FREEDOM— “I am sure there was no word for freedom before slavery was invented. The old Greeks had every sort of government — monarchies, aristocracies, plutocracies, democracies — and argued fiercely about which system gave people most freedom, but all of them kept slaves. So did the ancient Roman republic. So did the stout squires who founded the U.S.A. Yes, the only sure definition of freedom is non-slavery. You may have heard it in a popular song:
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves!
Britons never never never will be slaves!
In the days of Good Queen Bess we English were so disgusted by the cruel way the Spaniards enslaved the American Indians that we plundered their treasure ships whether at war with them or not. In 1562 Sir John Hawkyns (who became paymaster of the navy and hero of the Armada fight) started the British slave trade by stealing black slaves from the Portuguese in Africa and selling them to the Spaniards in the New World. Parliament made that trade a criminal offence in 1811.”
“Good!” I said, “and now the Americans have abolished it too.”
“Yes. It only profited their southern farmers. Modem industry finds it cheaper to hire hands for days or weeks — when not needed they are free to beg work from other masters. When many free men are begging for work the masters are free to lower wages.”
FREE TRADE— “Yes, our parliament has defined freedom as our ability to buy as cheap as possible and sell as dear as possible anywhere, with the help of our army and navy. This enables us to cut up countries with famines as readily as a carpenter cuts wood with a saw. Listen carefully, Bell.
“Indian weavers used to make the finest cotton cloth and muslin in the world, and only British merchants were free to sell it — the French had tried to do that, so we drove them out of India. Then we British learned how to make cloth more cheaply with machinery in our own factories, so we needed raw Indian cotton and Angora wool and could stop anyone else buying Indian cloth. Soon after one of the governors we had given to India reported that the plains of Dacca were littered with the bones of the weavers.
“Did you know that eight out of ten Irish lived on potatoes? They were peasants whose poor soil grew little else, and money they made by other means went to pay the landlords rent. The landlords were descended from English invaders and conquerors, so they owned the rich soil where corn was grown. Thirty-five years ago a sudden disease killed the potatoes and the peasants started starving. Now, in times of famine people who own big food stocks move it out of the land, because starving people are too poor to pay a good price. The British parliament debated a proposal that we shut the Irish ports until the Irish grain had been eaten by the Irish people. This was voted down because it would interfere with free trade. Instead we sent soldiers to make sure the grain reached the ships. Nearly a million starved to death: a million and a half left the country. Those who reached Britain worked for such low wages that the wages of British workers could be beaten down and our industries make more money than ever. Now go to the stern for a while.”
He knows that when I can bear no more I run to the end of the ship and lean over the rail so that the wind blows my screams and wails out to sea. This time I looked hard at him and asked if he would have voted against closing the ports if he had been in parliament. I was not going to bite him if he said yes — would have spat in his face. He said quietly, “I would not have dared vote against the proposal had I known I must face you afterwards, Bell.”
I nearly called him a cunning fiend, but that is how Wedder talks. I swallowed my spit and walked away.
EMPIRE— “No thickly peopled place has lacked an empire — Persia, Greece, Italy, Mongolia, Arabia, Denmark, Spain and France have had turns. The least warlike and biggest and longest-lasting empire was Chinese. We destroyed it twenty-five years ago because its government would not let us sell opium there. The British empire has grown rapidly, but in another two or three centuries the half-naked descendants of Disraeli and Gladstone may be diving off a broken pier of London Bridge, retrieving coins flung into the Thames by Tibetan tourists who find the sight amusing.”
SELF GOVERNMENT— I asked if there are any lands of cheerful, prosperous people who govern only themselves.
“Yes. In Switzerland several small republics with different languages and religions have lived peacefully side by side for centuries, but high mountains divide them from each other and the surrounding nations. To improve the world, Bella, you need only build a high mountain between every town and its nearest neighbour, or chop the continents into many islands of equal size.”
WORLD IMPROVERS— “Yes, I foresee that despite my teaching, Bell, you are going to become the most modern kind of half-baked optimist, the sort who wants to abolish riches and poverty by sharing out the world’s goods equally.”
“That is only common sense!” I cried.
“There are four sects who agree with you, but have different plans to bring it about.
“The SOCIALISTS want the poor to elect them into parliament, where they plan to tax the surplus of the rich and make laws to give everyone productive work in good conditions, along with good food, housing, education and health care.”
“A lovely idea!” I cried.
“Yes. Beautiful. The other world-improvers point out that parliament is an alliance of monarchs, lords, bishops, lawyers, merchants, bankers, brokers, industrialists, military men, landlords and civil servants who run it to protect their wealth AND FOR NO OTHER REASON. Socialists elected into it will therefore be outwitted by these, or bribed, or compromised into nonentity. I agree with this prediction.
“So the COMMUNISTS are forming a party of folk from every class of society who will patiently work and wait for a day when their country gets into serious financial trouble, then they will overturn it and become the government — for a short time. Having ruled the land until everybody has what they need and are able to keep it, the Communists say they will disband because neither they nor any further government will be needed.”
“Hooray!” I cried.
“Yes, hooray. The other world-improvers say that groups who come to power by violence always perpetuate themselves by more of it and become a new tyranny. I agree.