The Intelligent Woman and G. B. S.
The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. By Bernard Shaw. (Constable. 158.1 Tm Intelligent Woman to whom the distinguished Fabian addresses himself is a fluctuating creature. A supremely intelli- gent lady would say,with that stark individualist, Emily BrontO:
" ru walk where my own nature would be leading, It vexes me to -choose another guide."
Such a lady is indeed a guide herSelf to men like Socrates and Dante ; but so indifferent to the distilbution of earthly wealth that G. B. S. would consider her an idiot. No ! this friend of G. B. S's: is just one with a receptive mind and a certain anxiety concerning the world's malady. She half wishes that the lucid expositor would not base his argument for SOcialisin on economic grounds. Poverty is so-"wasteful, he says ; it is a blight poisoning the pure air, a public nuisance. Since political economy deals but.with a kind of State-house- keeping, he continues, surely she, with her domestic, thrift, would wish to abolish poverty. But the intelligent, woman, not much absorbed by housekeeping irnages„,_incipetiions,, indignant, sympathetic, would rather he denounced .poverty as a cruel and agonizing condition, and gladly believes him when she is told that wealth is as perishable as manna. She likes better to hear that " poor people cannot save, and ought not to try," for the Building Societies, even, are diminishing the ehildren's food. Sometimes the colour of the Red Flag will mount to her cheek when she hears of the beaten children and the chained women who helped to drag forward the Industrial Age. But, since women are peculiarly inclined to perish either on the guillotine 'or the barricade, she is sternly recalled and reminded of the iniquities of her sister-women, who, when rich, invest their money in unexamined securities, and, when poor, work disloyally for the sweater's wage.
The first three-quarters of the book are the most effective ; the concluding pages wander a little in their effort to include the. author's pet prejudices. We are all troubled at present by our rapidly developing Social Conscience. A vision of foetid rooms annoys the sleeper on his smooth pillow ;.. cor- rosive, salt of guilt lies within the wine-cup ; the slum presses,, upon the Memory like a nightmare. Once, we know, we all paid, not so reluctantly, to maintain a privileged Class whose beauty, grace; gallantry was a kind of national possession, and who had some sense of duty to their country.' Alas I That it cost so Much ! Now the families of mere capitalists have seized the ancient castleS. The New Rich take, and do no work at all. A plutocrat lives in six -mansions ; and a Workman has a sixth part of a room. 'Mr. Bernard Shaw defines Socialism for the Intelligent WoMan. R has been a -Word that describes an attitude rather than a pOlicy, the attitude of all those who are conscious Of a duty or a responsibility towards their kind, those who cannot take without giving. G. B. S., however, restricts the term to the definite policy of redistributing the national wealth by giv- ing an equal share to everybody. He examines seven other pos- sible plans for distributing money, and finds them hopelessly inadequate. Farther existence on the laisser faire principle will scion slide over into ruin. Rich and poor he holds alike detestable. His essential Puritanism (the moral attitude of the respectable) appears in his unsympathetic attitude towards poverty. His-notion seems to be that poor people can reach no state of grace ; he never does realize that the "holy spirit Of man " 'can actually achieve miracles. In one personal, and quite dignified, paragraph he claims that he knows all that poverty can do, except deprivation of food and home. But you are not a true communicant of Poverty till you do suffer that. The early trade unionist endured it—and for an ideal. G. B. S. seems to study only the lowest of the poor, perhaps because they appeal to his dramatic sense. The honourable and imaginative kind are haughtily reserved. They see their babies perish for want of air and food. Their children, frustrate ofgaiety, turn feverish with dreams. TheiryOuth cannot rejoice as it should. In these sordid streets poverty has no Franciscan grace. Drink is a short cut to ecstasy. Yet heroes desperately try to join the toil of the mind to the toil of the hands, and perish early or live by an ironic mirth.
In beginning his attack on Capitalism Mr. Shaw subtly reminds the Intelligent Woman of all the Communiatic and Nationalistic and Mtinicipal . enterprises already in existenc_e, so that it seems as if we are already committed to his policy, Whatever statesmen say. He writes a scathing account of Industry as a private concern which everyone should read, although many will quarrel with it. We have n& obliterated wrongs when we have arrested them. The War he ascribes entirely to the foreign devilries of capitalists. But his historic sense is too limited ; and this simple explanation does not cover more thin a corner of the complex fabric of facts. He tells us how the Fabians arose, a group of "' cultured persons," meeting to discuss social facts. With the help of the trades unions, he says, the Labour Party was formed. Nevertheless, he has a distrustful eye for the Unions. As a respectable Puritan he cannot really love the poor : as 4 cultured Fabian he recoils from the unions, saying their real desire is to take over capitalization from the owners. Yet nobPdy who knoWs anything of the early idealistic history of the unions, when their unpaid leaders fought through strikes and persecutions for the good of the next generation, and their wives and even their children willingly starved for an unselfish cause, can ever hear them hardly spoken of without anger. " Anger is a bad counsellor," says Mr. Shaw to his Intelligent Woman. " But Blake thought the tigers of wrath are better than the horses of instruction,". she might reply.
This cool indictment of capital and detailed exposition of Socialism covers 495 much too closely printed pages. In digressions and parentheses it touches on every subject in which G. B. S. is specially interested : Education, Eugenics; the Drink Traffic, and all the rest. But what he most vigor-' ously maintains is that everybody must do useful work, must know rest and leisure, and have an equal income. Doubts assail us. How much is necessary for a decent life ? What is useful work ? In one ominous sentence he seems to suggest that the sciences and the arts might be tucked away in " leisure." Ah ! But we think of leisure as a bed of lavender,- where one lies dreaming. Mr. Shaw thinks two or three hours' navy'- work would be a pleasant relaxation. Not
with Shaw would any really Intelligent Woman . .
" conspire
To break the sorry scheme of things entire."
No -He is too much a rationalist ; he has no unconscious self, murmuring wordless liturgies to help him to consider religion more gently. Sorrietinies he- speaks of it as crudely as a Bmdlaugh. - Also, he has a policing kind of Mind ; and. Whitewashes Elizabeth's cruel Poor Laws. I fear. that, with so degirable an income, I might lose what wild fragment of freedom I Posseas.
But I. do not Mean to say that Mr. Shaw's is not an acute, an intricate, and a generous mind. His book is full of illu- mination And when counsel is completely' darkened, he at leak has made a suggestion, has presented an idea which by slow -prOcesses is capable of realization. One can but' Make comments on his book ; it needs a volume for adequate discussion.
Why, oh why, does he torture the eyes of his intelligent readers with a page of print so dense that often about six Words run together in a strange compound ? And why the Mighty'blonde nude On the' jacket, looking out of a broken-'up world ? She is terrifying. Snrely she is not the Intelligent
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