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NOTES OF THEWEEK . FOREIGN AFFAIRS. By S. Verdad . WAR NOTES. By “North Staffs’’ . HOLLAND AND THE WORLD-WAR.-X. By W. de Veer . MORE LETTERS TO MY NEPHEW. Farley . MEN AT WAR. By B. . . . DRAMA. By John Francis Hope By Anthony
VIEWS AND REVIEWS: DEMOCRACY AGAIN. A. E. R. . REVIEWS .
By
PASTICHE. By Harry Fowler, T. W. Cole, Arthur F. ‘Thorn, Triboulet . CURRENT CANT . LETTERS TO THE EDITOR from H. J. Poutsma, Henry J. Northbrook, Howard Ince, A. H. Murray, C. E. M. J., Maurice B. Reckitt, G.O.K.,R.O. . PRESS CUTTINGS . safe deposit, or, rather, as their banker. The result undoubtedly is that their money is invested in war at a profit exactly as it is invested during peace in ordinary business : with this further advantage, that in the case of the war-investment there is no risk to capital, since repayment is guaranteed by the State. But this is a very different picture from that commonly presented of the obliging financiers who kindly enable us to carry on the war. And, what is more, it is a very disgusting picture. For it presents the spectacle of our financiers investing their money in war, not only as if war were a proper enterprise for profit, but as if themselves were no real party and beneficiaries in it. Exactly the contrary,however, is the cas-e; for, in a deeper sense than shallow economists or diplomatists will ever understand the very causes of war are to be found in the inequalities of wealth brought about by these same financiers. The tendency of wealth is to find its own level; and where by artificial means (capitalism in our case), a huge dam is erected between one class and another, preserving in one class a high level and in the other class a low level of wealth, sooner or later, by war or by revolution, the pressure becomes excessive and the dam is broken. But if, when the floods are thus out, and a national equality of wealth is re-established, the State is foolish enough to guarantee the restoration after the dam-burst of the former levels, what advantage has there been in the effort of nature? As a more practical argument, we may urge that if wars were really fought at the cost of our reserves of wealth-in short, if they were paid for by the wealthy ;done,--their occurrences would be rarer than they are. As it is, it is all one to the wealthy whether their money is invested in peace or in war; for it is equally safe in both undertakings. Peace yields interest at an average of five per cent., war yields the same. Why should the wealthy prefer peace to war? *** Another reason against burdening the coming generationwith war-debt was often urged by Pitt during the Napoleonic Wars. It is that we are thereby making war more difficult for them to undertake. Let us suppose,what is not improbable, that the end of the present war will see the nation with an albatross of four thousand millions of debt hung about its neck. And let us suppose, again, what is again not improbable, that the
READERSAND WRITERS. By R. H. C.
MAN AND MANNERS OCCASIONAL : AN DIARY .
NOTES OF THE
WEEK.
IN his review on Thursday in the House of Commons of the financial side of the war Mr. Asquith said that if the war had ceased in January of this year “the obligations already incurred by the State would impose a sensible, and, indeed, a serious strain upon the resources of the country for a generation to come.” There is, we take it, no doubt about this; and what, therefore, may we not add to its seriousness since the war is by no means over? If our indebtedness after eighteen months of war is certain to burden a whole generation to come, our indebtedness after two years, after three years, is not unlikely to burden us for a century to come. There would, however, be nothing to say against this, but we could grin and bear it, if it were in the nature of things necessary and inevitable. But is it? We do not think it is. By the end of the war all the services and machinery necessary to the conduct of the war will have been actually provided, and the exertions of the nation will all have been made. Why, then, having discharged the burden of the war out of national income, should the nation find itself at the end in debt? There is no other answer than this : that the nation’s indebtedness will be to the wealthy who are now lending us their money and capital. But why, we may ask, should they lend and not give, or why should the State borrow of them and not take? We are familiar with the boast of our Press that we are financing the war with our accumulated reserves of wealth; and the idea intended to be left in our minds is that our rich men are paying for it out of their past savings. But if we are to repay to them what they are now lending us, where is the sacrifice in them or the obligation on us? The war will, in fact, not have been paid €or out of reserves, but these reserves will merely have been converted into national debt. *** By this means, deny it as Mr. Lloyd George may, our wealthy classes are really spared the cost of the war; and not only spared the cost, but compensated with interest for their security. For you have only to suppose that at the opening of the war the total accumulated wealth of the country had been transferred to the State on loan with security and interest, to realise that in effect the wealthy are employing the State as their
just occasion of the present war is repeated at the instigation of a Prussia obsessed with revanche-what, under these circumstances, might be expected but that the nation, like a poor man similarly situated, would be more disposed to pocket insults and injuries than it was in the summer of 1914? It is idle to hope that if the liberty of Europe were once more in danger England, whatever its debt, would once more rise to the occasion. Diplomacy, it is well known, when it is not empty bluff, is determined by the state of national finances and armaments in the same way that credit, when it is not wild-cat, is determined by the gold reserve. Infallibly the existing indebtedness of the nation would be taken into account, and diplomacy would be driven to play high or low accordingly. Is that the policy we wish to impose upon our immediate descendants? Is it even our intention to put difficulties in their way of preserving what this generation will have won? It would be ironical indeed if, by our absurd financial conduct of the present war, we should make it impossible for the coming generation to keep what this war will have won. Yet, so surely as we continue to finance the war by transmitting debts to our descendants, so surely will this result be brought about. How much better, therefore, would it be for us to pay for the war as we go along. A few years of stint and starve and we shall have got it over. Thereafter we should be able to resume our old ways with a good conscience both as regards ourselves and the coming generations. *** Economy, however, will not be of very much use to us. Without deprecating it in the least-in fact, we advised it months before anybody else thought it necessary-we may still say that the limits of its utility are narrow. In the first place, private economy is hard to practise voluntarily in a period of the most lavish and ostentatious public expenditure. Like State like People. In the second place, as things are, all our exhortations to economy are countered and made of no effect by the exhortations to spend we still permit our tradesmen to make. Let us ask ourselves what would have been the effect if every public appeal for recruits had been allowed to be met by profiteering inducements to men not to recruit. Or, again, if we had allowed our appeals to men not to drink to be met by the appeals of publicans to induce drinking. We know very well that, as well as appeals, steps had in both instances to be taken to make the appeals effective by suppressing the counter appeals. In the one case, the publication of appeals to men not to recruit was forbidden by law; and, in the other case, facilities for drinking were statutorily limited. But in the matter of economy, it appears, we are to content ourselves with public appeals while leaving tradesmen to appeal against us by means of public: advertisement as eloquently as they choose. Our newspapers and our walls, which display appeals for economy, display side by side with them the vastly more seductive appeals of the profiteers to hang economy and to spend. What can be expected of a campaign such as this? And, finally, if every penny saved is to be invested inwar-loan with security and at interest, how much better off will the nation eventually be? If the savings were given to the State, by so much, indeed, we should, it is true, be gainers; but, as it is, our private savings will prove to be no more than public debts. *** Nothing of all this has been understood by the Memorialists,composed of peers, commoners, clericals, bankers, economists ( !), journalists, and scientists, who last week offered their advice to the Government. And they fell, moreover, into another error, which does them even more discredit. For, after remarking “the grave condition of national finance, ” they recommended the creation of a War Economy Committee (consisting, presumably, of their own nominees) that should have final control of national finance and speak, over the heads of the Treasury, “with national authority. ” Both
the Government and, still more, the House of Commons --whose chief function, by the way, is the granting and superintendence of supplies-have, we know, fallen very low in popular estimation. But we do not know that they have fallen so low that a self-appointed Committee of tinkers and tailors should be permitted to supersede them in the control of national finance. The remedy surely would be worse than the disease if these unofficial quacks-most of them with a patent up their sleeveswere placed in charge of the unfortunate national victim. The constitutional remedy, on the other hand, is straightforward and simple. If it be true, as we admit it is, that the House of Commons has miserably failed to control the expenditure of the Executive, the proper course is to turn it out and put a better in. But we observe among the signatories of this Memorial not a single name that was associated with our appeal for a General Election as a means to securing real national control. On the contrary, we believe that every one of them would oppose a General Election on some mythical ground best appreciated by themselves. But they cannot be allowed to supersede the present Parliament at their own discretion and without so much as an invitation to the country to give them the voice to speak ‘ ‘with national authority. ” *** Enough has been said on the subject of loans to make it clear to any unprejudiced observer that to carry on the war by loans is to ruin us even with victory. There remain to be discussed the method of taxation, direct and indirect, and the method of the Conscription of Capital. Of direct taxation there is this to be said in its favour : that it involves-gifts and not mere loans to the State, that every penny of it goes to the State, and that its incidence can in a very high degree be directed where !he burden can be most easily borne. On the other hand, too much may not be expected of it, for it is obvious that, being based upon current income and not upon capital, its utmost yield is determined by the margin between necessary expenditure and potential economy. Granted, for example, that the annual income of this country is twenty-four hundred millions and that the margin of saving before the war was four hundred millions a year, the cost of living cannot, even with economy, have decreased by so very much ; so that, if taxation is not to trench upon subsistence, the utmost it can yield is little more than four or five hundred millionsa year, or about a quarter of the annual cost of the war. It is true, of course, that we are still considerably within this potentially taxable margin. Another two hundred millions remain available if we care to adopt even the drastic finance of Canada. But even then we shall be still far in the wake of the cost of the war; and no direct taxation of income will, in fact, ever make up the lee-way. Tax, therefore, we would say to the Government, as much as you can. Subtract from every income every penny that is not necessary to the proper maintenance of the individual enjoying it. But do not even then expect that the current cost of the war will be anywhere near met. For the war cannot be met out of income alone! *** At this point we should like to make a few remarks upon the taxation of wages which, we see, has again been mooted in various places,. including the editorial columns of the “Nation.” Men’s minds, we imagine, are to be more sweetly disposed to this suicidal policy by such observations as Dean Inge has thought fit to make upon the subject in an appropriate place, a Duchess’s drawing-room. The working-classes, he said (and who knows better?), are under the impression that, not they, but the wealthy, ought to pay for the war, and will, in fact, pay for it. And there was the danger, when the poor learned their mistake, that, after having been spoiled and flattered during these years, they would in the sequel become vicious and upset the coach. It may be SO, we do not conceal; hut the fault will not lie in that event with the viciousness of the
working-classes, but with the blind ignorance of the class of which Dean Inge is a jingling trinket. Far from it being merely an unjust policy to tax the poor to provide the principal and interest on the war-capital of the rich, it is, as well, an uneconomic and a nationally suicidal policy. For the welfare of the working-classes is the first condition both of our conduct of the war and of our speedy recovery from its effects. Let us cut down beneath the logomachies of economists, and ask ourselveswhat, in actuality, are the conditions of wealthproduction : they are, we find, workmen and tools-the latter including land, capital, and all the other material and machinery of industry-the former including men, managers, and skilled employers. Now of these two unique causes of wealth, which of them, we ask anybody, is the more important, and of which of them should we consider the well-being first and foremast ? The answer is obvious. Men without tools can renew tools ; but tools without men cannot even maintain themselves. It follows, therefore, that the first concern of an economic State in a crisis such as the present is the maintenance of the well-being of workmen. Put them in control of tools, secure their health and content, and they will produce all the wealth of which mankind is capable. But tax them to penury, and all the tools in the world will not make a loaf for us. But it may be said that it is of almost equal importance to maintain the welfare of the capitalist classes, since tools are a powerful auxiliary to workmen, and, indeed, an indispensableof modern industry. To this we reply (and we dare to pray that it may be understood) that the capitalist-classes as such are not the users, but only the owners, of the tools; and hence that the maintenance of tools in no wise depends upon the maintenance of the class that merely owns them. Of this, indeed, we have seen illustrations during the war. For, in effect (and apart from the guarantee of their return with interest), all that has happened to the industries, workshops, railways,etc., requisitioned by the State is that their ownership has been transferred. But has the transfer of ownership reduced the use-value of the capital tools so transferred? On the contrary, their productivity has been It was, in fact, to increase their productivity increased. that their ownership was temporarily transferred. But if the temporary transference of ownership has only favourably affected production, what other effect on production need we anticipate from permanent transference? The argument is therefore decisive. A tax on capital (in other words, a tax on Rent, Interest and Profit), even if it should involve the entire transference of its ownership from private persons to the State, would not diminish national productivity. A tax upon workmen, on the other hand, if it even came near reducing their efficiency, would instantly result in a diminuition of output. We conclude that it would be just as wise to tax wages to spare capitalists as it would be to starve the soil to pay the rent. *** Turning now to indirect taxation it is to be noted how popular this wooden instrument of revenue has suddenlybecome among our wealthy classes. Shivering at the thought of the conscription of wealth, they are setting their wits to work to devise shifts and shirks and excuses which may save their skins. In our considered judgment nothing can be done by simple resistance to stop the bolt of these rats into the holes of Protection. Free Traders, moderate Tariff Reformers, out and out Protectionists, Manchestermen themselves, will all congregate in the Protectionist camp; and no appeals to their common sense or to their patriotism will bring them out. What must be done is to make it more alarming for them to remain where they are than to face what must be faced. In a word, let us, having presented them with the alternative of Protection or the Conscription of Wealth, now present them with the fresh dilemma of Protection and the Nationalisation of every protected industry. For this course, if not for the former, the arguments are clear. Look, for
example, at the effect the protection (in fact, the prohibition)of tobacco is likely to have upon prices and profits-at the expense of the consumer. The Imperial Tobacco Company (one of whose several millionaire directors, by the way, signed the Economy Memorial above referred to) has, we are told, a stock of tobacco in hand of the value of eight million pounds. Comes now prohibition, the glorious goal of protection, and what follows in its train ? Without the expenditure of another penny, for the tobacco is all bought and warehoused already, the Imperial Tobacco Company claps fifty, a hundred per cent. on its prices, the rest of the manufacturers do the same, and there you are, Protection is paid for in profits. Or take the parallel case of the distilleries now requisitioned for State purposes. The suspension of manufacture, it will be seen on a little reflection, is the equivalent of protection, if not of actual prohibition. By either means the purpose of a tariff, which is to limit fresh supplies, is brought about. Well, let us see the effect. The existing stores of spirits, enough for three or four years we are told, are appreciated in selling value, so that from four or five shillings a bottle, whisky, Sir Thomas Dewar warns us, may go up to ten shillings. To whose advantage, it may be asked? Not to that of the State, for the revenue derived from spirits will, it is to be assumed, remain what it is. No, but the increased price will fall like a tax upon the consumer to the sole advantage of the manufacturer. *** An ad valorem duty upon all imports such as Mr. Strachey of the “Spectator,’ ’ now panic-stricken, suggests, would have effects which are similar. There is no doubt, in the first place, that the prices of imports would rise to the consumer by the amount of the duty, for nobody now pretends that “the foreigner will pay.” In the second place, there is as little doubt that the corresponding goods of home manufacture will rise in price by the same amount. We have seen, in fact, that the duty levied by our mercantile marine upon imported wheat has been faithfully added to the price of wheat of our own home growing. Now, admitting that the revenue from an ad valorem tariff of ten per cent. on imports would be considerable, it would plainly be only half, at the very most, of the increased prices paid by the consumer. In other words, for every penny of tax payable to the State, the consumer would have at least another penny of profit to pay to the home manufacturer. This is called broadening, but we should prefer to call it doubling, the burden of taxation. What is there to be said for it? By the State that such a duty will yield an income. Very good, but surely if the consumer can afford to pay a double tax-one to the importer and another to the home manufacturer-he can afford to pay, without the machinery of a tariff at all, the whole excess in the form of a direct tax ! What does it matter to the consumer whether he pays another shilling a week in prices or in taxes? But it should matter to the State the difference between sixpence and a shilling. By the advocates of Protection (the foolish Sir Frederick Banbury among the rest) the reply is made that such a tariff-tax is more just than an incometax, because it falls upon the user and is proportioned to his expenditure. But this, as has been pointed out a thousand times, is to make fish of one set of consumers and fowl of another set. Is the war national or is it not? If it is national, citizens should pay for it according to their total means, and not according to their personal needs. But there is, it is obvious, an argument for Protection that the Protectionists dare not avow; it is not for revenue that they advocate a tariff, but for profits. Think of the sheltering wall a tariff would create, behind which our quaking profiteers might plunder the consumer without fear or finesse. That is the temptation before them ! But, as we say, there is a means of slaking their thirst even without satisfying it. We have only to insist upon nationalising every industry they insist upon protecting to bring about one or other of two excellent results : no tariff at all, or
national industry. Of these, if our information is correct, Germany has already chosen the better part; for in a Pittsburg Banking Circular sent us by a business correspondent we find this: “As for Germany, that nation appears to be as far-sighted in looking into the commercial future as it was in preparedness for war. The most recent proposal for raising additional revenue is through the establishment of Government monopolies” all goods whose import is protected. of *** We have dismissed loans and we have given reasons against indulging the hope of raising the war-costs by direct taxation of income or by the indirect means of a tariff. What is there left? The conscription of capital, we reply. If, as we have seen, the State can become the borrower, the controller, and the user, of existing capital plants of such. wide divergencies of character as the railways, the engineering works, and distilleries, and without diminution of total output, it surely stands to reason that in place of borrower the State may besome owner with as little effect upon national production. All the bogies, in fact, that anti-Socialists used to invent to frighten the nation from owning and controlling its own tools have now disappeared, if only temporarily, in face of the manifest daylight of accomplished facts ; for the State controls at this moment more than half the industry of the whole of the nation. What we shall ask is, why the State should ever return the control to the profiteers who formerly were in possession? What is good for war is good for peace. Industry needs, more than ever in these days, to be nationally controlled in times of peace as well as in times of war. Why surrender the control we have? Why, on the contrary,not add to it? Instead, then, of having to raise revenue by the taxation of incomes derived from profiteering; and to incur loans for the use of the capital plant of the profiteers, the State would possess itself both the capital and the control of the income derived from it. Conscribe capital, we say, and let who will tax income. And that the conscription of capital is possible nobody who wants to see it clone can deny. Swift as they are to do evil, to do good our governing classes have as much knowledge if they can be persuadedto employ it. And now is the time. Never in all the history of the world has the opportunity been offered so invitingly of creating the first real commonwealth of man. We have only to see that the war is paid for in capital, by gifts instead of loans, by our own generation instead of by future generations, by the rich of to-day instead of by the poor of to-morrow, to ensure for the nation honour at once and prosperity for ever. Who would not wish that all industry in future should be as national a service as war, with its ranks, its honours, its victories? Transfer by the conscription of capital the tools of industry to the State, organise each industry in armies of graded workmen, each a paid soldier of labour, delegate to every industry its own management on behalf of the nation, and you have the nation organised for peace as not even Germany was organised for war. *** We shall be told that in all this we are attempting to revive the class-war which, on the authority of Mr. Paterson, of the General Federation of Trade Unions, supported by the “Times” and Mr. Walter Long, has now ceased. “Before the war,” says Mr. Paterson, “we were a nation divided into classes; but to-day all barriers of class have been or are being broken down.” We know what Mr. Paterson means, but his conception of classes-a purely social distinction based upon manners-has never been ours when we wrote of the classwar. If that had been the case, we frankly own that we prefer the mannered classes to the unmannered any day of the week. The only class-war we preach is the war of the economic classes of Rent, Interest, Profit and Wages; and of this war we see no signs of cessation. Until, in fact, the wage-system has been abolished,and national service has been substituted for it, our class-war will not cease, though every workman in the land were free to mingle with the Carlton Club.
