The People of the Abyss by Jack London - HTML preview

CHAPTER XXVII--THE MANAGEMENT

In this final chapter it were well to look at the Social Abyss in its

widest aspect, and to put certain questions to Civilisation, by the

answers to which Civilisation must stand or fall. For instance, has

Civilisation bettered the lot of man? "Man," I use in its democratic

sense, meaning the average man. So the question re-shapes itself: _Has

Civilisation bettered the lot of the average man_?

Let us see. In Alaska, along the banks of the Yukon River, near its

mouth, live the Innuit folk. They are a very primitive people,

manifesting but mere glimmering adumbrations of that tremendous artifice,

Civilisation. Their capital amounts possibly to 2

pounds per head. They

hunt and fish for their food with bone-headed spews and arrows. They

never suffer from lack of shelter. Their clothes, largely made from the

skins of animals, are warm. They always have fuel for their fires,

likewise timber for their houses, which they build partly underground,

and in which they lie snugly during the periods of intense cold. In the

summer they live in tents, open to every breeze and cool. They are

healthy, and strong, and happy. Their one problem is food. They have

their times of plenty and times of famine. In good times they feast; in

bad times they die of starvation. But starvation, as a chronic

condition, present with a large number of them all the time, is a thing

unknown. Further, they have no debts.

In the United Kingdom, on the rim of the Western Ocean, live the English

folk. They are a consummately civilised people. Their capital amounts

to at least 300 pounds per head. They gain their food, not by hunting

and fishing, but by toil at colossal artifices. For the most part, they

suffer from lack of shelter. The greater number of them are vilely

housed, do not have enough fuel to keep them warm, and are insufficiently

clothed. A constant number never have any houses at all, and sleep

shelterless under the stars. Many are to be found, winter and summer,

shivering on the streets in their rags. They have good times and bad. In

good times most of them manage to get enough to eat, in bad times they

die of starvation. They are dying now, they were dying yesterday and

last year, they will die to-morrow and next year, of starvation; for

they, unlike the Innuit, suffer from a chronic condition of starvation.

There are 40,000,000 of the English folk, and 939 out of every 1000 of

them die in poverty, while a constant army of 8,000,000

struggles on the

ragged edge of starvation. Further, each babe that is born, is born in

debt to the sum of 22 pounds. This is because of an artifice called the

National Debt.

In a fair comparison of the average Innuit and the average Englishman, it

will be seen that life is less rigorous for the Innuit; that while the

Innuit suffers only during bad times from starvation, the Englishman

suffers during good times as well; that no Innuit lacks fuel, clothing,

or housing, while the Englishman is in perpetual lack of these three

essentials. In this connection it is well to instance the judgment of a

man such as Huxley. From the knowledge gained as a medical officer in

the East End of London, and as a scientist pursuing investigations among

the most elemental savages, he concludes, "Were the alternative presented

to me, I would deliberately prefer the life of the savage to that of

those people of Christian London."

The creature comforts man enjoys are the products of man's labour. Since

Civilisation has failed to give the average Englishman food and shelter

equal to that enjoyed by the Innuit, the question arises: _Has

Civilisation increased the producing power of the average man_? If it

has not increased man's producing power, then Civilisation cannot stand.

But, it will be instantly admitted, Civilisation has increased man's

producing power. Five men can produce bread for a thousand. One man can

produce cotton cloth for 250 people, woollens for 300, and boots and

shoes for 1000. Yet it has been shown throughout the pages of this book

that English folk by the millions do not receive enough food, clothes,

and boots. Then arises the third and inexorable question: _If

Civilisation has increased the producing power of the average man, why

has it not bettered the lot of the average man_?

There can be one answer only--MISMANAGEMENT.

Civilisation has made

possible all manner of creature comforts and heart's delights. In these

the average Englishman does not participate. If he shall be forever

unable to participate, then Civilisation falls. There is no reason for

the continued existence of an artifice so avowed a failure. But it is

impossible that men should have reared this tremendous artifice in vain.

It stuns the intellect. To acknowledge so crushing a defeat is to give

the death-blow to striving and progress.

One other alternative, and one other only, presents itself. _Civilisation

must be compelled to better the lot of the average men_.

This accepted,

it becomes at once a question of business management.

