<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TEI xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" xml:id="mojp001082">
<teiHeader>
<fileDesc>
<titleStmt>
<title>The New Age Volume 25, Number 22</title>
</titleStmt>
<publicationStmt>
<idno type="cdi" n="mojp001082"/>
<idno type="metsid" n="1165373106656250"/>
<p>later</p>
</publicationStmt>
<sourceDesc>
<p>later</p>
</sourceDesc>
</fileDesc>
</teiHeader>
<text>
<body>
<p>
NOTES OF THEWEEK . . The INDUCEMENT TO SUPER-PRODUCTION : A DIAGRAM. Major C. H. Douglas By . TOWARDSNATIONAL GUILDS IN ITALY-VIII. By Odon Por . NORTHERN LIGHTS-I. By Leopold Spero . DRAMA: The Choice. By John Francis Hope . LANGUAGEAND SELF-KNOWLEDGE. By P. A. Mairet ON THE Translation OF POETRY-IV. By P. Selver
ART NOTES. By B. H. Dias VIEWS AND REVIEWS: The Problem By A. E. R. . of “Hamlet."
REVIEWS : Anatole France. The Great Change. Tales of Florence. The Inferno . LETTERS TO THE EDITOR from Theodore Maynard, J. A. M. Alcock, Kenneth Richmond, W. N. PASTICHE. By Ezra Pound, H. R, Barbor . Phyllis Mraks,
NOTES
OF
THE
WEEK.
THE effect of Mr. Lloyd George’s speech at the City Temple last week shows that there is magic in his personality yet. Though everybody knew that Mr. Lloyd George’s past has been paved with similarly good intentions similarly expressed, and though for months they have nearly all been saying that Mr. Lloyd George must really go this time, the daily and even the weekly journals have been somehow or other seduced back to their unwilling allegiance. Even the “Nation” hints that a warm welcome would await the erring prodigal if only he would add deeds to words; and the introductory speech of Dr. Clifford, with its complete obliteration of the past, is further evidence that the great heart of Nonconformity-that is to say, of England-is still prepared to beat in unison with the great Welsh preacher. It is a phenomenon for which we ourselves have been always prepared; and it therefore comes as no surprise to us. While Mr. Lloyd George, like another Odysseus, was away on his travels: the political suitors at home have been boasting of what they could do with his bow. They have been wooing Penelope. But he has only to return and to deliver a few speeches and to go through his accustomed tricks to send his would-be successors into the shades of minority. Mr. Henderson, for example, may imagine that a General Election would put a Labour Government into power ; and he is certainly prepared to exploit the miners’ grievance or any other grievance for the sake of the attempt. Lord Robert Cecil’s friends may feed him on royal-jelly in the hope of making a queen-bee of him in place of Mr. Lloyd George. In the end, however, it remains true, as it has been true ever since Mr. Asquilthcast a shadow on the prestige of Yorkshiremen, that Mr. Lloyd George can stay in office as long as it suits him. Nobody at present can turn him out; and if he goes it will be by his own deliberate act. *** It is needless to say that we have not written this in praise of Mr. Lloyd George or of his ideas; for the truth is that Mr. Lloyd George has notions only, but no ideas in the large sense of the word. On the other hand, since politics abhor a vacuum, and notions are better than nothing in the absence of ideas, Mr. Lloyd George’s notions are not only as good as anybody
else’s, they are elastic enough to change their shape with circumstances. At least they are not simple prejudices. Moreover, to the best of our belief, all his opponents and rivals and critics, practically without exception, are committed, not so much in words or in promises as in native conviction and ignorance, to certain positively incorrect and sterile hypotheses whose very nature excludes the possibility of building a counter-programme upon them. Let us take, for example, the problem of the coming winter, or rather, we may say, the problem of the coming generationthat of prices in relation to fixed incomes, and of both to unemployment. On this cluster of problems we agree with Mr. Lloyd George’s critics that he has nothing to say that is of more than an opportunist value. He does not know how to reduce prices; he cannot devise a means of raising wages without stirring into renewed activity our old friend, the vicious circle; and, finally, he has not the faintest idea how to prevent unemployment. All that is agreed. But then, not only have his critics no idea of any of these things either; but, unlike Mr. Lloyd George, whose mind, if empty, is always open, they have stopped up the avenues to their intelligence with positive untruths of the most opaque quality. They literally cannot see the truth even when it is held in front of their minds; and for this reason, while, as we say, we agree with them when they accuse Mr. Lloyd George of superficiality, must turn upon them with the charge of we incapacity. *** We will take the pains to transcribe here a few dicta on the relation of wages to production, and afterwards to discuss them. They are taken, it will be seen, from diverse sources, and thus reveal a common poverty. Let us first cite Mr. Brownlie : “Many of my friends,” says Mr. Browlie, “fail to appreciate the very important fact that wages are paid out of production; and that if we are to get an increase of real wages, we must increase our production as a means of lowering prices. We stand to gain by increased production.” The next quotation is from the current issue of the “Round Table”: “Since wages are paid out of production, production must be increased.” To a like effect an “Ex-Judge” (not Lord Wrenbury, who, as we shall see, has an ignorance all his own) writes in the “Times” : “The only source from which wages
