W.E.A.

Shannon News, 24 June 1921, Page 3

W.E.A.

THE ECONOMICS OF CHARLES , DICKENS. The weekly meeting of the YV.E.A. was held in the Council Chamber on Tuesday evening. Mrs Manning was in the chair. _ The tutor, Mr March-Roberts, said that the Press and the Novel were the greatest influences in the world to-day. When men wanted to know and to understand, they turned for inspiration not to the pulpit But to the press and to the novel. Unfortunately neither of these two literary forces were as vet entirely dedicated to the task of serving the intellectual and spiritual interests of mankind. The novels of Dickens, Hardy and Meredith were exceptional Jn bringing men face to face with the facts and realities of life. By Dickens’ descriptions of slum life and the sorrows of the poor, men had been forced to realise that all was not well with human society in nineteenth century England. Dickens had exposed the whited sepulchre of our commercial civilisation. He had made the optimists think. He had challenged the forces of law and order. He had shown men that law and order were hypocritical catch words, so long as they were based on hitman misery and squalor. The minds and consciences of sincerb social reformers had been aroused by Dickens’ appeal. As a result, mam' scandals and reproaches to our vaunted civilisation had been swept away. Macjaulay had called Dickens a fallen Socialist, but in spite of such taunts, English people had accepted Dickens’ criticism. Debtors’ prisons had been abolished, factory legislation had been passed to protect the helpless’ women and children who had slaved for long hours and miserable wages in industrial hells. Schools had been built for the children of the poor in order that the rising generation might have a share in the treasures of kftowiedge and literature which had been denied to the parents. One charge, however, could be levelled against. Dickens. It was this, that he was inclined to sentimentalism. He gave the poor pity when what they v; nted was employment. He urged o hers to give them charity, when v.uat was necessary was justice. The wage slaves of England in Dickens’ day and in our own day did not feel grateful for soup kitenens or the cast-off clothing of the rich. They were sick of the patronage of the benevolent elder brother. What they demanded—not' as a gift but as a right—was “status,” a place in the sun, scope for the expression of their individuality. Brotherly love, charity and pious good wishes were emotions in which the rich delighted to indulge. ..ey were no cure for the ills of grinding poverty and unemployment. Scientific treatment was needed. Perhaps a surgical operation might be necessary. And it was open to question as to the body on which the operation was to be performed. Was it the body of Lazarus or of the rich man which required the surgeon’s knife? Students of economics would uo well to consider tins question. Pioneers like Dickens, General Booth and Dr Barnardo had called our .attention to the which afflicted the community. It was cowardly to escape to the Colonies and then to thank God that one’s eyes and ears and nose were not irritated by the horrible sights, sounds and smells of slumland. Some happy souls imagined they had performed their duty to the British Empire when they saluted the Union Jack and sang “God Save the King.” Such patriotism was cheap and shoddy. The true patriot was the man who left the Arcadian simplicity of New Zealand and returned to England—as Mr and Mrs Pember Reeves had done—to help the wretched victims of misfortune who were sweltering and rotting in the slums of a score of English cities. That was a fight which demanded more heroism than any Y.C. had ever shown. The so-called romance and glamour of military glory was as nothing to the inward moral satisfaction experienced by the thinker and worker, who, in a scientific spirit, wrestled with the problems of poverty, unemployment and human degradation which laced the inhabitants of the Old Country. Ah interesting discussion followed, in which Mr Gunning, Mr Kelly, Mr Bear and Mrs Rainey' took part. The subject next Tuesday is “The Land Question.”