of your work in these subjects, pre-eminently in its enforcement of the doctrines :

"That Political Economy can furnish sound laws of national life and work only when it respects the dignity and moral destiny of man.

"That the wise use of wealth, in developing a complete human life, is of incomparably greater moment both to men and nations than its production or accumulation, and can alone give these any vital significance.

"That honourable performance of duty is more truly just than rigid enforcement of right; and that not in competition but in helpfulness, not in self-assertion but in reverence, is to be found the power of life."

When we turn from economic theory to political practice Ruskin is again seen to be a pioneer. To an inquirer who contrasts the central tendencies of political thought with those which were most powerful in the middle of the nineteenth century, four main differences will at once present themselves. (1) The thoughts and efforts of reformers are now devoted more to social than to purely political questions. (2) The doctrine of laisser faire, alike in politics and in economics, has lost much of its former hold. Reformers of to-day look rather to co-operation organised by the State than to the free play of competition for the improvement of the people. (3) The limits of State interference have thus been largely extended. Not freedom from external restraint, but free scope for self-development, is the ideal of modern reformers. (4) The new conception of the State at home, coupled with new conditions in the world at large, has led to ideas of "expansion" and "Imperialism,” which are altogether at variance with the doctrines in this respect of the old Manchester School. Of these new tendencies, the first three have already been described in our summary of the books by Ruskin collected in this volume. On the fourth point, the reader may refer to The Crown of Wild Olive, § 159; the Lectures on Art, 29; and A Knight's Faith. Ruskin in these places called on the youth of England to enter "on truest foreign service, founding new seats of authority, and centres of thought, in uncultivated and unconquered lands." He spoke, in glowing words, of the "course of beneficent glory open to us"; and, "lest we forget," reminded his hearers that “the sons of sacred England" must go forth for her, "not only conquering, and to conquer, but saving, and to save."

Passing, lastly, to the specific suggestions made by Ruskin in Unto

And for other remarks, on Ruskin's attacks upon the doctrine of laisser faire, see the Introduction to Vol. XVI. pp. xxiv.-xxvi.

this Last (see above, p. lxxxvii.)-suggestions which at the time excited violent reprobation or contemptuous laughter-we may note that every one of the Seven Points in his unauthorised programme has by this time either been put into operation (whole or partial), or is a subject of discussion among practical politicians. Nos. 1 and 2-elementary and technical education-need not detain us. Proposal No. 3-for Government workshops-is still only a matter of discussion. But we may notice the growing conception of the State as Model Employer, and the modern extensions of Government warranty and anti-adulteration laws as steps in the direction indicated by Ruskin. The next proposal (No. 4)-Government work for the unemployed-has at least passed from the pages of political idealists to discussion in Parliament. The occasional establishment of Municipal Relief Works, the acceptance of a certain responsibility involved in the foundation of a Labour Department and a Labour Gazette, and the introduction of a Government Bill in the present session (1905) for the establishment of Relief Committees with power to levy rates for Farm Colonies: these things are all in line with Ruskin's doctrines. Under No. 5 (Fixed Wages) falls the growing adoption, both by the central and by the municipal authorities, of the principle of Fair Wages or of Trade-Union wages. Reversing the order of the last two points, proposal No. 7 (Old Age Pensions, etc.) is simply Mr. Chamberlain's scheme for Old Age Pensions, plus various proposals for a reformed Poor Law. Men of all parties have given lip-service at least to Ruskin's doctrine that the State should recognise "Soldiers of the Ploughshare as well as Soldiers of the Sword." But the more such schemes are realised, the more will the necessity be felt for penalising the loafer. This is Ruskin's proposal No. 6. "The law of national health," he explains, "is like that of a great lake or sea, in perfect but slow circulation, letting the dregs continually fall to the lowest place, and the clear water rise" (Munera Pulveris, § 109).

The definite political and social suggestions involved in other parts of Ruskin's economic writings are not so easily summarised as in the case of Unto this Last. Some of the principal ones among them may be arranged under the general heads of Rural and Urban. In the earlier volumes of Fors Clavigera (1871-1874), he insisted strongly on the necessity for Fair Rents, Fixity of Tenure, and Compensation for Improvements. He gave the landlords until 1880 to set their houses in order. In that year, he predicted, the landlords of the country would be "confronted not with a Chartist meeting at Kennington,

but a magna and maxima Chartist Ecclesia at Westminster ”—wherein, he said, they would "find a difference and to purpose."1 The difference was the Land Act of 1881. The reforms he advocated began, of course, with Ireland-the corpus vile on which we make so many of our political experiments, good, bad, and indifferent. The principles of the Irish Land Act may never be applied in Great Britain; though, with his eye upon Crofters' Courts in Scotland and Land Commissions in Wales, a prudent man would perhaps not prophesy very confidently. But if such Government action is averted in England, will it not be because English landlords have taken to heart such exhortations as Ruskin delivered? With regard to another phase of the question, Ruskin, as we have seen, was not a land nationaliser. He was a strong advocate of private tenure. But "property," he says, "belongs to whom proper." "The land to those who can use it." "By whomsoever held to be made the most of." "The right action of a State respecting its land is to secure it in various portions to those of its citizens who deserve to be trusted with it, according to their respective desires and proved capacities."3 These typical extracts from writings of thirty and forty years ago are specially interesting in connexion with debates on Bills of recent sessions, under which it is sought to invest local bodies with compulsory powers of purchasing and hiring land, in order to dole it out "to those who can use it." use it." No difference of opinion was professed on the principle involved. The point on which discussion turned was with regard to the amount which any one man would, could, or should want, and to the conditions under which he would be likely to make the most of it. Both parties agreed in giving access to the land to the citizens, precisely as Ruskin says, "according to their respective desires and proved capacities." We have, however, as yet hardly grasped another of Ruskin's conceptions on the Land Question-the conception of beautiful landscape as one of the most essential elements of national wealth. But all such movements as those for the preservation of commons, the protection of footpaths, the limitation of rural advertisements, and access to mountains are steps towards satisfying a new economic want which the author of Modern Painters has done as much as any other one man in our time to create.

