The Socialist

"They are clever," the duke returned, in a somewhat meditative voice; "they are, indeed, clever. This manuscript that I read was certainly a brilliant piece of special pleading, and, as a matter of fact, I don't quite understand what the answer to it can be."

"It does seem hard," Lady Constance said with a little sigh, "that we should have everything, and so many other people have nothing. After all, father, in the sight of God we are all equal, are we not?"

The bishop smiled. "In the sight of God, my dear," he answered, "we are certainly all equal. The soul of one man is as precious as the soul of another. But in this world God has ordained that certain classes should exist, and we must not presume to question His ordinance. Our Lord said: 'Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's.'"

"But what I cannot see," the duke broke in, "is why, when wealth is produced by labour, the people who produce it should have no share in it. Don't think, Lord Camborne, that I am a Socialist, or infected in any way with socialistic doctrines." He spoke more rashly than he knew. "But I should like to know the economic answer to the things which Mr. Rose, and Mr. Conrad, and their friends told me when I was ill."

"The answer," replied the bishop, "is perfectly simple. It is intellect, and not labour, that is the creator of wealth. Let me give you a little example."

As he spoke he placed his elbows upon the table, joined the tips of his fingers together, and looked at his young audience with a suave smile.

"Let me instance the case of a saw!"

"A saw, father?" Lady Constance said. "What on earth has a saw to do with Socialism?"

"Listen," the bishop replied, "and I will tell you. If a saw had not been invented, planks, which are absolutely necessary for the construction of building, and, indeed, for almost all the conveniences of modern life, must be split up out of the trunks of trees by means of wedges, a most clumsy and wasteful method.

"Your labourer says that he produces wealth which the planks make. This, of course, is an absolute fallacy. Labour alone might rend the trunk of a tree into separate pieces, though, to be sure, it would be a difficult business enough. But only labour, working with tools, could split up the trunk of a tree with wedges, saw it with a saw, or cut it with a knife. Don't you see, my dear Connie, labour makes the noise, but it is intellect which is responsible for the tune. Men move by labour, but they only move effectually and profitably by intellect. Labour is the wind, intellect the mill. Though there is as much wind blowing about now as there was three thousand years ago, some of it now grinds corn, saves time, and increases wealth. This difference is due, not to the wind, but to the wiser utilisation of the wind through intellect.

"And the same is true of labour. Without the inventions and the improvements of the few, labour would produce a bare subsistence for naked savages. It could not, however, produce wealth, because wealth is essentially something over and above a bare subsistence. A bare subsistence means consuming as fast as producing; and thus, all that labour does when not enabled to be efficient and profitable by the superior intelligence of the few.

"So that the real truth is that wealth, as such, is something over and above a mere subsistence, and, so far from being due to labour, is rather due to that diminution of toil which enables things to be produced more quickly than they are consumed. But such diminution is due to the time-shortening processes, methods, and inventions of the few. The fact is that the general mass of men are of far too dull and clownish a character to do much for real advancement.

"Any forward step which produces wealth is taken by somebody in particular, and not by everybody in general.

"Of course it is easy enough to copy and profit by inventions and improvements after somebody else has made them."

The bishop stopped, and sipped his glass of Contrexeville, looking with a pleased smile at the young people before him.

No one could talk with a more accurate and sustained flow of English than Lord Camborne. He knew it. The public knew it, and he knew that the public knew it.

From some men such a sustained monologue would have been excessively tedious, even though the people to whom it was addressed were, like Miss Rose Dartle, "anxious for information." In the bishop, however, there was such a blandness and suavity – he was such a handsome old man, and had cultivated the grand manner to such perfection – that he really was able, on all occasions, to indulge in his favourite amusement without boring anybody at all. He was, in short, one of the few men in Europe who could enjoy the pleasure of hearing himself talk at considerable length without an uneasy feeling that, in giving way to his ruling passion, he was not alienating friends.

"I see, father!" Lady Constance said as the stately old gentleman concluded his rounded periods. But there was a slight note of indifference in her voice. The bishop did not hear it, Lord Hayle did not hear it, but the duke detected it with a slight sensation of surprise. His senses were sharpened to apprehend every inflection in the voice of the girl he loved. And he wondered that she, apparently, was a little bored by the bishop's explanation.

He did not realise, being a young man, and one who had enjoyed a long minority, and had known but little of his parents, that, even though a prophet may sometimes have honour in his own country, his children do not always pay him his due meed of recognition when he is, so to speak, "unbuttoned and at home."

