John Lord - Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14 - The New Era

What Ruskin's economic views were, and what his relations to the industrial and social problems of his time, most readers of our author know, are mainly to be found in "Fors Clavigera," a series of letters to working-men, covering the years 1871-84, and in his early essays on political economy, "Unto this Last" (1860), and "Munera Pulveris" (1863). "Unto this Last" appeared in its original form in the pages of the "Cornhill Magazine," then edited by Thackeray, and our author speaks confidently of it as embodying his maturest and worthiest thoughts on social science. The work, which will be found the key to Ruskin's economic gospel, embraces four essays, treating successively of the responsibilities and duties of those called to fill all offices of national trust and service; of the true sources of a nation's riches; of the right distribution of such riches; and of what is meant by the economic terms,–value, wealth, price, and produce. Under these several heads, Ruskin expresses his conviction that co-operation and government are in all things the law of life, while the deadly things are competition and anarchy. Whatever errors the book 3 3 Alluding to the quaint title under which these "Cornhill" essays afterwards appeared,–a title that hints at the gist of the work,–Mr. Ruskin's biographer tells us that the motto was taken from Christ's parable of the husbandman and the laborers: "Friend, I do thee no wrong. Didst thou not agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way. I will give UNTO THIS LAST even as unto thee."–Matt. xx. 14. contains–and the author's unconscious arrogance and dogmatism made him blind to them–his views were set forth with his accustomed vigor and eloquence, and in the honest belief that he was more than fundamentally right. It was for such helpful work as this, and what he accomplished in the kindred volume, "Munera Pulveris," which first appeared in "Fraser's Magazine," that Ruskin for the time dropped his revelations in art to let a new world of thought into the "dismal science" of political economy, confound its old-time instructors, and gird at the evils of the age,–the greed, selfishness, and petty bargaining spirit of industrial and commercial life. Nor in conducting such a crusade as this was Ruskin abandoning his old and less controverted gospel of art. He was but carrying into new and barren fields the high ideals he had hitherto counselled his age to emulate and heed, and in his sympathy with labor seeking to bring into its world the comeliness of beauty and the cheer of prosperity, comfort, and happiness. In "Time and Tide" (1867), and more at length in "Fors Clavigera," Ruskin reiterates his message to labor, to get rid of ever-environing misery by realizing what are the true sources of happiness,–pleasure in sincere and honest work, inspired by intelligence, culture, religion, and right living. What he desires for the working-man he desires also for his family, and consequently he urges parents to train their sons and daughters to see and love the beautiful, to cultivate their higher instincts, and call forth and feed their souls. In all this there is much helpful, tonic thought, which the church or the nation, roused to zeal and earnest activity, might fittingly teach, and so advance the material weal of the people, extend the area of public enlightenment and morality, and herald the dawn of a new and higher civilization.

Other aspects of Mr. Ruskin's economic gospel are, unfortunately, not so sane and beneficent. His altruism knows no bounds, as his philanthropy and zeal have but few restraints. After the fashion of his mentor, Carlyle, he is carried away by his humanitarianism and his unreserved acceptance of the doctrine of the equality and brotherhood of man. Hence come his economic heresies in regard to rent and interest, and capital and usury, his denunciations of the division of labor, his Tolstoian impoverishment of himself for the benefit of his fellow-man, and his dictum that the wealth of the nation should be its own, and not accrue to the individual. Hence, also, the wholly ideal state of society he attempted to realize in his communal Guild of St. George, with its rigid government and restraints upon the personal liberty of its members. Ideally beautiful, admittedly, was the plan and scheme of the little state, with its disciplinings, exactions, and devout selective creed. But the age is a practical, unimaginative one, and whatever compacts men make, even for their highest welfare, there are, it is to be feared, few so loyal, tractable, and docile as to place themselves for long under such tutoring and one-patterned, fashioning forms of co-operative living. Into whatever millennial state Ruskin sought to usher his little band of English followers and disciples, one must speak appreciatively of his motives in projecting the scheme, and of the money and labor he personally lavished upon the Utopian project. Reverently also must one speak of the catholic creed to which its members were asked to subscribe: namely, to trust in God, recognize the nobleness of human nature, labor faithfully with one's might, be loyal to one's common country, its laws, and its monarch's or ruler's orders, so far as they are consistent with the higher law of God; while exacting obedience, and a pledge that one will not deceive, either for gain or other motive; will not rob; will not hurt any living creature nor destroy any beautiful thing; and will honor one's own body by proper care for it, for the joy and peace of life. All this is very exemplary and beautiful, and not over-hard to live up to, though the working-men of Sheffield in time wearied of the organization, and the Guild and its noble ideals is now, we believe, but a memory, if we except the art museum and library of the Order taken over and still maintained by the town.

More practical, may we not say, than this imitation of the Florentine arti of the Middle Ages was the Working Men's College, founded in London in the fifties by that other earnest Christian Socialist, F.D. Maurice, in which Ruskin lectured gratuitously, took charge of the drawing classes, and hied off to the country with its members to sketch from nature and otherwise instruct and entertain them. Yet good in many respects came of the Guild of St. George, in the impulse it gave to the revival of the then dormant industries, such as the hand-spinning of linen, hand-weaving of carpets and woollen fabrics, lace-making, wood-carving, and metal-working, besides the stimulus it gave, with the infusion of higher ideals of workmanship, to the decorative arts, and the improvement in the sightliness of factories, and in the homes and surroundings of labor. Here Ruskin's philanthropy and reform zeal showed themselves most worthily in the financial aid he gave in the pulling down, in crowded districts of the British metropolis, of poor tenements, and the building up in their place of clean, attractive, and wholesome habitations. In such benevolences and well-doings, and in this life of renunciation and self-sacrifice, Ruskin spent himself, and made serious inroads into his bodily health and strength, as well as scattered the fortune–about a million dollars–left him by his now deceased father. But this was the manner and character of Ruskin, and this the mode of expressing his love for his fellow-man, which in myriad ways showed itself throughout a long and strenuous career of devotion to high ideals, and of practical, tender help in all good works. In all his philanthropies he was true to his own preachings and counsellings, spending and being spent in the spirit of his Divine Master, his whole soul aglow with reverence and adoration and tender with a profound moral emotion. Besides his rare endowments as a lover of the beautiful, he had that other precious gift, of golden speech, which threw a mantle of loveliness over every book he wrote and perpetual lustre over the domain of letters.