can be paid is the produce of the labour. Wages paid out of capital-except in the case of newly-started industry-mean bankruptcy. ” Finally, for our present little collection of specimens, we select this passage from a recent speech by Mr. Clynes : “A greater yield of commodities is essential in order that an abundance of products should pull down prices, and place upon the market all the things which are necessary for the improved living, cheaper food and clothing of which the workers are in need,” It will be obvious, we imagine, even to the variety of groups here‘ represented, that they speak with an astonishing unanimity considering their origins and avowed purposes. Who would have thought, for example, that Mr. Brownlie would have found himself echoing the “Round Table” ; or Mr. Clynes the economic opinions of an "Ex-Judge”? And our selection, as our readers know, is incomplete; it was gathered, in fact, from a desultory and a chance reading of a few recent journals. Without much exaggeration, indeed, we might say that there is scarcely a publicist to-day of any school of political or economic thought who is not convinced that wages are paid out of the produce of labour ; and, in consequence, that to raise wages we must increase production. Own up, we would say to our public men: is it not the truth that you are all convinced, whether you call yourselves Liberals or Unionists or Labour or Fabian or just nothing whatever, that “since wages,” in the words of the “Round Table,” “are paid out of production, production must be increased” ? *** If the premisses are correct, the conclusion is correct also-saving for considerations which "production" introduces and which we have discussed on a previous occasion. That is to say, that if it be correct that “wages are paid out of production,’’ then (under proper definition) it is certainly a necessary procedure, assuming increased wages to be desirable, to increase production ; for, obviously, if production is the source of wages, and Labour or policy demands that wages should be raised, we must be prepared to increase production as a means to our end. That is undeniable. But setting aside for the moment the question we have recently raised concerning the kind of production it is proposed to augment (for Would anybody say that clothing must be cheaper because we increase the production of motor-cars?) ; and another and more recondite question concerning the effect on cash purchasing -power of an increase in the amount of credit in currency-let us ask ourselves whether, indeed, it is the fact that ‘(wages are paid out of production”; whether, indeed, the premiss on which the case for increased production mainly rests is true, that wages are a share of the product and vary or even tend to vary with the amount of the product. An “Ex-Judge,” it would appear, has reservations in his assertion, for he allows that wages are not paid out of production “in the case of newly-started industry”; but is it the fact, we ask, that they are ever paid out of production, or that they can ever be said to be “a share of the product”? To begin, as Socrates taught us, with simple things, let us ask whether the oats provided for the horses or the power and oil supplied to the machinery or the raw materials and other stuffs whose use and consumption (or transformation) are essential to industry are paid cut of production or set up in any way a claim to a “share in the product.” Is it not clear that these expenditures are conditions of production, and that their existence and provision are pre-requisites of the product? The product simply does not come into being unless these are first supplied: and hence, so far from their being a share in the product, or paid for by production. they are necessarily prior to production, 2nd must have been paid for (in some form) before the production has yielded its product. It is true, of course, that out of the proceeds of the sale of the
