave the men still fresh, because where they labour the air is pure; change of work is pleasant to them, be it cultivating their bit of the public gardens or in craftsmanship enjoyed in their homes, for it is becoming a habit to be craftsmen here, and to give out no work which can be performed at home; in this way the middle man, that raker-in of the gold of others’ labour, is mostly done away with. Work is not held to be a mark of slavery, but of Freedom. While the labourer is working for his commune, which gives him good wage, he is performing one duty; while he is working in his home or garden he is a home craftsman. And many and desirable are his productions: good, simple furniture, which only costs him the material, and gives him continual pleasure in the making. He who was an idler, or worse, is now an industrious artist in his long hours of recreation.

§ 3

There are pleasant places for refreshment, games, and the like, but, as far as I can see, they are not abused. Time is too fully occupied by duty and absorbing labour of craftsmanship to admit of drunkenness. I see none of that which was so killing a vice when men’s hours of leisure were poisoned by inertia. Now they do not want to drink; they are keen, not listless men. They are too busy to grumble, too happy to listen to agitators, who, if they began again to sow discontent, would be met by corporal punishment, so determined is this new race of workmen to be Free! What is the government under which this new City prospers? It is Home Rule! Each county governs itself! Imperial Parliament has no power to control their liberty. London is the seat of Imperial Parliament, which is represented by one member from each county, selected as a wise and educated man by the Communes which represent their inhabitants; but they cannot hold their office for more than five years. Imperial Parliament is confined to Foreign affairs of State, having in it a representative from each of our Colonies. Imperial Parliament, of which the King is Prime Minister, is composed of learned and efficient citizens who are Privy Councillors, not because they are rich men (for the party chest and the jobbery it caused is a thing of the past), but because they are wise and learned. It meets at stated times which are subject to emergency. The King and his closest Ministers have the power to call it together. London is subject to the same rule as the counties; but London is no longer the centralised authority—she rules herself, but as yet this huge monster is chaotic. Being heavily populated, although the population of it has largely decreased owing to the abolition of slums, and a larger proportion of it than hitherto being under cultivation, Greater London is broken up, into Boroughs, which have powers of local Government, carried on by better educated men than heretofore. Their councils, composed exactly as those of the Counties, are represented by reliable men who are above profiteering. Each important trade is represented by one representative; this rule prevents any trade from working its own interests to the damage of another. Lawyers are used for reference, but are not allowed to initiate. Lessons from the past have taught that the legal mind is a zig-zag puzzle. Imperial Parliament has done away with Free Trade, except with British Colonies, which pay no entrance fee to our coasts.

Each Commune guards itself and people from excessive taxation, and wisely, because heavy taxation is a clog in the wheel of production, for not unnaturally industry is averse to giving a large portion of the results of labour to bolster up the extravagance and want of foresight committed by Party Politicians who, after all, are, far more eager for the success of that miserable little idol, “Party,” than for the higher welfare of the people they are supposed to govern. Party Politics reflect the worst sides of Tory as well as Radical government. It is now accepted that excessive taxation is against the first principles of political economy. Care is taken that taxes shall be borne mostly by those who can best bear them. Trade is more taxed than Professions.

§ 4

Machinery of all kinds is taxed higher than the handicrafts, because it produces more swiftly, if less enduringly. Everything that tends to higher mental development is only nominally taxed. The Arts are not considered luxuries, but necessities; hence, instead of contributing to the purse of the country, they are recognised as contributing to its mental growth, its refinement, as well as strength, and are taxed as lightly as may be.

Unproductive land is taxed, but since much more of it is under cultivation than formerly, and Industrialism is no longer permitted to play the Juggernaut, since Agriculture and Arboriculture have been energetically pursued, waste land is an exception; even the least productive is used in some way or other for national benefit. A small voluntary army is kept in efficiency, but not extravagantly. It is supplied from training corps established in each county. The education of every boy includes military drill; in that way classes mix, under the same discipline. This method induces good-fellowship and promotes education; because the better educated, teach the less fortunate, by example. It is found to be a great factor in promoting peace, and conduces to good manners and courtesy. The boy scouts are in full swing.

Britain can provide almost all necessities of Life. Foreign goods, of whatever kind, are sufficiently taxed, but not so excessively as to prevent entrance. It has been found that unlimited free imports from foreign sources tended to limit local production; hence, labour suffered, and supervened. A habit in England had grown to pay for, rather than labour for, even the necessities of Life. It has been shown in the reconstruction, that if Britain and her Colonies cannot, inclusively, provide all, they can provide the greater part of the countries’ needs. The following out of this principle in practice has arrested the growth of discontent so prevalent a while ago.

§ 5

The great war provided proof that military discipline, which means obligation of the items of a system to work for the success of the whole, did not unfit men for peaceful labour, but rather the contrary; because a habit of self-control in combination strengthens the fibres of individual physical and mental activity. So far advanced is the system of units in combination under the flag, that at any moment mobilisation can be effected, and in a time of necessity practically the whole male portion of the nation can be under arms. Industrialism provides arms which in time of peace need not be overwhelmingly costly to taxpayers, because in a moment of emergency war material can be produced with almost miraculous rapidity. It is not the intention of those who are organising reconstruction to be caught napping again. The nation, as a whole, being more intelligently equipped than it was, sees ahead, and mistrusting politicians, it follows the lead of good sense and keener intellects than those who are under the spell of party politics possess.

But I am moving too quickly, a habit which the mind has when it is keen and full of ideas. Government is on the basis of Home Rule, with some of the restrictions as well as advantages of the old Saxon Heptarchy. Imperial Parliament holds no sway over the Communes, which are governed by a Mayor selected not on account of his wealth, but his wisdom. He is elected for three years, and by the voice of the Commune. His Council is representative of each necessary trade and profession, hence it is truly democratic. Men of the law are used as referees (but are not except as such) allowed to be active members, the legal mind being held to be limited, and narrow, by its training to delay, and dangerous by its sophistry.

Not more than one representative of each trade is permitted. This wise proviso has been accepted to prevent jobbery, for which the old Borough and Town Councils were renowned. Each representative, while his first duty is to look after the trade he represents, has a vote upon all subjects.

In order that the Council of the Commune shall be in a position to look after the interests of the entire community, what used to be called “country gentlemen” form a feature. All honest tradesmen are respected; dishonest ones and profiteers are held in no respect, but are considered aliens and unworthy of any responsible place in the State.

The House of Commons, as it was called, no longer exists. It was considered a clumsy assembly, and one out of touch with realities. It ceased to exist because the people became weary with too much talk, too many promises, and of muddle at every turn; so they ceased to vote for M.P.’s to sit at Westminster. It died quite a natural death, the country at large being scarcely aware of the moment of its demise which no one regrets. It has come to be borne into the minds of the honest democrat that too many laws framed by lawyers were every year passed, not one of which was sincerely intended to be applied, but were passed as sops to public opinion upon some more or less burning question of the moment. Imperial Parliament, which we have stated is under the presidency of the King, is composed of Privy Councillors selected from the County Communes as the wisest men of the moment, not necessarily rich, but trustworthy, and such as have proved to have no personal axes to grind. This implies that the King’s Councillors are men of learning and character, and are not likely to commit banalities in their dealing with foreign affairs, for which reason it is found desirable that they are travelled and not insular men, accustomed to meet foreigners and to speak their language, as well as to be conversant with their habits of thought and institutions.

§ 6

The Aristocracy of Learning takes a high place in the new democracy. We have seen that a party chest no longer exists, so men poor in purse, but rich in wisdom and understanding, if not called “Peers of the Realm,” have become so by their outstanding merits. Hereditary titles are the exception. The ancient titles and families go on, but it is an exception when they are added to. It is agreed that opportunists and place hunters were numerically increased by the facilities provided for the purchase of honours. In the new State no honours can be purchased, but they can be won! Money may make a prominent man, but not a great one. By making the King President of the Privy Councillors it was thought that the grave responsibility carried with it would strengthen the monarchy, and, holding on to the fine tradition of kingship, the country would benefit more than under repeated elections consequent upon a shifting Republic, meaning that stability is more likely to be reached under a Constitutional Monarch than under a vacillating Republic.

