彼の気性と意見からすれば,彼がシドニー・ウェッブ夫妻を嫌うだろうことは,自然なことであった。ウェッブ夫妻が救貧法の改正を取り上げた時,彼は,彼ら以外のすべてのものがウェッブ夫妻の法制化の試みを拒否したために,ウェッブ夫妻は遂に自らを守る力のない貧困者たち(救貧法の適用を受ける貧困者たち)を組織化せざるをえなくなった,とよく語っていた。彼はいつも,夫妻による組織化の勝利の理由の1つは,ウェッブ夫妻がジャガイモを蓄える穴倉を掘るために,貧しい木製の義足をつけている不具者を雇ったことである,とよく言いたてていた。 |
By temperament he was inclined to anarchism; he hated system and organisation and uniformity. Once, when I was with him on Westminster Bridge, he pointed with delight to a tiny donkey-cart in the middle of the heavy traffic. 'That's what I like,' he said, 'freedom for all sorts.' On another occasion, when I was walkiug with him in Ireland, we went to a bus station, where I, without thinking, made for the largest and most comfortable bus. His expression was quite shocked as he took me by the arm and hurried me away to a shabby little 'jalopie' of a bus, explaining gravely that it was pluckily defying the big combines. His opinions were often somewhat wayward, and he had no objection to giving his prejudices free rein. He admired rebels rather more, perhaps, than was wholly rational. He had a horror of anything that seemed calculating, and I once shocked him deeply by saying that a war could not be justified unless there was a likelihood of victory. To him, heroic and almost hopeless defiance appeared splendid. Many of his prejudices were so consonant to my feelings that I never had the heart to argue with them - which in any case would have been a hopeless task. With his temperament and opinions, it was natural that he should hate the Sidney Webbs. When they took up Poor Law Reform, he would say that, since everyone else rejected their attempts at regulation, they had at last been driven to organise the defenceless paupers. He would allege, as one of their triumphs of organisation, that they employed a pauper with a peg leg to drill holes for the potatoes. |