THE SUCCESS OF LABOUR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9565, 22 October 1892, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE SUCCESS OF LABOUR.

At the present time great changes are coming about in the social status of mankind. A man is not now-a-days considered a god because his father was a clever usurer or merchant. It is becoming a recognised fact that all men are equal—as men —aud have each the right to enjoy life's blessings to an equal degree. In the past ifc has always been the aim of the rich to grind down the poor, aud as the latter had bub one alternative — starvation, they were compelled to be thankful for what they could get. But now education is opening men's eyes to the fact that mankind could enjoy much more pleasure and comfort if such large shares of the world's wealth were not annexed by the few. The day of a great industrial revolution is at hand, and a brighter aud better future is in store for us both socially and financially, and whilst paying attention to these great interests it is also essential to take particular care of our physical well-being. An all-seeing providence has so constituted the human frame that the brain is immediately informed of any organic derangement; a simple headache is a sign that the liver is deranged, or that the nervous system is weakened, which, if neglected, continues to decline ; the nervous tissues wasta away and completely collapse, and a fatal termination frequently results. Miss P. White, Auckland, writes.-—"I a:n thankful that Clements Tonic has been brought under my notice, and that it has been the mean* of restoring me to robust health. I never remember a day's sickness till I was about 15 years of age; then I somehow commenced to lose my appetite; my head ached, I was Eorvous, weak, pale, and languid. My parents were concerned about me, and consulted medical men one after another, who treated me for kidney disease and general debility. I only received very temporary benefit from the use of their remedies, and all the time I was getting weaker and weaker. One of my friends m Sydney, knowing how ill I was, sent me a couple of bottles of Clemsnts Tonic. 1 had r.o belief in it, but thought it coiild do no harm. And as a drowning man catches at a straw, I was prepared to adopt any means towards a recovery, and I am glad that I did get Clements Touie. 1 took 16 large bottles, which is a pretty long course, but that does not matter. 1 would willingly have taken bO, for it has cured me, and I am now quite well, •'"ill as siiong as ever I w.is in my life, aud you are at liberty to publish the fact."

LIT.EIIATUEE AS A CAREER,

Mr Walter Besant contributes to the Forum an article on " Literature as a Career," in which he has, as usual, a good deal to say about the publishers. » Wow Barabbos was a publisher," the Pall Mall Gazette thinks, may o^W^ 6 tGXfc °f his disco'«*e. He points oat, first, that anyone can enter the literary profession, but that its followers are scattered units with no cohesion, no combination, araonir them for their material interests ; the result is taat every man manages his own affairs for himssif as best he can. Bat this, according to Mr liesaut, means that he cannot manage them"oS all, because ihe elements, the principles, of his business have been carefully concealed from him, and he is helpless -.—« The literary papers encourage this helplessness ; they enlarge upon the generosity of publishers, ignoring the fact ™ ""s so-eailed 'generosity' reduces the poet to the condition of a mendicant dependent en tho doles of his master A London publisher died the other day and tho papers hace since been full of his generosity' and his 'liberality.' Ifc i s nofc wonderful that m a community of business men this sorb of talk should still be continued In what line of intellectual work 'would a man submit without indignation to be considered a workman without rights, a mendicant, a helpless dependent, the mere recipient of bounty and charity ! Can one figure the physician standing hat in had before hia patient ■ ' Oh sir, tais is too much ! You are indeed generous i Heaven itsclt will bless Another shilling ? One smarting tear betrays a grateful heart' Or a barrister ? Or a solicitor ? Or a clergyman ? It is ridiculous. Yet this is supposed to be the attitude of the man of letters, and any attempt en his part to g:t his affairs put upon a proper business basis is resented by ta° agent as if ifc were the greatest iusulfc possible, aud as if the property belonged to hiin-indeed ho generally manes it his own—instead of to its

