The rich man’s charities—His generosity—His hospitality—His land—The Feudal System—His responsibilities—The agricultural problem.

We must now turn from what the rich man spends on himself and consider what good and what harm he does by his subscriptions and donations to philanthropic and charitable objects.

In so far as he himself is concerned these gifts do not involve any element of personal sacrifice; the moral benefit which is by way of falling on a giver is therefore nil. The exertion of writing a cheque or banker’s order and the satisfaction of imposing a tax on himself complete the transaction on his side. Occasionally the sight of his name published at the head of a list with a large figure next it gives him a further agreeable sensation, and he can become famous as a household word of generous philanthropy without the very smallest personal inconvenience. But as an instance of pure charity—that is, loving sacrifice—the poor woman who gives a penny from her meagre store is on an entirely different plane. The picture presents itself to the present writer of a woman at the doorway of a wretched tenement, with her child in her arms, giving to a passing vagrant who was suffering from hunger and fatigue a penny from the few coins she had in her purse. The expression of her face as she handed him the money was the most sublime illumination of pure charity—no subscription list in the newspapers, no public recognition, and the sacrifice, not of luxuries, but of something that she and her baby needed. That something went with her penny, and in return she received something else for which there is no price, no name, and no description. From such an experience as this the rich are for ever cut off. “Probably the most generous people in the world,” says J.D. Rockefeller, perhaps realising that charity is something he can never reach, “are the very poor, who assume each other’s burdens in the crises which come so often to the hard pressed.”

The rich man’s so-called charity therefore must be to a large extent mechanical and conventional. He gives because others with the same means give, and the charity touts know how a list headed by Lord A. with a substantial sum will produce equally or perhaps even more substantial sums from Lord B., Sir. C.D., Alderman E., and Mr. F. The extraction of money from the rich is a business in itself, requiring considerable skill, and the rich are fleeced far more than they realise. In practical America they take the trouble to teach people professionally how to write what they call “letters of appeal.” When we hear of subscriptions to charities being stopped it may serve to remind us that it is most inexpedient that institutions such as hospitals should be at the mercy of the casual caprice of rich men. Nothing could eventually be more desirable than that every one of them should cut off their charitable contributions. It might entail a severe temporary shock to the funds of charitable institutions, as over seven millions a year is being spent in London alone on charities, but at the same time many ill-managed and misdirected endeavours would disappear, and the State would come to realise all the sooner its responsibilities in respect to the maintenance of really necessary institutions for the relief of suffering and the nursing of the sick, in the same way as it is beginning to recognise its duties towards poverty, old age, and unemployment. There are other enterprises which the State should undertake that are often delayed in their institution owing to the plea that the private munificence of rich men can be depended upon. It is certainly better that the funds should be expended thus than in sheer self-indulgence, but it is evident that the money would be far better spent and the object on which it is spent better served if the source were not controlled by the whims and fancies of a single individual.

In regard to the more private and personal aspects of the generosity attributed to riches: “Surely,” a critic will say, “if the rich man is benevolent and kindly disposed he can in a hundred thoughtful ways help his poorer friends by presents, by attention and timely help, by opening the doors of his houses, lending his conveyances, and showing many other attentions which his money allows him to do, thereby becoming justly popular and a source of great good.”

The admiration, and just admiration, for open-handed generosity and the justifiable dislike of anything approaching miserliness in others cause an entirely erroneous impression that large gifts of money must unquestionably be praiseworthy and commendable. But this is not the question at issue. These are two moral qualities, the one admirable, the other objectionable. The generous disposition can show itself in many other ways besides money gifts, and the real man behind the rich man, though he may be one and the same individual, often comes forward with simple acts of thoughtful kindness because the finer qualities of human nature cannot be stifled even by money. But in so far as the rich man indulges his generosity in thoughtlessly giving away money broadcast, it amounts to a form of self-indulgence, and he is distinctly to blame for not estimating more precisely the effect of his actions. No doubt the harm of unwise and foolish actions is palliated by the purity and excellence of the motive. In so far as these people intend to show kindness they are amply justified in what they do. But let us consider for a moment what the effect of their benevolence is. In the first place they are made to occupy an entirely false position as dispensers of charity. Often, too, the desire to patronise and gain the power that patronage gives blights the spirit of genuine and unadulterated kindness, and further, the recipients are placed in the extremely uncomfortable and embarrassing situation of receiving benefits, presents, and comforts which they know they are not and probably never will be in a position to return. To force anyone to be under a lasting obligation is not the most likely way of generating pure gratitude. There are many who refuse outright rather than place themselves in this position: there are some who take full advantage of the generosity and, what is commonly called, “sponge” on their benefactors, and if the possessors of abundance refuse either from principle or out of indifference to give freely they are severely blamed and generally regarded as ungenerous and stingy. The virtues were once called to a banquet by “the Lord of All.” They talked and laughed and each one knew the other well, but:

