Old Principles and the New Order by McNabb Vincent

Author:McNabb, Vincent [McNabb, Vincent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eternal Revolution
Published: 2012-10-31T04:00:00+00:00

HOPE THROUGH THE HOME

As I do not know what are the tests of social failure and social success, I leave to others the balancing of social hope and social despair. I only see in the Family—even in the shattered families of England—a ground of hope; as a traveller through the workless coalfields of England may today see Spring green carpeting the blackened pit-heaps. The first ground of hope is the undeniable instinct to have a family. The mere erotic relation of male and female is not the be-all and end-all of social life; in spite of the scented literature which so often offers deodorants as disinfectants. So native to the heart of man and woman is it to have a home, and therefore a quiver-full of children that much money and all kinds of literary best-sellers have been but moderately successful against it. Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret (You can drive nature out with a pitchfork, but back she comes).

The second (and, as we shall see, the third and fourth) ground of hope springs from the first. Just as the average man and woman—the John Bull and Jane Bull of this island—have a homing instinct, so have they an instinct for ownership; or as some call it, a proprietary instinct.

We must beware of judging this to be a selfish instinct in the average man. We must not forget that the average man, of whom we are speaking, is the husband and father. His instinct for ownership is not just an animal push for elbow-room, but a fine gesture of love for the wife and children of his love.

One day the Teacher in His desire to find an opening for social truth in the minds of a successful bourgeoisie cried out, "Consider the lilies, how they grow." Again and again, in passing through the suburbia of factory or mining towns, I have been tempted to cry out: "Consider the allotment-huts, how they grow." Indeed all kinds of bye-laws have to be issued and enforced to prevent the people housing themselves by their own hands. How often have I prayed that some turn of events, unaccompanied by bloodshed, might release this sclf-redemptive force from the thraldom of what is more fitly called legislation than law. If England were to be overrun and wasted by a foreign foe, a strange truth would suddenly stalk through the smoking country. Salvation would not come from the crafty engineers who are now "erecting" steel-framed, brick-veneered sky-scrapers. But hope comes to me when I realize that England would soon be covered with a throng of independent squatters whose zest for self-help and homing-instinct would rebuild the commonwealth.

The third ground of hope springs, as we have said, from the first. The old Hebrew people expressed its necessity in terms of a command: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." When the home and homestead have been re-established the people have re-built the best School for teaching the best lesson, of self-sacrificing love. It can never be repeated too often that the Family is the natural or primary Cooperative Unit.

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