My great subject was the crowd of the world's future. Nationalities would be all merged in those great days.—Author, chap. i.
We have now reached a great era in the history alike of our country and of the world, when the old international distinctions are all to merge into one common citizenship over the whole earth, one common industry and progress, and the facilities of one common speech. There had been already, in various ways, a heralding of the approach of this new and grand era of the world's development. Latterly, the world's progressive aspects had made it obvious to most observers that this great change was approaching. But it was not until just upon the twenty-fifth century, that the formal abandonment of separate nationalities, and of their respective separate governments, took place, making thereby, of the whole world, one great and undivided human society and interest.
This was, so far, a fitting result, inasmuch as we had, by this time, seriously altered or upset all the old traditional territorial divisions and landmarks. Who of the nineteenth century, for instance, looking upon the geography of the twenty-fifth, would have recognized that once insulated Old England of the earlier time? At the time we have now reached, the North Sea had been filled up in all its middle and southern shallows; and these great reclaimed areas were then occupied by a countless throng of busy humanity, where the Dutch-German, the Belgo-French, and the English elements freely commingled in a career of arduous but amicable rivalry. Continuing south and west, the Channel had been largely filled up by united English and French effort; while of the old Irish Channel there survived but a wide streak of the deeper water, to diversify the bright new landscape which had been rescued from the waves upon either side. Elsewhere also, far and wide over the world, the great oceanic expanses had been vigorously invaded, and all the shallower half of their areas been already redeemed to the world's terra firma.
A vast, unprecedented population of this busy mankind now overspread the world from pole to pole. The term "vast," however, is used only comparatively. The world's population then was vast enough truly, as compared with five centuries before; although it was but small indeed, as compared with what we have attained to now, after five more centuries have passed over our busy race. The world's climate, too, had been already sensibly changed throughout, as the effect of those terra firma extension operations with which we have since, in these five subsequent centuries, made so much still greater progress. The narrowing of the evaporable surface everywhere had diminished everywhere the old violence of all our meteorologic forces. Already the world was, to an appreciable degree, freed of dark, heavy cloud masses, heavy and protracted rains, violent wind storms, and angry degrees of thunder and lightning. We, in the twenty-ninth century, have still much further triumphed over these common disturbers of the peace of the past, which have indeed no longer even the pretence of agricultural wants for their uncomfortable, inconvenient, business-hindering, and ladies-bonnet-ruining infliction. Who, I say, would ever prefer to go back to those old ways and freaks of the weather, from whose extremes we have happily now been so thoroughly freed?
Let us look back, for just a passing moment, upon our Old England, now about to expire as a separate and distinctive national existence, and to be swallowed up in that progress of the world to which she herself, after planting her energetic sons far and wide over its surface, had most prominently contributed, thus giving place to that "larger Britain," as she might now claim to call the entire world. The last premier of this Old England stands before us, to make his opening address to the venerable Wittenagemot of his age and country. There still survived, in form, the old Commonwealth administration of a premier and his ministry, responsible to a representative Parliament. But otherwise the political drama had materially changed in many of its aspects. There was still an ever-advancing "Liberal," and a restraining and opposing "Conservative" party in "the House" and in the country; but the aims and objects of the two contending political bodies were strikingly different from those of five centuries previous. Political attention was now, and had been for some time before, absorbed by the grand question of the impending change in the disappearance of international distinctions in the world. While the Liberals had been cherishing and promoting this idea, as one of the fitting consummations of human progress and brotherhood, the Conservatives, on the other hand, had been strenuously, almost even bitterly, opposing it, and vehemently declaiming against all this upsetting and erasing of the good old world's landmarks, systems, and institutions. "Are you a Nationalist, or an Antinationalist?" was then the great cry. How odd such a controversy looks now! We, who are so long accustomed to the larger and nobler idea, look back in wonder upon these narrow prejudices of the past; but, at the comparatively early time we speak of, there was still a hot dispute over the merits of the prospect, and a daily expenditure of much argument and eloquence on either side.
The premier to whom we have just alluded, as having been the last of his political race, was a Liberal; and the final triumph of his party and its cause was achieved when he formally surrendered his distinctive premiership, and, along with it, a distinctively English nationality and Government. Thenceforward the whole world became virtually one people and one political administration. Practically, however, government went on much as before, there being no grounds for any disturbance of a revolutionary character. If certain changes had become inevitable in the nature of things, yet the people everywhere were busy, well-provided for, and contented. What had actually been done was only the formal acknowledgment of facts—the abandoning of nominal international distinctions, after the realities had practically ceased.