The duke had never heard the story of the angry old gentleman who was threatening two little boys, who had thrown some orange peel at him, with the imminent arrival of a policeman upon the other side of the road. "Garn!" said the little boys in chorus. "Why, that's farver!"

The duke himself was intensely interested in the bishop's logical and singularly powerful exposition of socialistic fallacies.

He had been uneasy for a long time now. He had had an alarming suspicion that the arguments of Fabian Rose and his companions were unanswerable, and, on that very afternoon, he had been specially struck by the vigour and force of the concluding chapter of Arthur Burnside's book.

Now he was reinstated in all his old ideas. His mental trouble seemed to pass away like a dream. The world was as it had been before! The remainder of the dinner passed off as brightly and merrily as it had begun. Lord Camborne was a charming host. He could tell stories of the great people of the Victorian Era, for he had been upon intimate terms with all of them. As a young man he had sat with Lord Tennyson in a Fleet Street chop-house in the first days of the Saturday Review. He had been in Venice when Browning wrote that beautiful poem beginning —

"Oh, to be in England, now that April's there!"

and had been cynically amused at the poet's steadfast determination to remain in the City of Palaces until the cold weather of his native land was definitely over.

He had been an honoured guest at the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and many years afterwards he had sat at the hospitable table of Sandringham, and had reminded the King and Queen of the scene of their marriage.

It was very fascinating to the duke to hear these stories told with a delicate point and wit, and with the air which reminded the young man pleasantly of the fact that he, too, all his life, had been of these people, and was, indeed, a leader in England.

Since his association with Fabian Rose – an association which pleased and interested him, he had, nevertheless, found a great diminution of his own importance. That sense had been so carefully cultivated from his very earliest years that the loss of it had occasioned him much uneasiness. Now it all seemed restored to him. He was in his own proper milieu, and as he looked constantly at Lady Constance Camborne, more and more he felt that here, indeed, was his destined bride.

Lord Camborne, himself one of the astutest and shrewdest readers of character in England, gathered something of what was passing in the young man's mind. He wanted the duke for a son-in-law. It was all so eminently suitable. The two young people were both exactly the two young people who ought to marry each other. The news of their engagement would, the bishop knew, be very welcome at Court, and society would acclaim it as the most fitting arrangement that could be made.

"If I am not very much mistaken," the old gentleman thought to himself, "the dear boy will ask Connie to marry him to-night. I must see if an opportunity cannot be arranged."

Lord Hayle, as it happened, was going to a bridge-party of young men, which was to be held in one of the card-rooms at the Cocoa Tree Club. He had asked the duke to accompany him, but the duke had already refused.

"I hate cards, my dear Gerald, as you know; and, really, I am not feeling too fit to-night."

"Very well, then," the bishop said, "we will smoke a cigar and have a chat, Paddington, and perhaps Connie will make some music for us? Sir William expressly asked me to see that you did not do too much, and went early to bed, after your terrible experiences, and I am not going to let you spoil your recovery."

"What a pompous old bore Sir William is," the duke said, laughing. "But I suppose he really does know about what he says."

"The greatest doctor alive at present," said the bishop.

Lady Constance did not leave the table after dessert, as they were all so intimate and at home. The young men were allowed to light their cigarettes, the bishop preferring to go to the library before he smoked.

Suddenly Lady Constance, who had cracked an almond, held out the kernel to the duke.

"Look," she said with almost childish glee, "this nut has two kernels. Now, let us have a phillipine. Will you, duke?"

"Of course I will, Lady Constance," he answered. "We must arrange all about it. I forget the rules. Is it not the first person who says 'phillipine' to-morrow morning who wins?"

"That's it," she answered. "Now, what are you going to give me, or what am I going to give you?"

"Whatever you like," said the duke.

"Well, you choose first," said Lady Constance.

"I don't quite know what I want," said the duke.

The bishop laughed softly. Things were going excellently well.

"Surely, my dear boy," he said, "even you – fortunate as you are – cannot say that there is nothing in the world that you don't want?"

"I know!" the duke answered suddenly, with a quick flush. "There is one thing which I want very much!"

"Well, then, if it is not too expensive," Lady Constance said, "and if you win, of course, I will give it to you. But what is it?"

"I don't think I will tell you now," the duke replied. "We will wait and see the issues. But what do you want, Lady Constance?"

"Well, I don't know, either," she said. "Oh, yes, I do. I saw Barrett's the other day – the place in Piccadilly, you know – there were some delightful little ivory pigs. I should like a pig to add to my collection of charms. I meant to have bought one then, only I was rather in a hurry, and besides, your chain charms ought always to be given to you if they are to bring you good luck."

"Very well, then, that is settled," said the duke.