Foreign
Affairs.
By S. Verdad.
LONG before the war began it, was pointed out in these columns that the dominance of Germany in the Central European combination gave the Triple Alliance, as it was :hen-I had always publicly discounted Italy --a tremendous advantage over its possible combination of rivals in the event of war. Germany, Austria, Hungary,and Turkey, I often felt it my duty to say, had, on the whole, common interests. ’They were all interested in certain definite things-the hemming-in of Russia by retaining the mastery of the Dardanelles; the Declaration of London, which secured for continental nations what has come to be known as the unrestricted freedom of the seas; the maintenance of the status quo in the Balkans, and the like The combination against the Central Empires, as we know from experience, It is not even has no such common interests. correct to say that they have at least the elementary common interest of defeating Germany; for Italy is not yet at war with Germany, and Russia is still administered largely by people of German descent, of German sympathies, or under the influence of German bribery. Russia’s main interest is the Dardanelles question ; our interests lie oversea. Italy’s interests are different from either. It is useless to say that all divergent interests ought to be sunk and attention concentrated on one essential point, namely, the defeat of the enemy. As we have seen, the Allies have not yet all agreed as to the meaning of the term “enemy,” and, again, it has been found impossible, after eighteen months of war, to agree upon a common military and diplomatic policy. If Italy’s advice had been taken-if, indeed, Serbia’s advice had been taken at a still earlier stage-there would have been no question of Bulgaria’s joining the enemy. If the advice of the French Cabinet had been agreed to, troops would have been sent to Salonika two or three weeks sooner than they were, and Serbia, together with the Serbian army, could have been saved. *** There are other instances of mismanagementmismanagement which cannot be explained any more than Lord Haldane’s pruning of the army when he expected war, his reduction of the skilled staff at Woolwich, and his cutting down of the artillery. M. Briand’s visit to Rome is a case very much to the point. The Italian newspapers have told us plainly enough that the Rome Government suggested the formation of an Allied War Council EO far back as April of last year, three or four weeks before Italy decided to enter the war at all. Even if Italy had not made this proposal, we are still entitled to ask why such an elementary precaution had never been thought of by our authorities. Would it not be ridiculous if four or five partners in a business house committed various departments of the firm to engagements of a difficult and complex order without first taking counsel of one another? Of course it would be; no such proceeding would be tolerated. A squad of Portuguese boy scouts might be expected to show more sense. Yet the campaign has had to sprawl from 1914 to 1916 before a definite attempt is made to ascertain exactly what Italy desires as the result of her participation in the hostilities. *** One very definite impression will be left on the mind of the reader of the Italian newspapers and technical organs-and by newspapers I mean the most influential as well as the most widely circulated organs, the “Corriere della Sera,” the “Stampa,” the “Idea Nazionale,” the “Tribuna,” the “Messaggero,” and so on. The reader of the average Italian newspaper will certainly be bound to believe that the war has lasted much longer than the Italian Government ever expected-which is true; that it has cost more than it ever expected-which
is also true; and that there is no immediate prospect of its ending with a victory for the Allied side-which, I regret to ray, is true as well. The Germans have certainly been able to turn to advantage their powers of united and unquestioned action. We have not teen so fortunate. We are still trying to unite. *** Whether M. Briand-came back from Rome with the assurances he wanted is another matter. It must be recollected that since the Tripoli war England and France have not been particularly in favour in Italy, and for years before that Italian business men complained that English and French bankers appeared to be willing to send money everywhere but to Italy for investment and the development of the country. The Italians, when they finally decided to join, did so with a certain amount of disbelief in the optimism. of the then Triple Entente Powers. They knew better the strength of the combination opposed to them, which was undoubtedly more than any Government had bargained for. But they had a definite, though limited, plan, and they have been carrying it out successfully. That was that they should command the Adriatic as far as possible by landing troops at Vallona, and thus securing control over both sides of the sea, and also, of course, that they should attack the Austrians and regain as much of the “unredeemed” territory as possible. They were firmly decided not to run any untoward risks by indulging in “gambles,” hence there was no Italian expedition to the Dardanelles and none to Salonika. *** Ad3 to this another fact : the fact that many people in Italy have been blaming England for not doing more than she has done. That is one of the points in regard to which argument with a foreigner, even when he happens to be an ally, is all but useless. The work of our Navy, without which our Allies would have been overrun at the very beginning of the war, has never been properly advertised to our friends, and the havoc we have wrought in our industries by enlisting so many men in the “New” armies has also not been made known sufficiently to our friends abroad. Besides, freights have risen enormously-from the east coast to Genoa they have risen from a few shillings to six or seven pounds, and coal in Italy is at famine prices in consequence. We, justly or not, are held responsible for this. It is useless for us to say that the Italians have only to make use of the German ships now lying in their harbours to see freights lowered. They ask us, almost in so many words, why we waited so long before beginning to organise ourselves for war. I do not mean that the Italians are asking why we did not adopt conscription at an early stage in the campaign; for they have never insisted upon this But they did expect that we should do one thing or another-either organise ourselvesfor industrial purposes so as to steady the rate of exchange and supply our partners with munitions and supplies, or else organise ourselves definitely for war. *** We cannot altogether escape these criticisms, for our Government and people, living in a century-old atmosphere of complete security, were very slow to realise what modern war meant. But there are, as I have shown at different times, things to our credit which have not been made known to the rest of the world. In spite of that, I must draw attention to this lack of unity in essential matters. We all know that the Germans, particularly the Prussians, are the originators of this war and of the preparations for it; OF the “culture” that led up to it. It is the Germans, therefore, whom we must defeat. For this purpose we have raised a very large army; we have introduced the principle of conscription; we have sold our foreign securities ; we have dislocated our foreign trade; we are taxing ourselves inordinately. It is, in the circumstances, not too much to ask that the Rome Government shall declare war on Germany at once and undertake to share our hardships In other fields of war,
War
Notes.
IN“Press-Cuttings” this week will be found a letter by Mr. Bertrand Russell which contains a reply to some remarks I made about his lectures in these “Notes.” The first and last paragraphs are based on a misunderstanding. I was not responsible for the sub-title given to my article, and the “final exhortation” which he mentions did not refer to him but to other pacifists who were his fellow contributors in the volume of essays on a ‘ ‘ Pacifist Philosophy. ’ ’ The part of the letter, however, which is concerned with the criticism I did make, shows that he has entirely failed to grasp the real nature of this particular attack on pacifism. It is then perhaps worth while again trying to make the matter clear *** He complains that my criticism shows such profound misunderstanding of his lecture that I must have been reading the “Daily Express. ” Might not this somewhat faded form of retort-have been left to the lesser lights of pacifism? Its only point is the implication that I am a somewhat stupid and crude person. But even if I were, what has that to do with the matter? All that is relevant is the correctness or falsity of the arguments I nut forward. The psychology which lies behind this favourite retort of the minor pacifist is perhaps amusing. The most characteristic thing about them is that they are all of them, people who mistake the fact that they hold certain opinions for that entirely different thing-intellectual superiority. They thus form a little orthodoxy of superior people, and they tend to look on all attacks not as due to real objections springing from intellectual difference, but as the crude gesture of the “outsider.” The use they make of the “Express” reminds me of a scene in one of Peacock’s novels, in which an abstract discussion about God is recorded. A man was stationed behind a curtain with instructions to shout “The Church is in Danger” whenever the argument seemed to be going against the defender of religion. In this case, it is only necessary to shout “YOU read the ‘Express,’ ” and the necessity for a serious consideration of the objection is avoided. By thus convincing themselves that all opposition is due to crudity they may be confirmed in their belief that theirs is the only possible belief of the emancipated man ; hut in thus disguising the real nature of the opposition they have to face, they are preparing for themselves unpleasant surprises, not only about war, but as to the Future course of democracy. *** I greatly resent the accusation that I have entirely failed to understand the lecture. In the first place, Mr. Russell is a very lucid writer, and, in the second place, he would, I suppose, be the first to admit that the main contention of his lecture was not exactly novel. It expressed a view of the springs of human action which I first saw worked out in any detail in MacDougall’s “Social Psychology. ” [In listening to the lecture, I recalled with some amusement a meeting in Mr. Lowes Dickinson’s rooms in Cambridge a few years before the war, when one very well-known pacifist made this extraordinary remark : “The unfortunate thing is that people like MacDougall, who have worked in Germany, persist in thinking that there is every probability of a war. ” ] In what way exactly have I misrepresented him? He complains that I falsely suppose that he looks on the dispute as one between Impulse and Reason. “ ‘North Staffs ’ . . . begins by suggestin that I regard the bellicose as moved by impulse and the pacifists as moved by reason. . . . My whole lecture, on the contrary, was concerned to represent both sides as moved by impulse.” Now, I entirely agree with the last sentence, but I fail to see that it in any way proves that my version of the lecture misrepresents it: it only does this if a certain assumption is made. The matter at issue can perhaps be made evident in this way. Two distinct questions should be separated, a theoretical and
a practical: (I) Is war always evil? and (2) assuming that it is, how can it best be avoided? Mr. Russell always tacitly assumes the first question as settled, and deals only with the second and practical matter; the emphasis laid on Impulse is then quite legitimate. If you have already made up your mind that war is always wrong, then it becomes necessary to search out some other purpose which will counter the effect of the impulses that make for war. “If Impulse is necessary to vigorous action, then it is necessary not to weaken impulse, but to direct it to life and growth, not to death and decay, etc. . .” I admit all this; and if I had said (in reference to this practical problem) that the pacifists wished to meet Impulse by Reason, I admit that I should have misrepresented Russell. But I was not thinking of this Mr. practical question. When I spoke of the differences between the pacifists and their opponents, I was thinking of the theoretical question, of the dispute about In a the ethics of war, Is war ever justified? controversy about this theoretical question a reference to impulse is irrelevant. Reasons on one side should be opposed by reasons on the other. But the pacifists do not discuss the matter in this way. They seem so entirely unable to imagine that war may be justified by definite reasons, that they seek its only possible explanation in impulse. They themselves, however, reject war not on impulse, but for clear definite Reasons. Mr. Russell himself gives many detailed Reasons why we should regard war as always evil; while he regards all justification of war, as springing entirely from hidden Impulses. Now, in speaking of the dispute between the pacifists and their opponents, it is clear that we mean this theoretical dispute; for until this has been settled, the practical question is of very secondary importance. In saying, then, that the pacifists tend to regard the dispute as one between Reason and Impulse, I do not in the least misrepresent Mr. Russell, but, on the contrary, give an accurate description of the way in which he treats the question. *** My complaint is, then, that in dealing with theoretical questions Mr. Russell gives many Reasons why wars are evil, and only deals with the Impulses that made men think them justifiable. He never-seems to admit that any real Reasons exist on this side. He ought, on the contrary, to have dealt with the Reasons on both sides. He now claims, in this letter, that he has in various other pamphlets dealt with such Reasons. He refers me to “ ‘Justice in War-Time,’ where he will find that I have set forth the detailed discussion which I presupposed in this lecture.” I may say at once that I have bought this pamphlet and find very little indeed of this “detailed discussion.’’ What I do find is repetitionafter repetition of an account of the nature of the instincts, which he supposes to be the real cause of our justification of war. When I say that all discussion of such impulses is irrelevant, until the Reasons which we say justify war have been dealt with-what kind of Reason do I intend? There are two types of such Reasons : (I) those dealing with facts; (2) those concerned with ethics. The first to prove that this war was necessary, the second to prove that the pacifists’ assertion that war is essentially evil is not correct. (I) Reasons based on the facts of the European situation, which show that this war was unnecessary. The only discussion of the kind I can find in this pamphlet is the somewhat vaguely treated suggestion that we are responsible for the German militarism because we tried to hinder in every possible way the efforts of Germany to found a Colonial Empire of a size proportionate to her power. This seems to me a very inadequate account of our motives in the war. We are fighting to prevent the establishment, not of a Colonial empire, but of a European hegemony, an aim which justifies any sacrifices. I have already dealt with this earlier; all I need say here is this : that in demonstrating the possibility of such a hegemony it is not necessary to say much about
the German Government itself-all goverments and bureaucracies of that type desire hegemony-that we may take as axiomatic.. It is only necessary to show the existence of a public opinion which is willing to make enormous sacrifices for this purpose. To do this I shall quote, not as Mr. Russell does in his pamphlet, “Professor Rudolf Eucken, a world-famous leader of religious thought ” (but a philosopher for whom in reality he must have the greatest contempt), but a philosopher of the school in Germany which has many resemblances to that to which Mr. Russell belongsa follower of Husserl. (2) Ethical reasons : In the case of the type of Reasons just mentioned (those based on facts) there is some slight justification for his claim that the discussion he presupposed in his lecture had been given in his pamphlets. But there is no justification for the claim in the case of ethical reasons. There is no serious attempt to meet the ethical considerations, which are said to justify wars. He consistently refuses to admit that any such reasons can possibly exist. When I assert that the fundamental difference in this controversy about the war is an ethical one, he replies : “NO doubt this is true on the surface. But ethical differences usually spring from differences of impulse. Whole philosophies . . . spring up in this way; they are the embodiment of a kind of thought which is subservient to impulse, which aims at providing a quasi-rational ground for the indulgence of impulse.” You see, no ethical discussion is then needed. I, poor man, imagine I am moved by ethical reasons; but Mr. Russell knows better; in reality I only want to provide myself with sham reasons for the indulgence of certain evil impulses. But this kind of discussion leads nowhere, I can retort that the ethical reasons which lead pacifists to condemn war are also quasi-rational grounds for the indulgence of certain impulses. It is not very clear, however, what Mr. Russell really intends here. Does he mean merely that my ethics is quasi-rational, while pacifist ethics is objective; in other words, is he still thinking of the dispute as one between Reason and Impulse? Apparently not, for he continues : “The difference of opinion will seem to be ethical . . . its real basis is a difference of impulse. . . . No genuine agreement will be reached . . . so long as the differences of impulse persist.’’ But even this is ambiguous. It may merely be meant as a psychology of the matter; in that case it might be accepted as correct. It might be true to say that we were led to different ethical valuations because we were moved by different impulses. . . But this, even if true, has no bearing whatever on this discussion. If it were universally agreed that war was always ethically unjustifiable, then the psychology of how some few abnormal people came to have opposed ethical views might he relevant. But this is not the situation. The opposition which pacifism has to face (on this plane of ethical discussion) comes from people who sincerely believe their am ethical valuations to be objective ; they think, moreover, that the humanitarian ethics on which’ pacifism is based, is not objective, but the product of certain historical conditions which can be easily traced. If what Mr. Russell says here is to have any point, then (as a reply to my assertion that the difference is ultimately an ethical one), he must mean something more than this. When he says that systems of ethics are only quasi-rational grounds for the indulgence of impulse, he must be giving more than a psychology of their origin. He must mean that all systems of ethics are, in their nature, nothing more than this. None of them have any objective validity, they are all merely an expression of impulse. If there is nothing objective about ethics then, all purely ethical discussion is futile, “no genuine agreement will be reached so long as the difference of impulse persists. ” All ethical valuations are, then, a matter of taste. This certainly provides a relevant answer to what I said about an ethical difference. But does Mr. Russell really accept this complete ethical scepticism? When be says that my ethics are
merely an attempt to give a quasi-rational ground for the indulgence of certain instincts, and I retort that the same is true of his ethics, must the matter rest there? As he is debarred from saying that pacifist impulses are better than the low atavistic instinct behind the opposed ethic, all he can say is that he prefers pacifist instincts. All this is very surprising, and seems to show that Mr. Russell has completely changed his views on this matter. In his “Philosophical Essays” he rejects “the widespread ethical scepticism which is based upon observations of mere differences in regard to ethical questions. If X says A is good, and Y says A is bad, .. one of them must be mistaken.” I do not say that the quotations Mr. Russell gives from his lecture are sufficient in themselves to prove that he has completely changed his conception of ethics, but it is clear that it is only on the basis of such scepticism, that his statement that the difference between the pacifists and their opponents is only superficially an ethical one, can be justified. *** But if he has changed his views, I think that this was only to be expected. In any system of ethics may be distinguished (I) the nature of the conception of “value” or “good” on which it is based; and (2) the scale or hierarchy of ethical valuation it establishes. Without going into the matter here, we may assume that there is a certain connection between these two things. The predominant ethic of the last two centuries, the humanitarian, rationalist or utilitarian, did not look on values as absolute. It could only conceive of certain things as “good” or having value, in their relation to Life; they lead naturally then to pacifist ethic : Herbert Spencer’s pacifism was a perfectly logical development from his conception of ethics. I think it demonstrable that the objective ethic which regards values as absolute and not relative to life, which thus looks on certain values, as higher than life, should logically lead to hierarchy of values, somewhat different from that established by utilitarianism. It is evident, however, from what Mr. Russell has said in his other‘ lectures, about education, etc., and from the character of his rhetoric and his perorations, that his views on the subject are the result of an entirely commonplace and uncritical acceptance of the liberal ideology that has prevailed since the eighteenth century. Now such a combination of a rejected utilitarianism (using the word not very precisely) with an almost complete acceptance of the utilitarian scale of values, seems to be essentially unstable. It seems to me that the realisation that ethical values are objective and not relative to life is in the long run bound to lead to either (1) the ending of the unstable state described above, by the abandonment of this objective view of ethics. If you keep, as Mr. Russell does, the pacifist hedonist scale of values, you are bound to end, as he seems to have done, by a return to a relativist-view of ethics; or (2) I believe that the objective conception of ethics, properly realised, leads in the end to a way of looking at things, and to a scale of values differing It leads, in fundamentally from that of rationalism. particular, not only to a different attitude towards war, but to a different Conception of democracy-to that, for example, which is suggested by Proudhon and Sorel. *** I find, here, that I have no space left to complete my answer to Mr. Russell. I shall try next week (1) To examine in detail the instincts which he alleges to be the real cause of wars; and to show (a) that they are not the real causes of the war-which is about real and not imaginary interests; (b) to show that he entirely misunderstands the instincts he condemns as atavistic. (2) A more positive aim : to show in detail the nature of the ethics, and the scale of values which lie behind (a) the justification of this war; (b) the different conceptionof democracy, suggested by Sorel, the development of which, after the war, will probably surprise the pacifists as much as the war itself did. NORTH STAFFS.
Holland
Third
and
By W.
the World
de Veer.
War.