Our said premier, on first acceding to his high office, had cast a portentous glance ahead upon this main question of the day. Possibly he had not contemplated the final change as being so near at hand as events were presently to show; and still less perhaps that the final triumph to his party should be dealt out by his own instrumentality. But, none the less, it was altogether a most interesting occasion, when he essayed to shadow forth the imminent expectations of all the larger-minded of his countrymen; and, after a sarcastic allusion to the Conservative gloom over that prospect, passed on to the usual survey of the world's condition, progress, and prosperity, a survey which had long been one of the prominent features of premiers' addresses.
In following our England's last premier in this direction, we shall omit his allusions to the grand aspects presented by the scientific progress of his time, because we have in view to take, in our next chapter, one connected glance at this vast subject. We shall recall some of the most prominent of his other statements, distinguishing, as they do, this turning point and departure in our national history.
Although the world, in this premier's day, had not, by any means, attained the advanced position and the huge population it can now boast of, yet there was a very substantial advance towards the grand modern destinies. We have seen that the edge of troublesome meteorologic disturbance had been already sensibly turned. The comfort as well as the profitable enterprise and uninterrupted industry of life had been further most materially promoted by the common system of interposing, throughout inhospitable latitudes especially, the protection of an overall glass roofing. This was the more needed when, by the gradual diminution of cloud and vapour in our atmosphere, through the contraction of the evaporable ocean surface over the earth, the ever-clearer sky gave us sharper alternations of heat and cold, especially between night and day. But now, on the other hand, our protecting glass, by way of a closer drawn and more reliable overhead sky, enabled us to make ourselves comfortable everywhere.
The system of subterranean abode to which the premier next adverted, and which has now, in our own more advanced day, been of stern necessity so universally developed, had made, however, even at this time, a fair progress. There was still, in that day, some natural variety of hill and dale scenery remaining over the world—unlike, in that respect, its present condition, which has at last dispensed with all that imaginative sort of thing, so soon as it came in the way of people's more solid interests and wants. The ocean shallows had already, as we have said before, been filled up, partly by the levelling of the old hills, and partly by subterranean excavation. A goodly proportion of people, who had been crowded off the surface, in what was, then, at least, deemed to be crowding—had gradually taken to subterranean life. But there had not then, by any means, arisen that dense mass of layer upon layer, in downward succession, which now characterizes our subterranean existence.
Next, in our premier's address, came the food question. How are all the people off in that respect at this time? Indeed, the time in question was not more one of the political transition we have alluded to, than of a transition economic, and, in the most literal sense, corporeal; for the last remnants of ploughs and spades had already been surrendered as things of the past, and we at length depended entirely on the chemical laboratory for our food. And truly, in spite of occasional longings for the old flesh-pots of Egypt, a very good and sure source of supply it has proved to be, say I, speaking of it five centuries further on; and one also that has elevated our great provision trade out of the tedious and costly delay and the unsavoury dirt of the natural processes of the old ways of it, into the summary action and cleanly processes of the ways chemical.
People had not yet, indeed, by that time, opened the more modern chapter of doubts and fears about the due supply of phosphates and other indispensables for our bones and our brains; nor did they depend, as we have now to do, upon our twice-blessed and productive dead, who were then, perhaps, more of trouble than profit to the living, whereas now, in such striking contrast, they are our indispensable heritage of good things. Our premier's total omission of both of these great modern questions, for good or for evil, of our day, showed that they had not yet loomed seriously upon the horizon of his much earlier time.
The premier concluded by an inspiring allusion to the great progress of his time through the universal application of convertible energy. What might he not have said on this vast subject, if he could but have been resurrectioned into our time! Still, he had something to boast of even in those far-back days. As he glanced over the world's busy scene, he remarked that electric light had everywhere, when required, made the night as bright as the day, while electricity mainly supplies all their locomotive energy. And already, as he remarked, they were helping themselves to electric force, freely and cheaply, out of the sun's ample stores. The crowding earth had already, indeed, inaugurated the relief of aërial travel, that great feature and resource of our own more advanced time; but the old railway era had not yet closed; and the premier could allude with triumph to the fact of his day, that our great trunk lines, retaining still their venerable old names, and radiating still from the vast metropolis of England, were no longer arrested at the shores of the narrow old island. Our Great Eastern Line, for instance, then passed outwards and onwards over the wholly reclaimed North Sea continuously to Eastern Europe and furthest Asia; while the South Western Line crossed the like reclaimed Channel to further western reclamationextensions of France and Spain; and the Great Western Line, coursing over the terra firma of what was once the Irish Sea, and through old Ireland, slipped out upon the great Atlantic area, over those already inaugurated bridging projections, which, from either side, were in after centuries to meet in lines and areas of solid ground over the whole interval. And already, too, had the enterprise of the time laid down, through intervening ocean depths, a highway to one of our chief outside gardens of climatic delights, our cherished Island of Madeira, which, with the express speed of the time, over the diamonded iron rails, so far surpassing in hardness and duration the old steel or merely carbonized rails, was like a kind of rural suburb to the metropolitan home territory, with the ever-fresh ocean still skirting the route, and serving, instead of intermediate open fields, to relieve the eye as it fain alternates from the crowded landscape. Thus pleasantly, as well as with the aspiring ambitions of his day, discoursed our premier of that expiring twenty-fourth century; and we must hope that he lived well into the twenty-fifth, so as to witness and enjoy some substantial share of those further wonders of progress, of which we have still to speak.