To sum up this portion of my dream. Centralisation is a thing of the past! Each county governs itself; and this plan has been thought to be wise because every county has its own idiosyncracy, its own needs, and its own powers of production, some Industrial, some Agricultural, but each one must, to be well governed, be represented by the most varied and highly trained minds. So each intellectual class is called upon to administer, which system prevents the commercial element from overriding the intellectual; hence a better balance is maintained than under the old system, which pushed into the background some of the best minds in the community, who, not being commercial, but taking another view, undoubtedly a higher one, were regarded as fanatics, their ideas being received with a shrug of the shoulders as a gesture of contemptuous pity.

But a wider education, hence better manners, has altered all this, and members of a class that held in contempt any intelligence applied other than to commerce have learnt that there are many sides to a nation’s greatness, none of which can be neglected without detriment to the whole. Besides the Mayor each Commune has its Minister of Public Health, who must be a capable authority not an amateur but an expert, who has under him a staff of officers ever on the watch for the good of the people. Next to him is the Minister for Agriculture. In industrial centres a Minister for Industrialism is at work, whose duty it is to see that all factories are sanitary, the workmen neither overcrowded or overworked. There is a protecting Minister of all rivers and lakes, into which no refuse from factories is permitted to drain. This law, if not obeyed, the factory can be immediately shut up. All coal smoke is forbidden, whether from factories or private houses. This law at first was resented, and until fines for its non-observance were heavy, was not obeyed. As soon as offenders found there was no way to avoid smoke, they applied science and now the evil never occurs. Electricity is used as energising power as well as for heat giving, all engines are driven by it, hence in the whole of England the scandal of a smoking chimney of any sort or kind is never presented.

“We are wiser now,” said a scientific man. “We know it to be not only folly to waste coal, but wrong to smirch the sky, hide the sun, and poison trees and vegetables with evil fumes—it can be prevented.” As I hovered over a part of England, not long ago blasted and blackened, where not a tree would grow, where the sun rarely penetrated through the evil clouds of unconsumed fuel, I wondered how it was we permitted that miserable state of things to go on. Now the country smiles under the sun; what was a desert is a garden, and what were pale, sad people are now sunburnt, merry and strong folk, as the British race was before the artificial tyrant Industrialism began to bleach them. The climate of the British Isles is not genial, we all know that, but the difference since coal smoke has ceased to darken the sun is so great as to provide another climate. Fogs there are and always will be in our Island, but smoke fogs are no more, hence an outdoor life is led which was impossible under the circumstances of the past. If the Communes had only effected that change they would have benefited the human race quite incalculably. Each Commune has its Minister of Education assisted by a staff of competent superintendents, who visit local schools and issue reports that are laid before a Council elected from chosen men of character and distinction. Each Commune has a Minister of Arts and Crafts, for music and the drama, including dancing, which I notice has become an art and an essential one, in the training of the young in good manners and graceful demeanour.

§ 7

The Mayor or Lord Mayor is elected from any class; preferably he is not a tradesman, but a man of wide learning and experience, hence he is not prejudiced in favour of any trade or profession. Lawyers are not eligible as Mayors, nor is it thought desirable that so dignified an office should be held by auctioneers or house agents. Indeed, the further the chief officer of the Commune is removed from temptations of class jobbery, the better is the service he renders to the community at large.

Prices of bread, meat and milk, the three absolute necessities, are regulated by the commune. They vary as little as possible, and being essential to the carrying on of life, fortunes are not made from their sale. The law at the root of this wise decision is the result of the profiteering of tradesmen during the late war, which became so serious a scandal that the people suffering from it endeavoured to make it impossible to be repeated.

The Council does its work in the capital of each county, but the smaller cities, townships and villages are permitted to act independently, as their several interests demand, so long as in the main features of policy they subscribe to the intention the Chief Council has in view. Once a year the heads of each country department meet in the capital and make their reports. The Conference lasts for one week, and is the occasion of a general holiday. The Conference is open to all comers, who, while it sits, have an opportunity of expressing their opinion upon questions of public interest. This system seems to be working well; the discontented can air their discontent and the contented their approval. It works well, because all discussion is open, none taking place under closed doors; that fact alone is conducive to confidence, by implying it and receiving it. Where there is honesty there is no need for secrecy. “Do nothing with closed doors,” said M. Aurelius. The whole system of government is in the best sense Socialistic, as opposed to Individualistic the mark of the Radical. “Every man out for himself” is a destructive policy. While this form of Socialism makes for order, it does not discourage individual enterprise. Opinions may be stated under a reasonable check by minds skilled in government, which, being open to new ideas as long as they are proved to promote public good, learn by listening.

§ 8

If occasion demands it, each Commune throughout the country is empowered to send its chief and such officers as he may select to meet together in conference in any one of the chief cities of Britain. This extreme measure would probably only apply in times of a national crisis, such as possible war or unruly conduct as strikes or other disorder imperilling the well-being of a peaceful and industrious majority. Everything that works for unanimity, but without weakness, seems to be becoming natural. The artificial conditions, most disastrous in their effect, of tyrannical Trades Unions, have given way under a return to Guilds. The painters, craftsmen of all descriptions, and the best class of tradesmen are under certain elastic laws appertaining to their profession or business. There are no such mischievous people as Strike Leaders; long ago they proved failures, and the workmen became aware of the damage they had done to their reputation and threw them over. They did so directly it was brought home to them that their leaders were really tyrants. The Guilds encourage good work, as the Trades Union leaders of the past encouraged bad; indeed, they have it in their powers to impose a fine on bad work, if continued to be issued after warning has been given or a fine paid. The guilds can expel an idle delinquent as an unworthy citizen. As far as one could learn, that punishment, so far, has had to be carried into effect very rarely, because workmen and craftsmen of all kinds now recognise the wisdom of being honest in their own interest, i.e., for good pay to give good work.

§ 9

Being better educated or, shall we say, more widely informed and more wisely led, craftsmen in every branch of industry are better citizens, regarding their work as a contribution valuable to the Commune and to the country at large. By degrees it is becoming a habit of mind to regard all labour as noble, if executed honourably. Every man, whatever his calling may be, takes a pride in doing it well. Indeed, as my spirit wandered from place to place watching and listening, I gathered that idleness and slackness, encouraged as they were by the Trades Unions, are now despised. For idle workmen of any sort or in any sphere of life, in trade, profession or craftsmanship, is not only a useless but mischievous item in the social system. The pride engendered by honest labour is the cause of healthy competition. Emulation is a quality which has grown to be a habit; emulation, not envy or jealousy, which are mean. When men grow wise they discard smallness. They do not begin every sentence with the first person singular, but with the second or first person plural; therefore, being inside and a part of the community, the co-worker is an essential link in the chain which binds an entire system and renders it strong.

This is the reverse of Radical tenet, which proclaiming the creed of the Jew Fagin, in his discourse with Noah Claypole, “Look after number one, my dear”—an admirable doctrine for thieves, but the reverse for the welfare of an honest community.

§ 10

Dreams are queer things, very illogical, and not restrained by formulæ. In dreams, Q.E.D. does not come in at all. The charm of a dream is that it is suggestive, not conclusive. It is like a kind of Inspiration: gaps have to be filled up; sequences are indefinite. All manner of odd situations jostle one another. An instant of time is as a thousand years. The ancients, in their wisdom, in their contemplative abstraction, may not have been far off the mark when they regarded dreams as omens, having the nucleus of some abstract truth. Swifter than any train or aeroplane can travel, as swiftly as a ray of light reaches the earth from the sun, the spirit, free of the body, moves in a dream. It can inhabit Mars awhile and be back in Piccadilly in less than a fraction of a minute divided into sixty pulsations. The spirit has to take no ticket to travel, to pay no price for a long journey. It has no aims, it only obeys impulse. There being no method in a dream removes it from actualities, which it only pictures. These being the chief characteristics of Dreamland, in the relation of a dream, which is automatic impression, a certain irregularity in the position of subjects to which it relates is not only permissible, but necessary to the picture it may be destined to paint. Having so far preserved a kind of sequence of ideas suggested as the teller of my dream, I obey the volatile journeys into all manner of crannies. No brain is so closely locked up that it can prevent the great inquisitor from entering. While they are free, dreams are tyrants over reason, to which they bear no relationship. The interpretation of a dream must be left to the listener of the tale it tells who can form whatever conclusion he pleases. The rationalist will probably only see folly; the mathematician, chaos; the unimaginative, nonsense. Probably the dreamer dreams in close relationship to his habit of mind. He may be an optimist at one moment a pessimist at another. He accentuates his likes and dislikes, hence through the relation of his dream he exposes himself, and gives himself over to every kind of criticism. To some he appears the reverse of veracious, to others a lunatic, but to a few he may appear in the nature of a prophet.

