BOOKLAND and Thereabout

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 66, 14 June 1912, Page 9

BOOKLAND and Thereabout

A Gountoss on Wihiam lorris.

By E. R. HARTLEY

I must be sonic what of a composite make-up (we all are), and havo been told many times of my likeness to various persons. One of the proudest <ff theso times was, however, when a woman who had known Morris told mc that at times 1 reminded her very much of him, especially when my hair was ruffled up. My brisk, impatient manner when trouble was around was also very like Morris. I cannot tell, for though twice the opportunity came to meet Morris at dinner my cursed modesty made mc afraid of trespassing on so great a man's time. Ah, well! Life has many regret's, and this is one of mine. For, look you, William Morris was a great man. How great a man time alone can show, but 1 believo he will stand out in giant lines when the rea' history of his times is written. And tho Countess of Warwick has written the Morris book for the Pilgrim Series, it is in Wellington Library, and should he in every public library in Now Zealand; if it is not, the fault lies with the Socialists, who don't ask for it there. Marx and Morris. Ah! what a difference; and yet, in spite of all, many similarities. The same indomitable will. The saino indefatigable, labor. Marx, with his never-ending si niggle with poverty; Morris, who never knew what it was to lack a I's note. The gentlemen of England who sit at home at ease, tho tradesmen, and even the workers who have steady, regular jobs cannot possibly undersivuid what jt means to be always struggling, merely to live. Tho good comrade who has shared my troubles and doubled my joys for nearly 40 years once put this in tho best way I've ever heard it. Wo hadn't a copper in the house, and wanted something, when for the first and almost only time blame was cast upon the cause being an uncompromising Socialism. i pointed out what good things our faith in Socialism had brought—the hosts of comrades, the.many friends, the eouM-iousneiss oi having done the right thing, etc., etc, "Yes," she replied. "Thai is very good, very fine in its way, but I remember the time when we were never .short of a sovereign. Now we are always short of a sovereign, and there's a world of difference." Ah! what a difference. Morris understood souoihing of this diii'eience, and did at 1"as! one man's work to bridge that difUrenoc. Early in life he made the discovery that io get the host out of every man was t_ give every man the opportunity of doing his best by giving him the chance to'put his ten' best ;:;!■< tim work he had to do. Lei, 111011 work at the thing they liko and there will be no need to drive them to it. Let men work at the thing they love, and they will need dragging away from it. Oh, what a'world we will have when men learn this simple fiuth. Socialism will bring that truth as part of our everyday life and everyday policy. Therefore, William Morris was driven U) Socialism. Like all young men of his class, he went to ihe university. It was here he met Rurnc-dones. Their friendship acted and iv-aried. with the result that the lives 01 tlie workingclasses received gleams of beauty all unknown before. Men and women now in their fifties and sixties will, on looking back, remember something of the awful wallpapers of their youth, but few of the. present day know the debt they owe to William Morris tor his revolution in the designs and pi eduction of wallpapers. Morris was born on March 24, LS3L Ho was a weak and sickly boy, but tho good surroundings and many wanderings in Epping Forest gave, him health and vigor which made him in later days the fiercest and most active fencer at Oxford, with the biggest account each term for broken singlesticks and foils. What a fine thing is good health. "Punch's" essay on "Is lite worth living!-'" a controversy of -10 years ago, was one of its finest efforts. "is lifo worth living r" "Jf- all depends upon the liver." This is oven truer than it seems, and William Morris was able 10 do much work because of his general good health. Jf lie had been a poor man's son he might have been. om of Nature's "mute, inglorious Miltons." He was a lovable man, in spite of his fierce temper, and kept the art of youth even in his later days. It is good to read of men like Morris and Ifurne-Jones and their friends having bear fights and pelting each other with apples long after their married days. "Keep the heart young" is a fine motto. When Morris married he had great ideas of what a home should be like. His visits to Normandy and his life at Oxford made him a lover of the beautiful. Who could live in Oxford and not love beauty? When Morris and Jones set up housekeeping they could find no furniture to suit them. They designed some, and Morris and another friend, Philip Webb, set to work to make it. On his marriage Morriß must build a house to suit his ideas, and Burae-