X. and last letter from the man in Rotterdam to his friend in London.) Rotterdam, June 12, 1915. DEARW.,-A street-organ under my window has just sung out to me: “Here we are, here we are, here we are again !” The announcement was quite appropriate to its own horrid noise. Beastly things they are ! But it sent my thoughts London-wards, reminding me that I could not well leave your April letter unanswered any longer. I have re-read it, and the warlike spirit seizes me again. I regret my laziness, or whatever it has been, of the last few months. I had no intention of ignoring your last interesting contribution to our polemics, nor have your arguments knocked the stuffing out of me. As a matter of fact, your adulation of the British, your enthusiastic survey of what we, Dutch, are supposed to owe them, left me cold. You failed to convince me that Holland. by remaining neutral, shows any want of international morality (if such a thing exists !). To your gibe that we are giving evidence of gross neglect of cosmopolitan duty, I answer : Fiddlesticks ! If it could be proved that the Allies, now joined by Italy, were inspired by interests common to us all and by nothing else, then, of course, the difference of opinion between you and me would be reduced by 50 per cent. at once. But even so, there are two inevitable conditions, for the fulfilment of which we must receive the most solid guarantees. Firstly : that the powerful Allies we should have would treat us fairly, not only throughout the period of cooperation, but also at the final reconstruction of the world; and, secondly, we should be given clear and certain proof that these same Allies will be able and willing to keep a resentful Germany in check for, say, the remainder of the century. Those grave doubts settled we can start considering whether we might perhaps do worse than join the Coalition, so as to be in at the death and echo the huntsman’s hip hurray. But the points I raise embody cardinal objections; and, to me at least, it seems extremely doubtful if along this road we shall ever get‘ beyond the realm of supposition. One thing is certain. No active move of ours will convert our well-grounded fears into a wall of steel between ourselves and Germany. This the Allies must build and keep in good repair, or we must be left to defend ourselvesin our own way. Id est : by keeping out of it. Your assurances infer it is a kind of Holy War, waged for the salvation of mankind, with the Allies as avenging spirits and the Central Powers in the role of The issue at stake, you say, is the stamping out Satan. of Prussianism. Well, I don’t like what that word stands for any more than you do. If you are singleminded, your aim is high and noble. But supposing this object satisfactorily (I might add. miraculously) achieved. What then? Do you believe that Germany’scontinental supremacy once gone, no other ambition would rush forward to occupy the empty throne? Her power is tainted. That I never contradict. But she is a colossal figure in the Europe of to-day, and if her proportions are to be reduced, will that not mean adding to another’s stature ?-Nature, we know, abhors a vacuum ! ‘The Brotherhood of Nations, you eagerly reply, will take her place. Under whose control? The strongest among you will take the helm, of course. You see the issue is not so sharply outlined as the Allies largely advertise. In the course of time other aims will inevitably crop up. Projects now kept wisely in the background-but just you wait a bit ! When the present battle-cry loses its significance, we shall see a thing or two. It is all very fine to cry out from the house-tops that the world will not be safe against a recurrence of these horrible
adventures till all States are run on democratic lines, and the decision in matters of such moment rests entirely with the people. This is true. All history confirmsit. Yet many a fight will still be fought, many a battle lost and won before it is generally recognised and practised. Knowing what a hopeless fool the average person is, we may be certain humanity at large will never form one happy crowd of freemen. Russia, for instance. When the war is over, will she abolish Tsardom ; or, rather, will Tsardom and bureaucracy relinquish their strangle-hold on her, that she may cleanse herself of mud and mire, and become a decent member of the Brotherhood? Never ! The ruling classes there are as high-handed, as reactionary as they have ever been. The Duma is a farce; it only exists on sufferance. The Tsar can and does suspend its activities, whenever they are too pronounced, and, therefore, inconvenient. If, after the war, the Finns and Poles appeal to France and England to be delivered from the oppressor, what will the champions of “Justice for All,” reply? Request their Ally to be fair, and at his : “Mind your own business, please!” take up arms again to crush tyranny in Russia, as it will have been already crushed in Germany? Or will they drop their altruistic jargon, and, looking upon the Finns and Poles as an infernal nuisance, quickly find some sophism to cover up their inconsistency ? Russia is not the only spot on which to turn our sombre searchlight. Let it flash over Holland, too. “Might is Right” secured our Colonies for us : however beneficial to the native our domination may have been in our own eyes, it has never rested on the free choice of those concerned. Here you, as a Dutchman-judged by your standards-bear an equal share of blame. Must we shell out, and withdraw entirely from the East? The same remarks apply to every conquered country, in Europe or elsewhere. But the objection continually holds good that the national prestige of the conqueror would be damaged were he to restore to the original inhabitants what he had taken from them. What response would your plea of “common human interests” find in these and similar cases? When peace negotiations come along, the conquered Central Powers will have to part with stolen goods? Right you are. But what about the contrast provided by accumulations of equally suspicious origin in the possession of the Allies? These ought to be similarly dealt with: but although here and there discrepancies of the kind may irritate a tender conscience, none will be sufficiently aroused to insist upon their being smoothed away. National pride and the unfailing habit of subordinating aesthetic to material considerations will find a way out of the dilemma by deciding that in this one case the idea, for many obvious reasons, cannot suitably be carried out. So one might go on putting questions, to receive the same unsatisfactory replies. And as we ask, the conviction grows that the crushing of Prussian arrogance would not be followed by an era of modesty and moderation to be established by the victors. Yet unless they also are prepared to make real, far-reaching, voluntary sacrifices, how is humanity to be conducted to the goal of a better mutual understanding? The war has already worked wonders in that direction, as regards the English and the French. So, at least, we are informed. But when the fighting is over. the point will be, not whether one is on good terms with one’s allies, but with mankind at largeincluding for mer adversaries. Why national pride, even when carried to excess, should be considered such a splendid thing, I fail to grasp. Call it an instinct, if you will, like egotism-a craving for power-a vanity; but agree that, unless it is kept carefully in check, it is bound to do a lot of harm. In the eyes of the majority it is a noble feeling that fully justifies itself-on a par with the confidence an overweening personality has in his own capacities and chances of success. Applied to affairs of State, this
self-satisfaction-seemingly permissible-may easily overlook a wrong done to others. With the individual it is a different matter ; he may indulge in recklessness, but to-day or to-morrow he will have to foot the bill, and will, maybe tardily, repent. Also, in most cases, he is under strict control. Society will not take kindly to his pretensions. The man who tries to use his fists by way of argument will soon be shown the door ; while the Law is always there to remind him of other people’s rights, and to punish him when he disregards them . . . too openly and too continuously. It is in the direction of State action that the danger of an active national selfassertiveness principally lies. A nation has only the public conscience to restrain, to influence, to warn it. This has often been proved a sorry guide, and vis-A-vis alien peoples can hardly be said to exist at all. Crowds, however calm and orderly, are never swayed by ethical considerations. Although the very essence of culture and morality, such motives are only recognised by the very few as indispensable in politics, too--a truth openly admitted by Joe Chamberlain in one of his most notorious speeches. The principle the root of the Entente Cordiale, I know, is that at the nations concerned should treat each other as is the custom between all decent individuals; but to lay this down as a fixed, general rule would surely harm the various imperial interests. To create an atmosphere in which the delicate plant may live and grow, you must promote international intercourse on a far larger scale, and with much warmer intentions than ever planned before. Between persons, Justice is the fruit of contact, of interchange of opinions, of claims from the “other side” that, lest all intercourse should become impossible, could no longer be ignored.’ For its. firm establishment ,between the nations, much data, and an incessant flow of mutual kindness and esteem will be required. It is the diabolical pretence of Germany that she will bring about the same result through the agency of Force and of Destruction. The only condition we others must fulfil is that we must blindly credit her superiority, and . . . her highly moral reasons. . . . It is a fact that morality, though ostensibly banished from the realm of Real Politik, plays none the less an important role in the explanations vouchsafed by rulers to their peoples-and to neutrals-of their acts. This is, perhaps, a favourable sign, showing that even an incurable self-worshipper like Wilhelm of Hohenzollern has Some faint notion of responsibility, a vague consciousness that a sort of public conscience may have to be appeased, though he must look upon it as a negligible quantity that can never seriously impede any impulse of his own. He it is who is responsible for the present setback in the rapprochement which, I am with you there, was beginning to spring up between the nations -who has split the civilised world into two gigantic camps of deadly foes. Generations will go by before this fresh mountain of hatred, suspicion, and invective will have been removed from the thorny road along which poor struggling, ever deceived Humanity is forced to travel. War is an unmitigated curse. As well ask me to believe in the advantages of a good old-fashioned fight between families or clans as to share the view that war is a thing all virile spirits ought to welcome. I admire and respect the man who is ready to accept Death cheerfully, rather than ignore his country’s just call. But he who makes the same self-denying move without first being satisfied that the cause is really just, I don’t admire at all. The great objection to compulsion (not from the standpoint of military necessity but as a principle)is, that from the person concerned all opportunity of acting on an eventual discovery that his national leaders are deceiving him and that the war declared or provoked by them is by no means inevitable, is taken away. Germany’s action last August was only made possible by her huge army, bound to obey the order : Go out and kill ! If there, as in England, the voluntary system had been in force, no such myrmidons would
have been available. Would the half million or more conscripted socialists have volunteered? . . . As it was they had to go; mostly so bewildered that the lying news, disseminated by an ostensibly highly patriotic Government, came as a relief. Amidst the confusion of sudden, violent action into which they were flung, a few words sufficed to explain the situation : “We were attacked ! Those ignoble French ! Those treacherous Belgians ! Those perfidious English !” . . . So the trick was done. It will be many years before I can look upon a subject of the Kaiser as a human being. As by nature I am not vindictive, this proves on a microscopic scale the unholy influence war has upon us. All the sedulous attempts to bring the peoples nearer to each other will have to be recommenced ; and, by God, when? Much has been said of the fatuity of the Pacifists a tort et a travers. They are certainly out of place just now in a belligerent country. There they would constitute a national danger. But neutrals may be allowed to hold a larger view than those engaged, who, for this reason, are bound to be one-sided. In theory all the combatants are pacifists. Their writings, their speeches are full of declarations not only that Peace was not disturbed by them, but that they are anxious to conclude it the moment their adversaries will accept their terms. As long as we, neutrals, don’t trouble them with attempts at intercession, I don’t see how they can complainof what we think or say among ourselves. What objection can there be to a foreign statement of opinion that war in general is as wicked as it is ruinous? Discussions of that kind, you say, like those of the Holy See-so anxious to become a Temporal Power again !play into the hands of Germany, by laying part of the responsibility for the conflagration (as a thing wicked in itself) on the shoulders of the Allies, and are, therefore, a grave breach of neutrality. I don’t agree with you at all. Why, in his abhorrence of the terrible things that are going on, should a discussion of the possibility of preventing their recurrence prevent a man fully realising it was Germany who began the present war? If such discussions are not to be taboo’d for ever, I don’t see why they should be forbidden now. For now is the time--now that we are so nauseated with what we read and hear that we promise ourselves never to forget it, never to be lured into the belief that war, after all, has its good side; affording us an opportunity to differentiate between real and pinchbeck values-a splendid exhibition of genius, energy, and valour. I am not in the least ashamed of Holland’s nonparticipation in the general slaughter-that she sits tight while the guns roar. For us a general offensive is impossible. So what more can we do than be ready to repel an eventual attack? In conclusion, there is the Roman Catholic question. In Holland we are not a political unity, and never have been. But that opens too wide a field to enter now. I will just say en passant, that the only person I have heard suggest that, after the war, Germany might wish to reward us for having remained neutral, was a Roman Catholic (not a priest). In Clerical circles, he indiscreetly explained, the addition to Holland of two Belgian provinces would be very welcome. A million more Dutch Roman Catholic voters would mean that for political purposes they would be numerically stronger, with the Protestant minority out of power for good and all. The Roman Catholic Party here is, of course, highly organised, and is (of course, too?) politically proGerman.” Now, do you understand? Love to both of you, Yours, A. (To be concluded.)
More Letters
to My Nephew.
* Did you, for instance, read that most shameless praise of the German priest and baby-killers by their spiritual head, the Archbishop of Utrecht, in his interview, a few days ago, by the “Aunt-Voss”-man ?
My DEAR GEORGE,-MY visit to Placentia ended Once again, a horse and rider clattered over suddenly. the cobbled stones of the patio, and once again Rafael’s practised ear detected the stranger. Smith announced a messenger to see me. Hard-on his heels entered Boyle, the beaming constable who keeps watch and ward over our little district. I was naturally astonished. “What brought you here, Boyle?” I asked. ”The Attorney-General, sir, sent me with this.” He handed me a letter. “After all, I shall want your evidence in the piracy case. Would you kindly come quickly? Yours as ever, L. Talbot.” I handed the note to Rafael, who broke into loud laughter. “Tony ! Tony ! Little did I think that any friend of mine would ever be involved in a piracy case. I am greatly distressed. Really, you know, you don’t dress the part. You look much too benevolent.” “What do looks matter? I knew a parson in my young days. With his surplice and other trimmings on he looked positively angelic. He could have marriedany woman in the congregation. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. But he never missed a prize-fight.” “Yorke-Powell knew more about the ring than any other man. Anyhow, you mustn’t change the subject. Tell me how you became a pirate.” “The story began thirty years ago, when Nick Murphy, a rapscallion Irish sailor, deserted his ship at Belize. He was a big-chested, powerful man, a drunkard, a gambler and a swashbuckler. He worked at practically every kind of job, earning good money. Then he would let out and paint the town red. He finally found himself‘ stranded at Stann Creek. Here he met a mulatto woman, Isabel Burgos. She must have been physically enticing. Even now, her body is supple and her movements are lithe. She works on my estate, washes, cooks and makes coco-nut oil. Isabel’s father was white, and her mother half-white. Isabel’s colour is light mahogany. The mother had some property worth, perhaps, two thousand dollars. Nick wanted the woman, and she wanted Nick. But the mother stood guard. ‘If you want my daughter, you marry her,’ she said. Nick didn’t want to marry; but he wanted Isabel. ‘Put down five hundred dollars, ye ould skinflint, and I’ll take her to church.’ So the bargain was struck. “Nick bought a mule and cart with part of the money and started a ‘blind tiger’ with the balance. Oddly enough, he became sober, and having saved some money and made himself popular, obtained a licence. Then he added a three-quarter billiard table and a dancinghall to his stock. Three children were born, the oldest a boy, and two girls. Then Nick’s affections began to wander. His wife was jealous and their life became a little hell. One night, Nick turned’ his wife and childrenout of the home acquired with her money. A day or two later, another coloured woman was installed. There were endless police-court proceedings for alimony, for assault, for brawls. Finally, the D.C. got sick of the whole Murphy menage and told them to begone and not to bother him any more. The result was that the woman failed to get alimony, and Nick was left in peace with his concubine. To continue the parental story, Isabel joined a buck nigger, whilst Nick changed his women every year. He died recently, leaving thirty thousand dollars and twenty-nine children. As he lay dying, Isabel rubbed her hands in gleeful anticipation. ‘When he die, sir, we get his money. He bad man. It is good he die.’ ‘You can’t get any of it, Isabel, because you have been living with Ezekiel and having children by him.’ ‘No matter, sir, his children lawful. They get it. I glad if they get it. I no matter. I live on little bread and tea. But when he die, then Jim he buy Navarro’s sloop. Jim he always want sail his own boat. ’ Isabel’s brown eyes light up with mother-pride
