The reader who has followed me thus far, at times perhaps with much patients endurance, may very reasonably want to know what manner of man he has taken ship with, what his real views are outside of the ordinary routine of life, what is the “Kiblak” to which his thoughts turn in their more serious moments.
It was Octavius Birrell in his happy preparliamentary days who first took the word at the head of this chapter from the musty shelves of the lawyers and made it really public property, and it may be well to reprint Stowell’s definition that Mr Birrell places in the fore-front of his book.
“An “obiter dictum” is in the language of the law an unasked opinion, a gratuitous impertinence that bindeth no one even him who utters it.”
As a way of getting a free hand to write on any possible subject, it has, from its inception, ranked in my mind with Lamb’s fiction in regard to his friend Elia and is immeasurably superior to Macauley’s method of dragging in his views under the pretence of reviewing a book on some totally different subject. So here goes! And I trust that I may not weary you with my wanderings.
The brightest people I meet are those who secure their pleasure while encompassing the happiness of others. For pleasure seems to be the sugar of life, put your hand straight into the sugar tube and grab a handful –- result, -- nausea, apply the same quantity to reducing some of the aspersites of life, or sweetening this family jar of ours, and the result will be happiness.
I suppose hearts, like everything else, are the subject of evolution and perhaps the present may be looked upon as the coffin age, “just room enough for one,” or if the social nonentity can get far enough from himself to get married, he will promptly order “coffins for two,” and feel that all other claims are at an end.
Is it not reasonable to state that every properly constituted man or woman has a heart built after the manner of the temple? There is an inner shrine but there is an outer court and to contend that because a couple live happily and pleasantly in that inner shrine they have no concern with the heart throes and anxieties of those in the outer court, is a monstrous limitation of the rights and duties of humanity.
What “fine fretwork” as Charles Lamb might say is being made of Blackstone’s dictum that the foreigner on arriving at Dover is supposed to know the entire law of England. The dictum itself takes a little swallowing, but what are you to say of it when you include in English Law all that has got into it by various forms of local option or by the willingness or otherwise of authorities to adopt legislation. I live within a couple of hundred yards of a boundary that divides two such authorities, my sweep lives over the border; while on his side he is a free man and proclaims his errand lustily, as he crosses the dividing line he has to lower his voice and cry sweep! sweep! in the lightest of trebles so that I have often when half awake mistaken him for the first sparrow.
I am not inclined to find fault with constituted authority but those sent to the local Councils are not selected on account of their aptitude for legislation and certainly should not have the power of sending people to jail on an inability to pay a fine.
Our road is one of those select ones in which by local by-law no street cries are allowed and notices to that effect are freely fixed to the lampposts. But the cry of a coster may prove a positive tonic to the portly personage going up to business and leaving a well filled larder and cellar behind that might stand a siege, by reminding him that there are others than himself who have to make their living, and that there are larders made without hands which need to be replenished daily.
In what an amazing way is good mixed with evil in all that concerns the social fabric? The limited liability system is a case in point, no business man can contradict the benefits it has conferred, but it has certainly brought things other than benefits in its train. It certainly has had much to do with labour troubles by removing the personal contact between master and man, and the larger the organization the more complete is the sererance.
As will appear at a later stage of this Chronicle, I am Managing Director of a Company employing about eighty hands, with two exceptions the journeymen have all been apprentices of mine, while by the time that a new boy has been with me a couple me more than a couple of days, he feels that he has come to stay, that there will be no “blind alley” for him unless he makes one for himself and that a daily greeting, if we meet, is the custom of the house.
Have we any labour troubles? Certainly not, the staff is carefully selected by promotion from the lower grades and the work being high grade wages are well above the average.
As an example of how it works let me mention an interesting incident. A few years ago we had a very poor “streak” of business experience and there were no profits from when dividends could be paid; I called together in my office all those receiving more than normal wages and placed the facts before them, telling them that as they had for years received this excess they must forgo it till times were better. I did not press for an immediate answer, for I felt that homes and habits of life had been built up on the assumption that wages received would be continued; but in a few days two of the seniors wanted to see me and informed me that all agreed in accepting the suggestion but hoped that the matter would be re-considered in six months.
Well do I recollect that in six months, it was a merry time and as usual, the Gods helped those who helped themselves, so that an abundance of work presented itself and a semi-annual stocktaking that I devised “ad hoc” left no room for doubt as to the step that should be taken.