.Jones wrote: 'Top (Morris's name amongst his intimates was Topsy')— Top is slowly making lied House tho boaiilifidlest place, in tho world." How many of tis have built our house beautiful--in our dreams. Lucky Morris, to carry his dreams out. Then again, we havo our dreams, and Morns had to live a good deal in Condon away from Red House and to be near his work, his belief being that a man's work is the best part of his life. Let us keep our dreams. Morris had begun to find his life's work, and it kept him busy. Seeking for beautiful things with which to surround himself and wife, ho cam© in contact with the dreary products oi commercialism, beauty having been almost forgotten in tho rush for profit. Tho failure to find the beautiful things he wanted caused him to begin to make them, compelling his friends to help, and the outcome was the establishment of a firm of "fino art workmen in painting, carving, furniture and metals." A study of what went before this lime and its after effects on tho production of beautiful things would be most instructive and interesting. One of Morris's discoveries was that men did not produce beautiful thingibecause they had no lovo for the work thov did. it was not work, but toil. If 'we got beauty, we must first get love for the beautiful, and to get the really beautiful wo must find joy in tue work. Another thing he found out, as Ruskin also found out: "All great art is the outcome of the people's lives." These discoveries l"d Morris on and on until his works included not oniy furniture but manufacture, printing, etc. All these activities did not prevent him writing, and it is probably by his writings ho will be best remembered. Some of lu'.s ea'licsi. work is amongst his best, and no Socialist need be without these The Everyman Library ("Dent and Sons) have both poetry and stories in "Early Romances of Morris/ No. _eYI," and in their last issue. No. 575, is Morris's "Life and Death of dason." W. T. Stead published in his "Penny Pools" an '.'Mvlb-iil summary and selection of "The Earthly Paradise," so that for hall' a ero.vn anyone may obtain a fair sample of Morris's iiterarv work. Lady Warwick ciys : " '.Sa.son' i> not great verse; !!.•->>- a;e exeat stories." One mi dit add. groitly told, and there is a good deal in the toiling of a story. For myself, "Julio Rail" will always be my favorite, and this, too, can he bought, for a shiil'iig. "News from Nowhere" is one of the best of "Utopias." Roth help to bring back to men a love for ihe, beautiful. .Morris often turned to his literary work for rest from his other duties, but also at times when weary uiih contact with uncongenial spirits. The more he tried to bring beauty ink) ovorvday life and work" the more he was driven to see tlie "anil '.list ie stale in which he lived, and Morris was forced to find his only hope for a better and mor" ideal stale of Clings in Socialism. John Rail's sermon is a fine reading for the opening of an indoor meeting, and many' a. chairman would do well to '-cad this.' iir lead of making the rambling remarks to which we are often treated, "fellowship is Life and lack of Fellowship is Death," could be ofieucr repeated than it is even by Socialists. What a fine reply to the oft-repeated statement that Socialists are ignorant it is to bo able to tell that William Morris, the Socialist demagogue of the street corner, was so great a poet that lie was offered—and declined -tbe Poet Laurcaleship of Rritaiu. In a manifesto to the working men of England are these pregnant lines, so anolicable to the present situation in New Zealand., as witness the daily papers and many speeches and letters: "Working men of England, one word of warning yet. I doubt if you know tbe bitterness of hatred against freedom and progress that lies at the hearts of a certain part of i}\o richer classes in this country; their newspapers veil it in a kind of decent language, but you do but hear (limn talking amongst themselves as I have often, and I know not whether scorn or anger would prevail in you at their io,so:eii''e and folly. "Theso men cannot speak- of your order, of its aims, of its leaders without, a sneer or an insult: these men if they bad the power (may England perish* rather) would thwart your just aspiration, would sileime you, would deliver you bound hand and foot forever to irresponsible capital." 'Pregnant words, my comrades,, and such as you will do well to read slowly and aloud, repealing them to your fel-low-workers, and remembering they were written by one of the rich, one of the capitalist class, who heard these sentiments —as he himself says, "As I have often" heard them. I well remember when Quelch was fighting Dowsbury in 1901 walking to a meeting with Cunningham Grahame. I was telling him of my anger at times for tlie scorn and contempt of the rich men for the working-classes, so freely expressed when tho workers could not hear. "Hartley," said Grahame, stopping in his walk and gesticulating violently, but with ihe stately grace of a graudw, "Hartley, if the working men could only hear —as I often do in my club and similar places—the real opinions of many of those who profess to bo their frionds on political platforms, if