Having apologised to my readers, I propose now to allow my dream to lead me, as it most certainly will do, how and where it likes, to obey its impulses even though they are disconnected. To do otherwise would tend to muddle up dreams with realities, or such realities we see in waking hours. And now, feeling free, I can continue with the story in all its oddities of arrangement, because this is not a philosophical treatise, although it might be construed into one. It is not my business as a dream teller to reason, but to leave that to my readers.

In the pursuit of largeness of Vision, breadth of Faith, development of Charity, and strengthening of Hope, the new world formed in my dream recognises all religions, or rather their creeds, with their differences of approach towards a great mystery, and places them upon an equality of ministration. Church and State are separated. The Hebrew, Roman, Anglican, and Presbyterian Churches are, if not numerically equal, equally respected. The grand mystical tenets of the Hebrews, the loneliness of the Divine Spirit worshipped, its nearness as well as its aloofness from what it has created, its complete unchangeable supremacy associated with its antiquity, are respected and admired as sincere emotions of one prominent part in the mind of man. The grave simplicity of the Hebrew ritual is accepted as an expression of mysterious faith. Having travelled so far into man’s mind, it was arrested before any explanation of mysteries arrived to drag the incomprehensible into the region of logic. No longer despised, the Hebrew faith is as the Father of many children. Differing from it in detail, the Moslem faith is the elder child of pure Deism. Mahommed is to his followers what Moses is to the Hebrews and Jesus Christ to Christians. We, who have to govern so large a portion of the Moslem world, belong to a nation which of necessity must come into constant contact with a Faith which (having its defects, according to Western thought) is to the people who follow it the fountain of Wisdom and the well of Truth; a Faith, indeed, from which the most ardent Christian can learn many lessons of sobriety and reverence. God the all powerful is the unapproachable Spirit; only by prayer, praise and entire trust are we brought spiritually near to Him.

The Roman Catholic community of thought is, in a sense, nearer to Western life and ideals than the Hebrew or Moslem, but the element from which it sprang is the same. The One Supreme God, the Father of His creation, and the mystical spirit which contains all. Differences are only matters of words, they are additions which in no wise touch the root of the matter. God Almighty is still the root from which springs the Tree of Life and all its branches. Deus and Zeus are the same word. All the pagan gods emanate from the Divine centre, be it Olympus, Rome, or Jerusalem. The Roman Church saw fit to construe pagan mythology in a new vernacular. Its saints and holy men became the lesser gods, but no less or more were they, or are they, absolutely dependent upon the all powerful Deity, the final author of all, the dispenser of all, the father of all.

The Anglican Church is the child of the Roman and grandchild of pagan mythology, the great grandchild of the Hebrew Faith. The metal of which the chain is formed is gold forged by the Divine Spirit. Probably the break between the Anglican and Roman Church was a political, more than a religious, evolution. The English never liked submission to Rome. England has always been a friend to liberty, an enemy to tyranny, and long may it so remain, be it either religious or political.

Nonconformity, especially that branch we call “Presbyterian,” came from an attempt to simplify ritual, as far as possible, to reconstruct allegiance with primitive worshippers. The root of belief the reformers did not touch. The Deity remained pre-eminent. The new world, that of my dream, while admitting differences, recognises essential similarities. Hence all denominations are held equal—equal as regards the respect due to them, and equal in the intention which dominates differences of detail. Was it not Augustine who said: “There is no religion which has not something of the Spirit of God in it”? Sectarianism takes no part in the new world. I saw in my dream that the cathedrals and churches of England are open to all religions. To the Hebrews the altars there are as the ark presided over by the shining cherubims. To the Moslem as a symbol of the nearness of the Divine Being; to the Catholics as the symbol of self sacrifice; to the Presbyters as symbols of Divine Hope and assistance. In them the ancient Psalms of David are sung by Hebrews, whose incense carries prayers of the faithful up to their roofs and far above them again. Jesus Christ worshipped in the Synagogue—why should not the Hebrews worship in His Temples? I saw in my dream that the Roman Mass, in all its splendour of detail, its imagery, its exuberance of symbolism, is celebrated in the cathedrals and churches once reserved as Temples of Protestantism. The simpler ritual of the Anglicans is also reverently administered, and the almost entirely bald ritual of Presbyters finds its place within the historic walls of the churches of Liberal England.

The breadth of sympathy thus shown to all religious denominations my spirit saw had nothing but a good result. It is a form of departure which is catching; it engenders peace; it breaks up animosity; it extends mental outlook from small to great things. Without temporising differences it permits them, it places them as small matters by the side of big essentials, hence the charity to which a broad view of religion has given rise is spreading and seems to enter into the spirit of a new and larger life. Hence religion appears to me to coalesce with a spirit of fraternity which, obviously, is growing, not sentimentally, but as a social and indispensable fact.

The cathedrals and churches are adorned with pictures, not necessarily sectarian or of what are called religious subjects. Prominent features of the History of the World are presented, but I do not remember to have seen any pictures in which war is figured. The new world abominates war, and while it is in a measure prepared for such a foolish experiment as war is, it is not considered worthy of handing down by the Arts of Peace, which are and must be constructive.

It is recognised that while mankind is selfish, grasping and cruel, wars will occur. The ideal is, of course, general disarmament, but that is unlikely. Still, it is thought that the more widely and constantly the Arts of Peace are sown, and the greater interest taken in life, not as a dissipation, but as concentration of energy used on things that matter, the less likely war will intervene and shatter, for perhaps a century, all peaceful intellectual progress.

War may bring out fine qualities, but experience has told us, in a minority. War is brutalising to those engaged in it, even to the atmosphere near and far from its centre. War, when the lust for it has entered, degrades a people. Bloodshedding is a form of madness. When the spark is kindled, a flame soon grows, which is fanned by lunatics, and one fears, sometimes by adroit commercial schemers who see in devastation a chance to enrich their pockets. When once greed takes the place of contented energy, avarice, dishonesty and self-seeking enter and shatter national progress. Indeed, there is no end to the mischief war may encourage. The seeds of avarice are sown early in life. Victims to it become unconscious of the rapidity of its growth, its poison spreads indefinitely, and what is in reality vice is excused by the plausible word “business,” which, if laid bare to its root, means tripping up the neighbour, and, if possible, without being found out. It is because tradesmen behaved so ill during the period of their country’s danger that, the eyes of the people are now opened, they are watched, hedged in by honest men, that they shall have no opportunity in the new Commune to rob their fellow citizens of food again. In my dream, by listening and observing, I saw that all classes were bent upon the same conclusion, to attain much for all! This has led to a great reform in the education of the young in their tender and malleable years.

§ 11

The public schools are not only in name public; they are open to all without distinction of class. The peer’s son will sit on a school bench beside the peasant’s. The only difference being that the richer pay higher fees. All classes pay something for education; what is got for nothing no one values, but the education given is identical. Upon the whole it is desirable that all students live in their homes. Day scholars are encouraged more than boarders; and, as we shall presently see that home life is in every respect more refined than it was. Under the old system, “squalor” was more the rule than the exception; it is so no longer. Home life, if properly conducted, is dignified. Every home should be a miniature State, and it is becoming so here. Wealth is not necessary to make a worthy home; it is the atmosphere of industry, amity, and union there which constitute the best school in which to rear a good citizen. The enormous and unprecedented rise in wages, largely caused by the rapacity of tradesmen as well as Government waste of public money, has indirectly promoted industry (not industrialism). Even the better off folk do not send out work which can be done at home. Tradesmen have defeated themselves in a large measure. The best provided citizens are craftsmen, who can use their hands for any manual work, rough or fine. If a chair is broken, no “gentleman” will send it to be mended, he mends it himself.