at the thought of her boy Jim sailing his own boat. I laugh. ‘Why, Isabel, you must have been very pretty when Nick married you.’ Isabel laughs, too: ‘Not so bad, sir.’ “A time came when Nick Murphy’s fires abated and he longed for permanence and comfort at hime. As money came, there came to him a sense of that racial pride he had so long forgotten. Just then, so fate decreed, Juanita Carillon crossed his path. Her husband, a drunken brute, had behaved after hi5 kind. Juanita may have the negro strain in her, but she is practically a white woman. Nick found her one night sleeping on the sand under her husband’s house. He said to her : ‘ You have had enough; I have had enough; come to me, Nita.’ So she went to Nick and they were happy. She rejoiced in the security of his strong arm; he at last knew something of home comforts. Moreover, she helped him in the shop, and watched carefully over his interests. He dressed better than ever before, and walked more confidently in the company of white men. Then he wounded his foot on a rusty nail. He and she doctored it together. He liked her nursing, revelling in the unaccustomed feminine touches. But neither realised that the foot was growing worse. Finally, they called in the doctor. ‘Gangrene, you fool; why didn’t you tell me a month ago? Your foot must come off.’ Juanita wept bitterly, for she felt guilty. ‘If I’d been black, you’d have got the doctor at first; you trusted me because I was white.’ ‘Never mind, Nita; I'll just get the foot off. Keep things going till I come back.’ Nick felt strangely happy in comforting his white woman. Had she been one of the earlier ones, he would have kicked her about the room with his sound foot. So he sailed away to the Belize Hospital, where they amputated his foot, the surgeon remarking upon the shortage of blood. “For a day or two, Nick lay thinking of his new life. The doctor examined the leg anxiously, for there were disquieting symptoms. On the third day, he told Nick that he must amputate at the knee; the gangrene was showing on the side of the shin. Weeks ran into months. They kept on nibbling- at his leg. The last time, Nick felt nothing and there was no blood. ‘It’s hopeless, Nick. We’ve done our best. I fear you must prepare for the worst.’ Then Nick thought of Isabel and their children lawfully begotten. They were his own, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. And it was Isabel’s money that had started him. So he sent for the three children, who looked at him as upon a stranger. He saw himself mirrored in the boy. But all three were uncouth, uneducated, incapable of sympathy understanding. or He shook hands with his son, and kissed his daughters, who perfunctorily responded. He felt relieved when they sidled out of the room. Juanita hastened to the side of her dying man. She caressed him, sitting for hours fondling his hand, finally breaking out into a torrent of self-reproaches and passionate words of gratitude. When night came the nurses led her gently away. Nick sent for the lawyer and made his will, leaving everything to Juanita. Two days later, they buried him. “From his earliest days, Jim Murphy, son of Nicholas, although brought up amongst coloured children, was taught to believe that he belonged to the dominant white race. His skin was white, his hair soft and brown. There was not a kink in it. He would watch the District Commissioner riding past. He could not put it into words but he would think : ‘You and I belong.’ The Customs officer was creole. Jim would look at him and say to himself : ‘Huh ! He was born here; my father was born in Ireland, and that’s as good as England.’ When he saw ‘proper’ white children, he would dream of the day when they would play with him as with a brother. But they would go away to New Orleans, or Mobile, or even to England to be educated. And all the time he seemed to be drawn deeper and deeper into the black, servile mass. There was no school for him. He went to work in a Spaniard’s
warehouse, and, when he had grown to his father’s stature, he became a mahogany cutter, a teamster, finally being left in charge of my coco-nut walk. He was given a cottage, and Stella, a black wench, went to live with him. “I think that what most weighed with him was the fact that he was legitimate. It is not much to have a white father, Black women like white men to give them children. ‘It lightens the colour,’ they say, and make no claim. But Jim was born in wedlock, and that made all the difference. So he nursed the hope that some day he would live a white man’s life, perhaps marry a white woman. His mother and sisters did riot like his Stella affair. ‘You are white; do as the whites do,’ they would say to him. Jini sometimes saw his father, after Juanita had made him dress well. Jim did not feel the irony of it ; he was pleased that his father walked in fine linen. He felt a reflected radiance; it kept alive his pride of race. ‘I am not black, I am white,’ was his constant thought. “So it came about that, as the gates of death closed upon Nicholas Murphy, the doors of Heaven opened to the enraptured gaze of James Murphy, his son lawfully begotten. Father and son were for a moment lifted out of the common herd that they might together touch tragedy. Heaven seemed assured when Nicholas shook hands with Jim ‘He is dying; the property will soon be mine,’ said jim, swimming on a wave of jubilant triumph. He built castles in Spain as he waited the lawyer’s summons. “Be sure that bad news travels swift to pain or to dismay. Three days after Nick’s burial, Isabel rushed, breathless, into Jim’s cottage. ‘He has left everything that woman,’ she sobbed, wiping her eyes with to her petticoat. Jim could not say anything ; he was very slow of speech. He clenched his fists, and felt as though he were falling into the void. Shaken and irresolute, he looked out on the sea. A gentle South-easter roughened the glinting waters. ‘I’m going to Shann Creek to see about it,’ he said, his eyes glowering in pain and anger. So he put some food and clothes into his ‘patkey,’ walked down to the shore, where waited, ever ready, his sailing dorey. Isabel kissed him goodbye. In a minute he was on the water, sail and jib set, his hand with sure touch on the rudder. His last glimpse was of Isabel, again with petticoat to weeping eyes, and Stella standing at the cottage door, impassive, uncomprehending. “A few minutes after landing at Shann Creek Jim met Vicente Flores, prize-fighter, scamp, cut-throat, but withal plausible and intelligent. They went into Murphy’s saloon to drink rum. Jim paid for it. ‘It ought to be yours,’ said Vicente, leering, provocative. ‘Sure,’ said Jim. ‘I’m going on a proper voyage,’ said Vicente. ‘Where to?’ asked Jim. ‘Barrios, Cortey, Tela, and Truxillo.’ ‘Some trip,’ said Jim. ‘We’re going on the motor sloop “Isabel.” ’ ‘My mother’s name,’ said Jim. ‘ It ought to be your mother’s boat; old Nick owned it. Brought in on it many a keg without paying duty. Now it belongs to Juanita. Damned shame, I say.’ ‘ Sure,’ said Jim. For some hours did Jim and Vincente pour rum into their throats and money into gentle Juanita’s lap. She would come in and out of the saloon, behind the bar, furtively watching the unhappy but stolid Jim, her dead man’s lawful son, born in holy wedlock, with the Church’s blessing. Juanita, pious in her own way, felt uneasy. The sight of Jim got on her nerves. One moment she wanted to scream : another, an impulse to offer a fair share to the disinherited. But she did nothing, and Jim’s last chance floated down the wind. “That night, on the bridge over the river, where it flowed across the bar into the sea, the mast-light of the ‘Isabel’ twinkling out beyond the shoal, Vicente proposedto Jim that he should join the boat. ‘We can do some trading on our own,’ he said. ‘Besides, we’re taking a rich old man and his woman. You bet we can do something with him.’ ‘Sure,’ said Jim, innocent of
any sinister intent. Early next morning, Vicente and Jim were busy at the Store buying things to barter, or on the boat making ready, taking in luggage and provisions, and tuning up the engine. At eight o’clock, old Ricardo D’Almeida and his French Creole woman, Josephine, came aboard. The dorey was hoisted, the anchor weighed, and Jim went unresisting to his fate. “For nearly two days, the ‘Isabel.’ (under sail to save the gasolene) glided down the coast, past ‘Dead Man’s Point’ and ‘Pirate Cay,’ with a light but fair wind. Most of the time Jim and Vicente lounged or slept in the bow, occasionally stirring to luff or haul closer. Josephine sat in a deck-chair, sometimes snoozing and wakingto trill a French song. Ricardo passed the time reading a Spanish aphrodisiacal novel, his gimlet eyes now and then casting a glittering glance at Josephine, comparing her charms with the heroine’s. At length, impatient of slow progress, he spoke roughly to Vicente, ordering him, with‘ an oath, to start the engine. Vicente rose insolently. and went below. Soon came the thugthug of cylinder and piston, speed obtained at the expense of silence. I like to think that what followed was done in hot and not cold blood. Some words, rough or smooth, passed between the old man and the young ruffian. In an instant, before Jim had realised it, Vicente struck Ricardo a blow, which stunned him. Jim rushed aft, raised the old man’s head and laved his brow with water out of a cup that stood on the cabin’s poop. Josephine, thoroughly frightened, grew hyserical. Ricardo soon revived. Vicente’s prize-ring experience had taught him to avoid half-measures. With quick decision, he roped Ricardo’s legs, tying the hands behind the back. Josephine, on her deck-chair, shrieked, laughed and wrung her hands. The old man finally struggled to his knees, begging mercy. Jim, slow of thought and inarticulate, now became Vicente‘s pliant instrument. Fury lurked in Vicente’s eyes; his arms and hands twitched, oaths and imprecations flowed torrential from his lips. He suddenly grew silent, piercing Ricardo with a look of concentrated hatred. Ricardo. still on his knees, trembling, terrified, alternately begged mercy, and called upon God to save him. Then Vicente drew his knife from the leather sheath attached to his belt, and cut Ricardo’s throat with a great gash, the blood spurting over the deck. ‘The second anchor,’ shouted Vicente. Jim rushed forward and brought it. Vicente knelt down and lashed it to the legs of the dying man. ‘NOW, over with him.’ Jim, in hypnosis, helped, and Ricardo’s last home was the sea, literally at safe anchorage. “As the dead body sunk, the hysterical Josephine swooned. Vicente looked at her frowning. ‘Now, for the old bitch,’ he said. But something was stirring in Jim. Vaguely, he knew that it is against the white man’s code to kill women. There flashed across his mind memories of white men, with whom he had hoped some day to mix. He knew what they would think of killing a defenceless woman-they who guarded their women, even to death. And he was white, whilst Vicente was an Indian. ‘Come on, man, quick,’ called Vicente. ‘No,. replied Jim. ‘God damn it, man, we must, or she’ll split on us.’ Jim had no answer to this, so remained silent. ‘I’ll do it by myself,’ said Vicente. ‘No,’ said Jim, stepping over to the prostrate women. ‘Why not?’ asked Vicente. ‘I’m white,’ said Jim, his face stolid, sullen, determined. Vicente went down into the cabin and stopped the engine. Up above, Jim drew his machete and waited. In a minute or two, Vicente returned. ‘All right,’ said he, ‘but what shall we do with her?’ ‘Dunno,’ said Jim. ‘Let’s put her ashore on one of these cays. We can get away before she can do anything.’ ‘Yes,’ said Jim. When Josephinebecame conscious, Vicente told her they would spare her life but she must be put ashore. So said, so done. Jim and Vicente were masters of the ‘Isabel.’ “On examining Ricardo’s effects, they found about two thousand gold dollars and some jewels. Everything else they weighted and threw overboard. They
entered Barrios harbour under power. Oddly enough, their papers were found to be correct. The strain relaxed, they soon made the money spin on liquor, gambling and women. Then, one evening, Vicente told Jim that a woman had been rescued from a cay. ‘We’ve got to get,’ he said. They made for the open sea, and for weeks sheltered among the cays (islands). Finally, money and food all gone, they discussed plans. ‘We must sell the boat,’ said Vicente, ‘who’ll buy it?’ The Chief,’ said Jim. Thus, one morning, Jim and Vicente walked up to my house to offer me a motor sloop for five hundred dollars. I declined, knowing Vicente of old. The police soon raised the hue and cry, Jim and Vicente were arrested, and the boat seized. “Jim will stand in the dock and Juanita will give evidence against him. Because Jim was suddenly conscious of his white blood and saved the woman we will hang him-to uphold the law and teach all niggers a lesson. ” I think he was a little Not once did Rafael interrupt. moved by my recital. “That story certainly began thirty years ago, ’ he said. “YOU ought to write it out for the benefit of your political nephew. It has some bearing, I fancy, on heredity and environment.” “It’s the deuce of a long story to write. Helas ! I must be going. Had a ripping time. I will always connect you with the song of the husbandman.” ‘ ‘ What’s that ?” asked Rafael “Somewhere in the Bible :“ ‘The hay is carried And the tender grass sheweth itself, And the herbs of the mountain are gathered in. The lambs are for thy clothing, And the goats are the price of the field : And there will be goats’ milk enough for thy food, For the food of thy household; And maintenance for thy maidens ! ’ ” “It sounds like a benediction,” said Rafael. “Let it be one, with all my heart,” I answered. We stepped down to the patio. My horse, Paddy, pawed impatiently. I tested his belly-band and mounted, while Rafael patted his neck. Then our hands clasped. In a few minutes we were plunging down the winding road. And so home. Your affectionate uncle, ANTHONY FARLEY.
Men
at War.
III. ONE is ever surprised at the tender youth of some of these warriors. Lying in bed with their girlish complexions, and always spoken of by the Sisters as poor boys, after having been dressed and. tucked up they give the ward the look of a school dormitory. But pull down the bedclothes, and their wounds tell a brave tale of bloody fights. Lads who in civil life bring around the things from the grocer, have here passed through deathly struggles, which are only nightmares to most of us, and having shown the astounding valour of man, now in their pain and dependence are but pathetic children. One lad of sixteen (he, of course, swore he was older when he enlisted) had been in the thick of it, and had bayoneted several Germans, and all he remembered was the extreme ease with which a bayonet enters the human body. “But you must be nippy in getting it out again, Sir, or else they have you. In and out quick-just like that !” He had taken a prisoner, too, who seems to have impeded his further activities. It is very difficult for a man who wishes to surrender at the last moment. I am afraid he has a bad time. In that dreadful clash and tangle,
with every thought and muscle centred in killing, it must be nearly impossible to switch off on to the altruistic plane. The usual moral inhibitory apparatus is practically non-existent. It seems that the only thing to do is to fall down, and if down wounded, to lie perfectly still. Rather difficult if you are being jumped and trodden on, but the slightest movement and the bayonet-stab follows-for who can tell but that though down you are not still intent in killing--as many are. Besides, what can one do with a prisoner just thenunless one is making a hobby of collecting them? To the popular mind, of course, surgery at all times consists in lopping off legs and arms, and here the notion is near the truth. Maybe, the surgeons of days gone by took a morbid pleasure in amputating-. it was practically the only operation, and there is some satisfaction in being functional, but to us nothing is more depressing than the necessity’ of maiming some poor man: At the beginning of this war, through all such cases which we had met with in civil practice coming under our care within a few hours of the accident, and being attended to at once, and so not having had time to act as a growing medium for infective organisms, we had a tendency to leave badly injured limbs on, and so endanger the patient’s life. Now we know that certain ones must come off. One amputates one leg, and then later, perhaps; finds that the other has to come off, too, and later again also an arm. Projecting one’s own feelings into the patient, it would seem that life under such circumstances would not be worth living, and that thought may temper the determination to operate, but is one ever justified in estimating the worth of life to any man? So we strive to preserve it at the cost of all else. And the ultimate life of such a maimed creature? The whole nation should do him honour-but will they? He at the best will have a futile wound pension and but the memory of his gallant deeds to support his poverty. I would like to take such a man and put him naked in the midst of the absurd humbugs at Westminster during the war pensiondebate. Burke’s dagger ought to be nothing to it. The sight might make them see what some men have suffered for them. But perhaps not. It is wonderful the fight against death which some men put up. A Dublin Fusilier had a bullet through his chest, with a very badly damaged lung. His right foot and left buttock were shattered, and his left leg He hung on for a week on the edge of things injured. and seemed to be recovering. Then he got tetanus. He had received, when first injured, the preventive dose of antitoxin, and so his spasms were not very severe, and antitoxin was poured into him for a week until his muscles relaxed. He seemed to be on the road to recovery again, when he nearly died of bleeding from one of his wounds. He remained hopeful through it all, and ultimately will, no doubt, recover with nothing but a limp to remind him of his many escapes. His ’chief concern now is to rejoin his friends in the trenches. This life with the regiment has a great fascination. A young soldier during an attack was clubbed on the left shoulder. He had a very misty recollection of what ’happened to him, but the one thing he was quite sure about was that he had bayoneted the Boche who clubbed him. He carried on with a painful shoulder, and got back to his lines, and remained with his regiment, although he lost nearly all power in his left arm. In the course of time he got leave, and while home he visited some soldier friends at a hospital near the South coast, where he happened to come under the notice of the medical officer, who promptly put him into bed for treatment. He objected strongly to this, because, he said, he could not desert his pals in the trenches, and the next day, having managed to get his clothes, he decamped. Reaching a port, he joined the leave boat, and ultimately found his way to his regiment. There he remained for some time, until wounded again, and
sent to the base, and when the original injury to the shoulder was re-discovered, and he was told he must go to England for treatment, his distress was great indeed. It may be wet and cold, and death may live just over the parapet, or in any old place, But this life with the regiment, its brotherhood and common dangers, and, above all, the status it gives to the humblest, means a great life to many whose only previous knowledge of existence has been gained under the blighting snobbery of industrial life. The early part of the war was a splendid time for these unauthorised journeyings. At Nantes I attended to the small wound of a sergeant, who, in the general mix-up at Mons, had got separated from his men. Wandering about in the dark, he chanced across his own regimental wagon, ready horsed, and left stranded in the retreat, and hitched up to it was the Colonel’s charger. He disliked the idea of leaving regimental property behind, and so he started off in the dark and made for the West. At one time he accompanied a German regiment along the road for some miles. Having reversed his cap, to look more like a Boche, he drove steadily along. The Germans, absorbed in singing patriotic songs, luckily passed him by, and he managed to get a road to the left, and so got clear of the enemy’s right wing, and by hiding during the day he managed to avoid the Uhlans. After many escapes. he reached Amiens, and found it evacuated by us, and so pushed on to Rouen. This, of course, was also empty of English, and Nantes was his next objective. There was now no necessity for hiding by day, and so the sergeant’s journey became a progress through the French countryside. He took by-roads and was feted in all the villages, and he and the Colonel’s charger had a royal time. To the simple folks he represented the British Army, which had not been seen thereabouts for several hundred years. Ultimately, he reached Nantes, having wandered right across France, and handed over his charger. His wound was of no account, and he soon left to rejoin his regiment on the Marne, full of very kindly feelings for the peasantry of France and their astounding hospitality. There is no doubt as to this hospitality in Western France, and as it often took the form of bottles of rum, it had a disturbing effect on our soldiery. It was once my unfortunate lot, as the only officer travelling on the train, to be put in charge of twenty-nine Irish Garrison Gunners of enormous size who were proceeding to the front, and who had been feted into a great state of conviviality by the countryside every time the train had I got them all singing into the railway stopped. carriages, and hoped to lock them in, but unfortunately there were no locks on the doors. I impressed on the sergeant in charge, who was in much the same state as the others, the necessity of keeping a firm hand, and he told me at once, that he and his men would do anything for me-anything! The journey took all night, and the train stopped very often, and every time it stopped, my twenty-nine Garrison Gunners got out and spread themselves, and when, with the assistance of various excited French railway officials, I had collected them again and packed them in, I was assured each time by the sergeant and most of the twenty-nine that they would do anything for me-anything ! I had a busy and exciting night of it, and things generally were complicated by some joyous French ladies, who were fellow-passengers, and to whom the twenty-nine exhibited a very gallant attitude. I handed them over near Paris, and we had a very affecting parting. The overcome by his strong feelings, wept, and sergeant, his men crowded round, and in a great atmosphere of rum I was farewelled. A Paris suburban passenger train came in full of worthy city gentlemen, the pink of respectability, and my last view of the twenty-nine was their crowding into first-class compartments, and sitting on the edge of the seats with these city gentlemen, breathing rum on everybody, but otherwise behaving as thorough gentlemen, B.
Drama.