product, the manufacturing proprietor (‘pays for” the commodities consumed in the course of his production ; but the point to observe is that these commodities exist in advance of the further act of production, and are, in fact, in an “Ex-Judge’s’’ use of the word, “capital.” In short, it would ‘seem that the “Ex-Judge’s’’ exception is the rule; namely, that all wages are paid out of capiltal, and not out of production. *** That is not the only conclusion, however, that emerges from the discussion. To return to our Socratic horses and machinery-is it the fact, we ask, that the amount of corn fed to the horses or the amount of power or oil supplied to the machines either varies in practice or even tends to vary with the amount of the product of their labour or output? We can imagine a farmer giving his horses an extra feed after a good harvest, or even a manufacturer insisting upon a better lubricant for his machines after a season of exceptional prosperity; hut trifles apart, is there in general any necessary relation between the amount of corn or oil required and the amount of the product of the industry? It is agreed, we imagine, that there is not. But since wages are only the cost of the “corn and oil” of the workman, and tend, as we say, to fall always to subsistence-level ; since, in this respect, they do not differ from the provision necessarily made, if production is to be carried on for the stock and the machinery and the raw material of industry-it surely follows that no more than horses or machinery can Labour be said to “share in the product.” Labour, indeed, like horses and machinery and raw material, shares in the production; is, in fact, like them, a condition of production, a means to production; but, exactly as the “share” of horses is fixed by their need, and the “share” of machinery by its need-the “share” of Labour is the cost of its subsistence; and this, as we have seen, falls, in the first instance, upon past production rather than upon the future product. Assume it to be the case, therefore, that production is enormously increased in consequence of the appeals of Mr. Brownlie and Mr. Clynes. That more work will be provided is possibly true-though only possibly in face of an increasing mechanical efficiency; that more work may mean a greater demand for Labour and hence a rising wage is also true-other things being equal. But the true cause of the increased wages will not he the increased production, but the increased demand for Labour; and this would be true even if the increased demand did not result in increased production. Look at the facts. Wages rose during the war, that is to say, while production in an economic Sense was declining in amount daily. Wages have been falling ever since. while production has been steadily increasing. Is it not obvious that wages have nothing to do (directly) with the amount of the product; but are “paid out of” pre-existing production, that is to say, capital? The practical deductions are no less plain. *** The fallacy in which Lord Wrenbury has indulged (in a leaded letter to the “Times’’) is less respectable than the fallacy we have just been exposing. It is less respectable because it is now quite old enough to know better. “The argument,” says Lord Wrenbury, “that it is useless to have an abundance of commodities, if people are too poor to buy them is no answer to the proposition that if there is poverty there will exist employment if there is capital Everyone. has in himself the power to command commodities to the extent to which he can do useful work. The existence of his want creates the demand for labour to supply his want.’‘ If we were to venture into the shere of law and to lay down the proposition that the common law of England requires grapes to grow on thorns, we should expect to be laughed out of Lord Wrenbury’s Court as the least of our well-merited punishments for
intellectual trespass. Similarly, if some Cambridge Professor were to presume that, of course, the moon is only partially composed of green cheese, and not wholly, as some Oxford Professors thought, the world in general would be entitled to smile. Why, then, does nobody smile when Lord Wrenbury, an expert on law, ventures into economics and maintains there a proposition as discredited as the fairy-tale of the constituents of the moon? To say that need without money constitutes an economic demand for labour; to say that the ability to do useful work is command over commodities; to say that where there is poverty there is employment-all this is either wretched and callow nonsense or it is nothing. The addition of the phrase “if there is capital” may possibly be the loophole through which Lord Wrenbury’s reasoning has escaped; but, in that event, his statement amounts to saying that if there is capital there may be employment. The intellectual “output” of such a process of reasoning is not very large. *** According to the “New Statesman,” “the revolutionary Labour movement is steadily passing over into the Guild-Socialist idea, under that name or no name.” Is Mr. Henderson, then, among the revolutionaries? For we find him announcing at the International Brotherhood Congress held last week that “the democracy, conscious of its power, will no longer he frustratedin its demands for a real share in the business of government and the control of national policy. . . . The workers demand a higher standard of life and an altogether higher status in industry. . . They