Experience is fast teaching everybody that a day is long, not short, and that unlimited specialisation is neither good for soul or body, rich or poor. The close student of art or letters needs recreation. He finds it in the new order in manual work, in craftsmanship which detaches the mind from pursuits necessarily sedentary, and which, if continued for too many hours a day, are detrimental to health and vigour. In my wanderings I noticed that one of the chief changes in or differences from the old life is that every man, woman and child is at work, rich or poor. Hence games and sports of all kinds, while they take a rational place in life, are not now its main object. In the public schools every student has to learn some handicraft. I see the peasant boy sawing away at one end of a log, while the peer’s son is sawing at the other. It is recognised, of course, that equality of power is out of the question. Few are born to rule, but all can serve their country. Endowments are different in quantity and quality. There are fingers so made as to be bad instruments for performing delicate tasks, as there are minds incapable to lead men. A skilled craftsman—skilled, I mean, in the delicate handling of material—is one thing, the doing rougher work (quite as useful) is another, and more easily obtained. Young fellows soon find out what, and what not, they can accomplish. The outcome of this is energy extended, and if the professional tradesman or craftsman find himself boycotted, he has only to thank his greed and his overweening selfishness during hard times for now being hit with the same weapon he employed on his fellows. Not overmuch attention is given to BOOKS. The first principle initiated is “good citizenship,” honest dealing, and the carrying out of the ancient saying, “Whatsoever thou findest to do, do with thy might.”

§ 12

Business on shifty lines or vicious principles may bring a temporary fortune, but honest dealing will make good and useful members of society, who will last out the former, who, in all higher walks of life, are not seldom mental bankrupts. Music, especially concerted and vocal, forms a part of general education, and in like manner, drawing, but music takes a prior place. Like physical drill, music is useful in training concerted action. Obedience to a leader is a necessary discipline. Some silly people used to think the study of music enervating; the wise know it is otherwise.

But more on that subject when my spirit has travelled further and become more intimate with the great changes that are taking place in this young and wonderful new world. So far as I have travelled, watched and listened, I am certain that concerted action, mental and physical, is good—even necessary! Boys teach one another. The peer’s son can teach the peasant, the peasant the peer’s son. Mixing together of the classes in work as well as play makes for unity, cohesion and strength.

§ 13

A bird’s-eye view of the new world has been indicated. By this time who read what my dream relates so far will know that the principles which guide the new worlds are socialistic, that the establishment of Fraternity is the first object. Inequality is recognised. Equality is impossible. Liberty is subject to obedience. Tyranny under licence is certain, under good fellowship is impossible. The most dangerous of all tyranny is that which is disguised under the cloak of Freedom. Before any class can rule efficiently it must have learnt to obey. Bad leaders are worse than none at all.

My dream had hardly taken any shape when the eyes of my spirit were first awakened. There is a moment between sleep and waking that is neither one thing or another. At its start, my dream revealed an indefinite sketch. I must travel back and hover again over the new city, to see it in detail and work my silent invisible way among the new things being slowly revealed as my spiritual sense acquires power. I am in the new city again, and am full of keen watching.

§ 14

There is one railway station, but, unlike those the other world made, it is clean, orderly, dustless and smokeless. Electric power drives the trains, which in some subtle way are provided with noiseless wheels, which run as smoothly as on ice. When, in my dream, I first saw the railway station, I was sorry. My spirit had been hoping that the world would be content to travel slower. But when it gave no evidence of squalor in its neighbourhood or smoke in its vicinity, my spirit was quieted. Nevertheless, it has not been drawn thither again. When the new city was laid out, a boundary was fixed, and no extension is permitted within prescribed limits. One of the great curses of the old world was the inordinate size of cities. Impossible to govern well, certain to create squalor and be refuges for the idle and dissolute, they were intractable. First comes the open country, freely cultivated, then the city, then a highly cultivated garden of fruit and flowers on the gradual slope of the Acropolis, upon which stand the factories, simply and grandly designed, with no pretence of architecture. What look like broad chimney stacks, reminding one of the towers of some Italian city, are storehouses as well as shafts in which fans are constantly working to take pure air into the factories and workshops. No one but caretakers and watchmen lives on the Acropolis.

As we have seen, the City is surrounded by a wall. There are four entrance gates, which are closed at night, when no work is permitted by the Commune.

More and more interested my spirit became as it made its unseen journey. The houses of the city are erected upon the flat land, and entirely surround the Acropolis. They begin in something over a mile from the Acropolis walls. The circumference of the gardens is two to three miles. They provide a considerable portion of the fruit and vegetables for the city inhabitants. They are tended not only by special gardeners, but any capable citizen is welcome to work in them in spare time under certain restrictions. A beautiful walk indeed it is from the city up to the Acropolis, shaded in summer by luxury of growth (for there is sun now that the smoke fiend has been slain). It was midday, a bell rings, reminding me by its majestic tone of the “Vacca,” in Florence. No ear-distracting hooters are permitted or hellish shrieks of discordant whistles, which in the old factory towns were so nerve-racking. As the sound of the bell filled the air, out of the city came its crowd of workers to make their dinners in their homes. They are a healthy, happy-looking crew. Life shines her best light upon them. They are cared for; they are good citizens, content, honest, and industrious. If the climate is not the best, what is good of it is no longer spoiled. What has become of “strike leaders” and suchlike misleading and “out for themselves folk,” I did not hear for certain. But I did hear one man say to another, “We are well rid of them,” and upon another occasion, pointing to a pond, a man said, “That’s where we ducked him, he wasn’t straight.”

How solid and compact the city appeared, how sensible its houses, how clean and orderly. What a change from the old dreary rows of boxes called houses, slate roofed, almost windowless, more fit for pigs than human habitations. These being novel in construction, and with no pretence to be “architecture,” are quite interesting. It appears that the original soil has been dug out, probably a foot and a half of it, a solid mass of concrete run in, framed by four courses of damp-proof bricks; thus is the floor made and a foundation for walls established. Piers of concrete are erected, from which the roof springs. The ends of timbers are imbedded in these piers, which are thereby strengthened. The intervals between the timbers are filled with strong laths, well bedded in tenacious plaster. Upright posts are placed between the horizontal timbers, which prevent the longer ones from sagging and firmly bind together the intervals of lath and plaster. The roofs are timber covered with red tiles. The colour effect is very pleasing. The ground plan is oblong, formed of two cubes. To avoid monotony, the houses are grouped in four, six and two. Each house measures 40 feet in length and 20 feet in depth. What would be called the ground floor is open to the height of 7 feet. Here are kept household implements. The space serves also as a play-place for children, and in winter can be used by members of the household for skittles, bowls, and other pleasant games. Rising from the centre of the ground plan is a shaft showing at regular intervals pigeon-holes. These shafts contain heat generated in the neighbourhood by electricity. Instead of wasting energy upon the discovery of poison gas to slaughter fellow-beings, science has found means to collect and generate electricity as an agent not only for movement but for heating, and without the expenditure of coal. At intervals stand towers, which have a fine effect among the houses. Within them are the electrical generators.

The houses are composed of two floors, one forming the upward boundary of the ground floor, the other eight feet above that, forming the ceiling of the first floor and the floor of the upper chambers, which are immediately under the roof. To save space, the stairway to the upper chambers is in the form of a ladder with hand rails. The largest room is that occupied by the women, where are their looms and all other implements belonging to their home trades, which are several. The kitchen is a walled off space within the foundation level; from it, the upper floor is reached by a ladder and handrail. The entrance to the first floor is by a stairway parallel with the elevation.