By John Francis Hope. WHAT is the matter with the repertory theatre movement is that it is still anti-Victorian. Like the hypnotised fowl, it sits gazing at the chalkline and refusing to step over it. It forgets that Edward, of dubious memory, has reigned, and that George, the industrious, is now upon the throne. To it, and to it alone, Victoria is still there; it pants to be free, and in 1916 there is freedom (as there was at any other age of man), but its obsession holds it fast. To be “advanced” does not mean to behave like a free man, but to register progress by the extent of the revolt against Victoria and all that her name connotes. Progress by “looking backwards, ” comparing “our generation” with “your generation,” is a very tedious process to those who sucked in Ibsen with their mother’s milk, and suffered from wind as a consequence. Dramatically, at this moment, we have a choice between Ibsen and Congreve, between a satirist and a comedian, between one who is bound to “the body of this death “by his desire to reform it, and one who is free to ‘exercise his gifts and does exercise them like a free man. Manchester, we know, is famous for its dry goods; and it is not surprising that Miss Horniman should plump for Ibsen; but if Captain Frank Stayton’s “The Joan Danvers” is only Ibsen’s “The Pillars of Society” as it appeals to a man in khaki, Mr. Somerset Maugham’s “Caroline” derives, by a much more delightful route, from Millamant in “The Way of the World.’’ I am not suggesting for one moment that Miss Horniman ever had the chance of refusing Mr. Somerset Maugham’s play; but her production of “The Joan Danvers” does show quite clearly that she regards as meritorious the imitation of Ibsen. The consequence is that “The Joan Danvers” is one everlasting wrangle between ‘‘our generation’ ’ and “ your generation. ’’ “Our generation,” it seems, has “natural instincts’ ’ which ‘‘your generation” does not permit, to express themselves. Apparently these “natural instincts” find expression in being late for breakfast, in surreptitious meetings with and marriage to a young man, in telling lies, disliking to go to church, or to do house-work. In fact, “our generation" wants to do whatever it likes, and not to do what anyone else likes; it wants something for nothing, and “nags” all the time about it. To show that this is a perfectly right and proper ideal for “our generation, ” Captain Frank Stayton shows ‘ ‘your generation” as a hypocrite, a tyrant, and a murderer. But surely “your generation” has read Ibsen by this time; and instead of allowing its beloved son to stowaway on the coffin-ship, it would get rid of its detestable daughters by sending them for a pleasure-trip on the boat. But, no; the hypnotised fowl sees nothing beyond the chalkline; and the daughter remains at home to quarrel with her father and to call him names while the son goes out to drown. So the dreary debate goes on until the sailors return alive, when the female portion of “our generation” refuses to forgive its father, while the male portion only grumbles about the food provided on his father’s ship. The defect of this sort of drama, apart from its conventionality and imitativeness, is that it gives reality to what it detests by attacking it. James Danvers never lived except in Captain Stayton’s play, and he ought never to have lived at all. He is a Cubist monster,a four-square untruth, who neither pleases the eye nor the mind. Attack him as much as one likes, set the whole of “our generation” against him, there is no inspiration in him; and revolt against him is only a form of slavery to him. If only the repertory theatre would send him in one of his own coffin-ships, and let
him, like a Viking of old, die on his own deck and be forgotten, we might get on with the drama. This “showing-up,” this exposure of cant, is not even the beginning of drama; it arises from a lower level Of thought than the artistic consciousness, it springs from the most elementary perception of difference between precept and practice, and it makes “most tragical mirth. ” Luckily, Mr. Somerset Maugham’s “Caroline” is at hand. The theme is at least as old as Ecclesiastes; indeed, if I wanted to treat the play seriously, I should call it anti-Buddhistic, although marriage is not always the Nirvana that Caroline seemed to think it would be. But the play, in spite of its stimulating references, is not a contribution to thought, but to gaiety of spirit; and as a corrective to what the repertory theatre calls Victorian sentimentality, it is much more potent than anything that the repertory theatre can produce. The theme, as I have said, is of all time, but its treatment throws more light on the characteristics of this century than anything that I have ever seen. Its frivolous treatment of marriage is, of course, common to light comedy of all ages; but what a characteristically twentieth century touch is Caroline’s reason for parting from her husband. “My dear, he had adenoids,” in its curiously scientific precision, no less than its apparent frivolity, is characteristic ; it expresses everything, fastidiousness, frivolity, a new set of values; it describes not only the woman but her generation as Miss Irene Vanbrugh says it. Mr. Maugham repeats the touch effectively when he makes the doctor diagnose her malady as incipient middle-age. Victorian sentiment ended with the possessive case ; indeed, we might say English sentiment, for did not Browning write “The Statue and the Bust” to show the truth of Shakespeare’s remark : “In delay there lies no plenty”? But “Caroline” exists to show the opposite, to show that to be for ever desired is delightful, but to be for ever possessed is to be undone. They had loved each other for ten years; they had come to love loving each other-but this is Byron. In her first passion, woman loves her lover; In all the others, all she loves is love, Which grows a habit she can ne’er get over, And fits her loosely-like an easy glove. But when the husband at last dies (not of adenoids, but of cirrhosis of the liver), it is expected of them both that they should marry. The scene of the proposal is the most brilliant piece of light comedy that I have ever seen. Two people who have been lovers for ten years, and are now confronted with the prospect of marriage, are in as awkward a situation as can be imagined. There is nothing to be done but to laugh at it, and the laugh comes legitimately from the woman, and is echoed by the man in a real relief of his feelings. I have not the space to detail the play; and its wit is best enjoyed in the theatre, where it obtains its best expression by the perfect acting of the whole company. But when Caroline discovers by experience that she is not desirable now that she is attainable, the necessity of becoming desirable by being unattainable becomes clear to her. Failing the ten-years lover, she practically proposes to her three-months lover ; but youth and beauty is invited out to dine, and be sympathisedwith, and cannot come. Finally, she proposes to the doctor, who gets out of it very neatly by announcing to everybody that her husband is not dead; and leaving her to make the best of it. She accepts the fiction, and fortifies it by some delightful lying; and finds her lovers at her feet again. Now that they have nothing to fear, but everything to hope, each can go on extracting pleasure from his misery, living his own life and retaining the delights of her company. Caroline is wiser even than Millamant, for Millamant married a wit, which was foolish ; but Caroline will not marry even a fool, which is wise. She has made courtship immortal, and has thereby revived the graces of life. Mr. Somerset Maugham is to be congratulated on his play, and on the actors of it.
Readers
and Writers.
THOUGHthere are more theological works published annually than any other kind except novels, I do not know that they are read. A moment or two’s reflection calls to mind only some half-dozen or so that have emerged from their private beat in our generation. Seeley’s “Ecce Homo” was one of them; and this, if I remember, was followed by “Lux Mundi,” which I read with intense misunderstanding as a boy. Thereafter Mrs. Humphry Ward held the pulpit with “Robert Elsmere,” until or before Drummond published his “Natural Law in the Spiritual World.” Except for Illingworth’s “Personality, Human and Divine,” the general reader, I imagine, has read no theology since, until controversy sizzled a little over the Rev. R. J. Campbell’s “New Theology.” A correspondenthas, however, directed my attention to “Pro Christo et Ecclesia,” the work of an anonymous author which has made some stir. First published in 1900, it has been thrice reprinted (which is a theological success!) and now appears in Macmillan’s Shilling Theological Library. I have bought it and read it. *** The opening pages convinced me that the author, whoever he may be, is a sincere man, an earnest man, but, at the same time and for all his assumption of sweetness and light, a professional theologian. This is to say that he takes, of the Bible in particular, a view which is essentially the view of a professional. For example, in an early page of his work he writes that “it is clear that God’s chief dramatic purpose in the battle between Jesus and the Church of His day was to make plain the difference between true and false But is it so clear as all that? Is it not, Christianity.’’ on the contrary, a professional quibble? And, again, in his closing passage he writes : “Would not many a repentant yet dubious soul rejoice if bidden to nestle in the downy under-feathers of divine protection amid the winds of doubt?” It may be so, but not, I think, in response to this particular imagery, which, beautiful as it is where it occurs in the New Testament, strikes the reader to-day as borrowed and somewhat bedraggled plumes. This kind of sectarian language is all the more prominent by contrast with the thought conveyed elsewhere. The author makes a special point of insisting, for instance, upon “God’s love of bonhomie,” and of Jesus’ free association with all sorts and conditions of sinners. All I can say, however, is that the foregoing extracts do not persuade me that the author is himself such a hail-fellow-well-met with the world as his Master. For hislanguage plainly smells of the study and the pulpit. There are difficulties, too, in my mind as regards the doctrine expounded. Love, no doubt, is the key of the teaching of Christ; but what are we to conclude practically from the author’s-warning to “hold clearly in mind that love that is less than liking is not love”? It is not, and we must all agree that it is not; but if to be a Christian involves our liking all men as a condition of loving all men, why, all we can say is that it is simply impossible. Such liking comes by grace, and I, for ,one, know no means of acquiring it otherwise. This, however, is only one instance of many difficulties encountered in the course of the book. The rest I must leave. *** It may not be possible to write theology with the lucidity and common-sense of Voltaire, whose DictionnairePhilosophique” (in two volumes, three francs each, of the Librarie des Bibliophiles, Paris) I have just been reading. But, after all, why not? Newman did it; so, too, did Matthew Arnold. And is not Plato profound in the simplest idiom ? In the ‘‘Dictionnaire, ’ ’ as, I Suppose, everybody knows, Voltaire selected subjects for treatment in a semi-academical form which were really the political and religious topics of the day. A most ingenious plan. I have made a special note of his article upon the idea of Wickedness. He does not
at all believe in Original Sin, nor, even, in the commonplace of it, that human nature is essentially corrupt. Nothing, he says, is worse conceived. On the contrary, he would have all men assured that they are born good. If a soldier is encouraged by being reminded that he belongs to the glorious Champagne regiment, might it not be equally effective to say to every individual : Remember your dignity as a man? The theory, moreover, that men are by nature evil is disproved, he contends, by simple arithmetic. Calculating the population of the world and the number of wicked men it contains, Voltairearrives at the conclusion that not more than one in a thousand of mankind is really bad. How absurd, he says, to build a dogma upon this minority and to hurl it upon the rest. For there can be no doubt that hurl it the theologians will. Paradoxical as it may seem, O Lord (I am reminded of the prayer of the considerateminister), the doctrine of Original Sin and of the consequent need for human humility corresponds with, even if it does not engender, a disposition to punish and persecute in the name of righteousness. I’ll larn ye to be a twoad ! The humanist doctrine, on the other hand, that accepts the original purity, and hence the re-perfectibility of man, while apparently involving punishment and discipline, actually, as in Voltaire’s case, corresponded with a most tender humanitarianism. Voltaire, of course, carried the war a little further. ‘‘Pagan religion,” he says, “was the cause of comparatively little bloodshed, ours has covered the earth with blood. Ours, of course, is the only good, the only true religion ; but we have done so much evil in its name that when we speak of other religions we ought to be humble. ” *** In the second volume are reprinted Voltaire’s “Letters from England”; of which the twenty-fourth deals with Swift’s project for an English Academy somewhat on the model of the French. Voltaire was much interested in the idea, which but for the death of Queen Anne might have materialised. In its founders it would have had a much superior establishment to that of its French model; for whereas the French founders were men like Chapelain, Colletet, Cassagne, Favet and Cotin, who wrote before the style of the French language was fixed, the leading English writers of the day-Swift, Dryden, Bolingbroke, Addison, Congreve and Popehad themselves fixed the English language by their own writings. Queen Anne, unfortunately, is dead. *** The Complete Works of Walter Bagehot in nine handsome volumes (7s. 6d. net each. Longmans) are now on my shelves, though without thanks due to the publisher, who, in. fact, has treated THE NEW AGE somewhat scurvily, After a close reading of several more of Bagehot’s essays, my admiration for him, I He is all find, is becoming tempered with judgment. that I have thought and written of him in these columns before; but he reserves in his complete works no further surprises; there is, in fact, an end to him. Of some authors, praise be to them, the more you read of them the less you comprehend them. They are illimitable as the sky. But to others there is a bound near or far, and Bagehot is one of them. The bound in him, I think, will be discovered most easily in his Letters in defence of Napoleon the Third’s Coup d’Etat of 1851. Admirable, sensible, sane as they are, they rest upon essentially bourgeois assumptions from which Bagehot never escaped. The assumptions that popular stupidity is an indispensable condition of political freedom, that the best guarantee of duty is that you should have no alternative, that a political society is stable only when no other order can be popularly conceived-these are, without doubt, the working hypotheses of governing classes generally, but their necessary outcome in administration is repression of thought, and in the man who makes them, confinement of thought. Bagehot mistook, I think, the practical maxims of class-politicians for the philosophical maxims of statesmen. R. H. C.
Man
and
Manners.
An OCCASIONAL DIARY. Monday.--Women haven’t many privileges, but one is surely the choice of shaking hands with a new acquaintance. A bow is only the polite acknowledgment of an introduction, but a handshake is the formality of it. The bow, in other words, is only a christening process; but by the latter you are confirmed into the faith of friendship. The man, therefore, who forces a woman to shake hands on introduction-you can’t very well overlooka hand jutting out at you like a policeman’s-is robbing her of her electoral right on quite an important point. For once having shaken hands with a man, by intention or inattention, she is committed not only to acknowledge him in future, but to meet him on the footing of intimacy a handshake establishes-a footing which, left to her choice, she very possibly would never have brought about. Moreover, the man who offends in this way offends as much again as the woman who breaks the same convention. Socially, women take precedence of men, and thus the man is presuming to offer his hand to his social superior; while the woman, it may be urged, is at worst only waiving her privilege in condescending to be friendly (or, as I should call it, familiar at sight. To the man who thinks it still doesn’t matter, I will ask aloud what others will ask of him without words. Is he in such a hurry to shake hands because he thinks it well to strike before you have time to be on your guard? and claims sanctuary in extenuation of future crimes? Does he apprehend that if you knew him you would certainly not shake hands with him? Is he so short of friends that he needs must lose no time in snatching them? Does he mistake this breach of convention for jollity and naturalness ? Wednesday-Women may flatter themselves that at the end of the war they will have earned the nation’s thanks by their war-work; and when disappointed they will doubtless reproach men with the usual ingratitude. Not man, however, but woman herself will be to blame, for women are accompanying their war-services with manners that will surely forfeit their expected reward. Take, for instance, the manners of the khaki woman. The other day I met one--khaki from head to heel, cane under arm, lurching Adelphi stride to boot-swaggering up Tottenham Court Road and creating a wake of anything but gratifying comment. Another day, a whole platoon of women might have been seen holding up the traffic while they marched uselessly down Piccadilly, the drum-majoress twirling her staff with the finesse of a practised moustache-hand-horrid sight ! A man drew me an unamusing picture of a Field Ambulance Reserve he had seen on Church Parade. He imitated the way the Major or Admiral, or whatever she called herself (nothing, it seems, to what others called her !) bestrode the trembling earth like a Colossus. “Companyshun,” she roared, like a bull in a china shop. Then Joan declares she has seen khaki women come into a restaurant, hang up their hats and pull up their trou-er, stock-I mean socks--before sitting down ! And a field-piece of personal observation in a Hospital Unit shows me that other than patriotic purposes hide under a spreading khaki coat. Men’s khaki is to conceaI them, so I’m told. Women’s is to attract? But women are becoming imitation men. And, really, I believe were men to go hopping on one leg, women would amputate in fashion. For where the limelight is there must woman be also. I thought in my innocence that women’s tact would lead to better sense : particularly as in recent years they have been declaiming electrocutionally their own superiority, and announcing a new heaven from their advent into utility. Yet, the first thing they doodle-do (I mean do do) is to adopt man’s attire, deeming it an honour, it seems, to wear
the uniform of the late despised. But much good it does them. I would wager that half the unwelcome to women’s arrival in industry is the sight they presentand no wonder-such objicks in men’s clothing! Great Britain ! those peaked caps of girl shop-porters ! A chef doesn’t wear a woman’s hat because he is doing a woman’s work. No taking on the garment with the jab ! Surely the designers of feminine frills and fantasies could, at request, design becoming feminine uniforms-if uniforms they must be! For if the doing of men’s work involves the adoption of men’s manners and even of their costume, how, please, shall we discover the superiority of women’s ways? and how, please, are we to benefit by men’s supersession? The other day a Suffrage paper billed (but not cooed) it forth that the woman who casts a shell can cast a vote; or, in other words, can decide if, when, and at whom the shell is to be cast. Nonsense ! At least, so the world will say, until women prove by their way of working that they can dabble in man’s mud without themselves becoming man-muddy. The hands that rocked the cradle will have lost their cunning to rule the world, and the shells they cast will be boomeringues! No, nogood manners are a condition of the acceptance of good work-and in particular in the case of women, whose road to success in work is lined on both sides with sharpshooting prejudices, And are we not at war ’gainst the effects of low Kultur? (Boooo !) Then does it not behove us to extirpate the beams from our own eyes? Physicians--I mean women doctors-heal thyselves ! We expected better taste from you, the Grand Conservators Good Manners. And better taste means better of work. If one volunteer is worth ten pressmen, one useful act performed with grace is worth ten without it. There is a Provost Marshal vested with supreme power to enforce proper manners among soldiers. Then, since of equal urgency, why not a W.C.P.M.G.M.W.W.W, -a Women’s Council (NO, NOT a Provost Marshal, please!) for the Propagation and Maintenance of Good Manners among Women War Workers ? Women are on trial. I will say itagain-Women are on trial, and on their own evidence! On the impression they are now creating hangs their sentence. Is it to be penal servitude, or first-class treatment ? Because in the general confusion of war-time, women now strut unmobbed in their khaki, don’t let them imagine they will always be allowed to behave as they now presume on the popularity of a khaki coat to do. Not a bit of it, women -your khaki manners will be used against you. Then of what avail your war-work? The nation’s gratitude? Men’s admiration? No, a thousand times-it will have profited you nothing. Ridicule and worse-contempt and neglect-will be your portion. And once again women will have been guilty of suicide, and---worse again-of sororicide. Thursday.-Why on earth are you always having dinner with George? I asked Norah the other day. I don’t see much in him. That’s just it, said Norah; neither do I-which leaves me perfectly free to enjoy my dinner. You see, if you like a man awfully, you spend all your time thinking how nice he is; you can’t eat a thing. For instance, when I’m with---well, never mind whom--but when I’m with him, I feel that actually I neither want nor need to eat. S’pse ’m feeding on him, or something ! Then, in the case of the man you can’t stand, you keep thinking how loathsome he is, and, again, can’t eat in consequence. The few times I had dinner with J. J. his manners simply murdered my appetite. But George I neither like nor dislike sufficiently for him to disturb me in any way. Enfin ! You’re a wretch, Norah, said I : but there must be truth in your wretchedness, for I’ve observed that with George you gorge-poor George! And now I know why it is. The things he says are just amusing enough to accompany without diverting; while his manners are nicely fitted to every dinner emergency. George, in fact, is a perfect little Laodicean, as a good diner should be. Anyhow,settled Norah, he makes a good dinner!
Views
and
Reviews.