In fact, the whole atmosphere created, not by an isolated gift which has cost the donor more than actual cash, but by the habit of doles, bounty, and patronage is unhealthy and disturbing and ultimately undermines the foundations of natural human relations and mutual friendship.

An excuse will be sought for in the plea that the exercise of hospitality is a duty performed by the rich with some success. If the hospitality of the rich is ever truly successful it is here again the man, and not his money, that brings this about. Crowds of guests at country houses or dinner parties who regard their host and hostess as nothing more than innkeepers or restaurant proprietors are common enough, and it is a well-known expedient for those who are busy “climbing” (and their name is Legion) to use hospitality as a means of getting hold of the “right people.” But the small gathering met together in a common interest and mutual regard to enjoy the warming intercourse of friendship does not require the accompaniment of a ten-course dinner nor the surroundings of a vast establishment, and is, happily, as easily within the reach of the poorer sections of the community as of the rich. Money, therefore, does not facilitate or elevate hospitality. It manifestly tends to lower its quality and depreciate its value.

It may be argued further in connection with large establishments and hospitality that certain noble traditions founded on an excusable pride of family or race are to be found attached to the great historic establishments of the nobility. There is no great harm in this sentiment and from the archÆological point of view it has a certain attractive interest. But it is too much for the high nobility to expect that they can continue to carry on these traditions throughout all time, preserving the habits and customs of past ages in a world that has changed and will continue to change. No one will quarrel with them if they ask that their lineage and family history should be respected, but money will not help them now, and when they consider themselves entitled to administer autocratically their millions in order to preserve their princely dignities, they are asking for privileges which the modern economic State and the growth of democracy are every year showing more and more to be inconsistent with good government and the healthy life of the people. And often by their riches they only succeed in reproducing a somewhat vulgar travesty of the splendour and distinction of their ancestors in bygone ages.

The typical instance we are examining has been described as a landlord who owns villages and keeps his cottages carefully repaired (this, we may note in passing, is not by any means the invariable practice). He dispenses charity to the villagers with open-handed generosity, providing thoughtfully the sack of coals in winter, the occasional pound of tea, the knitted waistcoats for the little boys, the scarves and hoods for the little girls, and what could be more idyllic than to see the children bobbing curtsies and touching their caps to the people from the great house?

As a matter of fact, this sham feudalism is generally upheld more by a love of power and patronage than by kindness of heart. Our landlord is consciously proud of having people directly dependent on him whom he can order according to his will (even at election time), whom he can enrich or impoverish as he judges right, and can remove from his cottages when they do not please him. If the result is spick and span to the eye and he is greeted by smiles of apparent gratitude he feels, and it is difficult to disillusion him, that his methods are successful, and he is induced to believe that his actions are justified and his presence in the community indispensable. But what kind of impression is in reality produced on those who come under his sway? Not gratitude, because they soon begin to regard his gifts as a natural right, and knowing that the squire can easily afford so much, discontent is likely to be roused that he does not give more. Consequently a whole class of people are retained devoid of all the self-reliance and energy which independence alone can give. Without their being aware of it, the yoke of subjection is placed upon them under the guise of beneficent charity, weighing them down, creating in them false habits of cringing subservience, and indefinitely postponing the day of their liberation. The landlord is not the elected chief of a village community whom the people can feel to be one of themselves, chosen by them and removable by them. Under such circumstances service is no longer subservience, for congregations of human beings will always seek out their leaders, organisers, managers, or controllers. But this landlord has imposed himself upon them, or is the descendant of one who imposed himself on their fathers, who took, in fact, what was once rightfully theirs, enclosed it or confiscated it. To go no further back than the Enclosure Acts, one can note the irreparable wrongs that were then committed by those who had the political power in their hands. Arthur Young reported in 1801 that “by nineteen Enclosure Acts out of twenty the poor are injured, and in some cases greatly injured.” The protests made at the time were practically unheeded by an aristocracy too much absorbed in making its fortune to give a thought to the ruin of the classes that were losing their little inheritance in the common fields or the common waste. We repeat, the landlord has imposed himself upon them; this he can do, and will continue to do, not because he is particularly fitted by special training for the administration of landed property, nor even because he has a strong preference for the pursuit of agriculture, but simply and solely because he has money. To state his one qualification for the position he holds is quite sufficient to prove its falseness and absurdity.