The Crown of Labour.
Reed would speak of "the Crown of Labour" as that which excelled and was to outlive all other crowns.—Author, chap. i.
Before concluding our remarks upon this interesting transition time of our retrospect, let us glance at one characteristic custom of the time, that, namely, of the public competition for, and the public award of, "the Crown of Labour." Long prior to this time, a custom had been established of thus doing honour to labour. The aim was to do honour to a righteously useful life. In the annual recurrence of this national custom for each English county, there was somewhat a revival of the early Greek games, at all events in the national enthusiasm that was evoked. But the modern contest had a higher and more ambitious moral; for instead of mere feats of body or mind, it concerned the useful work of the whole life. The candidates respectively submitted all the beneficial activities of their lives to the appointed judges; and each candidate, as the reward of a life, which, under all the circumstances of its case and of its time, was the most diligently and usefully spent, claimed the crown of labour.
About the time we are now engaged with, namely, towards the end of the twenty-fourth century, the usual annual contest was distinguished, on one of its occasions, and in one particular county, by a rather remarkable candidate. These county divisions of our still distinctive Old England had not yet been obliterated. The county in question was Berkshire, and the candidate alluded to was an accomplished young maiden, who bore the high and ancient name of Victoria Guelf. And she rightly bore that historic name, for she was a lineal descendant of the old royal race of her country.
There were many Victorias of that time, a name still given in honour of the distinguished queen of the nineteenth century, now, of course, long gathered to her fathers. The royal family had, in centuries before this time, settled chiefly in three great groups in the country, and had mostly become, in common with the multitudes around them, industrious and useful citizens. One of these groups occupied the Balmoral vicinities in North Britain, where, as Guelfs or Gaelfs, and finally Mac Gaels, they were gradually swallowed up into Highland nomenclature. Another took to the pleasant Isle of Wight, and developed into a family of Gulfs, after John Bull's slumping way of changing "Bolougne mouth" into "Bull and Mouth," and "God encompasseth us" into "Goat and Compasses." The third group remained in the Windsor neighbourhood, keeping to the pure original name; and now, on behalf of the family county of Berkshire, the youthful and accomplished descendant stood forth, in the spirit and equalities of those times, to contend with the world for the crown of labour.
Although but one amongst England's many counties, and also amongst the smaller of them, Berkshire, at this time, presented comparatively a really great field; for, within its very limited area, it now contained half as many people as had owned allegiance to its fair young candidate's illustrious ancestor, throughout her then wide and comparatively great empire of five centuries past.
The mode of procedure, in the awarding of the crown, was for the judges, as the first step, to make up a pile, fairly representative, upon the best evidence attainable, of each candidate's life labour. This pile would be swelled out meritoriously in some directions, contracted in others, and of an average bulge elsewhere and so on; and it was afterwards for the candidate, or the candidate's supporters, to point to the merit indications, and to explain or excuse the less favourable or the adverse features of the truth-telling pile. Each candidate stood by this testifying document, waiting the turn and opportunity for an explanatory or justifying address, alike to the judges, and to that vast confronting audience which constituted the ultimate jury of the great trial.
An audience of those times could be vast indeed, for science progress, however far short of our modern attainments, enabled millions of eyes and ears easily to see what was done and hear what was said. Telephones and photophones conveyed the voice clearly to all distances. And again, ever since cross-electric discovery enabled us to fabricate diamond, almost without either cost or trouble, out of any carbonaceous rubbish, sight-glasses of every kind were so marvellously improved, that any extent of audience, far off as well as near, might be attent, alike with eyes as with ears, when far outside of natural sight from the speaker.
