WILLIAM MORRIS AND SOCIALISM.

 

A GREAT MAN AND A GREAT CAUSE

Mankind is terribly hampered in its language. We use one word for several things, and the common run of people encounter a very real difficulty in discrimination. "Socialism" is one of the most familiar words in the language at the present time, and yet how few people understand what it connotes. To one group of "Fellow-workers" it means the acceptance of the economic theories of Karl Marx. To other classes of people it may mean the benevolent socialism of Robert Owen, or the Christian socialism of Charles Kingsley. Others call themselves Socialists who are collectivists, like Mr. H. G. Wells. There are, again, large classes of people who are desirous of seeing more joy and happiness in the world and less poverty and misery. They cherish this generous impulse apart from schemes of economics and dogmatic beliefs. Such a man was William Morris. He was a Socialist, not because he understood the complexities of Marxian theories, but because he was an artist. His aesthetic nature revolted against the foul and avaricious industrialism of the nineteenth century. 

WAS MORRIS A MARXIAN?

 There is an incident recorded by Bruce Glasier in his book "William Morris and the Early Days of the Socialist Movement" in which Morris was heckled as to his Marxist faith, and it sounds even today like a disturbance among fetishistic Melbourne Socialists. Morris was lecturing one night for the "Social Democratic Federation," and at the conclusion had to sustain a battery of questions from one Nairn, then secretary of the local organisation. Nairne was rather a sombre individual, and a stickler for political cliche. By occupation he was a stone-breaker, and it may be guessed that life did not have for him many rainbow hues. It was difficult for such a man to comprehend the dreams, or share the visions of a man like William Morris. As Morris rose to leave the platform, Nairne abruptly halted him with the sullen question, "Does Comrade Morris accept Marx's theory of value?" That was in 1884, and ever since then it has been the rack to test the faith of any who dared to think socialistic ideas at all. With a dogmatism of belief equalling, if not surpassing, any old medievalist, Marx's theory of value has constituted the passport to socialist fellowship among fellow-workers. But intelligent and sensible people have got beyond that now, and realise that many good men, and intelligent thinkers, as much as any book-enslaved Marxist, are desirous of reconstructing the world on a more equitable basis. Morris' reply to Nairne indicates that he was exactly of that type. After describing political economy as dreary rubbish, and the social system of monstrous and intolerable, he said, "What we Socialists have got to work for is the establishment of a system of co-operation where everyone will live and work jollily together as neighbors and comrades for the good of all. That, in a nutshell, is my political economy and my social democracy." "Co-operation," "Work jollily together as neighbors and comrades," are locutions that breathe the essential spirit of Morris' socialism. He had a consuming passion for cleanliness, for artistic freedom, for order and justice. His socialism was a socialism of fellowship, sympathy, warm comradeship; and he didn't care a jot how that end was reached so long as that was the end aimed at. It is well to remember that it was this camaraderie that was the soul of the British socialist movement in its inception, and a deep anxiety that men should act in this spirit towards their fellows was protagonist in the work of William Morris.

 SOCIALISM AND PROCESS.

 But Socialism today has been intellectualised. It is now an affair of solemn cogitative discussions, with a deplorable lack of kindly social feeling, which does nothing to prepare the souls of men and women for that comradeship and sympathy and understanding which Morris so ardently desired, but never lived to see, and without which no new world is possible. He believed that the making of socialists, and the making of society towards socialism, was a process going on through all history. He believed, but in this was ultra-heretic, that even in the Middle Ages there was a definiteness of socialistic teaching and socialistic customs. He meant, of course, that there was a perceptible growth of human fellowship and understanding. That Morris was a socialist because he was an artist is seen in a striking manner of the Art Cogress held in Edinburgh in 1889. He inveighed characteristically against the limitations under which men were compelled to live and work, the lack of all elevating and creative inspiration in the daily task, and the consequent inertness and dull irresponsiveness to any call to higher things. Morris loved work, and held, not that it was to be shunned, but that it should be rendered congenial. He did not therefore view with equanimity the progress of the mechanical inventions that supplanted human energies. In his "News from Nowhere," a Utopian romance, people work without special reward for their labor, which causes some astonishment to the visitors to that economic paradise. The reward of labor is Life, was the doctrine of William Morris; the payment of labor the pleasure of creation. He perceived that there was no hope and no pleasure in modern industrialism. The problem of civilisation was to make labor happy for all. It was the cardinal principle of his Socialist faith. He regarded parliamentarianism as a hindrance rather than a help. It was only by educating the minds of the people, and sowing the seeds of finer thoughts that labor problems would be solved. Morris owed a great deal to Ruskin. But Morris and Ruskin are back numbers nowadays, being submerged beneath the flood of social theories since their time. Yet if mankind had the power to resist the spell of newly-baked nostrums, it would probably admit, with the Utopian idealists, that if a means were discovered of giving men and women a creative pleasure in their work, we would soon solve the industrial problem. It is "pleasureless work," in which myriads of humanity are now engaged that begets so much of the disaffection of our time. When work is made creative and ennobling will the dawn of industrial peace begin to break upon this distracted world. 

THE IDEALISM OF MORRIS.

 This was the idealism that ran through the Socialism of William Morris. It lay at the core of the working class agitation in which he found himself involved. He knew nothing about the science of wealth, but he knew a lot about the art of living. He desired that men should live happy and fruitful lives. It is true that he sometimes used Marxian phrases in his lectures, but one suspects that these were more or less a concession to his Socialist colleagues. From "Socialism Its Growth and Outcome," which he wrote in collaboration with Belford Bax, an impression might be gathered that he was a disciple of Marx, but truth to say, in that volume there is much of Bax and little of Morris. Morris used to say, indeed, alluding to Bax's visits when they were writing the book together, "I am going to undergo compulsory Baxination to-day."

A PARADISE POSSIBLE. 

The inspiration of Morris' company was very wonderful. He had a buoyant and hopeful outlook on life, notwithstanding the many discouragements he received from the short-sighted and unimaginative of his own friends and Socialist comrades. After a day spent in the social intercourse with Morris, doubts of the possibility of a Socialist commonwealth seemed to vanish like drifting smoke. One special occasion, when Morris visited the branch of the Federation in Glasgow along with other illuminati of that quickening period, one member was led to remark as the meeting broke up: "This is the greatest day of my life; I can never hope to see the like again. I no longer doubt the possibility of an earthly paradise."

 ILL-TEMPERED OLYMPIAN.

 But William Morris was not always divine and good-humored. He could be at times disconcertingly and exasperatingly unreasonable. At some unavoidable contingency or pure accident, he would fly off the handle, and pour out the lava of his rage with no regard whatever for the feelings of others. On one occasion, he and a number of others were appointed to speak at a certain meeting; and the train, through a mishap, carried them beyond their destination. Morris got into a frightful temper, and broke out into an infuriated diatribe against the guard of the train, whom he must have known was not to blame. Even his friends were ashamed of the scene, and of their companion's behavior. This explosive inconsiderateness was always a sore trial to his confreres, but their attachment to the Olympian was such that it only increased the difficulty of rebuke. His own cheerful explanation of the guard episode was, "You had to blow up someone."

JOHN McKELLAR. 

Labor Call (Melbourne, Vic. : 1906 - 1953), Thursday 11 November 1926, page 11