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Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these:
"It might have been!”
– Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), humanitarian and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1870.
Introduction
Nov. 2021
James Green (1864-1948)
Birth: 14 October 1864, Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Death: 6 November 1948, Waverley, Sydney, Australia
James Green trained as a teacher at Rutherford College, Newcastle upon Tyne, before migrating to Australia in 1889, where he became a Methodist minister and served as an army chaplain during the Boer War and WWI.
In 1933, while in hospital
recovering from an appendectomy, he wrote this book; it was
published in 1935. With that background, he
comes across as a broad-minded and likeable Christian
minister, noting with good grace the Catholics going to
mass, and the Anglicans who pass by his window. He
regrets the churches “have become too much
institutionalised” and that “... communism of the Russian
type has invaded the labour movement”.
And, as we’re seeing acutely today, “… no payment can cover the value of good and devoted nursing, and no monetary
compensation can adequately represent what we owe to the
surgeon or physician.”
He has a chapter on the depression, suggesting nobody would
win the then current trade wars, concluding: “We cannot
in reason hope to send our ships away full, if we insist
on the other party sending them back empty. One-way
traffic may be good in narrow streets but the nations of
the world live on two-way traffic.” and, "The whole of the world is bound together in one bundle
of life. The daily papers publish the rates of exchange
for every part of the world, and depression in one far
away nation affects others, just as the ripples curve
outwards to the shore when a stone is thrown in to
disturb the waters of a lake.”
Biographies
1. In 1983, the Australian Dictionary of Biography published Michael McKernan's biography: Green, James (1864-1948)
Excerpt: He retired from active ministry in 1934 and in 1935 wrote From my Hospital Window, a series of essays on 'sane democracy'. This book is his best: he emerges as a good-natured, tolerant, faithful man, compassionate towards the unemployed and other victims of economic crisis. His other books were The Selector (1907) and The Lost Echo (1910).
2.
Virtual War Memorial: Australia (VWMA)
Senior Chaplain James Green, C.M.G., who recently returned from the front, was last night elected President of the New South Wales Methodist Conference. He is 63 years of age…
3. Excerpt from Australian Chaplains in WWI
GREEN, James
Methodist Clergyman
 The Rev. James Green's publications include "The Story of the Bushman," mostly letters contributed during the South African campaign... Recently he published a book dealing with the work of the 14th Brigade, called "News from No Man's Land," the introduction to which was written by General Birdwood. … He served in parishes in the Newcastle area, married Caroline Jane Atkinson on 19 April 1893 at Annandale, Sydney, and was appointed to Marrickville in 1894. …At Eland's River, Green was captured by the Boers but his imprisonment was short lived. Following the death, illness or evacuation of many newspaper correspondents he became the sole Australian correspondent, sending regular reports to the Sydney Morning Herald. These became the basis of The Story of the Australian Bushmen (1903), his first book, which was a straightforward account of service, somewhat romanticized, but sensitive to the evils of warfare. Of Eland's River he wrote: 'It is easy to … throw a glamour over an engagement, but the truth should be told. One has to be in an engagement to see what "the glorious death of the soldier" really is in these times of modern artillery. One man was lying with an arm blown away, and a great hole in his side such as is made in the earth with a shovel'. He returned to Sydney in 1903 ... He also acted as a part-time chaplain to the Commonwealth Military Forces. … He was appointed chaplain colonel with the 1st Battalion. … Survived by his wife and two sons... |
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James Green’s "From My Hospital Window" (1935)
CHAPTER XII
IF RUSSIA HAD CHOSEN HENRY GEORGE INSTEAD OF KARL MARX!
The revolution found Russia for the most part a land of tenant
farmers. They were elementary in their farming methods and lived at
a low standard of comfort. They were conservative in thought, and
for the most part illiterate. However, they fed the population of
that vast country, and at the same time exported great quantities of
wheat and other products to the surrounding European countries. They
were wedded to the land.
The idea of the minority of communists who rule, is to break down
the capitalistic system and industrialize the nation. This is the
teaching of Karl Marx. The Soviet attempted to do in a few years
what in other lands has taken the greater part of a century.
Moreover, in other lands, where secondary industries abound, the
man-power was not so backward in mechanics and not so illiterate. It
may be taken for granted that all countries need some secondary
industries, at least key industries, those which are necessary in
case of war and those upon which other industries depend.
But it seems futile to overdo secondary industries in lands where
there is a vast unpopulated territory and thousands of square miles
of virgin soil.
Even in densely populated lands like Belgium, Britain, France and
Germany, it has been proved to be immensely important to keep a
considerable number of people on the land. If all countries were
highly industrialized the competition for markets would be fierce
indeed.
To feed the proletariat which was in course of being industrialized,
the peasant farmers of Russia were required to make immense
sacrifices. Their produce was commandeered at prices fixed by
government, and to procure foreign capital to pay for the new
machinery, the factories being built, and the powerful electric
stations necessary to provide for the factories, the government
claimed the right to buy wheat, butter, etc., at such wholesale
prices that, through Soviet agents, it might export the produce to
the countries from which it was importing the machinery. The Soviet
was providing electric power and imported skilled labour to install
it and to teach the workers how to use the new machinery. It also
commandeered the produce at low prices to supply the proletariat
with food.
Instead of currency the workers were issued food or other
value-tickets, and they had to “queue up” to receive, in exchange
for their cards, such food or clothing as happened to be in stock.
Naturally the peasant farmers, the village traders, and the small
storekeepers were hard hit. They opposed these conditions by passive
resistance. They worked their farms only for themselves, killed
their stock as required, and hoarded food.