§ 15

The furniture is of simple construction, home made, for, as we have seen, the householders take pleasure in craftsmanship. In the long winter evenings neighbours drop in, giving a helping hand to one another. It has been found to be far cheaper to make at home than to buy of profiteering tradesmen; it only means a little more industry, a good deal less drink, and a pleasure in making and creating innate in all creation, but which so-called civilisation has done much to crush. Since the prices demanded by labour became impossible, profiteering labour has been to a large extent boycotted. Now that economy has to be practised, working men as well as women have grown to be industrious. Each house is a little centre of industry, and great pleasure is evidently derived from following an instinct definite and surviving, that of creating and making all household implements at home. Since shops are rarer than they were, the home is a creating centre, a very home of industry. Hence the look of the people is content, it has something of proudness in its freedom of aspect. They have come into their rights by Industry, by Fraternity. Agitators who would renew disturbances are treated with contempt. The happiness created by productive labour has concentrated the people, given them health and manly independence, besides adding to their incomes. The unmanly vice of drunkenness is rare. When it is in evidence it is punished as an insult to the dignity of the citizen and a crime against the Commune. From its earliest years the child is taught that to be a good citizen is a virtue, and to live by labour a necessity. To give good work for good wage is held to be a virtue which, if proceeded with through life, makes a good man and woman. I was so interested in what my dream was revealing that I made more intimate observation. Upon the partition walls of the houses I noticed pleasant and quaint designs, childlike and barbaric, if you like, but gay, and evidently done by someone who wanted to express a pleasure in making nice shapes and bright colour.

§ 16

The sound of the loom working was music accompanied by singing as the women and maidens plied their home trades. Evidently the garments of these are home made—they look too “good” to be bought at high prices of profiteers. Kaleidoscopic coloured quilts such as I remember in my childhood made the beds look warm and snug, and curtains of bright tints gave a generous feeling of warmth where doors are not needed. By the way, heating is provided by the Commune at a nominal rate, not subject to variation. As far as I could see, gas is of the past; hence houses are cleaner than heretofore, and the air is not vitiated by the fumes of that abominable product. Factory labour is limited to seven hours. In summer it starts at 5 a.m., in winter at 7 a.m. In summer it is all over by 12 p.m., in winter by 2 p.m. The remainder of the days are free, to be enjoyed in garden cultivation or home labour, other pleasures, and games.

Now that workers are really leading lives in which they take a personal interest, and are regarded and regard themselves, not as slaves, but as kings over their own lives, gambling is rare, and distasteful sports such as dog fighting and prize fights and other depressing so-called sports are not in vogue. In their leisure the people are Artists, taking a pride in their homes and competing whose shall be the most attractive. As yet I had not travelled about sufficiently to know whence came the wood so much used in the new Commune, but presently I shall know. Extensive use of lime is accounted for—it is a local product. To avoid unnecessary expense and to encourage local labour, the neighbourhood provides material, for as little foreign material as possible is imported. Water is plentiful, a good river meanders in the valley not far from the city, there are pleasant meadows of fine grass that feeds a goodly number of cattle, whose milk is pure. Adulteration of milk is treated as a crime! Bad people who for profiteering purposes adulterate milk or bread are put to prison at once on conviction as criminals.

§ 17

Pollution of rivers, lakes or ponds is absolutely forbidden; hence there is a constant supply of fresh water fish, which forms an important feature in the food of the city. Rivers, lakes and ponds are stocked with fish and fry every year, and close times are respected. The sale of fresh water fish is the outcome of a recognised trade which is conducted by experts, and woe betide the poacher, or still more the factory owner, who steals or poisons them. Preserves for the private pleasure of fishermen or other sportsmen are not forbidden, but are out of fashion: Fraternity has overcome Egoism to a large extent. Inasmuch as honesty is regarded as a virtue and dishonesty a vice (not the case under Trades Unions) it has spread from large to smaller issues. A factory owner who polluted a river, besides being punished by the Commune for so doing, would be regarded a CAD by the public at large, and would find rough handling unpleasant. For a moment my attention is again called to education, for my spirit has been listening. Truthfulness, absolute and pure, is inculcated from tenderest years at home and at school. It is involved in the duty to the neighbour as to God, it is the foundation of Wisdom, Justice and Fraternity. Faith in the good faith of the neighbour has become a habit. To override, cheat or deceive a neighbour is an unmanly act. The Communes seek to make men, men who are responsible, not only to their own dignity, but to the Commune, and this is the first clause of the creed in which there are but two commands—Duty to the neighbour and to God, the one includes the other. Fringes to this simple creed there are no doubt, but those two clauses are essentials on which all addenda hangs. Besides teaching a craft, scholars are initiated into the works of the great English poets. Young people are taught to recite passages from Shakespeare, Milton and other great poets, and they are encouraged to act the part they recite, because, as we shall presently see, the Drama takes a prominent place in the mental development of the new Communes.

§ 18

Caligraphy is taught as an Art. It is pleasant to look over the pages of children’s writing, so different to the scrawls which were called writing a while ago. Drawing comes under the section of caligraphy, to which it belongs. Making nicely shaped lettering means drawing letters. A child who has learned to draw letters well will soon learn to copy other forms.

Dancing (not romping) but the good old English dancing, so graceful and dignified, is part of the curriculum of education. It engenders good manners, elegant deportment, and self-control, besides being an extremely beneficial exercise. There is no folk music more lovely than the old English, and it is being revived, that one knows, for familiar old songs are heard in the fields now almost as constantly as Italian folk songs are heard in Italy. The people have lost the stiff, morose manner they had; while they work they sing. Their health is better now that they are more in the open air, and being engaged in open air pursuits their spirits have gained in elasticity and freedom of expression. The invention of new tunes is encouraged; hence there is quite a little school of modern and simple folk song growing which is pleasant, uncomplicated, and melodious.

Before learning foreign tongues our own is better taught now. Dialects are not discouraged; indeed, the reverse, the dialect of a county is encouraged as an indisputable characteristic of the people. There is only one dialect that is hateful (Cockney), and every effort is being made to eradicate that. Our own splendid language is great in poetry, from Chaucer to Wordsworth; to teach it through the works of the poets is to get it at its best. In Italy, where the craftsman class is far more cultivated than it has been in England, her great poets are common property; one hears Dante quoted constantly, as well as Tasso and minor poets. Under the new order in England there is reason to hope that ignorance of our great poets will give place to a general acquaintance with them. An individual who can speak and write his own language decently is not ill educated. If he has acquired facility in the language of his birthplace, diligence will soon give him some in foreign tongues. Those young people who show an aptitude for languages have the opportunity of qualifying in them, but the general run of labour and craftsmanship has no need of them. To fill the mind and memory with too many subjects at once is to dilute all. A sound knowledge of craftsmanship is what is wanted, and that is evidently being supplied by practice, a thousand times better system than by theory. Constant occupation, not excitements, create content. Excitements produce reaction. Occupation, varied in kind, steadies the character. It is with a view to that that the Communes do not overwork their workers. Energy is left to them after their hours of labour for which they are well paid, and to use it either physically or mentally, out of doors working in gardens or fields, or in their homes upon all such things which tend to make the home a happy and profitable little city in itself. A grumbler is voted a nuisance, an agitator an obstruction. Loiterers and loafers who would live on the earnings of honest citizens are held to be mean unproductive weeds for which the Communes have no use. For agitators there is no room now, the democratic howler at street corners or on common land finds no listeners; he is treated as a windbag since it has become known to the community at large that in the past he was a well-paid mischief-maker, who did far more harm than good to a cause which he pretended to advance.

§ 19

Dreams are vagarious, they are not restricted to times or seasons. Night appears during midday hours. The paradox is lively, often very humorous, but by no means ill fitting. From summer to winter is like the winking of an eyelid. In my dream the shades of a winter evening arrived. Factory working hours were over. My spirit was transported within the walls of one of the houses recently described. Well placed electric lights made the home as bright as day. A pleasant warm air gently circulated in the rooms from the pigeon-holes in the heating shafts. What we used to call England’s sun, the open fire, with all the smoke and dirt it made, its extravagance of fuel and insufficient warmth it provided, is no more. Since the abolition of the use of coal as a speed and warmth producer, sunshine in England is more than doubled and there is much less rain and mist; so, even in winter, the air is warmer, while it is clear and clear of particles which robbed us of light and rendered a clean house almost an impossibility in the barbarous past.

