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Academic Thoughts
The Object of Government — It is the habit of men to blind themselves by customary trains of associated thought, to come to look on the means as an end and honour it with a superstitious reverence as a wonder-working fetish. The principle of good government is not to keep men quiet, but to keep them satisfied. It is not its objective to have loyal servants and subjects, but to give all individuals in the nation the utmost possible facilities for being men and realising their highest manhood. The ideal of the state is not a hive of bees or a herd of cattle, shepherded by strong watch-dogs, but an association of free men for mutual help and human advancement. The mere fact of a government doing what it does well and firmly, is nothing in its favour. It is more important to know what it does and where it is leading us.
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European Justice — The modern court is a curious and instructive institution. Under a civilised disguise it is really the mediaeval ordeal by battle; only in place of the swords or lances of military combatants, it is decided by the tongues of pleaders and the imagination of witnesses; whoever can lie most consistently, plausibly and artistically has the best chance of winning. In one aspect, it is an exhilarating gamble, a very Monte-Carlo of surprising chances. But there is skill in it too and satisfies the intellect as well as the sensations. It is a sort of human game of ‘Bridge’, combining luck and skill or an intellectual gladiatorial show. The stake in big cases is a man’s property or his soul. Vae Victis! Woe to the conquered! If it is a criminal case, the tortures of the jail are in prospect, be he innocent or be he guilty. And as he stands there — for to add to the pleasurableness of his case, the physical ache of long standing is usually added to the strain on his emotions — he looks eagerly not to the truth or falsehood of the evidence for or against him, but to the skill with
Page – 446 which this counsel or the other handles the proofs or the witnesses and the impressions they are making on the judge or jury. One understands, as one watches, the passion of the Roman poet’s eulogy of the defence-lawyer, prœsidium mœstis reis, a bulwark to the sorrowful accused. For in this strange civilised game of pitch and toss, where it is impossible to be certain about guilt or innocence, one’s sympathies naturally go to the sufferer who may be innocent yet convicted. If one could eliminate this element of human pity, it would be a real intellectual pleasure to watch this queer semi-barbarous battle, appraise the methods of chief players, admire in whatever climes the elusiveness and fine casualness of Indian perjury or the robust, manly downrightness of Saxon cross-swearing. And if one were to complain that modern civilisation [eliminates] from life danger and excitement one could well answer him, "Come into the courts and see!" But after all praise must be given what it is due and the English system must be lauded for not normally exposing the accused to the torture of savage pursuit by a prosecuting judge or the singular methods of investigation favoured by the American Police. If the dice are apt to be loaded, it is on both sides and not on one.
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The European Jail — is a luminous commentary on the humanitarian boasts of the Occident and its pious horrors at Oriental barbarities. To mutilate, to impale, to torture, how shocking, how Oriental! And we are occasionally reminded that if we had independence, such punishments would again be our portion. England forgets that to half hang a man, draw out his entrails and burn them before his eyes was an English practice in the 18th Century. France has forgotten the wheel and galleys. But these things have gone out. What of the penal system ? It strikes us as the refined and efficient organisation of the methods of savages, who have indeed progressed and have learned that the torture of the soul is a more terrible revenge than the torture of the body, to murder the human nature a greater satisfaction than to slay the animal frame. Ancient nations punished their enemies by death, slavery,
Page – 447 torture, humiliation and degradation. The jail system is an organisation of these four principles. Physical death has been reduced to a minimum, it is now only a punishment for murder and rebellion. A century or more ago, every crime almost was punished with death in England. The principle was — your life for my shilling, your life for my handkerchief. It is now — your life for the life you have taken, your life for the mortal fear you put me into of the loss of my power, emoluments and pleasures. The organisation of slavery is the first principle of the system. I take my enemy, put him on a dog’s diet, load him with chains, set guards to beat and kick him into obedience and diligence, and make him work for my profit for a period fixed by myself, careless whether his nature is brutalised or his life shortened in the process — for he is my slave to do my will with, and if I do not kill him for taking my shilling or my handkerchief, it is because I am civilised and merciful, not a barbarous Oriental. For the same reason, I do not inflict physical torture on him, unless he is unwilling or unable to do the amount of work I have fixed for him, or either deliberately or accidentally remembers that he was a human being or behaves like the brute I have successfully laboured to make him. Even then I torture according to his physical capacity and take care not to maim or kill this serviceable animal. Degradation and humiliation are as well organised as the slavery. It is done, not once in a way but driven in daily, hourly, momently, in every detail of his dress, food, conduct, discipline. In every possible way I brand in upon his soul that he is no longer such a one, no longer possessed of the name, rights or nature of humanity, but my slave, beast and property — of myself and of my servants. It is my object to wipe out every trace of the human in him and I stamp my foot daily on anything in him that may remind him of such human qualities as modesty, culture, self-respect, generosity, fellow-feeling. If everything else fails, I have the exquisite rack of mental torture, called solitary imprisonment to shake his reason or destroy his manhood. And if in the end I have not succeeded, if he comes out a man and not a brute or idiot, it is not my fault, but his, I have done my best. This is the European prison system, and it is inflicted on all alike with machine-like efficiency. The curious thing is, that
Page – 448 it is inflicted in part even on undertrial prisoners, who may be perfectly innocent. This also is probably directed by the finer feelings of the modern civilised accident and intended mercifully to prepare his gentle and easy descent into Inferno around them.
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