Democracy Again. IT is only about twelve months since a rather. angry discussion of the defects of democracy took place in THE NEW AGE, and concluded, if I remember rightly, with protests against my “premature” raising of the issue. The discussion that is now beginning elsewhere in the Press is at least timely, and is worthy of a little notice in these columns. It may be admitted, as the “Nation” asserts, that these doubts of democracy would quickly pass if the Allies secured a great victory; indeed, that is the chief defect of democracy, that its thoughts are dictated by its moods, and that instant success is its only test of the value of anything. These doubts would as quickly pass if the Allies suffered a great defeat ; but they would pass into a certainty of the necessity of the most rigorous despotism. Democracy has the military psychology, it is always overwhelming at the decisive point; while civilisation demands the artistic sense of fitness, to use no more force than is necessary to secure the desired purpose. The figure by which Germany is being represented at this time, that of a wild beast flinging itself vainly against the walls of its cage, knocking out a brick here, bending a bar there, and terrifying the whole neighbourhood with its roaring, represents much more accurately democracy in action. The aggressive purpose is absent, indeed, all purpose is absent from democracy; and, strictly, it more closely resembles a man who lives in a house with tumbling walls, which he is perpetually rushing about to push back into the perpendicular position. Democracy does nothing, and prides itself on being unaggressive; but things happen to it, events fall upon it, and then it discovers the truth of Rousseau’s remark, that there is no form of government “which has so strong and continual a tendency to change to another form, or which demands more vigilance and courage for its maintenance as it is.” I need hardly remark that, at the present moment, we‘ are not living under a democracy; but that the democratic idea still prevails even the discussion of its defects proves. The chief quarrel with democracy is, of course, that it is incapable of organisation; but the “Nation” rebuts this charge by using the “awful consequences” argument. It exhibits the organisation of Germany as a proof of simian intelligence, rather inaptly, for the German State is not a copy but a model. If we were to develop this abusive simile to its conclusion, we find democracy committed to the unicellular organism as its ideal, or to the undifferentiated ’Spirit-and those who regard democracy as the end of all things, as well as those who regard it as the beginning of all things, would be justified in their assumption that, whatever it was, it was not human. Indeed, the “Nation” goes so far in its re-action against organisation that it describes the desire for it as “the lust of the human spirit after ease,” as though difficulty in doing were itself admirable. It was an old gibe against the English that they rewarded “as an illustrious inventor whosoever would contrive one impediment more to interpose between the man and his objects” ; and the “Nation” seems determined to deserve it. But if we must not take Germany’s path to ease, if“salvation comes not by organisation," what are we to do? “It is ideas which will save us.” This seems to me to be a very easy way out of the difficulty; an easy, but an illegitimate, way, for the war is not a war of ideas, but of forces. The only idea that seems to guide the employment of those forces is the idea of attrition; Germany tried to wear down our Navy by her submarine attacks, we try to wear down her Army by the desultory slaughter that takes place over the whole line. Time is on the side of the Allies, and is also on the side of the Central Powers. We may reasonably ask what are the ideas which will save us; who has them, and how can they be applied without the organisation that is proof of a simian intelligence? The
assertion that ‘‘the spirit of improvisation, originality, intuition, flourishes in this country; all these things are at the disposal of the Government,” does not help us very much. The spirit of originality finds expression in the cry for “reprisals” against air raids, the spirit of improvisation calls for an ‘ ‘Air Ministry. ” It is equally easy to say that we want “science” ; indeed,we ought to go on to enumerate all the other things that we want, Religion, Art, Money, Peace, Leisure, Beauty, and so on. There is no doubt about our “wants,” the difficulty is to satisfy them. There is the crux of the whole difficulty democracy is found wanting, and without an idea of what it wants most. It has only the vaguest general direction, it thinks only in the vaguest general words or phrases. It wants Victory, for example; but what is Victory? Is it unconditional surrender by the enemy, is it surrender on terms, is it agreement between all the belligerent Powers to organise Europe and parcel out the world? Thinking begins with the definition of terms, a process which democrats always decry as academic ; and even as a practical measure, no method can be prescribed until the end desired is clearly stated. The call for “science” would justify us all in catching butterflies, or growing sweet peas (as not only the “Daily Mail” once advised, but Mendel did); we have to ask what “science” do we want, and for what do we want it. Science, after all, is only knowledge organised, and made intellectually accessible and valuable by the mental process of generalisation. The fundamental defect of democracy is that it wants things, and not men. It wants justice, not judges; it wants pacifism, not peacemakers, or militarism but not soldiers; it wants beauty, but not artists ; love, but not women. It is itself an abstraction, and lives only among abstractions. Emerson said years ago that “the best political economy is care and culture of men” ; but democracy, with its belief that one man is as good as another, and perhaps better, devoted its efforts to the care and culture of things. Indeed, it developed the impudent argument that the man was only the product of his time. “Alas,” said Carlyle, “we have known Times call loudly enough for their great man; but not find him when called ! He was not there; the Time, calling its loudest, had to go down to confusion and wreck because he would not come when called.’’ This is a European war waged by men not one of whom is a “good European,” not one of whom is. capable of taking the large European view. At first, when Joffre was prepared to retreat to the Pyrenees if necessary, there was a glimmer of European strategy ; but a little success reduced him to the stature of a Frenchman, and he began to “nibble” after the Battle of the Marne. We are waging a Continental war with men who have never been trained to be more than Nationalists. We have never cared for men, although men are necessary to secure the things that we desire; and now that we want the greatest thing that democracy has ever desired, the man who could get it for us is not forthcoming. Democracy A. E. R. is justified of its children. SONNET. From the Spanish of Lope de Vega (1562-1633). As when with ribbon to his fingers tied The little child his tinted bird restrains, As confident as though the bonds were chains, He lets the captive stretch its pinions wide. And when it breathes in freedom from the breeze, Divides the fragile stay, the infant cheats, And thro’ the sky with pulsing breast retreats, Sad, liquid eyes pursue it o’er the trees. So, Love, with thee whilom, in youthful day, My soul was lifted high with fancies vain, And all was held as by-a single hair. The rising wind my glories snatched away, And in my hands I saw a rope remain Of strength enough to finish my despair. TRIBOULET
REVIEWS
Life
in a Railway Factory. By Alfred Williams (Duckworth. net.) The author has worked at Swindon for twenty-three years, and has taken notes during the whole of that period; and this book is the result. It has all the defects of its origin; it is practically impossible to tell what things are true, and what things were true, of this factory. It is a jumble of notes flung together without any judgment ; most of the biographical details are useless to the public; and the author says scarcely a word about Trade Unionism. His remedy for labour unrest is a week of forty-five hours completed in five turns, so that the workers could appear on Monday morning quite fresh after a two-days’ rest. The author writes without perspective, and he seems always to be contradicting himself. The smiths, for example, are magnificent men who never tire; at the end of the day they are fresh as they were at the beginning; they are never ill, never absent, never fatigued, they can work fortyeight hours a day without turning a hair. But when the author writes about the night shift, he says simply the opposite thing about the smiths. They are never fresh, they cannot strike a blow, they cannot eat their food, they do not earn their money, they are bad-tempered. The author is always in superlatives: everything either the best or the worst, usually the latter. is The author is a fearful prig, and is always despising the other workers for their lack of and indifference to culture, while he can write Latin and Greek, and, of course, English, prose and verse. Indeed, the only general impression that the book gives is that of a blind biologist studying a lower form of life; he knows only what he feels, and someone was always jumping on his toes, or clumping his head, or applying a boot to his posterior, as he phrases it, so he takes his revenge by “telling the truth, ’’ fearlessly, of course. He certainly corrects the romantic judgment of the working-classes ; according to his judgment, they are seldom competent (although, of course, they are more competent than the managers and foremen, whose chief occupation in life is to increase the cost of production, according to this writer), devoid of all charity and kindliness, and, of course, quite uncultured. Football and politics are all their interests, while the author looks at the stars, and knows the names of the flowers, and can always give anyone two half-pennies for a penny. Here is a sad picture: “At the forge, however, the steady persistence of my efforts towards self-improvement was not appreciated. Day after day the foreman of the shed came or sent someone with oil or grease to obliterate the few words of Latin or Greek which I had chalked upon the back of the sooty furnace in order to memorise them. ” The diabolical wretches ! What did the author do? “At one time the overseer had caused the furnace back to be tarred. Before the tar had completely dried, I innocently chalked upon it several words that figured in my studies for the day. By the next morning the characters had become permanent.The colour of the chalk had set, and as often as the overseer or his agent came with the oil-pot and removed the dust and soot, thinking to baffle me, he was confronted with the Horatian precept, Nil Scotland Yard : Its Men and Methods. By George Desperandum, a quotation from theHecuba, and Staurosonauton Dilnot. (Percival Marshall. net.) (Crucify Him) from the New Testament.” Mr. Dilnot has written this little volume ’to show us There! They could not baffle Alfred, and he became Scotland Yard as it really is. It is not, as some do cultured and just a little Pharisaical. We regret that vainly imagine, a set of kennels for bloodhounds, but Dr. Samuel Smiles will never know of Mr. Williams. a perfectly organised business that uses telephones, The Ballet of the Nations: A Present-day Morality by tape-machines, roller-top desks, card-indices, and all Vernon Lee and a Pictorial Commentary by Maxwell the latest office appliances. When a crime is committed Armfield; (Chatto and Windus. 3s. 6d. net.) Scotland Yard does not say to a detective: “Go and What happened when the satirist sat, we do not unravel this mystery.” Oh, no ! It turns up the books exactly know; but we think that it must have been to see which criminals were out of prison on that date, something like this book. The conception of this war which of them were in that district, which of them were as a ballet is singularly inept; Miss Vernon Lee has not at home that night; and having thus narrowed the evidently never tried to dance in the mud of Flanders. field of selection, it looks at the report of the crime, Dancing is the least correct figure by which to represent which is quite manifestly the work of, say, Bill Sykes, the activities of the combatants; navvying, or burrowing, and then sends a detective to arrest Bill Sykes who
or making mountains out of molehills like Hill 60, are much more correct descriptions. The title should be: “Fleas and Flounders in Flanders,” or something like that; but Miss Lee has her own idea. “All the world’s a stage,” said Shakespeare; and Satan is “the Lessee of the World,” adds Miss Lee. So one fine day, Satan took counsel with Bail@--Master Death to revive the higher form of tragic art. “It is time,” said he, “to re-open the Theatre of the West. The Politicians and Armament-Shareholders have long got all the stage-property in readiness, and the SceneShifters of the Press are only waiting for the signal,” The proper response to this was made by Hamlet: “Let the galled jade wince. Our withers are unwrung.” They proceeded to collect the Music of the Passions for their orchestra ; but Self-Interest had joined a Trade Union (how very funny !), and they had to begin with “that over-retiring old slut, Widow Fear.” She was dragged along by her “twins, Suspicion and Panic,” who seem to have wasted three-halfpence on “Yesterday’s ‘Daily Mail’ and ‘Globe.’ ” Perhaps they purchased their out-of-date copies at trade prices ; we cannot say ; but we never knew before that Suspicion and Panic had to spend anything on their sustenance. Then “my dear Lady Idealism and my young Prince Adventure” deigned to join the Orchestra ; “Death’s mother Sin, whom the gods call Disease,” came next, bringing with her “Rapine, Lust, Murder, and Famine, fitted out with bull-roarers and rattles and other cannibalic instruments.” We do not quite understand to what use Lust could put a rattle, or Famine a bull-roarer: nor do we quite clearly understand whether the description ‘‘cannibalic instruments” means that the bull-roarers and rattlers eat each other. However, Hatred and Self-Righteousness next joined the group, pretending not to be acquainted; but when Hatred began to tune up his huge double-bass, SelfRighteousness gave him the right pitch on his harmonium.While they were waiting for blind Heroism to come and be plumped down anywhere, two modern strangers, “dear Madam Science and dear Councillor Organisation, ” swelled the company of performers ; and then the Dance of the Nations began. When the Dance of Death flagged, Pity and Indignation rushed in to keep it going for ever; and Satan and Ballet-Master Death were delighted at the prospect of their Ballet running as long as a popular Comedy or Revue. The Pictorial Commentary we do not pretend to understand ; all the men are naked, and their muscular systems art outlined with meticulous care; all the women arc clothed, either in spots or stripes; but neither of them ever seem to dance. ‘‘ They droop about in such a tedious row,” or walk up steps, or practise the goosestep with the aid of what are apparently marionette strings, or run Marathon races, but they never dance. If St. Paul the Satirist could read this “morality,” he would probably repeat his‘ famous question : “O Death, where is thy sting?” We have searched for it with all the patience and microscopic paraphernalia of the entomologist,and failed to find it ; and we can only conclude that the satirist sat on it. Wake up, Miss Vernon Lee, and use the blue-bag; No ! you are stung, and poisoned by your own guile
is sure to be found in his usual haunts because he would want to allay suspicion. Clues? Scotland Yard has no use for them. Crimes are only committed by criminals. Scotland Yard knows everything about criminals, therefore it can select instantly from its large and varied assortment a criminal to fit the crime. The evidence follows, and the man is convicted. It is all done by organisation, by telephones and tube-railways, and steel-grey eyes and grey hair, and things of that sort. Scotland Yard detectives do not look like detectives; they do not. as did the poor cook in Mr. Jacobs’ “Skipper’s Wooing,” “walk like bloodhounds” ; they look, walk, and behave like business men with a taste for bad company. They know the “crooks” and the “crooks” know them and love them; they are the “crooks’ ” best friends, friends in disguise sometimes, but still friends, and a “crook” has never been known to say : “Come in any shape but that.” However he comes, the Scotland Yard detective is always welcome. It is all done by kindness and organisation. Why, Scotland Yard even takes photographs of the criminals and impressions of their fingers ; and treasures these mementoes with loving care. Mr. Dilnot does not tell us that the “crooks” drop in casually for a chat, with whisky and soda and a cigar; but we expect that that happens frequently. It is good for them to be there, among the friends who love them, and try so earnestly to reform them; and besides, the sight of all this peaceful industry, without haste but without rest, must be a good example to these poor men with one idea and no co-ordination. Apart from this idyll, Mr. Dilnot gives brief and illuminating accounts of the training of the policeman, who, for a week, exercises all the gifts of an Admirable Crichton and the temperament of an Archangel. It is wonderful when you think of it that the clumsy clodhopper from Cumberland, let us say, should be converted into the gentle and accomplished guardian of the King’s peace in about two months at Peel House; but so it is. It is all done by organisation, intelligence, tact, and steel-grey eyes which twinkle or flash according to the mood. There are other chapters about police stations, the river police, public carriages, and the Lost Property Office, every one of the activities of Scotland Yard being, in the opinion of Mr. Dilnot, so vast in scope and so intricate in detail that the successful performance of it alone would justify the fame of our headquarters of police. But all its activities are performed with equal efficiency, and words fail to describe such a collection of excellences. None the less, we do wonder how it is that crimes are committed, that criminals do escape, that public carriages are not always safe, that licensed drivers are not always efficient. Great Return. By Arthur Machen. (The Faith Press. net.) Marvellous ! Halfpenny Marvellous ! The things that Mr. Machen can discover in the papers would strike us dumb with amazement if we did not remember that “those that hide can find.” But in spite of this reflection, it is marvellous that the, old legends should serve Mr. Machen’s turn so neatly. We have scarcely recovered from the effects of the story of the gallant but unavailing defence of the “Cupid’s Own” (that regiment of what Stevenson called the “blind how-boys”) against Von Kluck’s cohorts than we are asked to turn to Wales to observe the results of a temporary return of the Holy Grail. So far as we remember, the results were the complete cure of a case of consumption, the forgoing of a hard bargain by a Welsh solicitor (nothing but a miracle could explain this), and the conversion of an Evangelical pastor to ritualistic practices. After that, the Grail departed ; perhaps because it knew that Mr. Machen would run down to investigate. Rut as we have had the Bowmen at Mons, and the Grail at Llantrisant, may we suggest that Mr. Machen should discover the Wandering Jew in Lombard Street, and bring to the consciousness of Cockneys a sense of the mystical presence. Not only Mr, Machen will then “greet the Unseen with a cheer.” The
Pastiche.
AT WORSHIP. The Temple stands in Leicester Square The darkness of night lends a little dignity to the building. A searchlight throws up an insolent glare to the stars, and in comparative darkness the worshippers make their way to the Temple. Yet there is enough light to reveal the ugliness and the artificiality of the women who. pass into the building. Inside the temple the electric lights are merciless. Tier after tier filled with worshippers who look expectantly towards the altar at the end of the Temple. Women there are, gorgeously dressed and with pleasant perfumes about them, chattering and laughing in a hard manner. The men sleek, well-brushed-a11 the same. Some of the worshippers attempt. to hide their souls from the glare of the lights by appearing indifferent or bored : but the dead souls peep out from behind the masks. Answering the baton of the conductor, the musicians play some light, trivial melody and the service in the Temple begins. The curtain is drawn from the front of the altar, the offering to the worshippers is made. A long procession of women’s legs dancing and walking,legs in semi-transparent silk stockings and highheeled shoes. The offering is of women’s legs-and it is called a Revue. HARRYFOWLER. “TO EVE ANI) HER DAUGHTER, YVETTE.”.
You walk and talk and tea with us, And sometimes smile(But, witch of a woman!-where is your soul The while ?) You talk of the trivial things of the day, And we reply(But your soul’s in a silence where never our words Come nigh). Your body’s a beautiful thing and strong, With a Greek god’s grace(But, ah! could we but see your unfathomable Strange face !).
soul’s
We look in your haunting eyes and seek Your secret there(If we could but know you, the lore of all love Were bare ! ). We touch your hand and the warm pulse throbs In our hearts anew. (Dead women of all dead days are here In you!) We call you Eve, and try to think It’s only your name-(But the word is magic, the world-spell ever The same). Your body’s fire has flamed to flower(Who could forget Caressably gentle and kissably sweet Yvette !). So-regnant woman of women to us We go our ways(Remembering, pondering, fruitlessly Praise !) .
murmuring T.W. COLE.
ANTICIPATIONS. “There can be no doubt that a share in labour control will solve every difficulty that may arise in connection with‘ the worker’s problem. Why was it left for the ‘Mail’ to initiate such an idea? Where was THE NEW AGE with its vainglorious and egotistical conceit ? At last we have absolute proof of the intellectual bankruptcy of our so-called ‘revolutionary’ journals. ”-“Royal Road Reader. ” “When Mr. Stoggett rose to speak, a man at the back of the hall jumped upon a chair and waved a copy of THE NEW AGE. There was much commotion. Mr. Stoggett stood his ground bravely and pointed derisively at the pernicious rag, which he denounced in right round terms.
His subsequent paper entitled ‘Why should Labour be a Commodity ?’ provoked much fruitful discussion. ”“Knightsbridge Mail and Courier.” “We are very glad to see that THE NEW AGE is being completely ignored these vigorous clays. The ‘Mirror,’ in a recent leading article on National Guilds, rightly condemnedits flighty intellectual conceit. THE NEW AGE, as one correspondent pointed out recently, has nothing new to say. We wish the ‘Mirror’ very good luck in its propaganda of National Guilds. ”-” ‘Kennington Post ’and Gazette. ” “I can honestly say that I have never in my life seen a copy of THE NEW AGE. I have often heard my colleagues speak of it in terms of disgust, hut I cannot express any opinion upon their comment, knowing nothing of its policy. As I said last week in my lecture, ‘The Worker as a Partner with the State,’ we have no use for these extreme revolutionary papers. What we want is brilliant common sense.”-Lord BUSHBRAKE, O.M. “THE NEW AGE should be read regularly by every profiteer. We have always admired THE New AGE for its sustained and fearless exposure of the working classes. THE New AGE; is undoubtedly the most sound and conservative journal in the United Kingdom. Its propaganda against that modern menace the National Guild Society cannot be under-estimated. Buy THE NEW AGE and support the Wage System.”--“ The Morning Merchantman and Profiteer.” “An interesting event took place last night at the Democrats’ in Jugger Street. Before Mr. Willower rose Hall, to give his famous lecture on the abolition of the wage system (a subject which now creates great enthusiasm) a copy of a reactionary paper called THE NEW AGE was publicly burned amidst cheering and much enthusiasm. This is no time for the publication of journals which threaten to retard progress. ”--“Daily Venturer and Times. ” “The ‘Daily Pictoral’ has at last shown us the way towards a real and permanent social reform of a farreaching kind. This new scheme will emancipate the workers from the chains of the servile State and benefit the very Nation itself. Unfortunately, journals like THE NEW AGE have obscured the vital issues to the detriment of democracy. As the ‘Pictorial’ truly says, nothing but a system of National Guilds can save this country from ultimate destruction.”-“The Weekly Totalizer.” “The danger of a social revolution is becoming obvious even to the most revolutionary thinkers. The ‘Mail’ in its leaders is developing a dangerous theory of economics based upon the revival of the Guild, or, as some spell it, Gilde. But no matter how the word be spelt the danger is very real. The ‘Mail’ speaks of an entire overthrow of the wage system and the establishment of a ‘system of National Guilds.’ Where are the sound old Socialist papers of yesterday? Where is the ‘Clarion’ and THE NEW AGE, and the ‘Christian Commonwealth’ ? Cannot these be subsidised in order to fight this menace of sheer anarchy ?”---“Fleetway Recorder and News. ” ARTHUR F. THORN. THE LONELY GOD.