A family is busy. The head of it, a fine type of workman, clean and appropriately dressed as a workman should be, is occupied in making a table. His wife is busy at her loom. Two daughters are sewing together strips of strong woollen stuff which are to form by no means inelegant frocks. The stuff is dyed a pleasant blue. They are not using sewing machines, but ply the needle with patient hands; a strong thread well waxed is inevitable. Hand sewing being more durable than machine is, in the long run, more economical. Two sons are helping their father. In the corner of this bright sitting and working room, a table is laid for supper, covered by a spotless cloth. Pewter plates and jugs glisten with their bright polish. Large loaves of wholemeal look fat and desirable, while a big cheese fresh from a dairy is appetising and tempting. Hard by is a barrel of ale, real ale, made of hops and malt, wholesome and invigorating. No shams enter into its making; no poisonous chemicals destroy its purity. One or two neighbours have dropped in, and pleasant talk is in progress. When supper is finished work is suspended, some simple glees echo pleasantly from the walls, or a story is read aloud and commented upon. How thrifty it all looks, how homeful, how quietly gay is the atmosphere of this modestly provided household; what a contrast it presents to the old squalor, absence of order and often low dissipation of past times, and not so far off, which were called civilised and free, but were indeed barbarous and tyrannical.

The streets are quiet, most of the inhabitants are occupied in a manner similar in motive, if different in the matter of it. At an early hour, before midnight, the big bells of the Commune ring, when it is expected that the people will go to rest. Soon after the whole city is asleep, resting after a day of rich labour.

§ 20

It is midsummer again; my dream is again vagarious! I find my way to the Market Place. In its centre stands the Town Hall. Now that the smoke fiend is slain and outdoor life in cities is pleasant, markets, which fell into disuse owing to grasping profiteering tradesmen, who put what price they pleased upon indifferent goods, robbed honest folk right and left, did not like the restraint which markets put upon unreasonable profits. A weekly market is a wholesome and sensible institution. It fosters an influx of fresh goods, it tends to economy and providence, in that the people reckon up their weekly requirements and purchase them at a price which, if not absolutely uniform, varies little compared with the chaotic licence permitted in the less well regulated communities of the past. On every Monday the market opens early and continues through hours of daylight. Pretty well any useful article is found there, from reels of cotton, pots and pans, good woven stuffs, boots and shoes, groceries also, which under old conditions were the means of elaborate swindling, are to be bought in all their varieties. Market days bring into contact town and country folk; their existence is one of the chief causes of the departure of that expensive nuisance, the middleman. Markets discourage fluctuation in prices and encourage the sale of fresh, in place of stale goods. The weekly held market lessens weekly expenditure by something like half of what it was when tradesmen charged what they pleased for even stale goods. The middleman was a rascal, he was the “Muck Rake” in the Pilgrim’s Progress, he grabbed money earned by his betters, he was a kind of cuckoo laying eggs in other birds’ nests, he was sharp, not clever, and as unprincipled as constructively idle. As a social pest the middleman is now being dealt with by wiser economic measures. Probably the lessening in the numbers of small tradesmen has tended to speed agriculture. Unable to build up small fortunes by dishonest trade proceedings, the class which was pre-eminent in that respect is tending toward land labour, which, under the new conditions of life, is numerically larger than it was.

On market day all the classes meet. Owing to the high price demanded by domestic servants in the past, ladies of high rank are their own housekeepers. The most wealthy keep few servants; hence the young ladies of noble families are converted into economic housewives, and setting themselves to their task, do it well; being better educated now, whatever they set out to do they do with forethought. Thus they make good wives, daughters, and mothers, and are spending far less time than formerly upon idle amusements.

The foregoing is a sketch of what the weekly open market is doing for the community by bracing it up and giving it backbone, eradicating spineless self-indulgence and a mischievous system of profiteering.

The Town Hall is the most ample building outside the factories. It is the centre of INTELLECTUAL as well as COMMERCIAL life. While it belongs to the people it represents also a kind of University. No pedantic teaching goes on there, but lectures upon all branches of knowledge are delivered by chosen experts, to which the public are admitted free. These lectures are delivered voluntarily by good and cultivated citizens, whose pride it is to give their knowledge without fees. Chiefly these are delivered in the winter months, because most of the people’s spare time in summer is spent, not within, but outdoors. Socrates found wisdom in the Agora, and wise men of to-day search in the market for the same. Hence there is constant touch of intellectual as well as commercial interests between class and class. This is leading to a surprising unity of conception and practice. Within the walls of the Town Hall is the large concert room, where the best music is given, and as far as possible by local talent, which does not mean only of the cities, but coming out of the population of the county inclusive. This concentration gives a chance to local success which importation in the days of centralisation never achieved, when native talent was overlooked.

§ 21

There is also a picture gallery conducted under an analogous scheme. Italy has owed (in the past) everything great in its Art to Decentralisation. The variety, hence the interest, of the great schools of painting in Italy is due to the independent expression of emotion as the property of the race. In Italy, the art of Venice, of Rome, Florence, and Siena, to mention only many of the great schools of painting that flourished there, identified itself with the idiosyncracy of each community. Why should not the same apply to England? The man of Devonshire is as different in mental construction to the man of Yorkshire as the Florentine is from the Roman. Why then should not each express himself in the vernacular of his locality? Time will show that there is far more artistic talent in England than has been supposed. Give it a chance of having its say, and an admirable result is certain. Let us become something higher in the intellectual scale than a race of shopkeepers!

Town Councils, being here composed of a much more cultivated class than before, Commerce and Art are no longer antagonistic. On the contrary, they appear to be becoming indispensable to each other. The tradesmen no longer having matters all their own way, and being checked by the stronger minds encircling them, are taking their place, not as tyrannical class rulers, but as useful items in communal interests and progress. In my dream, I noticed that the walls of the public rooms in the Town Hall are not bare, or that the only so-called decoration on them has been restricted to whole-length portraits of weird Mayors, with an occasional bad picture of the reigning monarch. There is in progress a scheme of History pictures. The subjects for them are chosen by a committee of painters and literary men. So far as this scheme has developed, I saw the products of it; varied in merit they are, which goes without saying, but a certain sincerity of aim and approach seemed to distinguish them from the tiresome and commonplace; anyway, they express a good intention. There certainly is an absence of “academic prescription”; they are hopeful efforts. A variety is maintained, the reverse of monotonous, showing individuality of approach, which may in time lead to greater things.

A really intellectual life seems to be growing here, but not of hot-house breed only accessible to a few, but one which is slowly permeating the people, which I hold to be due to the commingling of all the classes produced by an increased desire to do more than fill pockets (too often by ill-gotten gold), but by a growing elevation of the plane of thought brought about by unity of purpose and rejection of class prejudice. Given that home life is ambitious of industry, municipal life is certain to follow suit. A great change must come from the bottom. It is no use to clear the surface of a pond of slime unless the base of it is clean and fresh. It is no use to cut the heads from weeds if the roots are left in the ground, or to achieve good fruit from a tree whose roots are unpruned. And surely the root of a great nation is represented by the industrious attitude taken by the people at large. That is the essential to a Democracy that is workable. A Democracy which is only one in name is an anomaly, and is quite certain to be ephemeral.

§ 22

In my dream I had heard talk that once, not far from the river, was a Benedictine Monastery, and attached to it an Abbey. Save for a few remains of its cloisters, its kitchen, and a portion of its great dining hall, the monastery is gone. But the Abbey remains, as we have seen. Although vulgarised to a certain extent by barbarians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it retains much of the simplicity and grandeur of the work of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Its nave now belongs to the people. It is there that the Hebrews and Moslems conduct their religious services. The chancel, its sanctuary and aisles are retained for Christian worship. In the nave, old mystery plays are reverently acted, and such noble old dramas as “Every Man” are produced. At Christmas, the incidents in the birth of Jesus Christ are acted, and many a primitive song of the shepherds is heard. These presentations keep that beautiful story vivid by bringing before the eyes of the people the mysterious events of 2,000 years ago. They form a tangible and visible link between those old days and these more complicated and less simple times.

A form of monasticism disconnected from hard and fast dogma is growing. Not ascetic, it is educational; in which it resembles the earlier forms of the old Benedictine orders. But as yet my spirit has only heard of this; presently it will be given access to its principles and working.

§ 23

It has been previously intimated that the Drama takes a prominent place in the intellectual and emotional substance of the people’s training, plus its delights. An open air theatre was proposed, but the conclusion arrived at was that the climate (although much bettered by the death of the smoke fiend) is too unstable to ensure success.