But something had happened beyond this, a remarkable “object lesson” had been provided. Many of us had thought what would happen if we had a contented Ireland and some of us are prepared to embark on a tremendous experiment to secure it, but what would happen if we had a contented England, the other nations of the world would indeed have a bad time, a microcosm of that contented England was secured by the rather original policy adopted on this occasion.
During these War times we frequently hear the exclamation made “Surely what the Germans can do we can do” Can we? Let us turn the proposition round and see how it works, - this is always a safe method, - What sort of luck do foreigners have when they try their hand in rivalling Manchester in the finer “counts” of the cotton trade, or if they drop down South and try to give us the produce of the Etruria and the Potteries generally. What sort of substitute do they give for Sheffield steel or English beef, can they, for the life of them grow a Ribston Pippin! Something must always be allowed for the “Genius loci” and the character of the People, heredity and even atmosphere. Nothing is to be got by a slavish imitation of German methods and German goods, but an effective substitute can be found and the public taste can be educated to adopt it. Some years since the engineering company in which I was concerned tried to do in Huntingdonshire what had been previously done in Wharfdale, the result was a complete failure, iron and coal had to be brought long distances, the men and women had to be brought down South and soon got homesick and could only be retained with wages out of all proportion.
In Victorian days people were always being pestered with confession books and among other things they were asked to name their pet aversion. My pet aversion is waste and I once startled a clerical audience who were considering Church Finance by stating that I considered Waste worse than Burglary. For a well executed burglary did provide a good square meal for the Burglar and his Children, while waste benefited the children of no one.
Perhaps there is no more time-honoured obsession than that a certain section of the Worlds inhabitants are the Chosen people and some individuals the very instrument of the Divine Will, so that when we come to distributing the Reward Cards at the close of this War we must be careful not to give the prize for originality to the boy William. Take the case of the Pilgrim Fathers about whom we are sometimes inclined to describe a quite unnecessary halo; while they were still on the Mayflower and before they had set up their own special brand of tyranny at Salem, they passed three portentous Resolutions, now don’t be afraid! I don’t remember them and should not be so cruel as to inflict them on you if I did, but a competent humorist with something of the gift of a précis-writer has summarized them as under:-
The earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof
Nem. Con.
The inheritance is with the Saints
Still no one was found to contradict
We are the saints
Loud Applause.
I am much averse to punishment by “fine or imprisonment” for I am convinced that the alternative often works unfairly and to the detriment of the poorer man, this very morning on passing the Bow Street Police Court I noticed a bill telling of an unnamed man who had been sent to prison for two months for assault on a lift-man, in lieu of a fine of 40/- which means that the mark of the jail-bird had been placed on that man because he could not pay a sum that a Duke would not have felt in the least.
A fine is nothing else than a debt to the state, and to imprison in lieu of it, is for the State to take a right against its debtor that is denied to individual members of the community and constitutes a bad example.
We live in a time when many things are in the Melting Pot new merchants, some coming from afar, are noisily proclaiming their wares --- some, none too polite, are conscious that their precious Melting Pots must be kept going, are vigorously shouting “Old Iron” while others in tones that a cooing dove might envy are simply suggesting that we shall accept “New Lamps for Old”. The Citizens, they of the old regime have come to their door-steps and window sills to see what all the bother is about and they themselves are divides into two classes,- those, who perhaps like myself no longer young, yet have an ear attuned to the least whisper that speaks the language of the progress that they love and those who stand foresquare opposed to the least breath of innovation.
How careful ought we to be in the use of words and how important it is to see that there is not an alternative meaning to ours, - to illustrate the first point, - there is a great difference between “A half toasted Scone” and “Half a toasted Scone” the former is sufficient without being satisfactory, the other satisfactory without being sufficient.
A fortnight ago I became conscious that Pheasant Shooting had commenced and having a few shillings in my pocket I went down the hill valiantly to secure a brace. On arriving at the Emporium I noted quite a collection of them marked “Selected” they struck me as cheap and I at once accosted the Manager and told him to give me a pair and pointed to the piece of Grinley Gibbons work that seemed to have got lose from its moorings, and bore them off in triumph. Oh! Those birds! I shall never forget that Sunday and the exercise they gave me. On Monday, in high dudgeon I went down the hill again, bent on blood. When the miscreant had been brought out from his den at the back of the shop, I explained that I always wanted the best, but he replied, “You asked for “selected” and said, you might select them for their youth, but we select these “old masters”, as we sometimes call them, for their antiquity. I went home a wiser and sadder man.
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