were as much opposed to bureaucracy as to capitalism . . . they meant to have nationalisation of ownership with a share in management.” Where, we wonder, have we heard these phrases before? It was not in the “Sew Statesman,” dead before it was born. They are unfamiliar to the speeches of Mr. Henderson. Can it be the case that they have percolated upwards from their dim source into the mind of Mr. Henderson; and that he is saying today what the unnamed said several yesterdays ago? We risk the affiliation and declare that the “New Statesman” and Mr. Henderson-the Old Statesmen, for short---are still behind the times by several months. The “demands” which, according to them, democracy and the workers are now making are still servile demands-demands for a share in management, a share in control, a share in poIicy, a portion, for the love of Man, in the crumbs of the governing class’s table. The new spirit, however, is one that demands and takes, not a share in responsibility, all the responsibility that properly belongs but to its function, whatever that may be. And since the function of Labour is to control Capital, nothing less than the full responsibility of controlling Capital is the demand of Labour that is not servile-that is, controlled Capital. by *** It is not surprising that no capitalist journal has remarked upon the peculiar, unique and revolutionary proposal contained in the American Plumb Plan for the creation of a National Railway Guild-the proposal to issue credit on the operating ability only of the working personnel of the Guild. It is not the habit of our financially dependent Press to draw attention to foreign precedents that might conceivably be followed here to the disadvantage of its patrons. But it is a little surprising that in all the accounts and analyses we have read of the Plumb Plan in our soi-disant free and independent Press, we have discovered barely a trace, and certainly never more than a trace, of appreciation or even of recognition of the first genuinely revolutionary proposalever adopted by a considerable body of official Labour. It is not as if the idea were publicly associated with writers in this ‘country of whom our “brothers”, take no official cognisant-for reasons best known to psycho-analysts. We protest that we have had no hidden hand in the formulation of this part
of the Plumb Plan. That suspicion apart, we can only, therefore, suppose that our “New Statesman’’ and “Daily Herald” journalists either have no adequateknowledge of the real nature of the Plumb Plan, or, like one of the reviewers of the latter journal, believe that things like finance and credit and money and currency are of academic interest only. Certainly these subjects are not suitable to perorations about Brotherhood; neither do they appeal to a class of readers imagined to be absorbed in boxing and cinemas. But since the Plumb Plan is likely to convulse American Labour, if not, indeed, America; and may thereafter find its way to this country, as a menace to European Capitalism, it is surely the duty of such journals not to misrepresent it by omitting its most striking feature. *** The capitalist conspiracy to ignore the problem of currency or to treat it as if it were only a remote, overintricate or academic problem-a conspiracy, as we have observed, in which many Socialists play the part of innocent confederates-cannot, however, be much longer carried OR in complete silence. The war-debt is not of a size to be overlooked; and when it comes to paying in interest alone nearly five hundred million a year-a sum more than double the total Budget of prewar clays--out of a national revenue only susceptible of increase at the hands of an increasingly reluctant Labour-the questions where the money goes and where the money comes from are not likely to be regarded as whimsically pedantic. Already, indeed, in the columns of the “Times” and elsewhere, the cats are cautiously being let out of their bags in order to see which way the public will cause them to jump. Will the public follow the advice of Mr. Havelock Wilson and, “shouldering the debt” (we should like to see Mr. Wilson doing it), ‘‘make it good by more production and harder work”? Will Labour be kind enough to produce the equivalent in commodities of all the commodities produced, destroyed and priced during the war; in short, work the war over again to the profit of the interests that have already profited by it? That is one possibility. Another is that by the “deflation of currency,” chiefly by means of restoring the ratio between gold and paper-prices can be reduced-to the advantage of the class that happens to possess all the gold. Still another is the adoption of the belated proposal to make a Levy on Capital for the purpose of paying off the war-debt; a device exactly comparable in its method and effects to “writing down” the monetary valuation of the assets of the capitalist classes. There are other animals to come out of the bag; and some that will never be allowed to appear. *** We are naturally