Yank; and conservatism is ironic about this latest disciple of Mammon, who has splashed his money about with such immoral recklessness, and so boldly invited the anger of the gods. For my own part, I feel sympathy with the Old World in Ireland. I dread nothing for Ireland so much as machine-slavery, the homogeneity of vulgar living that is now the rule in the world and the economic rule in small Irish towns. But bitter as it is to risk Ireland's accent, I do not think that passionate provincialism either in regard to England or America, can save her without confirming a worse decay. Ireland must season its character in the world as it is, not shrink away from foreignness, or it is destined to succumb to the world. PART IV REMEDIES "We are less children of this clime A. E. HOLY POVERTY ECONOMIC FITNESS THE problem before Ireland today is, in short, the problem of survival; and the terms of survival are, first of all, economic fitness. Are the Irish economically fit to survive? Without economic fitness, the Irish will just as certainly perish off the face of Ireland as the Red Indian has perished off the face of Manhattan. Morally, this may seem unspeakable and indefensible. But many morally indefensible results have occurred upon this planet, the first law of which, neither moral nor immoral, is survival. He who neglects to survive may have a sound case against the planet; but the planet is deaf and dumb. "To perish may also be a solution." But if the Irish prefer survival to victimization, they must strive for economic fitness. In that strife they must search out those "institutional elements" of which Thorstein Veblen has spoken that are "at variance with the continued life-interests of the community." By the "force of their instinctive insight " they must prevent "the triumph of imbecile institutions over life and culture," whether those institutions are selfmade, or church-made, or government-made. They must decline to work under institutions that are at variance with their proper interests. They must break the "bonds of custom, prescription, principles, precedent," and achieve the means of fitness and survival. Modern economic civilization is only beginning to learn that it must not kill its wounded. Until modern Germany applied itself to causes and effects and attacked the causes of poverty it was usually held that poverty was little better than crime. It was punished by ignorance, disease, contumely, slavery, extermination. For Ireland it was doubly serious, because the Irishman is unwillingly forced to compete with the Englishman, the worst equipped with the best equipped; and a vicious circle was established, in which the loss of an invalid sister or a dull brother was a relief as well as a tragedy in a warfare so deadly as the modern economic war. Hence, the modern critic bases his charges against the Irish on economic grounds. To drink whisky, it is pointed out, is an economic sin. So far as capacity is concerned, an Irishman is, so to speak, entitled to as much whisky as an Englishman. But for Irishmen to spend £15,000,000 a year on alcohol is a sin, not against Heaven, but against economic fitness. He has sinned against property! If he wishes to equal English extravagance in this direction, it is obviously his duty to increase his income. Beggars can't be choosers. There is one morality for the rich, another for the poor. Economic inferiority still entails the most farreaching consequences. No one will venture to deny that there is one code of conduct for the poor, another for the rich. To discover this did not require the adventures of Jude the Obscure. With a guinea a Connemara laborer can pay his year's rent. |