BEGGAR YOUR NEIGHBOUR

Observer, Volume XXIII, Issue 6, 25 October 1902, Page 2

BEGGAR YOUR NEIGHBOUR

The Popular Sport of the Hour

THIS is the season when the voice of the Prohibitionist sounds loud and raucous throughout the land. He is intent upon reform— the reform of lm neighbour. He is prepared to make sacrifices— the sacrifice of his neighbour. How characteristically human it all is. In the good old Koman days, the bloodthirsty patriots of that time threw their fellow human beings to the wild beasts, and called it reform. It was also sport— to the reformers. In later years, when civilization was in its callow youth, pillage was frequently made to pass muster for reform. It was also sport to the gay spirits who indulged in it.

But now, in the full enlightenment of the twentieth century, are we much better? In our politics, there is still the same savage thirst to despoil our neighbour— in the name of reform. In our innermost hearts, we thrill with delight, in full enjoyment of the sport, even though the limits of our neighbour who is the victim quiver with agony. For the politics of today esteem it a sound moral principle to filch something from our neighbour, something which he prizes, justifying our spoliation with the excuse that this is a work of liberal reform. We would squeal if we were in our neighhour's place, but the spoliation doesn't touch us, and therefore we enjoy the sport.

So also, in social politics, with Prohibition. We call it reform — but it is robbery, spoliation— and capital sport. It is nothing to us that the hotelkeeper may have the savings of a lifetime invested in his bit of hotel property. Tear it from him, beggar him, throw his wife and children into the street — paupers. It is great sport — and reform. In our own businesses, we may lie and cheat and steal, but that doesn't prevent us from reforming our neighbour by torturing and robbing him. Any cry will do. Nearly two thousand years ago, it was "The Christians— throw them to the wild beasts !" A thousand years later, it was " The Jews— pillage them !"' Today, with our fanaticism mildly tern* peretl by Christian teaching, it is " The Brewers — ruin them !"

But fanaticism apart, are we justified in ruining the brewers? Of course, it is reform. Also, with our savage instincts stirred, it is capital sport. But what are our civilisation and our Christianity worth to-day, if from mere caprice or hysterical frenzy, we are prepared to ruin or to pillage anyone? The cry is reform. What are we prepared to pay for it? Is there to-day one reformer, fanatically anxious to destroy the hotel trade and all the money invested in it, who is willing to pay a £10 note to compensate the people whom he is so eager to despoil ? Not one. Surely a cheap kind of philanthropy.

Nor is it the brewers alone who are concerned. There are the hotelkeepers, whose means are sunk in their business, and thousands of people outside the trade altogether whose capital is invested in hotel property. It is an easy tiling to ruin them all. One snatch vote at the local option poll will do it. Compensation ? Not a sixpence. That would destroy the sport absolutely. Then we would not have the fiendish satisfaction of seeing the torture of our neighbour, robbed of the savings of years, and beggared with his wife and little ones. That would not be reform — it would not be sport as the old Romans used to enjoy it.