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HOME > Classical Novels > Janus in Modern Life > CHAPTER II. PRESENT CHANGES OF CHARACTER.
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CHAPTER II. PRESENT CHANGES OF CHARACTER.
Having now seen how the fluctuations of amendment or deterioration of character, are subject to the same common laws as those of the variation of physical structure, we are in a position to see more clearly the effect of gradual changes around us in England. Emigration has been very active in the past three generations, and immigration has recently become important. The loss of the earliest emigrants who moved for religious and political reasons affected the national character very little; there was plenty of solid character remaining in England, and the removal of the more disputatious elements gave added strength to those who continued at home. The compulsory emigration of convicts was similarly a gain by removing those who were most out of harmony with the majority. Happily those whose characters made it most irksome to them to comply with the legal formulae of life at home, were just those best suited for the type of a new country, less restrained and more varied, with greater scope for enterprise. So far there had been a gain by removal of the two extreme types. But then succeeded a most serious movement of the voluntary selection of persons who thought that their energies would have a better and more remunerative scope in the colonies. This14 implied a draining away of those who had intelligence to choose a more promising career, energy to break with their present life and start afresh, and who possessed most adaptability, self-reliance, and hopefulness. All of these qualities are greatly needed at home for a prosperous population; and the incessant natural selection from the general mass, and removal of those who had most of such qualities, must have produced a serious effect on the home population. We see in England undoubtedly a lessening of sturdiness as a whole, and the deficiency of the abilities which have been most exported. There is a general outcry about the lack of adaptability in business; and the general want of self-reliance is shown by all the grandmotherly legislation which is sought and granted. At first we succeeded in getting rid of some amount of less desirable stock along with the capable stock; but in later years most countries will not admit any but good stock, and we lose the valuable examples of national character without any compensation. The drain of capacity from the nation is a most serious feature of life in England; and how far the prominence of the "submerged tenth," and the large proportion who live only a week\'s remove from starvation, is due to the lowering of the standard of capacity by the emigration of the more capable, is a very important question. The same consideration applies to Ireland in a far more acute form, as the emigration has been of much larger proportions.

A large immigration into England has recently grown up. So far as this is of more energetic men, who see their way to win over our heads, they should be welcomed. The German who comes to England15 to establish factories and exploit the English market is at least a gain to the country, as it is far better he should do this in England rather than expend all that energy and management out of England. The trade and manufacture of England have been largely built up by immigrations of Flemings, Huguenots, Dutch, French, and now Germans, who have each contributed to our capacity for work. In commercial business the foreign influence is strong. In north-west London one-tenth of the private residents are of German origin. A movement is going on quite comparable to other great race movements of past history; but it only affects the upper classes, and not the hand-labourer. Beside this there is the large movement of the lowest and most depressed mass of European humanity, from the sink of poverty in Poland and Western Russia. It is essentially a bad stock, one of the lowest in Europe; and the large proportion of criminal cases arising among these immigrants shows how undesirable they are. To allow such a low type free settlement in England, after draining the capable Englishmen to the colonies, makes a serious danger of a national collapse under a sudden pressure of some new circumstances, which might arise by trade or warfare.

Some other consequences which flow from recent changes will be dealt with in the fourth chapter in considering the effects of small causes.

The low type of character prevailing in all classes in England at present needs to be fully recognised. No doubt there has been in past centuries more external coarseness, and this detail strikes the attention of many people because it differs from their own16 present convention. But mere directness and plainness of speech is quite immaterial compared with the essentials of working power of mind and body, and the capacity for intelligent interests. Some centuries ago, when men thought more about the quality of their actions, sloth was ranked as one of the seven deadly sins. But now, in place of regarding it as anything wrong, there is an elaborate system of compulsory sloth; it is enforced by heavy penalties, and drilled into the character by example and self-interest. One man is forbidden to lay more than three hundred bricks a day, another forbidden to make more than so many glass dishes, another forbidden to attend to more than one machine. In every trade where a selfish short-sighted policy has gained its way, there is this system, which is doing inconceivable harm to character. The compulsory glorification of sloth is the most deleterious misfortune that can happen to a nation. The wreck of wars, pestilence and famine, will leave a more hopeful prospect than that of a people sunk in organised sloth.

