A Chapter of British History.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 33, 20 October 1911, Page 7

A Chapter of British History.

ey DOGMATIST.

Current Events and the Materialist Conception.

Vμ APRIL AND m WORKER " SPECIAL. ' '

in. Th'ua did the development of the Capacity to produce merchandise force jfch© inland transpoai; problem to the Ijronfc, and they were well on the way 'p3 its solution with the utility of the locomotive established. The first railway proved up to expectations, especially from an investment point of yiew, as 10 per cent, dividends were paid or. shares that could" readily be feold at V.'Q per cent, premium. These thines becoming known, the effect upon the rnlixls of those who could turn their money into thoughts and then into oapifcal was seen in tlie pushing forward of railway construction with such energy that at one stage a quarter of a million persons were in the railway companies' employment. At the end of 22 years over £248,000,000 had been invested in such undertakings, showing ho*w profits were being anade out of the workers somewhere; 7336 miles -were open for traffic (including 708 miles in Ireland), and the aiumber of persons employed 103,000, showing that 150,000 had been discharged, and what large numbers of .working people were at the beck and call of the companies. The wonderful roads of antiquity had their origin in, the problems of Empire, and were constructed for military reasons. No roads, no maintenance pf authority over faraway provinces, no tribute, no Imperial Rome. Those of late-r days led from the mines, factories and were constructed for commercial reasons. An ordinary packhors© in a day could on an average only take 2cwt. 25 miles, over level country. Along proper roads, working in a two-wheel cart, it could take 20cwt -the- same distance; butj.as compared with this, by the locomotive on an iron road, rattling along with the speed of the wind, merchandise could be transported in a tensfch of the time at a fifth of the pos.t.. Now, for massed capital to seize on the work of locomotion and trsiisport in a district it needed only to push its railways and locomotives down into it. This it did and knocked the bread and butter out of the hands' of those who had been doing the work. tThe Coming of ths Railway. History is the succession of events, ffhe- coming of the railway was an event bo was the consequent disappearance fr.om the main roads of the common carriers and their horses, the stage coaches and their drivers, the mobs of cattle and sheep from all parts of the country, and those who drove,them to the town and city markets. Once the ■engine whistle was heard in a district at was good-bye coach-driver, good-by© traffic, and no more tooting of horns lexoept by the huntsman, and being a Cross-country rider, his would be very poor music for those who had sunk their money in turnpike roads. As the traffic on these fell off, so correspondingly did the tolls, and in certain psr*«ss these dwindled down to such an extent that there was scarcely enough collected to meet expenses. Then divi'cLonds disapj>eared altogether, and at .this stage, of course, their value as investments disappeared too, and investors, however much they may sneer at *" the Marxians, are still ...very Marxian in their ideas as to what is capital. Adversaries as the Marxians and capitalists' axe, yet they on both sides agree jfahat capital is tliat part of wealth ._- .aused in the production of further wealth for the profit of the owner of the wealth so used. When the wealth by being so used brings in regular returns,'these returns can be capitalised; .when there are no returns, there is aiothing left to capitalise, nothing to •sell, and as an asset —if it had been so regarded—it is written off as being no loaiigor capital. They could not be otherwise than in agreement over this because- both turn the thing itself into thoughts, the capitalist doing so as owner and the Marxian doing so as scientist. Thero are those who turn words into ■.thoughts, facts into ffceries aaid mysteries into facts; and aaot having familiarised their minds .with the things themselves, babble about them like infants —but this can Bta.nd over till we come to what I call ithe clerical pervert, but which some call tlio Socialist parson, and other .word - spinners, word - coiners, word - rhyn:urs, and intellectual take?'-" downs wlio "refuse to bow down before Marx," and act as if they think to change the course of history, not by shedding the light of science -abroad in the minds of the proletariat; ibut by throwing little pellets of abuse

at a money owner, fit a speaker or a writer hero and thei'c. They have no

time for Marx nor

for the explanation

of how the errors arise that appear in itho-capitalist daily- journals, no time to

assist the proletariat to intellectually outgrow these errors, because it is more in their line to take the money of the poor and give back frip-frap inBtcad of the Socialism itself which the poor part with their money in the Slopes of getting. .History cn37Q th?;n Narrative. As history should bo something more Sk> us than a narrative or * chronology, bo let bo careful that we are not imissing tho science of it. History has followed a course of its own. Event |ias succeeded event in obedience to those laws which determine how one thing shall be followed by another. Today is as ib is because of what was J|i existence and was don© yesterday, a&d tho effects of the new initiative of to-day will be in evidence to-morrow. ; As those who had got their living jjj&ong tho roads found their occupation |j«P/e, and those who owned a part, a

