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RICHARD WOLLHEIM
writing. He wanted to draw people's attention to the conditions of
the day: and he felt that it was urgently necessary to do this, not
just because of the conditions themselves, but because of a further
belief he entertained with great conviction about the immediate
future of the world. This belief was in fact false and the conditions
to which Orwell wanted to draw attention are no longer what they
were. And this is why I describe
The Road to Wigan Pier
as not
just journalism but also out-of-date journalism.
The belief in the light of which 'Orwell reviewed the state of
England was that there were two and only two possible political
futures for the world: Socialism and Fascism. There was perhaps a
great deal in the contemporary scene that obscured and complic–
ated the picture and prevented one from seeing this simple fact:
but soon enough the fog of ideology and party would clear and it
would become evident beyond all doubt that in the coming struggle
for power there were only two entrants. Today this certainly is not
the case. Whether it was ever reasonable to think this is another
matter. Nor should it concern us much, for it seems to have been a
peculiar feature of the 1930's that the rationality of a man's poli–
tical prognostications varied inversely with his
intelligence---vide
supremely Keynes' interpretation of the Munich Settlement in the
New Statesman.
Anyhow it is quite clear that the future is not for
us as 'Orwell envisaged it.
Nor are the conditions of England on which he rested his gaze
recognizably the same.
In
Orwell's England there were two million
unemployed:
In
June 1958 there were 472,000-and 1958 was, of
course, a bad year compared with 1957 and 1956 when there were
297,000 and 250,000 respectively.
In
Orwell's England a man on
public assistance drew (roughly) 12/6 for himself, another 12/6 for
his wife, 4/- for his oldest child and 3/- for any other child: so that
an average family subsisting on the dole had about 30/- on which
to live. Today a man gets 53/-for himself, another 30/-for his
wife, 15/- for his eldest child and 7/- for any other child: in addi–
tion he gets 8/- family allowance for any child (except the first)
who
is
still at school, so that the father of a family has an income
of about £5-10-0. Against this we must offset a rise in the standard
of living of about 20q%, but this still means an appreciable increase