Turning now from the country to the towns, we may cite a passage which Ruskin wrote in 1883 when the "bitter cry of Outcast

1 Fors Clavigera, Letter 45.

2 Ibid., Letter 70.

3 Time and Tide, § 151.

London was heard in the land, and "slumming" became a recognised occupation:

"I beg the readers alike, and the despisers, of my former pleadings in this matter, to observe that all the recent agitation of the public mind concerning the dwellings of the poor, is merely the sudden and febrile (Heaven be thanked, though, for such fever!) recognition of the things which I have been these twenty years trying to get recognized, and reiterating description and lamentation of—even to the actual printing of my pages blood-red -to try if I could catch the eye at least, when I could not the ear or the heart." 1

(The reference in the penultimate words is to some passages in Sesame and Lilies describing the dwellings of the poor, which Ruskinwho, by the way, is one of the sponsors of "sensational journalism ”— had printed in red ink.) In a retrospect over the multifarious schemes and efforts for the improvement of urban conditions, which have marked the last thirty years, one of the names which stand out among those of pioneers is the honoured name of Miss Octavia Hill. The root-ideas of her work were two: first, the idea in connexion with "slum property," of personal responsibility; secondly, the idea of personal service, to the poor. These ideas have had many and fruitful ramifications-some of them suggested also by Ruskin. But, at any rate, it was Ruskin who first had the inspiration of giving Miss Hill the opportunities for her work as a social pioneer. Forty years ago he resolved to set his theories on this subject into practical motion. Some freehold property, of small tenements, he already possessed under his father's will; some other leasehold property of a similar description he subsequently bought for the purpose. The whole of these properties he entrusted to the stewardship of Miss Hill. She was to earn for him a moderate and fixed income; but, for the rest and above all, to improve the conditions of the tenants. Many other practical experiments in social reform were made by Ruskin, as we shall see in a later volume-experiments in the reclamation of land, in village industries, in farming, in model tea-shops, in the purification of streams, in street-cleaning, in road-making. But probably none of his experiments will have had so permanent and so fruitful an influence towards the solution of modern problems as the demonstration which

1 Fors Clavigera, Letter 93.

2 See Time and Tide, § 148 (below, p. 437).

he enabled Miss Octavia Hill to give in model landlordism. Ruskin was fond of preaching what has been called the "slum crusade" in his lectures at Oxford, and the movement for University and College "Settlements” owes not a little to his exhortations. "My University friends came to me,” he said, “at the end of my Inaugural Lectures, with grave faces, to remonstrate against irrelevant and Utopian topics being introduced."1 They may have been irrelevant; they certainly were not Utopian. And since political practice and economic theory act and react upon one another, it is not surprising to find on the one hand economists declaring that "though the future Political Economy may not build from him directly, yet it will be rather with Ruskin's earth than Ricardo's straw that its bricks for building will be made;" and, on the other side, a distinguished publicist recording his opinion that Unto this Last is "not only the most original and creative work of John Ruskin, but the most original and creative work in pure literature since Sartor Resartus." "It put into a form more picturesque and incisive than ever before the revolt from that cynical pedantry into which the so-called Political Economy was tending to degenerate. The brutal, ignorant, and inhuman language which was current about capital and labour, workmen, and trades-unions is heard no longer. The old plutocracy is a thing of the past. And no man has done more to expose it than the author of Unto this Last." 3 "The Political Economy of to-day," said the late Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, "is the political economy of John Ruskin, and not the political economy of John Bright or even of John Stuart Mill."

In closing this summary of Ruskin's social and political work, I ought perhaps to guard against a possible misconception. Neither in the case of his practical suggestions nor in that of his economic theories, need any patent rights or any exclusive credit be claimed for Ruskin. In an old and complex society, the growth of new ideas and the operation of fresh motive-forces require the combined efforts, from many different directions, of many thinkers and many workers. Before the fruit ripens upon the tree much digging and ditching is necessary: the rain must fall and the sun shine; and the procession

1 Fors Clavigera, Letter 41.

2 "Ruskin as a Political Economist," in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Boston, vol. ii. p. 445.

3 "Ruskin as a Master of Prose," Nineteenth Century, October 1895, p. 574, and "Unto this Last," Nineteenth Century, December 1895, p. 972, both by Frederic Harrison; reprinted in his Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and other Literary Estimates, 1898, pp. 74, 101.