[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your correspondent, J., has
reminded your readers of Carlyle's description of the workless in his day. May I draw- attention to the call o Aanother social prophet of last century to all classes to becalm workers ? John Ruskin, in an address in the year 1865 published in the Crown of Wild Olive, gave an exhortation which seems to apply equally well to the present day, when the capitalist class urges longer hours and harder work, and-the Labour Party claiming the monopoly to the title " workers," retorts on the idle rich.—I am, Sir,
" The fact is that there are idle poor and idle rich, and there are busy poor and busy rich. Many a beggar is as lazy as if he had £10,000 a year • and many a man of large fortune is busier than his errand boy, and would not think of stopping in the streets to play marbles. Thera is a working class—strong and happy—among both rich and poor ; there is an idle class—weak, wicked, and miserable—among both rich and poor. If the busy rich people watched and rebuked the idle rich people, all would be right ; and if the busy poor people watched and rebuked the idle poor people, all would be right. But each class has a tendency to look for the faults of the others whereas there is no class distinction between idle and industrimis people. " But there are class distinctions among the industrious them- selves. The first is between those who work and those who play. ` Play' is an exertion of body or mind to please ourselves, and has no definite end. ' Work' is a thing done because it ought to be done and with a definite end. You ` play' at cricket. This is as hard as anything else ; but it amuses you and it has no result but amusement. If it were done as an ordered form of exercise and for health's sake, it would become work directly. Then follow some of the games' of the playing class. The first, oddly enough, is ` making money' ; the others, hunting, shooting, racing, gambling and ' the ladies" game of dressing . . Men will be taught that an existence of play, sustained by the work and blood of others is good for gnats and fish but not for men ; that neither days nor lives can be made holy by doing nothing in them, and that the best grace before meat is the consciousness that we have earned our dinner. And when we have this much of plain Christianity preached to us, and have learned not to think, Son go work to-day in my vineyard,' means ` Fool go play to-day' we shall all be workers in one way or another."
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