waggon, or a coach now found them left on their hands with the advent of the railways, what did they all turn into thoughts? What were the ideas in. their heads? "Ideas do not fall from heaven, and nothing comes to us in "a dream ; they arise in. given circumstances." —Labriola. As the traffic went off the roads, the keepers of the wayside inns, together with all others who had catered for the users of the roads, lost their trade. What would their minds be running upon? Their new outlook upon life would give them new views of it, but their wishes, hopes, fears, and notions of what ought and what ought not to be, their feelings and all that they had in mind, had no effect upon the course of history; but the course of history— the tilings in themselves, their shadows and reflections —were having all this effect upon them. Their village clergy-, man may have sympathised with them and prayed for them, but his prayers could not stop that railway. The running of that railway did not rest upon the distinctions between right and wrong, which he and his flock drew, neither does history rest .upon the distinctions between right and wrong, but upon the economic conditions of life in society and the changes in those condition's to the extent that with them increase or diminish the power exercised by one class in the community to take or withhold from the rest of those in it. And those who take or withhold are always blessed with such thoughts as are in lino with their interests. Toil Gates Disappear. Turnpikes came and went. When for want of tolls the gates fell into a state of decay they could n<St be shut against anybody, and when, the sums collected became' so small that there was no longer a living in the occupation for a one-armed, or one-legged man, or one with the weight of years upon him, the toll collector disappeared too. lam not forgetting that some were taken over by local government bodies before this stage arrived, thanks to the investors having local influence and got the roads off their hands early. Railway investors had no mercy on turnpike investors. Both had believed in the sacred rights of property in the means of production and transporta-. tion, and had worked to foster the growth of a sentiment and form a public opinion in the defence of a man's right to do what he liked with his own, so that when, the railway capitalists were the turnpike capitalists, these latter had no responsive moral conscience around them to appeal to. Legality and morality, the law and the prophets, were with the railway capitalists, whose notions of right and wrongj were in line with their acts of seizing the trade and profits of the turnpike investors, driving them oiit of business and then in their private vehicles making free use without payment of the roads the turnpike people had sunk their capital in. "Whoso drew the longest bow, Ran his brother down, you know," and it was only pormissable to use capital and capitalist arguments to do this. Soldiers defend Property. Any start by the workers to seize the roads and railways, claiming them on the moral grounds that they were the product of their toil, would have brought the troops and a military commander on the scene, for the time was not yet when a sentiment had been fostered and the law .and the prophets had changed over to the side of those Who would take such action. In fact, the Socialists had scarcely started the job of producing this, but they are far enough on the way now to be regarded as a danger to the old order. First, tho knowledge, then the sentiment, then the will to act, then, the achievement, and so the people of Britain scattered over it, making their livelihood in all their various ways. A few of them h.acl wealth and power, a few were worldly wise, some Of them masters, some of them servants, some engaged on their own account. Living on the farms, in the villages, towns and small cities, engaged in husbandry, fishing, handicrafts, manufacture, mining and such other work as was to be found. The day of hand tools, small things in production, short journeys, many dialects, a sprinkling engaged in special studies, general body of the people, unlettered, when the opportunity came numbers for the first tim-e found ]enrn'w.ir their ABC in tho Sunday schools that sprang up, babes in tho wood in more ways than one.

'Each.-had his outlook upon the world and for the majority may be thi-s was parish wide. Each had his inner life peculiar to himself, and there was the inner life that was common to a parish, to a town, to an occupation, to a class, or common to all. This inner life is a thing in itself that can. bo .separated out "and studied; it does net full from heaven.: it -accompanies -raid corresponds to given circumstances, and the work of ni-a-n is embodied iii it. Hsw Thoughts Arise. A few ware, engaged in special studios. Coal and what was done with it met their eyes, iron and what was made of it met their eyes, mechanical principles arid what came of their application met their eyes; they had a turn for these things, thedr attention was drawn, and as they give it to the things one thought follows another till tho "thought floats iippermost that something further would bo possible if such and such nn alteration or a-Joi tion or change of form.could he made, aii ; d so men one after another become interested iv one thing after another, and as a. result of the work consegueni.