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WORK

[TRAVAIL]

BY

ÉMILE ZOLA


TRANSLATED BY

ERNEST ALFRED VIZETELLY


LONDON

CHATTO & WINDUS

1901




PREFACE


'Work' is the second book of the new series which M. Zola began with
'Fruitfulness,' and which he hopes to complete with 'Truth' and
'Justice.' I should much have liked to discuss here in some detail
several of the matters which M. Zola brings forward in this instalment
of his literary testament, but unfortunately the latter part of the
present translation has been made by me in the midst of great bodily
suffering, and I have not now the strength to do as I desired. I will
only say, therefore, that 'Work' embraces many features. It is, first,
an exposition of M. Zola's gospel of work, as the duty of every man
born into the world and the sovereign cure for many ills--a gospel
which he has set forth more than once in the course of his numerous
writings, and which will be found synthetised, so to say, in a paper
called 'Life and Labour' translated by me for the 'New Review' some
years ago.[1] Secondly, 'Work' deals with the present-day conditions
of society so far as those conditions are affected by Capital and
Labour. And, thirdly and particularly, it embraces a scheme of social
reorganisation and regeneration in which the ideas of Charles Fourier,
the eminent philosopher, are taken as a basis and broadened and adapted
to the needs of a new century. Some may regard this scheme as being
merely the splendid dream of a poet (the book certainly abounds
in symbolism), but all must admit that it is a scheme of _pacific_
evolution, and therefore one to be preferred to the violent remedies
proposed by most Socialist schools.

In this respect the book has a peculiar significance. Though the
English press pays very little attention to the matter, things are
moving apace in France. The quiet of that country is only surface-deep.
The Socialist schools are each day making more and more progress.
The very peasants are fast becoming Socialists, and, as I wrote
comparatively recently in my preface to the new English version of M.
Zola's 'Germinal,' the most serious troubles may almost at any moment
convulse the Republic. Thus it is well that M. Zola, who has always
been a fervent partisan of peace and human brotherliness, should be
found at such a juncture pointing out pacific courses to those who
believe that a bath of blood must necessarily precede all social
regeneration.

Incidentally, in the course of his statements and arguments, M. Zola
brings forward some very interesting points. I would particularly refer
the reader to what he writes on the subject of education. Again, his
sketch of the unhappy French peasant of nowadays may be scanned with
advantage by those who foolishly believe that peasant to be one of the
most contented beings in the world. The contrary is unhappily the case,
the subdivision of the soil having reached such a point that the land
cannot be properly or profitably cultivated. After lasting a hundred
years, the order of things established in the French provinces by the
Great Revolution has utterly broken down. The economic conditions of
the world have changed, and the only hope for French agriculture rests
in farming on a huge scale. This the peasant, amidst his hard struggle
with pauperism, is now realising, and this it is which is fast making
him a Socialist.

All that M. Zola writes in 'Work' on the subject of iron and steel
factories, and the progressive changes in processes and so forth,
will doubtless be read with interest at the present time, when
so much is being said and written about a certain large American
'trust.' The reliance which he places in Science--the great pacific
revolutionary--to effect the most advantageous changes in present-day
conditions of labour, is assuredly justified by facts. Personally, I
rely far more on science than on any innate spirit of brotherliness
between men, to bring about comparative happiness for the human race.

In conclusion, I may point out that the tendency of M. Zola's book in
one respect is shown by the title chosen for the present