CORRESPONDENCE.
A COMMENTARY IN AN EASY-CHAIR :
THE CIVIL LIST-WITHOUT MEANS OF ADEQUATE SUPPORT -THE POSTMEN AND THEIR STRIKE.
I HAVE not for a long time seen a more pathetic document than the catalogue, just published, of the (un)fortnnate recipients of pensions on the Civil List. It is well known that the sum set apart by the Imperial Treasury for the reward, encouragement, and aid of Literature and Science in the Three Kingdoms is a very small one. As much as a year's income of a man moderately successful in any other branch of endeavour, is all the country can spare for the only tribute it pays to its public instructors,—the producers of that enormous mass of literary matter which it needs great libraries to dis- tribute, and by which great publishers make their fortunes. Literature, we have all congratulated ourselves, in recent times has become a respectable profession. Grub Street exists no longer. Men marry upon it as they do upon a doctor's practice or a clergyman's living. A great many newspapers have been full lately of naïve astonishment that (according to Mr. Besant) there are a number of novelists who succeed in making a thousand a year. And it is very certain that persons who are in the way of making a thousand a year ought not to look to the country to provide for their families after they are gone. But this does not make the list above-mentioned less heartrending, or more dignified, as regards the very important branch of the public service of which it is the only public acknowledgment. The grants in this year's distribution read as follows : Mrs. So-and-So, in consideration of her husband's services, &c., and of her inadequate means of support,—fifty, or seventy- five, or a hundred pounds, as the case may be. There is no name, I think, in the roll to which this qualification is not appended. It is like the list of an Incurable Hospital, or annuity fund for decayed gentlewomen. Heaven knows, there is nobody who would grudge these poor ladies the little infinitesimal aid which is given by this grant ; but one cannot help asking one's-self whether this is the meaning of it? Is it Alms, doled forth in the closest proportion to the needs of those who • receive it ; or is it a public acknowledgment that the Pensioner merits well of his country? I had imagined that it was the latter. There are various names standing upon that roll who have received their little share with pleasure from this point ofi view. Literature has no blue- ribbon, no distinction of any kind among the many that now exist in England. I remember a number of years ago that the Queen, probably awakening to the fact that among all her subjects the class which was never presented to her for distinction was the literary class, went out of her gracious way in two or three cases to make the personal acquaintance of well-known writers. Thomas:Carlyle (not then regarded by the ignorant and prejudiced as the hand of Friendship has now caused him to be) was one of those thus distinguished, an honour kindly received by that old man whose heart was always open to every touch of kindness,—yet naturally causing him a little grim amusement. Her Majesty probably knew no other way of signifying her sense that here was a person of great distinction who never came before her, the fount of honour, in any other more spontaneous way.
Yet we had always thought that, though not a very dignified mode of recompense, the pensions on the Civil List had still a certain meaning in the way of public honour and acknow- ledgment. The late Mr. Matthew Arnold, for instance, had a grant not altogether insignificant as public gratifications go ; and so have various living persons by no means disposed to plead the want of adequate means of support. Is it in future to be regarded as a badge of honour, or as an eleemosynary gift ? It is not unimportant to know the meaning which the country attaches to its generosity. Is it a dole of bread, or a crown of laurel P In the former case, it is clear that several honourable persons who now receive it should withdraw, and not take that bread from the widows and orphans. In the latter, those very widows and orphans might be allowed the gratification, one would think, of receiving their little share on some ground more complimentary than that of their extreme need. It is only extreme need that can be much solaced by a grant of £25 a year ; while, on the other hand, to receive even that pittance in honour of a worthy father has its value apart from the money's worth, which is so pitifully small. I confess that it was with indignation that I read this qualification attached to every name. Let there be a pension fund for the widows of poor servants of the public by all means. Mr. Goschen might consider the subject when he is in face of the embarrassments of his next surplus. It would not be an unpopular institution. It might extend over all classes, and it might be so regulated as to help, like life-insurance, but in a more generous way, the hard-working man to save a little. It would be of greater use than twopence a pound off our tea, which is an infinitesimal saving of no particular advan- tage to anybody. But if the Civil List means anything, it means honour, not alms, and should be given because of merit, not because of inadequate means. The two things exist together often enough, more's the pity; but it is not the policy of the country to confound them, or call attention to
that unfortunate union. I have always doubted the kindness and wisdom of inviting young men, as some experienced writers do, regardless of innumerable catastrophes, to adopt litera- ture as a profession, abandoning the natural crafts which are so much more indispensable to the world. That is to make too much of an occasionally brilliant but often sadly unsatis- factory trade ; and if I am not wrong, the gentlemen who give the advice have generally another staff of income, as well as that of literature, to support their own steps withal. But to such misguided young men, the Civil List should be a. weighty warning. This is the honour which Great Britain gives to those who record her history, and amuse her leisure,. and proclaim her achievements,—a little premium upon- poverty not genius—not a compliment, but an Alms.