In the argument we are following the underlying principle, which might be called the doctrine of human incapacity, or more correctly, perhaps, of human limitations, becomes more evident with regard to the rich man’s landed property than his other possessions and investments, especially if we are inclined to believe that the earth’s surface and its minerals, by their very nature, like light, air, and water, should be part of the common inheritance of man.

Can an estate of many thousands of acres be developed and cultivated to its fullest extent in every corner under the guidance of one individual, who, even though he may have exceptional knowledge of farming and may use skilled agents, is nevertheless concerned with many other interests which he desires to serve? Are there any of the large estates which can be pointed to as models? Are there not rather many estates that serve as striking instances of the failure of the system? Are there not acres upon acres of land which might be yielding great abundance, real wealth for the nation, which are either badly managed, neglected, left as waste, or kept for sporting purposes? There is no need to mention the building land which is often held up by them until the efforts of the local community have increased the value sufficiently to yield them a substantial increment, because this is a source of income and not an object on which they spend money. On agriculture they do spend money, and they ask, in consequence, that the ownership of land should be recognised as “an industry.”10 They ask, “above all, the right to select the persons to be associated with the proprietor in his cultivation of the soil.”11 The good landlord who is something of an agriculturist and devotes time and trouble to his property is often in despair at his want of success, which he attributes to the burdens on land, to our fiscal system, or to the incompetence of the agricultural labourer, and he is always declaring his land to be a drain on his wealth rather than a source of income, but never does it cross his mind for an instant that possibly he himself is undertaking a task which is far beyond his powers and that his pretensions are quite unjustifiable.

The co-operation of farmers or small holders working for the quality of what they produce and not for filling their pockets and extending their estates, secure in their independence, acting separately so far as separate action is conducive to good cultivation and co-operating when united action can produce better results, this method, as actually practised in Denmark, for instance, must obviously be superior both for the land and for the people. But the deplorable lack of scientific knowledge, the unprogressive methods of our farmers, the engrained readiness to be controlled by some social superiors, makes the rapid extension of such a system impossible.

In the meanwhile we cannot accept our rich man’s plea that as a landlord, even as a good landlord, his expenditure is profitable. It is not that he makes nothing but mistakes; it is that he cannot give sufficient time and attention to it; it is that he is by nature incapable—an incapacity which he shares with every other mortal—of deriving from his estate of some thousands of acres all that it could produce. It follows that his action in keeping to himself large tracts of this unique form of property is depriving many of a means of employment and countless hundreds of the enjoyment of the fruits of the land; it is driving the population from the country districts to overcrowd the towns, add to the number of the unemployed, and swell the volume of crime. The land question with all its ramifications is perhaps the most complex and vast of the many subjects that are touched by the responsibility of riches, but it is one that more completely than any other illustrates the argument, and is the best evidence of the limitation of the rich man’s powers. In no field of human activity ought it to be tolerated that an entirely unfitted and untrained man should be put at the head of so difficult and highly technical a business as the management of land. When this occurs in commerce the business collapses, but in land management the owner remains doing untold damage and often playing the ridiculous part of a territorial magnate or a petty monarch, to his own hurt and to the hindrance of his subjects. An American writer making a survey of life in England to-day says, “When one hears, and one does hear it on every hand, how poor are Englishmen, one has in this land question some explanation of the secret.”12