By these and other advances of the science of the day, public speaking had become something very different indeed from the old gesticulating and exhausting method of past times up to the nineteenth and even the twentieth centuries. Immediately in front of any one addressing the public, on any great occasion such as that we now treat of, were arrayed all the paraphernalia of science for conveying the voice clearly far and wide. Then, again, the surrounding reflectory apparatus sent the speaker's reflected self to accompany his voice. It was for him to stand perfectly still within all these scientific surroundings, much as when one's photograph used to be so leisurely taken by the imperfect science and art of five centuries before. The practised calm of the experienced public speaker of the twenty-fourth century could do this; and, without moving a muscle that was unconnected with speech, pour forth streams of impassioned eloquence. But, as with the old photographing of the nineteenth century, so the novice of the twenty-fourth would need artificial steadying, lest the features of his person and the sounds of his speech should be alike blurred by the imperfect focussing.
The youthful Victoria stood, in line with the many others, courageously by her pile. Ascending the rostrum with characteristic composure, when her turn to speak was announced, she made a first favourable impression by beginning her address at once without ceremony, and without requisition for any artificial aids. Most fair and winsome of look, and with the ever-attractive bearing of a direct simplicity of purpose, and withal still in the fresh youth of her teens, she quickly excited a general and lively interest throughout the vast audience. Leaving the favourable aspects of her pile to tell their own tale, she turned directly and solely upon the less favourable, as well with the delicate reserve which the case required, as with that judicious brevity, which, even then, five centuries back from to-day, was alone endurable, where so much other work of the busy world had to be crowded into its too brief and fleeting hours.
The defensive line was well chosen, for it was in entire accord with the sentiment of the time, although it might have sounded somewhat oddly from such a quarter some few centuries earlier. "If I may be allowably proud of my ancestry," said the young candidate, "yet my ancestry gives me no help in this contest, which is entirely one of the present, the real, the personal. Nay more, my said ancestry blocks the way, as I brace up to confront true battle; and I may well envy, for this occasion at least, those of my opponents who are, in that respect, wholly unencumbered in their march. If I have indeed succeeded in making myself not unknown to literary fame, and to a great audience even far beyond my own country; if society's many sorrows have not seldom touched my heart, and directed my steps to bereaved homes around me, remember, in my behalf, that all this is in spite of high ancestry, and of the time-absorbing pre-occupations of an exacting social condition, entirely beyond my own choosing, and certainly of the very smallest advantage to me with its special handicapping in the present race. And may I not plead also, that the past liberality of a great nation, in providing but too amply for my family and myself, however honourable to the giving party, has yet, in all its paralyzing effects, proved by no means the least of the obstacles besetting my path in this my ambitious race for a new and a true crown?"
Let us here glance, parenthetically, at another characteristic incident, which added its variety to the Berkshire programme. Just as all the Berkshire addresses had been concluded, and the vote was about to be taken, with all the rapidity and precision of advanced scientific arrangement in these matters, so as to conclude the whole procedure within the business day, word was brought that the adjacent county of Oxford had just signally distinguished itself by a noble and independent choice for its yearly labour-crown. A centenarian veteran, an agricultural labourer, had at last laid down his spade, because the country's crowded surface, the advanced chemistry of the day, and all the changed ways of these later times, had entirely superseded both spade and spadesman. After a long, laborious, and signally useful life, it only remained for the weary veteran, ere he left the world he had served so well, to claim of his county the crown of labour; and to the honour of that special world of classic and scientific attainments and reminiscences, his appeal was not put forth in vain.
And so also in Berkshire, with no less credit, albeit upon a different line of consideration, was the crown awarded to our youthful Victoria. But it was no easily won battle withal, for close upon the heels of the victor followed a troop of formidable, if unsuccessful, rivals. There was, first, a distinguished astronomer, who had laboriously compiled the exposition of the birth and entire physical development of the asteroidal group of our system; secondly, a widowed and struggling laundress, who had so brought up her large family, that every member of it afterwards rose to prosperity and distinction, and aptly illustrated the nature and training they owed to her by gratefully bringing their sheaves of plenty to the feet of such a mother; thirdly, a geologico-physical geographer, who, in his grand school atlas, had completed the earth's aspects back to the early tertiaries; and lastly, a smart brigaded young shoeblack, whose successive improvements in his machine, as to time-saving and reduction of charge, marked quite an era in his particular vocation,—for in those days machinery did everywhere, and uncomplainingly well, all the harder work of society, whether work clean or work dirty, while the old familiar term "shoeblack" had survived into times and ways which left it indeed but dimly applicable to the juvenile director-general of the ingenious little machine in question.
The crowning of the young Victoria was indeed a memorable incident of its time. The interest was increased by the circumstance of the extreme youth of the successful candidate for so high an honour. Her age, when she claimed the crown, was but eighteen years and twenty-four days. Old England had once more a Queen Victoria, whose graceful young head bore a crown. It was the only crown that had survived in the world into these times, the noblest of crowns —
The Crown of Labour.