The Lord of the Sea Part 36

Nor was the East less his slave: j.a.pan a mercantile nation, China and Turkey in his fiscal net. So, looking round the globe toward the middle of November, he could observe scarcely a nation which he could not, by scribbling a telegram, crush out of recognition.

It was precisely then that Richard Hogarth revealed himself.

On the 15th of November appeared his Manifesto.

This Charter, which everlastingly must remain one of the Scriptures of our planet, simple as a baby's syllables, yet large like the arch of Heaven, has left its mark on the human soul.

On the morning of the 16th its twenty clauses occupied in _pica_ a page of every newspaper, and it was posted up big in the streets of cities.

The doc.u.ment ran:

Richard, by the Will of G.o.d....I do hereby discern, declare, and lay down: That:

1. What is no good cannot be owned: only goods can be owned.

2. "_Good_" is _well_, or pleasant; goods is _well_th (wealth) or pleasures: thus, a coal-mine, being no pleasure, cannot be owned.

3. Coal _becomes_ goods after being moved, or taken. Moving does not make it good; its nature does not make it good: moving-_plus_-Nature makes it good, ownable. At the pit-head, already, it is a pleasure, fewer pains being now needed to move it to a fireplace. Thus, Nature apart from motion cannot be owned, being no good, as a cave is no good to a caveman outside it: rain is wetting him; if he takes it, moves in, it is good.

Animals and plants, by taking things from the planets presented to them, by moving things, raise Nature into wealth, and own things.

4. For Jack to _own_, have a thing for Jack's _own_, Jack must by his _own_ force have subdued Nature, must have taken the thing by moving the thing's atoms, or moving something relatively to the thing, or, negatively, by not evading, but accepting, the thing in motion--a wind, tide, light-wave; else Jack must have taken something (by as much work) to purchase the thing from its (true) owner, or accepted it as a favour from Nature in motion, or from its (true) owner. To say "own" is to say "take"; to say "take" is to say "motion", i.e., the doing of work: "work done" being FD, i.e., Force used into Distance moved-over. I cannot own the air: it is no good; I own the air in my lungs, having taken, moved, it, done FD on it: it is very good; and I own the air which, doing FD, moving to my face, I do not evade, but accept, take: it is very good.

I say to Jack "take a cigar"; he loudly says "yes!", but does not move it to his mouth, nor moves his mouth to it; instead, he moves a pen to his mouth; this makes me laugh: he has not taken a cigar.

Jack is catching fish in a boat; Tom owns the boat: so Jack gives fish to Tom, until Jack's FD done on the fish is equivalent to Tom's FD done on the boat; and now Jack owns the boat. If "the law" says that Tom still owns the boat, this makes me laugh: for how can Tom come to own two boats' good by the FD done on one only?

Jack is ploughing the sea with a s.h.i.+p: just there he owns the sea, has taken, is moving, it for his good. He does not own the sea before, nor the sea behind, him: for the motions behind made by him have ceased to do good.

Jack is ploughing soil: he owns the soil ploughed, has taken it, and will own it while the motions he has made do good: so that, if Tom who has not moved it says "I own the soil, for 'the law' declares that I have taken it by moving a pen two inches", this makes me laugh. Or, if Jack says "I own it for ever", this makes me laugh. Or, if anyone says "I own both the soil and the site" (relative position), this makes me laugh: for what can one man move to make a relative position good? He can neither move a field toward anything nor move much toward a field.

If many men move railways that way, or move things to rear towns round the field, this makes the site good, moving it from outside a community to inside a community; and the many who make it good own it.

5. The site is the field's chief good: so the plougher owes something to those who, making it good, own it, This something is named "rent".

6. Suppose that the plougher, or dweller-on, is an Englishman: he owes rent to the English. And, since the site of England is made good by movements made in America, he owes rent to the Americans.

7. This the mind readily descries to be true: it is a "truism", and is necessarily the Fundamental Principle of Society throughout the universe. So that, summing up, we may define: "Rent" is "right", based on truth when paid to those by whose movements a site is made good.

8. One might readily guess (if there were no example of it) that any violation of a Principle so fundamental would be avenged by Nature upon the planet which violated it.

9. Our planet is such an example: for here Two Separate Violations of the Principle appear; each great in itself; but one small in comparison.

10. Accordingly, for the small violation Nature has not failed to send upon Man a small penalty; and for the great violation great penalties.