Current
Cant.
and
“I returned the proof of a poem to Swinburne suggestedan alteration. ”-GEORGE R. SIMS.
“The teachings of the politicians and even the priest are in some quarters still ‘ suspect ’-mostly quite unreasonably. ”-“The University Extension Bulletin.” “After the war, England, so far from being impoverished, will be richer in everything that constitutes real and true wealth.”--Lloyd GEORGE. “Gladys Cooper appears in many costumes during the play, including a dressing-gown over her pyjamas and a bathing dress.”--“Daily Sketch.” “Lord Derby is like a jolly schoolboy, blue-eyed and plump. ”--“Home Chat. ” “Nothing but margarine has entered my door since the war began.”-Dr. SALEEBY. “An old sea captain, noticing that the engine of a train on the London and North-Western Railway bore the name ‘ Dachshund,’ wrote to the company suggesting that as an act of patriotism the name should be changed. The engine has now been renamed ‘ Bulldog.’ ”-“ Times.” “The predominance of women after the war will be very beneficial.”-Miss FRANKIE FRANKLIN. “The greatest and most beneficent effect of the war will be the unloosening of the shackles that have bound women for so many centuries.”-Miss AMY GRANT. “It is pleasant to know that if a good poet gives his Me for his country, his verse is appreciated; which is to say that there is a steady demand for Mr. Rupert Brooke’s last volume, ‘1914 and Other Poems.’ ”-“Daily Chronicle. ” “If you wish to help the nation to economise, order your ‘Daily Mail’ from anewsagent.”-“Daily Mail.” “Let us pardon the gods Who made us men, For they have made us poets ! ” RICHARD ALDINGTON “The Egoist.” in “Pretty girls take ‘ ‘ Lloyd’s Weekly. ’ ’ Carter’s Little Liver Pills.”-
“Unquestionably the Guild Socialists and Syndicalists, the vanguard of self-conscious labour, by their doctrines and intrigues hope to affect something more than is either just or profitable.”--“Land and Water.” “I expressed surprise that Norway should have social problems.”-HAROLD BEGBIE. “So when I am told that Mrs. Gene Stratton Porter has over two million readers I conclude that her books must ‘be well worth reading.”-“C. W.” in “Bookman.” “For there is nothing so destructive complexionas love.”--Louise HEILGERS. to clothes and
Through the night in the dark that the void still knows, There was nought save death; and a whirlwind rose; A whirlwind rose with a shudder as deep As death, and a man’s mirth shook his sleep; His tears on his hot soul were as dew, For his was the life that is never new; Up from that timeless desert a gust Swept, and all space was pregnant with dust; So a sun sped forth in a moment’s span, Flashed, flared and flickered; and earth beganFrom visions prenatal of being he saw Himself for ever, his love and his awe : And each death brought life for his joy and his scorn, And folly and passion and hope forsworn; For the mind that passes onward goes, And the dust falls thick where each whirlwind rose. HARRY FOWLER.
“A Genuine Scotsman will lend you any SUM from to without security within one hour. “-“Glasgow Evening News.” “The man who refuses to take off his hat to the King is a traitor to his country.”-Recruiting Officer, Strand. “Raemaekers keeps the World’s conscience from falling asleep. He is worth an army to the Allies. To keep in touch with Raemaekers’ work is essential to being well informed of the progress of a new and vital. moral factor affecting the issues of the war.”--“Land and Water.” “A man to win the war. Mr. James Douglas names a genius for whom England is waiting.”--“Daily Mirror. ”
LETTERS THE TO
EDITOR.
NOTES OF THE WEEK. Sir,-The writer of this letter has been what is called a “constant reader” of THE NEW AGE for a long time now. I have invariably read-and understood fairly well, I hope -everything it contained, always reserving your “Notes of the Week” as a “tit-bit” for the last. (As It happens I should have read them first.) Ever since the publication of “National Guilds” I have read those “notes”-in the belief that their writer collaborated in “National Guilds” -in the same spirit that a thirteenth century monk would read-or should have read-his Bible. But THE NEW AGE of December 2 reached me a few days ago, and embittered, I suppose, by a sincere but fruitless attempt to understand an article entitled “A Notebook’’ by T. E. H., I turned, in a more critical humour than usual, to your “Notes of the Week.” And, Sir, their perusal in that frame of mind has convinced me that you are not the man you were if ever you were that man. I ani satisfied, in fact, that you either know as little about modern industry as Mr. Lloyd George, for some wise purpose of his own, pretends he knows, or that you are trying to frighten the British public into “Guild Socialism” by devising new terrors for old capitalist scarecrows. Fancy, for example, reading a statement like this in the “New” or any other “Age” : “Even if the capital value of the United Kingdom were loaned to the State, could the State safely saddle the public with a debt so colossal that the interest on it alone would equal our annual national production? It assuredly could not. ” Now, Sir, to the imagination of a very young crow the sight of a figure dressed up in a tattered coat and a top hat, with a pair of arms made of a discarded shovelhandle, sticking out as if crucified recently for interfering with the corn seeds-especially if you could contrive a miniature wind-mill to revolve rapidly on the top of the hat-would doubtless appear a very dreadful thing. But who has not seen an old, or even a middle-aged crow sitting calmly on one of the outstretched arms of such a figure, peacefully picking, through holes in the tattered coat, the very straw with which it was stuffed-the miniature windmill whirling all the while, as the Chinaman would say, like “hellee”-and casting an occasional eye on the revolving wonder, as if to see how the wind lay. In like manner, to the imagination of a novice in public economy, it must appear a dreadful thing that the debt of Great Britain should be within actual measurable distance of being “so colossal that the interest on it alone would equal our national production.” Goad God ! No food, no clothes, “no nothing”-but interest. But let us see how it would appear to an old or a middle-aged crow. To whom, he would ask, does this “capital value of the United Kingdom” belong? To the citizens of the State-at least to those of them who own property-does it not? It is these, then, who would loan it to the State, and who would get it back in the form of interest in perpetuityperhaps. But who would provide the interest? The nonproperty owners-the working classes. Bah ! The working classes will have to be fed, clothed andhousedperhaps all the more carefully-while they are creating the interest. And that was all that was done for them while they were creating the “capital value” itself and it is about all that would be done for them if the nation did not owe a penny. And the more wealth they will have to create the more of them will get employment. You ought to know that wages are not determined by national burdens but by the cost of production of the wage plus the higgling of the market. Let the State, then, lend itself as much money as it likes. perhaps when all the people find themselves called upon to pay taxes to pay interest to themselves on capital borrowed by-themselves from themselves--they will begin to see the stupidity of the whole silly business, and to understand the real nature of industry, and property, and money. and what not. But I am surprised at you. Again, you appear to be under the old capitalist delusion -which one would have thought you had almost shamed the capitalists themselves out of long ago-of supposing that because the “capital value” of the national estate is so much, and the war costs so much per day, or week, or month, that the mar can only last as many days or weeks or months as may be precisely ascertained by dividing the capital value of the national estate by the cost of the war per day, or week, or month. If this were so, every nation in the world would have had to close down its business ages ago. If you would but try to imagine, for a change, the cost of the war not in money, but in things-in
munitions food, clothing, transport, etc. ; and in the human and other energy that is producing these things, you would probably arrive at a very different conclusion. You would then see that the war can be carried on, not merely as long as sufficient money can be raised-you can go on raising unlimited quantities of money, indefinitely, since you are simply raising the same money over and over againbut for as long as the soil and people of Great Britain are capable of producing-either directly or by exchangethe requisite quantity of the munitions, food, clothing, etc. This may be for six months, or for six-and-twenty centuries--or even for ten times the millennium to which you referred in the beginning of your Notes. In another part of your Notes you say that production must be increased and consumption reduced ; and you complain that owing to blundering and mismanagement, generally, on the part of the Government-and its failure to put “Guild Socialism” into operation particularly-the very opposite is happening. Production, you say, is almost at a still-stand, while consumption “has become’ galloping.” But gallop how it will, it must be obvious that consumption can never pass production, for the manifest reason that, to parody a favourite phrase of your own, production must precede consumption-or God help the consumer. But I understand that your chief complaint is that the wrong things are being produced and consumed. is not that because there is a demand for what But you call the wrong things and no great demand for what you call the right things?- Beer, you hint, and “the silliest articles of luxury" -leaving us to conjecture what they are-you say openly, are being consumed in scandalous quantities. But they must be produced in equally large quantities; or perhaps they are surplus stocks from last year or the year before. But now, suppose the people cease buying beer and the “silliest articles of luxury,” what is saved? Money, or beer, etc. ? Obviously the latter, because the money will still be in existence-in the pocket of the brewer or the ‘dealer in silly luxuries, instead of in that of the drunkard or the buyer of the silly luxuries. I know you will say that they should buy food instead of beer and “silly luxuries,” and so create a demandfor food. The worst of it is, it often happens that those who spend money on beer and luxuries have already purchased all the food they require; and there is not the least reason to doubt, for all you say against the farmers, that if everybody had money to buy all the food they need they would be well able to obtain it. The trouble is that money is badly divided; some have enough for beer and luxuries as well as for food, while others have not enough even for food. But this cannot be altered by your plan of reducing consumption and increasing production. Can you name one single commodity, except war munitions, of which there is an actual scarcity? And for God’s sake don’t tell us that people should produce shells instead of beer and other things ; there may be no demand for shells next year; whereas there will be a demand for beer and other things. Whether the war is right or wrong. it is obvious that the nation is now devoting sufficient of its resources and energy to the production of shells. If it goes any further in that direction it will be nothing but a shell factory. But how did you come to write such a sentence as this? “ Without compulsion the farmers of the country will let us starve so long as on our hunger their profits are maintained.” Oh, I see, you quote-but with evident approval -”Professor Smiddy.” The war is obviously putting you in strange company. How can your hunger profit the farmers? It might please them if you have done anything to offend them, or if they are inherently malevolent, but it cannot possibly Profit them. And if it is, as you say, more profitable to sit still than to produce, how do you propose to compel people to produce? Depend upon it, whatever is must profitable, that is to say, most in demand-whether it be beer, silly luxuries, or food-will bt produced first, and within limits, in greatest quantities. One way of promoting the demand for a commodity is, as you suggest, to compel people to purchase it whether they like to or not. This method can only be applied in the case of the rich. Another method is to enable them to purchase it by giving them employment at reasonable wages. You say that this can only be done by means of “National Guilds.” Then for heaven’s sake keep on fighting for “National Guilds.” For my part, I am inclined to doubt the efficacy or the wisdom of your “National Guilds” and “blackleg-proof” unions. I know a good many railwaymen out of work since January, 1914, and therefore, potential “blacklegs. ” Would it be any consolation to them to see the railwaymen of South Africa form a “blackleg-proof” union to keep
them out? And for what? Not to raise wages, or reduce hours of labour-and so get the unemployed taken on-but in order to get a share in the management and help to reduce working costs-and, incidentally, their own members. As it happens, they have a “joint management” arrangement of that kind in operation at present. They have what is called a “suggestion scheme” under which anyone clever ,enough to devise something that will enable the management to get rid of one or two of his comrades-or more likely of himself-gets a “prize” of five or ten bob. Fortunately, owing either to the instinctive wisdom or the inherent stupidity of the workmen, or to the jealousy of the “management,” only the most senseless proposals are ever submitted or accepted. Do not imagine that I have failed to understand your scheme of “National Guilds.’’ I have not. On the contrary, I have studied it closely and admire it very much. But much as I admire it I feel that there is something wanting. I feel for one thing that after forming your “National Guilds’ ‘ by means of “blackleg-proof” unions, you could only prevent the creation of more “blacklegs” -I presume the present supply would be starved out meantime-by reducing the hours of labour of the Guild members in order to counterbalance constant improvements in productive processes. I want to see the “blacklegs" first absorbed into industry by this very process. Then, by all means, let us have “National Guilds,” or H.J. POUTSMA. what you will. *** “CENTRAL, EUROPE” : A New STATE. Sir,-In your issue of February 10 you make reference to the proposals regarding the new “Central Europe” generally associated with the name of Dr. Friedrich Naumann. Your three-line summary of Dr. Naumann’s proposalsis quite explicit, but there are one or two comments on the subject which might perhaps be added by way of elucidation. The first indications of this proposed Central European policy were noted by careful readers of the German newspapers technical organs as far back as the winter of and 1914-15, after the enemy had been thrown back from the Marne and had failed in his attempt tu reach Calais. From that time, now more than a year ago, the Germans appear to have realised that no further wide successful offensive on the western front could be made, and in consequence they turned their attention to the east and south. This was especially the case after the stringent blockade inaugurated by our Order in Council of March 11, 1915, in consequence of which it became the main object of German policy to “break through the ring.” Towards the end of last summer the want of certain suppliesbegan to be felt rather acutely, and it was at this period that the “Berlin to Bagdad” proposals began to become very popular in Liberal and Conservative political circles. At this point Dr. Naumann appeared on the scene with his proposals. I should perhaps say in passing that Dr. Friedrich Naumann is one of the most profound and brilliant economists of modern Germany. When still a young man he abandoned the church for politics, and he has been for years one of the best known members of the Reichstag. His essays on artistic subjects and on Asiahe has travelled widely-deserve more attention than I propose to give them at the moment. It is sufficient to observe for the present that Dr. Naumann has differed very considerably from other modern German economists in that he has invariably adhered to the principles of free trade. It is not unimportant to remember this characteristic when we come to consider the views he has expressed on the new Central Europe. Perhaps at a later opportunity you will allow me to quote from his book, so that his views may be presented in his own words. In the meantime I may mention particularly chapters three, four, five and seven of his volume, in which he refers to the possibilities of Central European development. What Dr. Naumann and those associated with him particularly aim at is a customs union to comprise Germany, Austria and Hungary as a nucleus, with Bulgaria, turkey, and possibly Serbia also added, if this can be found practicable. As you know, it has long been customary for representatives of the Austrian and Hungarian Parliaments to meet every two years in sessions known as Delegations. This is the term used in France, England, and other countries as the equivalent of the more comprehensible German expression “Ausgleich,” i.e., settlement or exchange. These Delegations have really little interest for outsiders, since they are concerned with
matters of a technical nature relating purely to AustriaHungary, such as the settlement of their common as distinguished from their individual finance, the adjustment of trade balances etc. Dr. Naumann and his colleagues propose apparently that this system of Delegations shall for the time being extend to settlements between Germanyand Austria, between Austria and Turkey, between Bulgaria and Austria, and so forth, in order that ultimatelywhat may amount to a system of free trade will in effect be established between a self-contained economic territory stretching from the North Sea to Asia Minor. Without specifically saying so in so many words, Dr. Naumannindicates that Prussia will certainly take the lead in organising this territory, although he admits that difficulties of race, language, and religion will always prevent it from being welded into a single harmonious political State. He is not indeed concerned very much with the political point of view, but rather with the economic potentialities of this new area, which, for the sake of convenience, is to be known as Central Europe. It is when, in his last chapter, Dr. Naumann goes into the question of organisation that he departs to some extent from his old and well-known free trade basis: free trade, certainly, in his proposed economic State; but military and economic aggression beyond its bordersthat is the programme of his school, expressed without nicety of diction. In the appendices of his volume Dr. Naumann contrasts the productive activity of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Balkans, and Turkey, not merely one State with another, but with the rest of the world; and I should add that this aspect of his propaganda has been eagerly taken up by economists generally throughout Germany and Austria. It has been pointed out, for example, that the few copper mines in Serbia, even though they are hardly exploited at all at present, nevertheless manage to produce some 30,000 tons of copper each year-apparently about one-tenth of the amount which Germany wishes to import from overseas-but it is calculated that oversea imports of copper would become unnecessary if the copper mines of Serbia and Asia Minor were properly exploited by German expert managers, German machinery ; and, when necessary, skilled German workmen. As with copper, so with rubber, cotton, ironore, tobacco, and many other commodities, for supplies of which Germany has previously looked either to the United States or to British colonial possessions. So enthusiastic did people become in Germany over this project that high expectations were based upon the defeat of the Serbians and the consequent opening of the route to Asia Minor. These expectations were sensibly modifiedby the “Berliner Post,” which pointed out that, while Germany would eventually get many kinds of suppliesand raw materials from Turkey in Asia, it would first of all be necessary for experienced German managers and supervisors, and, above all, German capital, to be employed for a minimum period of five years before adequate results could be expected. By following this plan Germany and Austria in particular would become in effect self-contained nations, i.e., they would receive their necessary supplies, not from beyond the ocean, but from neighbouring States forming an integral part of the same gigantic economic unit. Machinery, chemicals, dyes, and other products would of course continue to be exported to oversea nations, but fewer essentials and more luxuries, or an any rate articles which could be dispensed with at a pinch, would be received in return. At a time of crisis, in consequence, a blockade of Austro-German or Balkan waters would not be calculated to interfere with the immediate necessities of this new Central Europe. One fact should be emphasised, and has been touched upon already by Austro-German supporters of the Central European movement, and that is that the partial realisation of this plan is possible even in the event of the Central Empires being defeated-a hypothesis, of course, which is assumed in Germany merely for purposes of argument. It is held that even if the Central Empires are defeated in a military and political sense, even if both the Emperor William and the Emperor Francis Joseph are dethroned and their Empires broken up into small States, the economic bond will still hold good. It is assumed, very naturally, that if the Allies want an indemnity it will not be to their interest to annihilate the Central Empires and their partners economically, and indeed no succession of military defeats can affect the natural economic resources of Germany, Austria-Hungary , Bulgaria and Turkey. These States are rightly regarded as being complementary to one another. We are bound to admit that there is much that is
fascinating in this scheme; but from our point of view there is much that is dangerous in it also. We have seen in the course of eighteen months’ fighting how far the leaders of Prussia have been able to go in consequence of their political and economic control of both the Central Empires, plus Turkey and Bulgaria. What is now suggestedis that such economic and financial defects as exist shall be remedied by a much closer connection of the countries concerned, by the organisation of industry and agriculture, and by the. placing of the political trust in the hands of Prussia-the home of this gigantic organisationto be used for purposes of military and economic aggression, free trade in Central Europe being counterbalanced by a tariff war against the rest of the world. Perhaps at a later date I may have an opportunity of explaining in your columns some further developments of this unique scheme. HENRY J. NORTHBROOK. *** "LETTERS FROM Holland.” Sir,-it should not be necessary to request you to acknowledge your responsibility for the headline, which “confuses the issue.” Please to let this letter act as your deputy and transfer this terrible load of blame from my innocent, to your guilty, pen. HOWARDINCE. *** ENGLAND AND TURKEY. Sir,-.It is unnecessary for Mr. Pickthall, to recapitulate his pro-Turkish propaganda of the last three years. We all know it now; and I repeat that, even on Mr. Pickthall’s own partisan showing and with his special pleading, the case he makes out for an alliance with Turkey cannot compare with that for an alliance with Russia and our other present Allies. It is difficult to understand how Mr. Pickthall can still maintain his assertions that England has so often been offered the control of Turkey’s affairs, when we now know the duration and extent of German financial influence in Turkey. There are some things beyond the power of politicians even in the best organised countries ; revolutionary countries dare not run counter to economic forces. It is equally futile for Mr. Pickthall to explain that my letter containing the evidence of his many inaccuracies showed me to be inaccurate in a single unimportant fact. By a slip, which may be equally apportioned between me and your sub-editor, one date (and one only) ‘in all my letter was wrongly given. Mr. Pickthall will find no other inaccuracies, search as he may. But I will undertake to find as many more terminological inexactitudes in his articles and correspondence as your readers might desire. I mention only one here. Mr. Pickthall has persistently asserted that Lord Hardinge is unpopular in India as a Russophil. Yet not only has his whole term of office been marked by his exceptional popularity (I have been an Anglo-Indian in his time and I know) but the recent appointment of a new Viceroy has led to an appeal in the chief Indian papers for a further extension of his term A. H. MURRAY. *** CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS. Sir,-The No-Conscription Fellowship are satisfied, and it would seem justly, that the Prime Minister has entirely misunderstood the position of the conscientious objector. They refuse to be projected by their consciences into barbed wire entanglements instead of trenches, and into mine-sweepers instead of mine-layers. It is pointed out, for instance, that just as the mine-sweeper is expected to abolish some mines, it is expected to suffer others-those, namely, laid by its own side. Service on a mine-sweeper is tantamount, therefore, to deliberately countenancing the existence of engines for the destruction of human life, when one has the means and the power to remove them. Now, passively to sit still and beam at a mine which you know is intended to kill other people (a function which it is very adequately fitted to perform), and which you possess the means of rendering innocuous, is not in essence, it is argued, distinct from giving active assistance in the work of destruction. It is now, I think, generally recognised that the line between combatant and non-combatant duties is no hard and fast affair; the one shades into the other by imperceptible degrees, and it becomes in practice impossible to draw any satisfactory line whatever between them. Just as the limits within which one can be said to be engaged in the taking of human life are not easy to