gIad to see that the three main unions of postal workers have now formed a single Amalgamated Union of Postal Workers : and it is no less gratifying that the need of a General Staff should be recognised to the extent of eleven permanent fulltime officers with an advisory counsel. But we protest, with thousands of the rank and file, against the preposterously high salaries (none of them below a year) which the Executive proposes to pay to each of these eleven (or twelve) officials. Still more unfortunate was the argument employed by Mr. Stuart Running to make his recommendation palatable “AS a Union working for model conditions of employment for its members, it was their duty,” he said, “to be model employers themselves. ” It should be superflous to point out that a Union engaged in war-albeit civil war -is not on all fours with an association of commercial employers. Reform cannot he expected to pay its agents. Moreover, high salaries are no inducement to good reformers nor are they any insurance against chicanery or desertion. The more undesirable from the commercial point of view an office of reform can be made; and the more desirable from the point of view of honour-the better the type of man attracted to it.
In the above diagram the shaded portion shows the growth of the cost of an article (or, equally, of the production of a community) under the bank-credit (so-called capitalistic) system, by the successive addition of all the sums paid out in all forms of remuneration, as shown in the vertical columns. The cross-hatched portion of the vertical columns shows the money-value of the cost of living of the persons amongst whom the remuneration is distributed ; this represents over go per cent. of the sums distributed as wages and salaries. In the case of large individual incomes, although considerable surplus purchasing power is available, there is no psychological demand, except for the purpose of “making money.” There is consequently increasing surplus production which must be met by credit. an If the above statements are correct for any industry chosen at random, they must be true for all industry. Consequently an increasing proportion of the product of industry must be appropriated by the financier and the entrepreneur who control credit, in contradistinction to the ultimate consumer who does not. It should, of course, be borne in mind in connection with the above diagram that the economic system is dynamic, not static. All the components of it should be visualised as changing both in position, direction, and magnitude. A vector diagram could be constructed to represent the condition, but would not be generally intelligible.-C. H. D.
Towards National Guilds in Italy.
By Odon For. VIII. WE have mentioned several times that the co-operative farms were founded at the beginning almost exclusively by farm labourers or small holders who worked all or part of their time as salaried workers, as they had no savings to invest in buying or leasing land on a scale sufficient to their needs. These labourers, organised in the first instance in unions, later grouped themselves co-operative societies of labour for the execution in of reclamation and other works. Their unions and co-operatives of labour assisted them to form their third type of organisation, the co-operative farming societies, advancing them the necessary sums to get over the difficulties of the first year or the first period of experiment. The unions often loaned them the amount of the first rent or guaranteed the payment of the rent to the landowners or vouched for their bills. In many cases the co-operative stores opened a credit to the co-operative farms or leased the fields directly and turned them over for cultivation to the co-operative farms, In several cases private sympathisers, who
saw with pleasure the advance of the labourer:, made advantageous terms to the co-operative farms for the paying of the rent. In the heginning the co-operative farms were riot sufficiently large to absorb the whole labour of their members; these worked part of their time on the private estates in the vicinity of their co-operative farm or for their co-operative of labour, and lived on the wages thus earned: the rest of their time being spent on their co-operative farming enterprise ; there they drew no wages, and very frequently turned over to the co-operative treasury small sums-their daily savings -either as loans or as instalments or, their shares subscribed, forming in this way the initial working capital. In other cases they drew only part of their wages from the co-operative farm, Ieaving the rest in the treasury for the running expenses. In certain where Socialist co-operative stores flourish, districts, the co-operative farms issued Labour coupons to their working members upon which the co-operative stores advanced in credit what the labourers needed. As soon as the co-operative farm began to sell its produce it withdrew its coupons and paid in cash. Often banks advanced the rent, hypothecating the produce.