The chief theatre of the city is large, capable of holding a thousand people. It is not conducted on private enterprise, but by a council of the best local minds, which, while occupied in supplying the best, are wise enough not to dismiss pleasurable and light comedies so long as they are “clean.” Declamation, the first essential of the actor’s craft, is taught in every school. Dancing, which we have seen to be part of a liberal education, provides an elasticity of deportment and freedom of manner but not undisciplined, which goes far towards the creation of a good player. The plays of Shakespeare are prominent, but to their list are added many of the fine Elizabethan plays, Marlow’s and others. Modern drama, so long as it is wholesome, is readily admitted, while the old and so entirely English Pantomime and Extravaganza of other days have been revived, and very jolly they are and entirely in place at certain merrymaking seasons of the year. There is no priggishness in the management, only care is taken that no play is produced which is undesirable for the young to witness.

§ 24

Within the walls of the Town Hall is the School of Music, where instrumental and vocal music are taught, and where the elements of opera training can be learnt. The Town Hall is at once the seat of government, not only commercial but artistic. A great proportion of work done in it is voluntary, being conducted by men and women who have time and energy to spare, and is leading more and more to what has been called, the upper class taking part in general progress. Time gone by, and not so long, that class was idle as regards local affairs. Thus they got into the hands of ill-equipped tradesmen, who were out for their own advantages, and misconducted local affairs to a deplorable extent. I reiterate, that, being held in check, the more or less ignorant and selfish class no longer rides roughshod, but is held in a leash by better equipped citizens; and so there is hope for them to mend their manners, and in time to become useful members of Home Rule.

The theatre is not open all the year round, but only at times of festival, hence the pleasure and instruction it provides is always fresh.

§ 25

In my dream I became aware that the cinema, which had become an abuse and a positive mischief, is under strict regulations. It catered to the lowest taste and became a very dangerous implement. Now, being under strict control of the same committee which manages the Communal theatre, it has become free of vice, and is not only a pleasant but instructive institution, and a picture palace is by no means an undignified place in which to pass an hour. There is plenty of fun there, but clean fun, and plenty of exciting situations are presented, but, while humour and wit are present, whatever might tend to decadence is absent. Individualists, who regard with suspicion any form of legislation which in pompous terms they call “interference with the liberty of the subject,” will be up in arms at the restrictions applied by a wise Government, forgetting, or perhaps never having read, in Plato’s “Republic” that the wise philosopher would protect the community from degradation created by exploiters out for themselves at the expense of a moral tone essential to stability and real progress. These will call the care of the people, implied by restrictions, “grandfatherly government,” forgetting that an ignorant crowd has to be guided to abstention from any poison in their midst, which may in time kill the soul of a nation.

§ 26

It is the aim of the Commune to ally, as far as possible, agricultural and industrial pursuits. With a view to that, every house has a garden which the householder is expected to cultivate. Waste land is nowhere permitted within the city or its environs. I find as my spirit travels hither and thither that the “entirely leisured gentleman” hardly exists. If a man of means is not using his leisure, and, in some instances, all his time, for the public good, he is using it to be his own servant. I saw a man, called rich, putting in a pane of glass, adroitly manipulating the putty with the skill of an expert. Another I observed sawing up blocks of wood, another cutting down trees in his garden, another pruning fruit and rose trees, and in the country, not far distant from the city, another cultivated scholar ploughing a furrow on his estate. The great war taught these admirable habits, which profiteers now regret, because “the gentleman” prefers to mend his own belongings to paying a king’s ransom to a fellow who did it ill in obedience to his iniquitous leaders. Shortly, he prefers to do honest work for himself than to pay for dishonest.

Throughout the community, rich or poor delegate no manual labour which can be done at home. Every girl of every class is a good needlewoman and dressmaker. Every boy is trained to be a skilful carpenter and is not ashamed of sewing on his buttons or darning his socks. Industrious habits, habits of making use of odd moments in practical home work, enter into every sphere. The great war taught the wiser how much outdoor assistance could be dispensed with. The colossal rise in wage obliged even the well-to-do to learn to turn their hands to the simplest duties connected with home. In time this beneficial result will become automatic, and a far simpler as well as more dignified life is certain to result from it. Of scholars, artists, writers and musicians there is a goodly number, which is increasing, owing to less hurry and more concentration, the result of better physical conditions. Men of the highest attainments, who are following the professions, inspired by peace and moderate expenditure of money, keep their minds fresh by light labour on the land, which they prefer to SPORT; indeed, SPORT, once made a business, is rather despised. It is thought to be enervating, and an idle, unproductive way of “getting through time.” Mental vitality is increased by labour which became necessary to men of small means through the rise of wages and reckless increase of rates and taxes. It now seems to permeate the richest as well as the poorest classes, so men are becoming more dignified and self-helpful.

§ 27

Theoretical politics and party conventions are ruled out by strenuous practical occupations. Instead of being the last subject for action, useful citizenship is the first. Politics used to be abstractions put into phrases by doctrinaires. The text completed, its result was pigeon-holed, under the fallacy that the object was attained when, indeed, it had only been talked about. People are now united, hence can govern themselves. There is no need for sermons upon thrift and economy; they are practised. Politicians have been taught that their words formed easy back-doors for the exit of action. The people are interested now from top to bottom in deeds. Theories which do not lead to action represent waste of energy; energy displayed in every section of the community is in demand.

Some return to more primitive social conditions is evidently an invigorating process. An easy way of getting through life by facilities which militated against effort was unstiffening the back of the English character. Instead of saying to himself, “How much can I do myself?” the majority was saying, “How much can I delegate?” “We were on the look-out for a very beneficent fairy who would perform miracles, and so, instead of effort, we were trusting to ease. Now, we are sweeping our own floors instead of wasting our little savings upon paying for the doing of it. We were thinking that sweeping our houses clean was a tax upon time, an exhausting expenditure of physical energy. Experience is telling us the opposite.” “Mental energies are revived, even stimulated, by automatic industry which is a rest to them. While a man is sweeping his house or garden, he can think, and think well. He can organise his work.” These words I heard from the mouth of a scholar. I heard the same thought expressed by a skilled craftsman, differently, but analogous. “The lack of domestic servants is proving a blessing to us all,” I heard a woman say. “We did not know, under the old self-indulgent system, how long a day was, and what a lot of time we wasted. We had forgotten we had hands, strong muscles and vigorous aptitudes. We paid a high price for the neglect to which we had submitted our physical energies. We suffered from ‘boredom’ and other evils consequent upon indolence. Now, we do not ask ourselves how we shall dispose of the day. That question is answered before it is asked. We have our duties to perform to the Commune, as members of it, to our homes as sacred trusts as our palaces of pleasure as well as duty. We know what are our responsibilities. We accept and use them, in the city and home.” As my spirit grew in experience and closer observation, I noticed that in matters of dress or costume there was little difference between the classes. Constant changes of fashion created to supply the tradesmen when novelties were so constantly demanded from them, are out of date. The garments of the rich may be more elaborately adorned, be more sumptuous, more composed of silk than wool, but in their simple cut they are not differentiated from those of the poorer classes.

“We do not make them all at home,” I heard an elegantly attired lady of high rank say. “That would be unfair; because we can afford to give employment, expensive though it is. At the same time, quite half is made at home. Even in houses of the rich the peaceful sound of the loom prevails. Our daughters are all taught to use it, for who knows when they may be compelled to do so. It is wise to instruct the young in occupation which they may be called upon to use in darker times. Besides,” the lady added, “girls need quiescent employment to establish character. It is not that the arts are ceasing to flourish or the elegancies of mental cultivation are curtailed; it is only,” as the lady went on to say, “now that we are more busy we have more time. A girl can study a language while she works her loom, or another can read to her.” This led me to wonder if peripatetic teaching was usual? It is, for, in schools young people are encouraged while learning by heart, reciting or reading aloud, to personate, by action the drama or tale they are telling. This habit, no doubt, has arisen from the high position the drama and all that belongs to histrionic training takes in the new life. Artists and such who are called by their genius to create are not a set apart, nor are they regarded any longer as harmless lunatics. Being, by the nature of their calling constructors, they are expected to help in the affairs of the Commune, not only as specialities but as intelligences well adapted to other forms of construction than those demanded from their own work. The mind of an artist of any kind, in letters, graphic or plastic arts, or music, is a well tuned instrument. It must be so, or success is out of the question.