define, so the distaste, to use the mildest word, which so many feel at the prospect owns no single source. The feeling, it feeling it be, isheterogeneous; nor is it always necessary to invoke belief in the Deity to guarantee its sincerity. With many it is indeed purely religious. They can conceive no possible meaning for the Sixth Commandment, “ Thou shalt not kill ” except “Thou shalt not kill,” no gloss in the shape of an exemption certificate granting immunity for the killing of Germans having yet been inserted in any of the texts. Their conscientious objections, then, simply take the form of refusing to be forced to break the Commandments. Others feel a moral prohibition in the matter, which, being unanalysable, they call conscience, therein following the example of Bishop Rutter. As, however, we do not know what conscience is, in the sense that ,we cannot describe it (for we are always being assured of its uniqueness-that is, the impossibility of describing it in terms of anything else), it will be very difficult to prove that we possess it, for we may be talking about something else all the time. Still, that does not alter the fact that it is conscience. With others it is a matter of culture. The idea revolts them asthetically. Indeed, there are many motives, to some of which we may afford approval, and to others not. Whatever the grounds, however, the fact remains that conscientious objectors decline to be projected into minesweepers, and are emphatic in declaring their resistance to the clause. They are immediately overwhelmed by the objurgations of those who, possessing a smattering of political science, thunder about political obligations and duties to the State, as though they had been baptised in Plato and nourished on J. H. Green from their childhood upwards, and were thereby invested with the authority of these philosophers. The philosophical argument they so grossly misinterpret is simply this : Man is a social being. It is only therefore by existence in Society that he can develop his full nature and realise all that he has time to be. Beyond, therefore, the more obvious benefits, such as electric light, cheap literature, and education, which he receives from the community, he is indebted to it for such civilisation as he possesses, for the security from violence guaranteed by the laws, and for that development of his personality which contact with his fellows alone can produce. Such benefits entail corresponding obligations. A man should be prepared to give his services to the society to which he owes the fact that his nature is what it is. Furthermore, democratic government is based on the consentof the majority. It is therefore the duty of a minority not actively to obstruct the general will of the majority as embodied in government. Such is the perfectly valid theory which is dictated to countenance the coercion of conscientious objectors. Admitting the truth of the theory, we may dispute its application. Consider the most rigid and conscientious supporter of the doctrine in question, who, finding himself unable to acquiesce in the duties which the State seems likely to require of him, and disapproving of its general policy, is unwilling any longer to receive the benefits the State bestows.Not wishing to perform his part of the bargain, he honestly releases the State from performing its part. What should a person so placed do? He should leave the community. But in the present instance such secession was not permitted. Many conscientious objectors, scenting conscription, tried during. the autumn to leave the country, not wishing to be a nuisance and an expense to the community by remaining and resisting conscription. The State which then refused to grant them passports to leave the country cannot now complain of the injustice of conscientious objectors in creating difficulties which they foresaw, but which’ it refused to allow them to prevent by their own action. Secondly, an important distinction should be drawn in the application of the above theory which has been widely overlooked. Passively to abstain from obstructing the will of the majority is one thing. Actively to participate in something of which you disapprove is an entirely different one. For instance, you may disapprove strongly of giving religious instruction in elementary schools. The will of the majority may decree that it should be so given. In this you would acquiesce, and your reason for acquiescing would be that the majority are not commanding you personally to teach the subject to which you object. The same distinction holds in the present case. The
them out? And for what? Not to raise wages, or reduce hours of labour-and so get the unemployed taken on-but in order to get a share in the management and help to reduce working costs-and, incidentally, their own members. As it happens, they have a “joint management" arrangement of that kind in operation at present. They have what is called a “suggestion scheme” under which anyone clever .enough to devise something that will enable the management to get rid of one or two of his comrades-or more likely of himself-gets a “prize” of five or ten bob. Fortunately, owing either to the instinctive wisdom or the inherent stupidity of the workmen, or to the jealousy of the “management,” only the most senseless proposals are ever submitted or accepted. Do not imagine that I have failed to understand your scheme of [‘National Guilds.” I have not. On the contrary, I have studied it closely and admire it very much. But much as I admire it I feel that there is something wanting. I feel for one thing that after forming your “National Guilds’: by means of “blackleg-proof” unions, you could only prevent the creation of more “blacklegs” -I presume the- present supply would be starved out meantime-by reducing the hours of labour of the Guild members in order to counterbalance constant improvements in productive processes. I ,want to see the “blacklegs” first absorbed into industry by this very process. Then, by all means, let us have “National Guilds,” or H. J. POUTSMA. what you will. *** ‘‘CENTRAL EUROPE” : A NEW STATE. Sir,-In your issue of February 10 you make reference to the proposals regarding the new “Central Europe” generally associated with the name of Dr. Friedrich Naumann. Your three-line summary of Dr. Naumann’s proposalsis quite explicit, but there are one or two comments on the subject which might perhaps be added by way of elucidation. The first indications of this proposed Central European policy were noted by careful readers of the German newspapers technical organs as far back as the winter of and 1914-15, after the enemy had been thrown back from the Marne and had failed in his attempt to reach Calais. From that time, now more than a year ago, the Germans appear to have realised that no further wide successful offensive on the western front could be made, and in consequence they turned their attention to the east and south. This was especially the case after the stringent blockade inaugurated by our Order in Council of March 11, 1915, in consequence of which it became the main object of German policy to “break through the ring.” Towards the end of last summer the want of certain suppliesbegan to be felt rather acutely, and it was at this period that the “Berlin to Bagdad” proposals began to become very popular in Liberal and Conservative political circles. At this point Dr. Naumann appeared on the scene with his proposals. I should perhaps say in passing that Dr. Friedrich Naumann is one of the most profound and brilliant economists of modern Germany. When still a young man he abandoned the church for politics, and he has been for years one of the best known members of the Reichstag. His essays on artistic subjects and on Asiahe has travelled widely--deserve more attention than I propose to give them at the moment. It is sufficient to observe for the present that Dr. Naumann has differed very considerably from other modern German economists in that he has invariably adhered to the principles of free trade. It is not unimportant to remember this characteristic when we come to consider the views he has expressed on the new Central Europe. Perhaps at a later opportunity you will allow me to quote from his book, so that his views may be presented in his own words. In the meantime I may mention particularly chapters three, four, five and seven of his volume, in which he refers to the possibilities of Central European development. What Dr. Naumann and those associated with him particularly aim at is a customs union to comprise Germany, Austria and Hungary as a nucleus, with Bulgaria, Turkey,and possibly Serbia also added, if this can be found practicable. As you know, it has long been customary for representatives of the Austrian and Hungarian Parliaments to meet every two years in sessions known as Delegations. This is the term used in France, England, and other countries as the equivalent of the more comprehensible German expression “Ausgleich,” i.e., settlement or exchange. These Delegations have really little interest for outsiders, since they are concerned with
matters of a technical nature relating purely to AustriaHungary, such as the settlement of their common as distinguished from their individual finance, the adjustment of trade balances, etc. Dr. Naumann and his colleagues propose apparently that this system of Delegations shall for the time being extend to settlements between Germanyand Austria, between Austria and Turkey, between Bulgaria and Austria, and so forth, in order that ultimatelywhat may amount to a system of free trade will in effect be established between a self-contained economic territory stretching from the North Sea to Asia Minor. Without specifically saying so in so many words, Dr. Naumannindicates that Prussia will certainly take the lead in organising this territory, although he admits that difficulties of race, language, and religion will always prevent it from being welded into a single harmonious political State. He is not indeed concerned very much with the political point of view, but rather with the economic potentialities of this new area, which, for the sake of convenience, is to be known as Central Europe. It is when, in his last chapter, Dr. Naumann goes into the question of organisation that he departs to some extent from his old and well-known free trade basis: free trade, certainly, in his proposed economic State; but military and economic aggression beyond its bordersthat is the programme of his school, expressed without nicety of diction. In the appendices of his volume Dr. Naumann contrasts the productive activity of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Balkans, and Turkey, not merely one State with another, but with the rest of the world; and I should add that this aspect of his propaganda has been eagerly taken up by economists generally throughout Germany and Austria. It has been pointed out, for example, that the few copper mines in Serbia, even though they are hardly exploited at all at present, nevertheless manage to produce some 30,000 tons of copper each year-apparently about one-tenth of the amount which Germany wishes to import from overseas-but it is calculated that oversea imports of copper would become unnecessary if the copper mines of Serbia and Asia Minor were properly exploited by German expert managers, German machinery ; and, when necessary, skilled German workmen. As with copper, so with rubber, cotton, ironore, tobacco, and many other commodities, for supplies of which Germany has previously ‘looked either to the United States or to British colonial possessions. So enthusiastic did people become in Germany over this project that high expectations were based upon the defeat of the Serbians and the consequent opening of the route to Asia Minor. These expectations were sensibly modifiedby the “Berliner Post,” which pointed out that, while Germany would eventually get many kinds of supplies and raw materials from Turkey in Asia, it would first of all be necessary for experienced German managers and supervisors, and, above all, German capital, to be employed for a minimum period of five years before adequate results could be expected. By following this plan Germany and Austria in particular would become in effect self-contained nations, i.e., they would receive their necessary supplies, not from beyond the ocean, but from neighbouring States forming an integral part of the same gigantic economic unit. Machinery, chemicals, dyes, and other products would of course continue to be exported to oxersea nations, but fewer essentials and more luxuries, or an any rate articles which could be dispensed with at a pinch, would be received in return. At a time of crisis, in consequence, a blockade of Austro-German or Balkan waters would not be calculated to interfere with the immediate necessities of this new Central Europe. One fact should be emphasised, and has been touched upon already by Austro-German supporters of the Central European movement, and that is that the partial realisation of this plan is possible even in the event of the Central Empires being defeated--a hypothesis, of course, which is assumed in Germany merely for purposes of argument. It is held that even if the Central Empires are defeated in a military and political sense, even if both the Emperor William and the Emperor Francis Joseph are dethroned and their Empires broken up into small States, the economic bond will still hold good. It is assumed, very naturally, that if the Allies want an indemnity it will not be to their interest to annihilate the Central Empires and their partners economically, and indeed no succession of military defeats can affect the natural economic resources of Germany, Austria-Hungary , Bulgaria and Turkey. These States are rightly regarded as being complementary to one another. We are bound to admit that there is much that is
Press
Cuttings
“Sir,-Your correspondent ‘North Staffs’ has contributed criticism of a recent lecture by me, with the a courteous title ‘The kind of rubbish we oppose.’ This criticism shows such profound misunderstanding of the lecture that I suspect ‘North Staffs’ of being the gentleman who ostentatiously read the ‘Daily Express’ during the greater part of the hour. “He begins by suggesting that I regard the bellicose as moved by impulse and the pacifists as moved by reason. My whole lecture, on the contrary, was concerned to represent both sides as moved by impulse, and to show that impulse is essential to all vigorous action, whether good or bad. ‘Blind impulses,’ so I contended, ‘sometimes lead to destruction and death, but at other times they lead to the best things the world contains. Blind impulse is the source of war, but it is also the source of science and art and love. It is not the weakening of impulse that is to be desired, but the direction of impulse towards life and growth rather than towards death and decay.’ And again : ‘It is not the act of a passionless man to throw himself athwart the whole movement of the national life, to urge an outwardly hopeless cause, to incur obloquy and to resist the contagion of collective emotion. The impulse to avoid the hostility of public opinion is one of the strongest in human nature, and can only be overcome by an unusual force of direct and uncalculating impulse; it is not cold reason alone that can prompt such‘ an act.’ “Having misrepresented my thesis, he continues : ‘There is no doubt that this provides a happy method of controversy for general use by pacifists. They thus avoid the necessity for any tedious examination of the actual arguments used by their opponents, by depriving these arguments at one stroke of all validity.’ If ‘North Staffs’ has such a love of ‘tedious examination’ as he suggests, I would refer him to ‘The Policy of the Entente’ and ‘Justice in War-Time’ (both published by the Labour Press), where he will find that I have set forth the detailed discussion which I presupposed in the lecture. “He proceeds to suggest that the difference between him and me is one of ethical valuation. No doubt this is true on the surface. But ethical differences usually spring from differences of impulse. ‘Whole philosophies, whole systems of ethical valuation, spring up in this way : they are the embodiment of a kind of thought which is subservient to impulse, which aims at providing a quasirational ground for the indulgence of impulse.’ ‘This difference of opinion will seem to be ethical or intellectual, whereas its real basis is a difference of impulse. No genuine agreement will be reached, in such a case, so long as the differences of impulse persist.’ (These again are quotations from the lecture.) “I cannot imagine what led ‘North Staffs’ to his final exhortation not to ‘falsely simplify matters by assumingthat it is a struggle between the assailants and the defenders of privilege. It is not Democracy against Privilege.' There was not a syllable in my lecture to suggest to anyone who listened to It that I regarded the matter in this light. It is not democracy, but liberty, that is in danger. The persecutions of early Christians, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the Press Gang, and Conscription for the Unmarried, have none of them beer. contrary to democracy. But the tyrannous power of the State, whether wielded by a monarch or by a majority, is an evil against which I will protest no matter how ‘negligible’ may be the minority on whom it is exercised.” Mr. BERTRAND RUSSELL in the “ Cambridge Magazine,” February 12. “Fitting out transports. Unions entrusted with work. . . . The experiment of entrusting the various Unions concerned‘ with the work of fitting out transports has been decided upon by Mr. Jenson, Minister for the Navy. As stated in the ‘Melbourne Age’ last week, he has decided to terminate the contract for the work existing- with a private firm. A statement with regard to the new policy was made yesterday by Mr. Jenson. He said that he had decided that in future this work would be performed by the department itself in Melbourne. During the past eleven months the work had been entrusted to a private firm, who were receiving a certain percentage of all costs of labour and material for such supervision. As this was found of late to be very tinsatisfactory, the
Minister decided to take the very bold step of entrusting the work to various Unions. A foreman from each Union, such as the Plumbers’, Carpenters’, Shipwrights’, Electricians’, Builders’, Labourers’, Painters’ and Dock Painters’ was appointed. The Minister decided to make each of these foremen responsible to the construction branch of the Navy Department. It was the intention of the department to buy the whole of the material at first cost for these Unions to handle. The Minister added that he realised the step was a very bold one. To entrust the Trade Unions with the work was a revolutionary step He had, however, personally asked each foreman to do the fair thing towards the department and to the men, and the foremen had assured him that this would be carried out. The Unions selected their own foremen, and they were gratified to think that the Minister had given them a chance to show what they could do when entrusted with responsible work.”-“Melbourne Age” (Australia). “Let us suppose that our newspapers realise their high calling. They will not only give us honest news. They will also try to evoke and to express the best of the national spirit, to sustain the nation’s unity of purpose, to stimulate the courage and the endurance of our manhood and of our womanhood: they will sternly expose both the dangerous slackness of workers, and the grasping avarice of profiteers (such as those now charging 300 per cent. of their pre-war prices for munitions) . . . with a few honourable exceptions, the newspaper men are even more securely in the pockets of the commercial interests than are the politicians. What the commercial interests desire, that you shall see advocated in the Press. Do the masters of industrial England desire conscription ? Then (until the time is ripe) their politician-servants will whisper it, with caution : but the newspapers blazon and blase it aloud as with trumpets. Again, the commercial interests desire for their own ulterior purposes the conscription of men, but they would like total silence upon its companion measure, the conscription of capital. Nothing easier. The journalists, being paid talkers, whose business is to think of only such proposals as suit the class for whom they speak, find no difficulty in nagging men into dedicating their lives to the State, and yet preserving a well-drilled silence on the prior idea of surrendering capital for the use of the State. Some few of the journalists aspire to oust the lawyers from the governance of the nation. If the lawyers are to man the Cabinet and direct the Empire in peace and war, the ambitious among the newspapers desire to direct the lawyers. But the trouble with both lawyers and journalists is that, being like the parsons, divorced from the active and productive concerns of the world, they can, and do, so easily become mere talkers. And this is much more palpably true of the journalists than of the politician-lawyers, whom they criticise, since the latter are at least testing their words by responsible action when they assume office. Not so the journalists; they never assume office. They never step into the ring : they remain for ever outside the ropes and shout.”-“The Venture” (Bristol). “The cultivation of science demands not a keen nose for profits, but a sincere love of knowledge, an intense passion for discovery. You cannot apply the methods of the counting-house to the laboratory without inviting disaster. ”-“Freethinker. ” “The profits of shipowners are criminal. A year ago shipowners held up coal-owners to public obloquy. The Italians, our Allies, are justly furious at the cost of coal. So also are the French. According to shipowners on the Tyne, and I know many of them, there is absolutely reason why freights should not be controlled as no completely as railways are controlled. The weight of the shipping vote, however, especially in the Board of Trade, tells against cheap freights. Fortunes are being piled up by all shipowners outside the big liner companies.”ARNOLD WHITE. “Millions of pounds are lost every year in this country through‘ workers not being encouraged to suggest improvements in manufacture. ”-Mr. SEEBOHM ROWNTREE.
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