In all these cases accounts were made up at the close of the agricultural year. .We must not overlook the essential fact in the situation. The monopoly of labour, held by the unions of agricultural workers arid stabilised by their various collective enterprises, reacted not merely on the wage scale, but also on the progress of co-operative farming. In many localities where the monopoly of labour is actually realised or is rapidly consolidating itself the private landowners or great tenants not only lease outright the land to the co-operating farmers, but even open for them the necessary credit or guarantee their bills; for the simple reason that this has become the only feasible way for them to secure reasonable profitsand raise the value of their land. The monopoly of labour obliges the landlord either to quit business or to transfer his fields to the labourers’ organisations. Where the landlords are reluctant to employ much labour, on account of the high wages established by the unions, and prefer to leave their lands uncultivated or not cultivate them extensively, it often happens that the organisations invade the land and begin to plough and sow it. In the face of this accomplished fact, the landlords can do nothing else but yield, and lease their fields to the co-operative farmers. A first co-operative farm in any locality serves as a stabiliser of wages : in case of a strike for higher wages the farm labourers of the whole locality rely upon their co-operative farm and co-operative of labour, while the higher wages finally obtained serve to strengthen the co-operatives. In every locality there are Labour Exchanges, controlled by the unions, upon which the landlords rely for their labour. In the earlier stages, the co-operative farms served to relieve unemployment; now the farm labourers work on the private estates when their co-operative farm has no need for them, and the shifts are regulated by the Labour Exchanges. In several localities, however, the co-operative farm is absorbing the whole labour of its members. Thus, through the unions and the various types of co-operatives, what has been hitherto called the “Labour Market” has been virtually abolished. Consequently the landlord must yield all along. By means, of this complex movement the wages of land labourers had been raised considerably during the last decade or so; and, in consequence, savings are not unusual amongst farm labourers and peasants, with the further result that it is possible now to found co-operative farms with sufficient paid-in capital for a successful start. Recently, a great co-operative farm was founded in the Province of Modena with about 150 members, each of whom paid down at once lire into a sinking fund. Now that the movement is strong--even irresistible in many districts-because it is experienced and has been successful in improving and increasing production, and the private banks are beginning to offer abundant credit, not only for the paying of the rent, but The banks are also for the buying of the estates. making less and less objection to the Socialist tendenciesof the movement. Even Catholic banks finance Socialist co-operative farms, since they have become an economic and social factor with which one must count. Private capital is thus financing its own lease of life! Capital furnishes the means by which Labour is enabled to pay an indemnity for its expropriation. Practically, it amounts to this. At present, co-operative stores, farms and co-operatives of labour, together with individual farm labourers and peasants, are about to found small local banks for the financing of their organised activities. A fundamental factor in the consolidation of the co-operative farms is the general custom of not distributing the net profits in the form of dividends, but reinvesting them in the collective enterprise. The rules of the co-operative farming societies lay down strict
regulations for the distribution of profits, e.g., the important Co- operative Society of Fontanella (Province of Parma) establishes that net profits should be employed as follows:-40 per cent. for sinking fund; 50 per cent. for the members’ mutual aid fund; and 10 per cent. for the shareholders as instalments on the amount they have subscribed for shares in the society. When the shares have been fully paid off, the said 10 per cent‘. goes to create a special fund for the technical instruction of the farm labourers. The members are paid for their work at regular union wages. The statutes establish that if for urgent reasons non-members are temporarily employed they must be paid union wages. All inducements to individual profiteering, or the exploitation of outside labour by the group as a whole, are rigorously cut