Connected with this is the strange lack of thought and adaptability in common matters of everyday life. The daily loss of time, and cost in trivial matters, which affects thousands of persons, makes a heavy tax on the whole. For instance, such a simple matter as putting the offices of a terminal station at the ends of the platforms is still ignored at many termini; the name of a station is often hard to find, and is never once put up in most termini; the price of a ticket is often not to be discovered; the right types of carriages are only now being tried, after persevering in a wrong form for two generations. In the streets the17 same lack of sense is seen in the immense omnibus system, which is difficult to use, especially for strangers, owing to the lack of numbered routes and conveyances. It has been officially decided that the numbering of routes and omnibuses is beyond the powers of the London County Council; and we must be compensated by the pleasing reflection that something at least is too hard for that body. The thoughtless edict however was enforced that every vehicle must carry a white light in front, and all the distinctive colours of the tram-car lights were abolished, causing great inconvenience at night. Even in the most recent appliances the same dulness is shown; electric fans are commonly placed where they only stir foul air, and not where they draw in fresh or expel used air. The whole lighting system still throws away two thirds of all its cost by lighting sky and walls as much as streets. In every direction it seems hard to believe that five minutes\' thought has been given to matters costing thousands of pounds. If we traced such a mixture of design and of chance in any other subject it would lead to some curious speculations on the implied limitations of the directing Intellect. And in private matters it is the same; the extraordinary blunders and oversights in common trade work show that the most obvious details have not had a minute\'s real thought given to their arrangement. The result is an accumulation of difficulty and muddle which cripples, if not destroys, the purpose of the work. This persistent dulness, and incapacity for management and design, shows a defect of character which is a heavy detriment to the whole community.

The pleasures of the public show the same low type18 as their business. The illustrated papers that are read, apart from serious news, are a revelation of the vacuity of the public mind, as the advertisements are a testimony to its imbecility. The absence of any thoughts or information that can enlarge the mind, or give it fresh insight or understanding, and the fatuity of the illustrations, show the helpless little round of common ideas of the well-to-do classes: while the dishing up of legal filth for the lower classes, and the morbid love of trivial accidents and catastrophes, shows terribly the mere animalism which fills their horizon. The one subject on which most print is spent is that which is absolutely futile, sport and games. Whether one group of men, selected by mere accident, is a minute trifle more active than another accidental group, is a matter of such utter insignificance that it would seem impossible to suppose that anyone would turn the head to see the result decided. Yet such questions absorb most of the interests and spare thoughts and reading of a great part—perhaps the greater part—of the population, just as the races of the circus swamped all other interests of the decadent Roman. The results which they crave for cannot possibly mean anything to the present or to the future, as the selection is merely due to accidental causes. Even a lower depth is the relative excellence of two horses which are completely unknown to the persons who speculate on them. The utter waste of thought and print in such interests is a form of insanity which is worse than a drug habit, as it implies a hopeless atrophy of the mind to interests which would help it or develop it.

The whole interest of betting on sport, and also19 of gambling, is another evidence of an unwholesome condition. It implies a craving for excitement apart from personal exertion, which is always a bane to character; it involves the idea of gain apart from labour of mind or body, which is demoralising to the sense of work; it results in unearned fluctuations, which induce a wasteful habit; and it is based on the essentially ungentlemanly principle of benefiting by the loss of another, whereas all honourable gain is by the sharing of the benefits of labour. If a large part of the public are determined on deteriorating in this manner, it might be better for the community to satisfy it by public lottery, where one party is the government, which at least removes the last-named serious detriment to character. The gaming at Monte Carlo is moral compared with promiscuous betting.

The objections to such forms of interest are perhaps too often urged by moralists who wish to cause an alteration in the customs around them. Even if we can care for the benefit of persons with such interests, certainly we are not likely to make any difference to them by talking on the subject. But as students of diseased society we may take a deep interest in such forms of aberration as a pathologist may in a case of cancer. And it is difficult to feel any particular wish to change habits which so obviously belong to a bad stock that is hardly worth improving. The best hope is that the unmitigated results of such mental disease may quickly have full effect on the type, and result in its extermination before a better class or better race. So far as cure is possible, the most hopeful direction is by an increase of useful and beneficial interests,20 which will make such vapid and senseless amusements decay by mere disgust.

The distaste for work and craving for amusement extends beyond the above limits in a manner very deleterious to character. It is a feature of a decaying civilisation, as shown on the later Mykenaean frescoes, and the rage for the circus in later Roman times. Besides the waste of time and labour, it acts injuriously in producing a restless incapable type of mind, brought more forward lately in motoring; and also by creating a false social atmosphere, in which the business of life is contemned and treated as a drudgery, instead of being a main subject of int............
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