11. The small violation consists in the claim by nations to have taken, without having moved, sites called "countries".

12. For this Nature has sent upon man the small penalty of War.

13. To abolish War men must remove its cause.

Therefore let the site-rental of England (i.e., the excess of English goods over what English goods would be, if no other country existed) be handed over to a World Council; and the site-rental of America to the same; and the World Council shall disburse such funds for the majesty and joy of Man: and War shall terminate.

14. This way the Lord of the Sea indicates to the world, though with its initiation he is not personally concerned.

15. Beside the small violation of the Fundamental Principle of Society, there is a great on the earth.

16. The Great Violation consists in the claim by individuals to have taken, without having moved, sites and soils called "estates", "domains", "plots": for, as rent tends to rightness when paid to the fifty millions of a nation, _fifty-millionfold_ is its wrongness when paid to one; and as rent is right when paid to the thousand million inhabitants of a planet, _a thousand-millionfold_ is its wrongness when paid to one.

17. For this Great Violation of the Fundamental Principle of Society Nature has sent upon Man great penalties: poverties, frenzies, depravities, horrors, sorrows, lowness, dulness.

18. Lowness, dulness: for by far the greatest of these penalties is a restraint on Man's development. Man is an animal, Man is a mind: and since the wing of mind is Pride, a.s.surance, or Self-esteem, and since the home of an animal is a Planet, and an animal without a home is a thing without a.s.surance or Pride, so Man without Earth is a mind without wing. Even so, a few, having a.s.surance, make what we call "Progress", i.e., the discovering of truth--a crawling which might become flight, had all minds but the wing of Pride to co-operate in discovering truth.

But Man lacks a.s.surance and foothold, founded home and domain: his sole heritage, though he is neither fish nor fowl, being sea and air.

19. This is a great violation.

20. And with this great violation of the Fundamental Principle of Society the Lord of the Sea is personally concerned. In the name of Heaven and of Earth he urges upon the nations of men to amend it in the month of the promulgation of this Manifesto: and this summons he strengthens with a threat of his resentment.

As the Lord G.o.d Omnipotent reigneth, I will see to it.

RICHARD.

x.x.xIX

THE "BOODAH'S" LOCK-UP

Three days after the Manifesto the marriage of Miss Stickney of New York with Lord Alfred Cowern was to take place, this having been put off owing to the _Kaiser_ tragedy; and so, on the day of the Manifesto, Baruch Frankl, the Jew, was crossing to a wedding which, even in the midst of great events, had stirred up a considerable rumour and sensation, since the American guests were to consist of the _coterie_ known as the "Thirty-four", all millionaires, while "the cake" was to weigh three-quarters of a ton, each guest's grub to cost $500, and for that breakfast the Neva had been ravished for fish and Siamese crags for nests.

Frankl, however, was never destined to taste those five hundred dollar mouthfuls. It happened in this way: as the _Boodah's_ searchlights, destroyed in the battle, were not yet repaired, in the interval some lawless s.h.i.+ps took the chance on dark nights to skulk past with extinguished lights; now, the captain of Frankl's chartered steamer had that bright idea (being of adventurous turn), when night fell forty knots east of the _Boodah_, so he came to Frankl, and broached the scheme.

"Not for Joe", was Frankl's answer: "pay the Pirate his taxes and be done".

"It could be worked as sweet as a nut, sir!" persisted the skipper, with a watering mind.

"Well, so long us _you_ take the risk, perhaps--but no, sir, I'd rather not".

On which the skipper winked self-willed to himself, and, putting out nine miles from the _Boodah_ his three lights, went das.h.i.+ng past.

And the attempt would have succeeded, had it not been for the fact that the night was pitch-dark, and that _another_ s.h.i.+p was trying that very venture with extinguished lights. And these two s.h.i.+ps met, bow to bow, with such an energy of adventurous smartness, that both sharply sank.

The sea, however, being smooth, all hands were saved; and now, since the boats lay forlorn on the vast, with nothing but the _Boodah's_ swarm of moons to move to, for the _Boodah_ they started, while Frankl cast twinkling fingers to the sky, and cursed that night, as the oars with slow wash journeyed through turgid murk toward the very den of the devil.

When they reached the _Boodah_ they were conducted down to a police-court, and there s.h.i.+vered an hour in a dreary light, till three officials in peaked caps and frock-coats came, sat on a Bench, and, after hearing evidence, p.r.o.nounced sentence of seven months against the captains, and one against Frankl.

These were led away by police blue-jackets, and Frankl groaned through the night in a box as cold as the cells of Colmoor.