Towards the end of "Traffic," Ruskin writes the following:
I know that none of this wrong is done with deliberate purpose. I know, on the contrary, that you wish you workmen well; that you do much for them, and that you desire to do more for them, if you saw your way to such benevolence safely. I know that even all this wrong and misery are brought about by a warped sense of duty, each of you striving to do his best; but, unhappily, not knowing for whom this best should be done. [47-48]
For a man who opens his speech by declaring "I do not care about this exchange of yours," is the service of the above quotation more to mollify an offended audience or to actually suggest an answer? Does Ruskin honestly believe that the people he's speaking to--the same people who break strikes with force and violence--actually care for or about their workers in anyway other than the "I'll get more work out of them is their not dead" argument? If this is true--Ruskin wants to calm his listeners down a bit--what effect does that have on his central argument?
Last modified 28 February 2002