Things profitable

must be continued; things unprofitable must be eliminated. Either the

Empire is a profit to England, or it is a loss. If it is a loss, it must

be done away with. If it is a profit, it must be managed so that the

average man comes in for a share of the profit.

If the struggle for commercial supremacy is profitable, continue it. If

it is not, if it hurts the worker and makes his lot worse than the lot of

a savage, then fling foreign markets and industrial empire overboard. For

it is a patent fact that if 40,000,000 people, aided by Civilisation,

possess a greater individual producing power than the Innuit, then those

40,000,000 people should enjoy more creature comforts and heart's

delights than the Innuits enjoy.

If the 400,000 English gentlemen, "of no occupation,"

according to their

own statement in the Census of 1881, are unprofitable, do away with them.

Set them to work ploughing game preserves and planting potatoes. If they

are profitable, continue them by all means, but let it be seen to that

the average Englishman shares somewhat in the profits they produce by

working at no occupation.

In short, society must be reorganised, and a capable management put at

the head. That the present management is incapable, there can be no

discussion. It has drained the United Kingdom of its life-blood. It has

enfeebled the stay-at-home folk till they are unable longer to struggle

in the van of the competing nations. It has built up a West End and an

East End as large as the Kingdom is large, in which one end is riotous

and rotten, the other end sickly and underfed.

A vast empire is foundering on the hands of this incapable management.

And by empire is meant the political machinery which holds together the

English-speaking people of the world outside of the United States. Nor

is this charged in a pessimistic spirit. Blood empire is greater than

political empire, and the English of the New World and the Antipodes are

strong and vigorous as ever. But the political empire under which they

are nominally assembled is perishing. The political machine known as the

British Empire is running down. In the hands of its management it is

losing momentum every day.

It is inevitable that this management, which has grossly and criminally

mismanaged, shall be swept away. Not only has it been wasteful and

inefficient, but it has misappropriated the funds.

Every worn-out, pasty-

faced pauper, every blind man, every prison babe, every man, woman, and

child whose belly is gnawing with hunger pangs, is hungry because the

funds have been misappropriated by the management.

Nor can one member of this managing class plead not guilty before the

judgment bar of Man. "The living in their houses, and in their graves

the dead," are challenged by every babe that dies of innutrition, by

every girl that flees the sweater's den to the nightly promenade of

Piccadilly, by every worked-out toiler that plunges into the canal. The

food this managing class eats, the wine it drinks, the shows it makes,

and the fine clothes it wears, are challenged by eight million mouths

which have never had enough to fill them, and by twice eight million

bodies which have never been sufficiently clothed and housed.

There can be no mistake. Civilisation has increased man's producing

power an hundred-fold, and through mismanagement the men of Civilisation

live worse than the beasts, and have less to eat and wear and protect

them from the elements than the savage Innuit in a frigid climate who

lives to-day as he lived in the stone age ten thousand years ago.

CHALLENGE

I have a vague remembrance

Of a story that is told

In some ancient Spanish legend

Or chronicle of old.

It was when brave King Sanche

Was before Zamora slain,

And his great besieging army

Lay encamped upon the plain.

Don Diego de Ordenez

Sallied forth in front of all,

And shouted loud his challenge

To the warders on the wall.

All the people of Zamora,

Both the born and the unborn,

As traitors did he challenge

With taunting words of scorn.

The living in their houses,

And in their graves the dead,

And the waters in their rivers,

And their wine, and oil, and bread.

There is a greater army

That besets us round with strife,

A starving, numberless army

At all the gates of life.

The poverty-stricken millions

Who challenge our wine and bread,

And impeach us all as traitors,

Both the living and the dead.

And whenever I sit at the banquet,

Where the feast and song are high,

Amid the mirth and music

I can hear that fearful cry.

And hollow and haggard faces

Look into the lighted hall,

And wasted hands are extended

To catch the crumbs that fall

And within there is light and plenty,

And odours fill the air;

But without there is cold and darkness, And hunger and despair.

And there in the camp of famine,

In wind, and cold, and rain,

Christ, the great Lord of the Army,

Lies dead upon the plain.

LONGFELLOW

Footnotes:

{1} This in the Klondike.--J. L.

{2} "Runt" in America is the equivalent of the English

"crowl," the

dwarf of a litter.

{3} The San Francisco bricklayer receives twenty shillings per day, and

at present is on strike for twenty-four shillings.

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