The Relavnce of John Ruskin - On Wealth

At a time of increasing poverty and widening of the gap between rich and poor, the words of John Ruskin give food for thought.

(Feb 8th 1819 - Jan 20th 1900)

"That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.”

"The whole question, respecting not only the advantage, but even the quality of national wealth, resolves itself finally into one of abstract justice."

 "Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor."

"Large fortunes are all founded either on the occupation of land, or lending, or the taxation of labour."

"... the art of making yourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist’s sense, is therefore equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbour poor."

"The universal and constant action of justice […] is therefore to diminish the power of wealth, in the hands of one individual, over masses of men, and distribute it through a chain of men."

“What right have you to take the word wealth, which originally meant ''well-being,'' and degrade and narrow it by confining it to certain sorts of material objects measured by money.”

“There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration..." 

“Lately in a wreck of a Californian ship, one of the passengers fastened a belt about him with two hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was found afterwards at the bottom. Now, as he was sinking- had he the gold, or the gold him?”

“What is really desired, under the name of riches, is, essentially, power over men; in its simplest sense, the power of obtaining for own own advantage the labour of servant, tradesman, and artist; in wider sense, authority of directing large masses of the nation to various ends.”


"A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money."

The Causes of Poverty

Robert Tressell 
(Robert Noonan)

Author of 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists'

 
(18 April 1870 – 3 February 1911)

 His grave in Liverpool where he died of TB while planning to go to America with his daughter.

 An extract from Robert Tressell's 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.'   Written between 1905 and 1908, it seems very little has changed, or perhaps become even worse.

 

“Poverty is not caused by men and women getting married; it's not caused by machinery; it's not caused by "over-production"; it's not caused by drink or laziness; and it's not caused by "over-population". It's caused by Private Monopoly. That is the present system. They have monopolized everything that it is possible to monopolize; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolized the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air - or of the money to buy it - even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless they had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it's right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: "It's Their Land," "It's Their Water," "It's Their Coal," "It's Their Iron," so you would say "It's Their Air," "These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?" And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on "Christian Duty" in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of the gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you'll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to "justice" in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.”

Robert Noonan with his daughter, Kathleen
 

  Kathleen as an adult.  

She fought hard to have her father's book published.

 

http://www.hastingschronicle.net/tressell_02.html

http://www.unionhistory.info/ragged/tressell.php

Beatrix Potter Birthday

 

Beatrix Potter

 1866-1943

 “There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.” 

Beatrix Potter is famous for the children's books she wrote and the animal characters she created.  Her lovely stories and drawings continue to bring pleasure to millions of children today. They are an enchanting way of introducing them to the natural world and developing empathy and compassion for living creatures.

But she gave in others ways too. She had close links with the National Trust and was a friend of Canon H.D Rawnsley, one of the  founder members of the National Trust.  On her death, she left them 4000 acres of land and countryside and 14 farms.  In accordance with her wishes, the farms are still working farms managed by tenant farmers and their families. 

 “Thank God I have the seeing eye, that is to say, as I lie in bed I can walk step by step on the fells and rough land seeing every stone and flower and patch of bog and cotton pass where my old legs will never take me again.” 

 http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/article-1356396009885/

 http://www.peterrabbit.com/en/beatrix_potter/lake_district/the_world_of_beatrix_potter_attraction

Thoughts on the Wind

 

“It is a pitiful degeneracy in our modern life that we are not more often transported out of ourselves by the eternal things that surround us.

Consider the wind!  One of the best tests you can apply to yourself as to whether you are lost to the primeval grandeur of the world, taking it all for granted, is to note your attitude to the arbitrary motions of the wind.  Do you take the wind for granted? 

 Do you only notice it at all if it is wildly furious, madly violent, bitterly freezing?  Or, on the other hand, is the least breath of it upon your face like the touch of the remote Past?  

Do you never feel it without thinking what a miraculous phenomenon it is, this invisible and yet most living presence, as it moves over the city, over the land, over the sea?  Nothing can excel the wind in awakening from the depths of our natures those far-away memories which seem to carry with them the very essence of life..."

John Cowper Powys

(1872-1963) 

A Philosophy of Solitude