§ 28

Being imaginative, a follower of any of the Arts sees miles ahead of the less endowed crowd. Besides being a useful person in that respect, it is good for his temperament to be called away from a groove wherein, if he allows himself to remain, he becomes a machine, and his art suffers. The strongest faculty for creation cannot be used for many hours daily, it cannot keep up the tension of creation as a machine. A mind demands repose by change of work, which can be obtained in serving upon councils where special aptitudes of foresight and imagination are useful. Thus, coming into contact with other minds, the individual is broadened. He is not an ascetic except in his study; outside of that he is a man of the world and capable of dealing with what are called “plain men,” which does not always mean wise ones. It is related of an Italian philosopher that he spent his days with the peasants on his little estate, the evenings in his study. Not a bad division of the day Socrates would have told us. In the Agora of Athens, wise men found both folly and wisdom: folly to refute, wisdom to encourage. Plato’s Republic is an effort to show that a democracy, under restraint, is the fairest form of government. First, the conception of the scheme founded upon the greatest good for the greatest number, to be followed by activity in its promotion. Experience is gained as activity proceeds, discussion follows experience. The bud is before the blossom. The fruit is selected; what is rotten is thrown away. It is futile to discuss a question, and tear it into rags before it has been set in motion. There is a point in progress when not to start the top spinning is folly. The top, when once started, must be whipped continually. It stops spinning as soon as the strokes of the whip subside. The great fault of the late administration was the policy of “Wait and see.” A blind man may wait; doing so will not help him to see! To imagine that committees, based only on theories, have settled all the pros and cons, is to put the cart before the horse. Committees can do no more than propose such and such starting points for action. The rest must be left to the executive. Too often, no action follows the sittings of an elaborate scheme.

§ 29

To delay action is as ineffectual as to hurry it. The great war taught that the complete preparation of Germany failed of success because the moral element at the bottom of extreme diligence and multifarious ingenuity was rotten. The Allies were unprepared, England most so of all (notwithstanding some historians). England was not prepared for the great struggle, but she and her Allies had justice on their side, hence they won. After the war reconstruction should have started at once, which means that abuses which the war has brought into prominence should have been stopped or England would suffer permanently. It appears that politicians narrow and personal in their ambition were unable to effect the change. They delayed action even at moments of serious danger, lest their party should suffer defeat. Now, no one cares twopence about “Party,” the question before Democracy is, What is to be done in spite of Party Government? A democracy, to be enduring, must govern itself. No party must be in the ascendant, except the one which is in combination with all parties, e.g., the unity not the equality, of classes. The Agora was a place in disorder, where every man’s hand was against his neighbour. The crowd was led by unwise agitators. Ignorance and unwisdom are nearly related. We were tired to death of theories, of Government promises, of its failure to keep them, of leaders who were broken reeds, who, under pretence of giving Freedom exercised Tyranny. So we listened to wiser men than they, we resolved no longer to be ignorant, and becoming convinced that, as ignorant, we are not fitted to take part in Government, we would pull ourselves together and once more be men and work as good citizens.

These latter words and the statements which precede them formed the substance of a lecture delivered in the Town Hall by a factory worker this very evening. And what a contrast in tone it exhibits to that truculent one which disfigured whatever hidden justice there might have been in similar and dissimilar orations emanating from the same source. This one was as wise as the other was foolish. Like Socrates, we may now go to the Agora and find wisdom.

“Plato’s Republic aimed at completeness in Theory and discipline in Action. The New Democracy aims at making itself aristocratic in practice. It aims to promote activity in every corner and enterprise of life. We do not pretend that our class is the only one necessary to welfare. It was ignorance that in past times made us think that; bad guidance as well. We recognise ourselves to be branches of the great Tree of Life, whose roots are embedded in the soil of Truth. We recognise ourselves to be as waves in a great stream progressing, meandering, ever moving on from its source to the sea. We recognise the sea to be as a deep scheme which nature has provided, subject to storm, stress, and calm; we bring to its salt waters invigorating drops of freshness from the hills and collected in the plains. We are not at work alone, now, whatever our work be. We are brothers in a great family, not jealous egoists. Time was when we thought of little else than money. We thought that the educated, the refined and learned class was made up of enemies who would make us slaves. We see we were wrong. They are our real friends. Our enemies they are who we thought were our friends, we see that now. Our friends will give us a real democracy, in which we may have a voice if we please. The others would give us a sham one, and rule not only our theories but our actions and with a tyranny as ruthless and obstructive to progress as any autocracy.”

From the Agora wise words come now, from which all can learn. The people were becoming corrupted, they have been too wise to become corrupt. I think that most of us who have given ourselves the trouble to think knew that good leadership was what was wanted. First convincing, then leading, not looking back, but going to the root of things which were discordant and pruning them away, that is what was wanted.

They, of the past, wanted an “Ideal,” but they did not know it. Indeed, they scorned the idea of something that was like religious sectarian dogma. It was to them something hopeless and abstract, and quite outside “Life,” with which it had no touch. They thought high wages, wealth, indeed Mammon in any form, was the god they needed, and to that they made their way, growing more and more discontented, cynical, envious and suspicious. That was the matter with the people who had once been patterns to all Europe as honest workmen. England once simple, happy, industrious (not industrial) had become complicated, discontented, IDLE.

§ 30

In my peregrinations, which became more and more absorbing as my spirit grew more bold, I listened eagerly, not as an eavesdropper, but as one keen to learn. One evening, it was winter—I heard a discourse on “Happiness” by a craftsman, one of those living in the new houses I have visited. He was an old man who had lived in the dark, narrow dogs’ kennels of the dark, dirty city which is no more—the city of discontent, of bad government, of callousness. He spoke earnestly, but not with rhapsody. What he said was convincing from the cool sincerity of his diction and manner. “Happiness,” he said, “is rooted in the soil of LABOUR; in doing, not theorising. In being so occupied as to leave no time for a morbid outlook. The old saying, which I did not, and few seemed to understand, ‘Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do with thy might.’ We were taught not to do that. We were taught to work as little as possible, to receive much, and give almost nothing. Good workmen were under a ban. If some of us wished to do our utmost we were bullied and suspected. The industrious of us were pushed aside by the idle. Bad, dishonest workmen were applauded, they lived on the labour of their fellows. We were taught to make other nations labour for us—to sell bad goods for large prices.

“The standard of work was lowered. Cheap German goods were encouraged in the markets. A balance of our wages (a large one) went to support trades unions. The good workman grew poor, the bad grew rich. It was a state of things which took all the strength of an honest man to combat. Honest men grew rare and more rare. Dishonesty flourished. Leaders became fanatics. They were of our class. Ignorant of cause and effect we were, but they were noisy, they spoke platitudes, their arguments (if arguments they could be called) were founded upon catch words which sounded wise, but were foolish. They pretended to work for the great cause of Liberty and Equality. They did nothing of the kind. They feathered their nests from our labour and grew rich. They were well paid for the cause they preached. Liberty was dragged more and more into the far distance. We thought we had been slaves; we found we had been free. We found we were being mastered by unscrupulous men. We grew more and more suspicious, more and more hostile. We thought revolution would put things straight. Taught, that the Government was weak (which was not far wrong), that anarchy would give us what we wanted, that if we defied the Government, if we used German methods of might against right, we must win. To starve our country into submission was a method preached to us which, in our hearts, we were unwilling to believe. If we did not obey we were threatened. Those of us who would not stood the chance of starvation. The great railway strike of 1919, wicked as it was, because it very nearly approached attempted murder of innocent people, failed. That strike it was that opened our eyes. Surely we were being led on the wrong road! Faith in our leaders left us. They began to hedge. We saw that. Then we knew they were false and untrustworthy and we broke loose from them, which, having done, we began to find who were our friends. We came to the conclusion that we must get to work again and be honest once more. We did so, and on every side found helping hands. Hence the city of Liberty and Peace in which we live now. We know we were ignorant, we resolved to learn. We knew we had been idle and greedy. We knew the life we had led could not make good citizens or happy ones. We resolved to labour, to give up coarse excitements in leisure time.