IF THE PRISON DOES NOT UNDERBID THE SLUM IN HUMAN MISERY, THE SLUM WILL EMPTY AND THE PRISON WILL FILL

The other day I stumbled upon an article on the "Pains of Imprisonment" by a scholar based in Oslo, Norway. The article (allegedly) quotes one of "Shaw's memorable phrases"

“If the prison does not underbid the slum in human misery, the slum will empty and the prison will fill."

Since this article did not provide a source for the quotation, and given that I could not find it in my database either, I turned to the Internet as a last resource. It did not take me long to realize that this phrase is quoted a number of times in different documents, from newspaper articles to scholarly books. Luckily for me, one of those books actually cited a source. In this doctoral dissertation on The Relationship Between Mass Incarceration andCrime in the Neoliberal Period in the United States, the quotation is sourced as part of Shaw's The Crime of Imprisonment (1946).  

Dan H. Laurence's Soho Bibliography lists this item (first published separately in 1925) and has something else to say about it. 

Now that I had the title of the book, I realized that it could not be freely available online because it had been published in 1946. However, as a preface to the Webbs' English Prisons Under Local Government (1922), my chances were much higher. 

And... bingo! The Internet Archive holds copies of all the volumes in the series on English Local Government. Specifically, the volume English Prisons Under Local Government contains the famous preface by Shaw and the famous words: 

In general terms, I guess this quotation may be related to a number of other works by Shaw (whether essays, speeches, or plays) where poverty is the driving force behind many of the ills of society. I'm sure each reader has their favorite one (please leave a comment about this if you will). 

Because this is a very complex topic and I am not an expert on the matter, I would like to direct readers to a couple of recent publications by fellow Shavian Peter Gahan, who edited "Six Fabian Lectures on Redistribution of Income" in SHAW 36.1 ("Shaw and Money") and, more importantly, has published a book that connects Shaw, the Webbs, and the problem of poverty and social inequality (Bernard Shaw and Beatrice Webb on Poverty and Equality in the Modern World, 1905–1914). 

The day will come when both the slum and the prison will be empty. At least, I hope so. 

A MAN NEVER TELLS YOU ANYTHING UNTIL YOU CONTRADICT HIM

This is probably one of the most popular quotations in Shaw's repertoire. Indeed, photographs like this one abound on the Internet. 

The quotation originated in a letter Shaw sent to Ellen Terry (28 Aug. 1896), included in Bernard Shaw Collected Letters Vol. I (1874-1897), p. 645.

"But I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one’s business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. Then, too, I like fighting successful people; attacking them; rousing them; trying their mettle; kicking down their sand castles so as to make them build stone ones, and so on. It develops one’s muscles. Besides, one learns from it: a man never tells you anything until you contradict him."

Incidentally, this and other statements related to male sexuality - sometimes mutually contradictory - are discussed in a very interesting chapter by Kathleen McDougall, entitled "Bernard Shaw and the Economy of the Male Self." The chapter is part of the book Mapping Male Sexuality: Nineteenth-Century England, edited by Jay Losey and William D. Brewer, and published by the Associated University Presses. 

From the point of view of "contradiction" as a powerful tool to mine out the truth from people, Shaw followed what he preached. In another letter to Ellen Terry (25 Nov. 1905), he probed her thoughts on whether she considered Frederick Kerr to be the best option to play Brassbound in these terms: 

"Unless you contradict me, I shall assume that you prefer him to the available alternatives."

Of course, this tecnique - although effective - was not without detractors. As we can read in an article by Tom Miller (The Shavian 8.8, 2000), professor Harold J. Laski did not enjoy Shaw as a provocateur who fostered conflicting arguments, especially because Shaw seemed to have the sympathetic upper hand from his audience: 

"He talks as though he knows that Europe is listening at the keyhole to what he says; and he has, consequently, a reckless disregard for truth where this is in conflict with sensation that I really find a painful thing. And the adulation which surrounds him is irritating beyond words. He says something which makes you revolt; you contradict; and his audience looks at you as though you had spat upon the Eucharist." (8 Jan. 1928)

This is not to imply that Shaw would not "contradict himself" from time to time, as we all know. To quote but one - should I say momentous - example, Beatrice Webb records in his typescript diary (24 May 1927) that while she was "reading proofs of The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism" together with her husband, she pointed out to Shaw that he had "contradicted himself more than once in the book." In Beatrice's recollection of the event, Shaw was "rather impressed especially as I insisted that I did not want him to alter anything he had written."

I wonder if self-contradiction was Shaw's way of getting the truth out of himself?

By the way, Beatrice Webb's both manuscript and typescript diaries are digitized and freely available at the LSE Digital Library. A phenomenal initiative and an endless lode of information for research.