the competition in buying and selling, called falsely commerce; and
machines for the violent destruction of life--that is to say,
materials for two kinds of war; of which kinds the last is no doubt
the worst, not so much in itself perhaps, but because on this point
the conscience of the world is beginning to be somewhat pricked.
But, on the other hand, matters for the carrying on of a dignified
daily life, that life of mutual trust, forbearance, and help, which
is the only real life of thinking men--these things the civilised
world makes ill, and even increasingly worse and worse.

If I am wrong in saying this, you know well I am only saying what is
widely thought, nay widely said too, for that matter. Let me give
an instance, familiar enough, of that wide-spread opinion. There is
a very clever book of pictures {4} now being sold at the railway
bookstalls, called 'The British Working Man, by one who does not
believe in him,'--a title and a book which make me both angry and
ashamed, because the two express much injustice, and not a little
truth in their quaint, and necessarily exaggerated way. It is quite
true, and very sad to say, that if any one nowadays wants a piece of
ordinary work done by gardener, carpenter, mason, dyer, weaver,
smith, what you will, he will be a lucky rarity if he get it well
done. He will, on the contrary, meet on every side with evasion of
plain duties, and disregard of other men's rights; yet I cannot see
how the 'British Working Man' is to be made to bear the whole burden
of this blame, or indeed the chief part of it. I doubt if it be
possible for a whole mass of men to do work to which they are
driven, and in which there is no hope and no pleasure, without
trying to shirk it--at any rate, shirked it has always been under
such circumstances. On the other hand, I know that there are some
men so right-minded, that they will, in despite of irksomeness and