refrom, is but as the shadow
on King Hezekiah's Dial: the shadow has gone back twenty years;
but will again, in spite of Free-Trades and Abrogations, travel
forward its old fated way. With our present system of individual
Mammonism, and Government by Laissez-faire, this Nation cannot
live. And if, in the priceless interim, some new life and
healing be not found, there is no second respite to be counted
on. The shadow on the Dial advances thenceforth without pausing.
What Government can do? This that they call 'Organising of
Labour' is, if well understood, the Problem of the whole Future,
for all who will in future pretend to govern men. But our first
preliminary stage of it, How to deal with the Actual Labouring
Millions of England? this is the imperatively pressing Problem of
the Present, pressing with a truly fearful intensity and
imminence in these very years and days. No Government can longer
neglect it: once more, what can our Government do in it?

Governments are of various degrees of activity: some, altogether
Lazy Governments, in 'free countries' as they are called, seem in
these times almost to profess to do, if not nothing, one knows
not at first what. To debate in Parliament, and gain majorities;
and ascertain who shall be, with a toil hardly second to Ixion's,
the Prime Speaker and Spoke-holder, and keep the Ixion's-Wheel
going, if not forward, yet round? Not altogether so:--much, to
the experienced eye, is not what it seems! Chancery and certain
other Law-Courts seem nothing; yet in fact they are, the worst
of them, something: chimneys for the devilry and contention of
men to escape by;--a very considerable something!--Parliament too
has its tasks, if thou wilt look; fit to wear out the lives of
toughest men. The celebrated Kilkenny Cats, through their
tumultuous congress, cleaving the ear of Night, could they be
said to do nothing? Hadst thou been of them, thou hadst seen!
The feline heart laboured, as with steam up-to the bursting
point; and death-doing energy nerved every muscle: they had a
work there; and did it! On the morrow, two tails were found
left, and peaceable annihilation; a neighbourhood _delivered_
from despair.

Again, are not Spinning-Dervishes an eloquent emblem, significant
of much? Hast thou noticed him, that solemn-visaged Turk, the
eyes shut; dingy wool mantle circularly hiding his figure;--
bell-shaped; like a dingy bell set spinning on the _tongue_ of