is not to Parliament and other placoa they would send them ; they would hang them from tho nearest lamppost." Grahame resumed his walk, saying partly to himself: "Thoy would indeed —tho dirty, two-faced devils." "And yo shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." When the working-classes know tho truth they will cease to wasto their money and time on papers (and there are many such in New Zealand) whose only object is to mislead them, to lie about their aspirations, and to vilify and abuse tho men's spokesmen and ropreseiitatives. Only this morning a leaderwriter says tho object of the Federation is "to get the world's wealth, without any hard work." A bigg«r lie was never printed; that is the capitalist position as explained by Mr. Mallock. There will come a time when such insolence will result in workmen refusing to buy such a vile sheet, and when wo grow a littlo stronger such lies will not ho allowed to be printed. Perhaps the host evidence of th« truth of this insolence of wealth and contempt of the working-class received its most complete modern statement from Mr. Asquith, the Prime Minister of England, who is said to be a friend of tho workers. Speaking of tho minimum wage for miners the great* little Asquith said : Tn regard to tho ss. and 2s. my own. opinion is that, taking tho country as a whole, I see no reason to think that ss. is an unreasonably high rate for a man spending his working hours underground." I wonder how much a day Mr. Asquith and his friends would .want for spending their working hours under ground? They would not do it for ss. an hour. Why do the miners? Morris was desperately in earnest about his Socialism, and dragged •'*■ in on every possible occasion. 'Tis a good story of Lady Warwick's where she tells how, at the end of a lecture at Oxford, ho startled everybody by stating he was an authorised Socialist speaker, and calling on tbe members of Ihe audience in become members. On January !'i, 1883, William Morris, designer, becam*! a uiemlier of the S.D.E.—the good old S.D.E.. more recently the 5.!).!'., and now merged into the R.S.P. Morris is gone, but his work stiff lasts. His family doctor declared Morris died "a victim to Ids enthusiasm for spreading the principles of Socialism." His death fool: place at Hammersmith on October c. ISPo. aged 02i years. He had a good innings, and kept, his end up well, leaving an example to all "who 1d;o fh">ir fellow men"; leaving an everlasting testimony that one of the greatest men of his day, if uit one of (he gieatest mon of all iiuie, beii"V"d witN .sufficient strength to give his life for tho cause which alone can redeem mankind from .its pro.scut-day evils. Our thanks ere due. to tlie publishers. Our social thanks ere also <lue to the Count,'.-'. of V,' ».rwici;—our comrade Warwick—-that /c.c also, though bom to the purple as it were, born of the class which as a rule scorns and mocks the workers • that slw also has taken her stand with the workers, doing her part to make thoir "unlearned discontent" find articulate voice and full expression. There, is a class war. There is a class struggle. And in the years To come greater honor shall come to those who, in spite of their t/niiiing and environment: in spite of the loss of friends and the contumely of the ignorant, nobly took their' stand with the downtrodden and helped the unlearned and poor. "William Morris," by Countess of Warwick. T. C. and E. C. Jack. 2s.