lhe great discouragement to literature at tko.present moment is, Mr Besant holds, the want of fixed principles as regards business arrangements between publisher aud author — lhis it is which makes every man who writes a boo* dread above all things making his own business arrangements. He does not know what the agreement should be; ho hates to seem exorbitant and grasping. His very soul loathes the attitude of a mendicant. The other man, thoroughly experienced ia these emotions watches him, waits for his chance, speaks smootn things, hopes success, hints at great risks and dangers, suggests his own magnanimity in undertaking these risks, and at the r:ght moment, the critical moment, proposes an arrangement by which he will get cine-tenths of the proceeds. The author signs, halfashamea of himself, half conscious of trickery but above ail things anxious to have his book publisued. When the accounts come in he is mad, but then it is too late. This little comedj is enacted with nearly every book that is published. The publisher considers nothing but the getting of the property into his own hands, on his own terms; the author helpless and ignorant, yet suspicious and resentful, yields up his property as meekly as a cow yields uu her milk No worker in the world, not even tne needlewoman, is more helpless, more ignorant, more cruelly sweated than the author " Ihere is deap down in the natural heart Mr Besant says, a contempt for the man who produces literary work, because it is believed th.H he is a creature wholly incapable ofconductinc business of any kind. Mr Besant recalls the tacu, which he has mentioned before, that at the Queen's Jubilee, to which were invited representatives of every profession and almost every calling, "there was not invited onesinWf man or woman of letters as such " :—" Why ? Becavse the official mind in every country! which always represents, measures, and illustrates the Philistinism of a country, has not yet risen to the consideration of literature as a profession, or of historians, essayists, poets novelists, as persons worth regarding. To red tape and Bumble they do not exist. In America such an omission would be impossible . . . in France it would be impossible ■ in Germany the mere possibility of such an insuib to letters could not be so much as suggested In no country could it bo done except in°Great btitiiin. And here it was done. And here no none perceived the omission. Here, so far as I know, nob a single paper took up the thing The contempt for letters could not be more signally shown, more clearly proved." Mr Besant also dwells upon the fact that i while a man who has a big brewery may obtain ! a peerage, a man with a big draper's shop cannot hope even for a knighthood save in connection with civic honours; and that literature, like retail trade, cobbling, and chimney sweeping, is excluded rigorously from distinction:— " What is the nation, then, to think of literature as a calling F It is—it must be—as one worthy of no honour. Wealth may be regarded; lawyers, physicians, surgeons, architects, ssulptors, painters, engineers, may all look for rank and distinction—but not literature. Tennyson, it is true, is a peer; but he is the lonely single example, lie is the exception. Browning was never offered anything. Dickens, Thackeray, George Eiiot, Swinburne—what has been offered to these great writers? Perhaps they would take nothing. That is quite another thing. The fact remains that the official mind hasnotconceivedit possible that literature should be deemed worthy of such honours as the nation has to bestow One of two things seems to follow: either the production of noble literature is not a service to the nation, or the national honours are of no

value.-' lv other professions there are great and solid prizes, but that of literature is regarded as a poor and beggarly, trade. Mr Eesant, kow?c°n^ says tha(i iv tendon alone there are 10.000 people who in so.-ae brauch or otlvnexercise the literary profession, and 50 of them by writing novels, make o«r LIOOO .1 year' He next shows that those who frankly live by writing have of late received an "immense enlargement of independence by the development of journalism, and that the magazines term an additional stall", not a crutch, for the writer:—"The number of such who actually live by the production of original work, apart from journalism in any of its branches, is comparatively small. There are half a dozen dramatists; about 100 novelists; a few successful writers of educational books, which are indeed a mine of wealth if one can succeed • and a few publishers' hacks. The greatest prizes are those of the dramatists. But the stage is a fortress very hard to take; many there are who sit down before it and presently retire vanquished."

Are there any encouragements to the literary life ? Of outside encouragements, Mr Besant answers, none .-—"Why, then, this rush, this competition, this ardent yearning, which draw