The communistic junta resolved to expropriate the stock and property
of the farmers, and endeavoured to drive them into large collective
state farms, where methods were standardized and large-scale
production over large unfenced areas was the rule. The kulaks (the
small farmers) who owned their land and had a few cattle, a horse or
two, and a few sheep, fowls, etc., were practically forced into the kolhose, or collective farm. These are the men who are
industrious and ambitious to improve their lot; the contented
yeomanry which other nations aspire to nurture and establish, and
they are the worst in the eyes of their communistic rulers, for they
are the hardest to uproot. The Soviet commissars send labour where
they will, perforce. They remove kulaks to remote parts of
Russia and Siberia. They are engaged now in the terrible task of
breaking up homes, separating families, and dragooning labour into
channels chosen by government officials, and not by the parties
chiefly concerned. The Soviet State lowers everyone to a
common level, and by its class war tears down the whole existing
social system of the country.
The good features remaining from the Tsarist regime are the worst in
the eyes of the Soviet, which aims to destroy everything of the old
system and make an entirely new start. In Russia we see humanity
uprooted from hearthstone and threshold, driven from its altars, and
ordinary human instincts ignored.
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HUMANITY UPROOTED AND COMPELLED TO MARCH
Trains and steamers carry thousands of Russian folk to fresh
districts where they are mobilized under conditions and in forms of
labour chosen for them by the Soviet.
These drastic and radical changes arise out. of the fact that the
small band of communists who rule, chooses the theories of social
order taught by Karl Marx.
It is worth while speculating what the result would have been if the
intelligentsia of Russia had accepted the doctrines of Henry George,
the prophet of San Francisco, instead of those of Karl Marx.
If the Russian Government at the revolution had legislated to depend
on the collection of the economic rent of the land for its revenue;
as a first result, enormous tracts of land, in many cases good
improved land, would have been thrown on the market.
By the economic rent we mean a tax on the unimproved valuation of
the land; that part of the value of the land which is the creation
of the community, and not the result of the labour of the occupier,
the “unearned increment," as it is called. Admitting that some great
change in the interest of the general community was imperative,
perhaps no more natural and just principle could have been chosen by
a people making a new start after a revolution than that of Henry
George. Those unprepared to use the land to the extent of earning
the economic rent would offer it for sale.
There would have been enough land to satisfy the land hunger which
our reading of Tolstoy shows us is a great feature of Russian rural
life. There would have been a “General Post” in regard to the land.
The ambitious and wealthier farmers could have established their
children upon the land. The kulak would have been able to
extend his area, all too limited in those days to be called a living
area. Even the landless peasant, could have been provided for by the
government.
There would have been an enormous revival of agriculture, and
immense quantities of grain could have been exported to adjacent
countries, which would have brought great wealth to Russia, for the
people of postwar Europe were almost starving at the time. The
general revival of trade would have brought prosperity to traders
and professions alike, and the building trades would have boomed,
for Russia was very deficient in housing at the time.
The liberated land put to its capacity use by the enlarged kulak and peasant class would have been like an additional stream of
life-blood to Russia, and colonies would have pushed out into the
virgin land of that great country. Its wealth of produce, timber,
minerals and furs, borne on the great Russian rivers to the
seaports, would have had a beneficent effect on all Europe. By its
reward in the larger use of the land, and the consequent enlarged
revenue, the people would have provided the means for an enlightened
government to proceed to the greater education of the Russian masses.
At the same time this fuller intercourse with other nations would
have enabled the peculiar genius of Russians in art, music and
literature to make its contribution to the world.
Even the great hereditary landowner, who, unwilling to work his
surplus land to the extent necessary to pay the economic rent of it,
sold it, would have been no worse off for he would have sold it at
its value.
Had the country adopted Henry George’s doctrine instead of that of
Karl Marx, the revenue of the government would have been sufficient
and regular because of the larger field of taxation, without any
burdensome increase of the taxation of the individual, for the
economic rent would have been the only tax. Such other charges as
municipal rates and harbour dues would have been for services
rendered; rates, not taxes. The revenue of the nation would have
enabled the government to develop and cheapen the means of
transportation, so much in arrears in Russia.
The standard of agriculture could have been raised by the provision
of experimental farms and agricultural colleges for the new
generation. Had Russia chosen Henry George instead of Karl Marx,
nothing worth while of the old order would have been lost. Religion,
culture, art, and home would have been retained at the will of the
people, and there would have been no forceful anti-God propaganda or
any attempt to dragoon the people, for the principles of Henry
George make for individual liberty. The prosperous peasant farmers
would have been rooted to the land more than ever, for payment of
economic rent does not affect fixity of tenure. True, there would
have remained competition —free competition—which would have
promoted progress and rewarded effort. There would have remained
freedom of contract and the individual liberty to choose one’s own
calling, place of habitation, and manner of life.
During all the long centuries Russia had attained a culture and
status of its own. Nothing precious in the eyes of Russians, nothing
treasured in its traditions, would have been abandoned. Religion
would have had space to purify itself. Patriotism would have pointed
the way to duty. Human life would have been secure and free in
Russia under the land and liberty principles of Henry George. Her
men of genius would not have been slaughtered by the hundred, her
captains of industry, her honest bourgeoisie, whether merchants or
professional men, would have been free to live and prosper under
conditions fostered by the principles of Henry George, for the
Georgian doctrine values genius and individuality, and sets it free
under an economic system which guarantees to every man the reward of
his labour and genius. Had Russia chosen Henry George and not Karl
Marx she might have been today one of the great big brother nations
in the concert of Europe.
Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!”
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