It is a little amusing, from a cynical point of view, that this special and particular distinction should have been developed under the reign of a statesman so intimately, in a way, con- nected with literature as Mr. W. H. Smith. The connection has not helped to reduce that right honourable gentleman to. the condition of his pensioners, but the reverse. Adequate means of support come natural to the sellers of books, but not so to the producers of them, which is an argument upon which all the exertions of the Incorporated Authors will not suffice to throw contempt. Postmen may strike (though it has not a very successful effort on their part), but not so the other kind of men of letters, or we should perhaps have. it in our power to turn the tables. There has seldom,. however, been anything more grimly humorous than the recent discussion between the ever-active Mr. Walter Besant and the First Lord of the Treasury which the reader- may recollect,—which that statesman, or perhaps his secre- tary, began by the extraordinary statement that the widows. of novelists were not elegible to what we may venture to call the parish relief of the Civil List. It is needless• to say that the distinguished novelist, champion and repre- sentative, at this present writing, of oppressed authorhood in England, pursued his opponent into a corner, and there- pinned him against the wall with a lance of remorseless fact and logic, in a manner edifying to witness..But such triumphs, though satisfactory for a moment, do not affect the general question. It was deeply ungrateful on the part of Mr. Smith,. just as the descriptions in this year's List are ungenerous and unnecessary, and injurious both to literary reputation and individual feeling. But it would be well that the question should be cleared np. Is the fund upon which the names of Lord Tennyson, of Professor Huxley, of the late Mr. Matthew; Arnold, and many other notable persons, still stand, or recently stood—an eleemosynary fund for the relief of people who do not possess adequate means of support, or is it an honourable dis- tinction, conferred upon those who have deserved well of her by an appreciative country ? It would be well to know. Perhaps. Lord Salisbury, who has had some occasion;l knowledge of literature from its unproductive, while his Leader of the House of Commons knows it only on its very profitable side,. would be the most properly qualified to reply.
It is strange how incapable workers of the educated classes. are of that combination which has become so formidable a• weapon in the hands of the ignorant. The postmen, it is true, have failed, and it would be a curious question to inquire how- far this is owing to -a certain development in them of the- sense of responsibility, and perception of the general evil that must arise from their action, somehow communicated by their connection with that very important kind of domestic literature that passes through the Post Office. Are they/ humanised by some thrill from the wave of life, of family story, and individual drama and tragedy which flows through their hands, and must .in many cases touch their sympathies ? I know a postman who hands in the letters with a smile and announcement that the one on the top is from the absent son of the house. " Here's another French- man," he says, pleased and proud, in his long acquaintance,. that the absent boy should send a daily letter to his mother. I imagine that this consideration would restrain him a little if he were invited to go on strike, just as general considerations of common damage and disadvantage would restrain myself.. He is perhaps not awake to the reductio ad absurdum, the horrible and ridiculous deadlock of human affairs that would ensue if everybody went on strike; but his education by means of his heart has advanced to the first point.
It is, however, a great advantage in action which the
ignorant have, to be able to ignore all complications, and defy all the laws of human unity, in their determination to attain their own object. One wonders whether it would not be a very good thing, in case of the policemen and post- men ever carrying out any such intention, to draft the idle young men of society into their places,—the briefless barristers, for instance, disabled by nature and education from getting up a strike on their own behalf. The " Devil's Own " would not be afraid of the raging multitude outside, as the poor " knob- sticks" are. And what a good thing it would be for the young ladies afflicted with nerves to be turned into letter-sorters, which is an occupation which their refined intelligence could easily master ! If society would thus put its shoulder to the wheel, and supply from its abundant ranks of unemployed the necessary substitutes in any case of public disaster, the effect would be great, and very confusing to the agitators. Our curled darlings could not perhaps have replaced the dock- labourers ; but they would make, excellent postmen. I beg to hand the suggestion in the first place to the pleasant treat- ment of Mr. Punch.
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