Utopia of Usurers | Page 4

And the form it takes is the next example I shall give of the
way in which the capitalists are now appearing, more and more openly,
as the masters and princes of the community.
I will take a Victorian instance to mark the change; as I did in the case
of the advertisement of "Bubbles." It was said in my childhood, by the
more apoplectic and elderly sort of Tory, that W. E. Gladstone was
only a Free Trader because he had a partnership in Gilbey's foreign
wines. This was, no doubt, nonsense; but it had a dim symbolic, or
mainly prophetic, truth in it. It was true, to some extent even then, and
it has been increasingly true since, that the statesman was often an ally
of the salesman; and represented not only a nation of shopkeepers, but
one particular shop. But in Gladstone's time, even if this was true, it
was never the whole truth; and no one would have endured it being the
admitted truth. The politician was not solely an eloquent and persuasive
bagman travelling for certain business men; he was bound to mix even
his corruption with some intelligible ideals and rules of policy. And the
proof of it is this: that at least it was the statesman who bulked large in
the public eye; and his financial backer was entirely in the background.
Old gentlemen might choke over their port, with the moral certainty
that the Prime Minister had shares in a wine merchant's. But the old
gentleman would have died on the spot if the wine merchant had really
been made as important as the Prime Minister. If it had been Sir Walter
Gilbey whom Disraeli denounced, or Punch caricatured; if Sir Walter
Gilbey's favourite collars (with the design of which I am unacquainted)
had grown as large as the wings of an archangel; if Sir Walter Gilbey
had been credited with successfully eliminating the British Oak with
his little hatchet; if, near the Temple and the Courts of Justice, our sight
was struck by a majestic statue of a wine merchant; or if the earnest
Conservative lady who threw a gingerbread-nut at the Premier had
directed it towards the wine merchant instead, the shock to Victorian
England would have been very great indeed.
Haloes for Employers
Now something very like that is happening; the mere wealthy employer

is beginning to have not only the power but some of the glory. I have
seen in several magazines lately, and magazines of a high class, the
appearance of a new kind of article. Literary men are being employed
to praise a big business man personally, as men used to praise a king.
They not only find political reasons for the commercial schemes--that
they have done for some time past--they also find moral defences for
the commercial schemers. They describe the capitalist's brain of steel
and heart of gold in a way that Englishmen hitherto have been at least
in the habit of reserving for romantic figures like Garibaldi or Gordon.
In one excellent magazine Mr. T. P. O'Connor, who, when he likes, can
write on letters like a man of letters, has some purple pages of praise of
Sir Joseph Lyons--the man who runs those teashop places. He
incidentally brought in a delightful passage about the beautiful souls
possessed by some people called Salmon and Gluckstein. I think I like
best the passage where he said that Lyons's charming social
acaccomplishments included a talent for "imitating a Jew." The article
is accompanied with a large and somewhat leering portrait of that
shopkeeper, which makes the parlour-trick in question particularly
astonishing. Another literary man, who certainly ought to know better,
wrote in another paper a piece of hero-worship about Mr. Selfridge. No
doubt the fashion will spread, and the art of words, as polished and
pointed by Ruskin or Meredith, will be perfected yet further to explore
the labyrinthine heart of Harrod; or compare the simple stoicism of
Marshall with the saintly charm of Snelgrove.
Any man can be praised--and rightly praised. If he only stands on two
legs he does something a cow cannot do. If a rich man can manage to
stand on two legs for a reasonable time, it is called self-control. If he
has only one leg, it is called (with some truth) self-sacrifice. I could say
something nice (and true) about every man I have ever met. Therefore,
I do not doubt I could find something nice about Lyons or Selfridge if I
searched for it. But I shall not. The nearest postman or cab-man will
provide me with just the same brain of steel and heart of gold as these
unlucky lucky men. But I do resent the whole age of patronage being
revived under such absurd patrons; and all