ESSAY X.

DIFFERENCES OF RANK AND WEALTH.

THE most remarkable peculiarity about the desire to establish distinctions of rank is not that there should be definite gradations amongst people who have titles, but that when the desire is strong in a nation, public opinion should go far beyond heralds, and parchments, and gazettes, and establish the most minute gradations amongst people who have nothing honorific about them.

When once the rule is settled by a table of precedence that an earl is greater than a baron, we simply acquiesce in the arrangement, as we are ready to believe that a mandarin with a yellow jacket is a much-to-be-honoured sort of mandarin, but what is the power that strikes the nice balance of social advantages in favour of Mr. Smith, as compared with Mr. Jones, when neither one. nor the other has any title or ancestry, or anything whatever to boast of? Amongst the many gifts that are to be admired in the fair sex this seems one of the most mysterious, that ladies can so decidedly fix the exact social position of every human being. Men soon find themselves bewildered by conflicting considerations, but a woman goes to the point at once, and settles in the most definite manner that Smith is certainly the superior of Jones.

This may bring upon me the imputation of being a democrat and a leveller. No, I rather like a well-defined social distinction when it has reality. Real distinctions keep society picturesque and interesting; what I fail to appreciate so completely are the fictitious little distinctions that have no basis in reality, and appear to be instituted merely for the sake of establishing differences that do not naturally exist. It seems to be an unfortunate tendency that seeks unapparent differences, and it may have a bad effect on character, by forcing each man back upon the consideration of his own claims that it would be better for him to forget.

He

I once dined at a country-house in Scotland, when the host asked one of the guests this question, "Are you a landowner?" in order to determine his precedence. It did so happen that the guest owned a few small farms, so he answered "Yes," but it struck me that the distinction between a man who had a moderate sum invested in land, and one who had twice as much in other investments, was not clearly in favour of the first. Could not the other buy land any day if he liked? who hath gold hath land, potentially. If precedence is to be regulated by so material a consideration as wealth, let it be done fairly and plainly. The best and simplest plan would be to embroider the amount of each gentleman's capital in gold thread on the breast of his dresscoat. The metal would be appropriate, the embroidery would be decorative, and the practice would offer unequalled encouragement to thrift.

Again, I have always understood in the most confused manner the distinction, so clear to many, between those who are in trade and those who are not. I think I see

the only real objection to trade, with the help of M. Renan, who has stated it very clearly, but my difficulty is to discover who are tradesmen, and still more, who are not tradesmen. Here is M. Renan's account of the matter.

"Our ideal can only be realised with a Government that gives some éclat to those who are connected with it, and which creates distinctions outside of wealth. We feel an antipathy to a society in which the merit of a man and his superiority to another can only be revealed under the form of industry and commerce, not that trade and industry are not honest in our eyes, but because we see clearly that the best things (such as the functions of the priest, the magistrate, the savant, the artist, and the serious man of letters) are the inverse of the industrial and commercial spirit, the first duty of those who follow them being not to try to enrich themselves, and never to take into consideration the venal value of what they do."

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This, I understand, provided that the priest, magistrate, savant, artist, and serious man of letters, are faithful to this "first duty," provided that they never take into consideration the venal value of what they do." But there are tradesmen in the highest professions. that can be said against trade is that its object is profit. Then it follows that every profession followed for profit has in it what is objectionable in trade, and that the professions are not noble in themselves, but only if they are followed in a disinterested spirit. I should say, then, that any attempt to fix the degree of nobleness of persons by the supposed nobleness of their occupations must be founded upon an unreal distinction. A venal

clergyman who does not believe the dogmas that he defends for his endowment; a venal barrister, ready to prostitute his talents and his tongue for a large income, seem to me to have in them far more of what is objectionable in trade, than a country-bookseller who keeps a little shop and sells note-paper and sealing-wax over the counter; yet it is assumed that their occupations are noble occupations and that his business is not noble, though I can see nothing whatever in it of which any gentleman need be in the slightest degree ashamed.

Again, there seem to be most unreal distinctions of respectability in the trades themselves. The wine-trade has always been considered a gentlemanly business, but why is it more respectable to sell wine and spirits than to sell bread, or cheese, or beef? Are not articles of food more useful to the community than alcoholic drinks, and less likely to contribute to the general sum of evil? As for the honesty of the dealers, no doubt there are honest wine-merchants, but what thing that is sold for money has been more frequently adulterated, or more mendaciously labelled, or more unscrupulously charged for, than the produce of European vintages ?1

1 That valiant enemy of false pretensions, Mr. Punch, has often done good service in throwing ridicule on unreal distinctions. In "Punch's Almanac " for 1882 I find the following exquisite conversation beneath one of George Du Maurier's inimitable drawings:

Grigsby. "Do you know the Joneses?"

Mrs. Brown. "No, we-er-don't care to know Business people, as a rule, although my husband's in business; but then he's in the Coffee business—and they're all GENTLEMEN in the Coffee business, you know!"

Grigsby (who always suits himself to his company). “Really

Another wonderful unreality is the following. People desire the profits of trade, but are unwilling to lose caste by engaging in it openly. In order to fill their pockets and preserve their rank at the same time, they engage in business anonymously, either as members of some firm in which their names do not appear or else as shareholders in great trading enterprises. In both these cases the investor of capital becomes just as really and truly a tradesman as if he kept a shop, but if you were to tell him that he was a tradesman he would probably resent the imputation.

It is remarkable that the people who most despise commerce are the very people who bow down most readily before the accomplished results of commerce, for, as they have an exaggerated sense of social distinctions, they are great adorers of wealth for the distinction that it confers. By their worship of wealth they acknowledge it to be most desirable, but then they worship rank also, and this other cultus goes with the sentiment of contempt for humble and plodding industry in all its forms.

The contempt for trade is inconsistent in another way. A man may be excluded from "good society " because he is in trade, and his grandson may be admitted because the grandfather was in trade, that is, through a fortune of commercial origin. The present Prime Minister (Gladstone), and the Speaker of the House of Commons (Mr. Arthur Peel), and many other men of high position in both Houses, may owe their fame to their own distinguished abilities, but they owe the leisure and opportunity

now! Why, that's more than can be said of the Army, the Navy, the Church, the Bar, or even the House of Lords! I don't wonder at your being rather exclusive !”