off. The statutes of the co-operative farms affiliated with the Federation of Agricultural Co-operative Societies for the Province of Ravenna establish the distribution of net profits in the following way:-5per cent. for the capital paid up by the shareholders, providedthat this sum shall not exceed 5 per cent. of the whole capital. As no member is allowed to hold more than four shares, and the value of each share never exceeds lire, the maximum dividend of each member less than a pound per year; is per cent. for the reserve fund; 5 per cent. for a fund of instruction; 80 per cent. to the members and the auxiliary workers in proportion to the work actually executed. by them or to the wages paid them. As a matter of social discipline, as well as of actual practice, these 80 per cent. dividends of the labour invested in the social enterprise have never been distributed, but are always added, by a vote of the General Assembly of members, to the sinking funds. Only by such methods could the farm labourers have enormously increased the value of their collective undertakings. For instance, one estate owned and managed by the Federation of Agricultural Co-operative Societies of the Province of Ravenna is valued to-day at three and a half million lire, the paid-up capital included. This single estate pays every week on the average 200,000 lire in wages, or about million lire per year, to its members. The whole policy of the Federation and of its affiliated societies has converged from the outset upon investing all profits in machines, tools, improvements of land and live stock, and in the leasing or buying of more fields; in short, upon enlarging and equipping the collective enterprises. All co-operative farms are now making substantial profits, but to no member does it occur to ask for his share individually. For a deep change has been taking place in the mentality and point of view of the farm labourers : they want not individual but collective property ! They want to satisfy their desire to control their own life, and work through collective ownership and organisation. They want to see their efforts crowned by the progress of their organisations. This deliberate way of acting and growing collectively breaks up the traditional egoism of the peasants, and creates those moral conditions which, presumably, will prevail in the social future. A new public opinion is forming in the villages where co-operative farms exist, and new moral ties are establishing themselves. The farm labourers and peasants are abandoning the consideration of momentary and individual economic interests, and seek only to progress collectively through the progress of their institutions. They are by now convinced that their individual prosperity-if at all realisable-would be very short-lived, and that only through collective organisations, engaged in actual production, can they control their own future. Nobody is able to keep pace with the movement; every day new co-operative farms are founded, or existing co-operatives are leasing or buying new fields. ‘The farm labourers strengthen and increase their in-
stitutions deliberately, for they consider them as the guarantees of the agricultural future of Italy, irrespective of the methods by which this future may otherwise be inaugurated. They are convinced that to them and to their organisations will ultimately fall the task of managing agriculture for the nation; and they are deliberately strengthening and preparing themselves for this event. It follows that they do not think twice when fields are offered them for sale. They buy even at the current high prices, which must decline, they believe,very soon. But they are stirred and guided by a passion of social construction, and nothing can or will stop them. The movement is, as we have seen, diffused and multiform ; the forms of organisation adapt themselves easily to the local type of agriculture and the general conditions of a locality. Now, the relations between co-operative stores and co-operative factories and cooperative farms begin to become more organic. Some co-operative farms produce almost exclusively far COoperative stores, making contracts for the whole year ; this makes it possible for the stores to sell cheaper, and facilitates the work of the farms, for they have an assured and regular market. However, the co-operative farmers do not want to become workers engaged by co-operative stores; in other words, it is impossible in Italy that a co-operative store should buy fields and manage them as a capitalistic concern; anyway, such a type of enterprise would not be considered in Italy as a Co-operative farm,, for the co-operative farms are created principally to abolish the wage-system, and the farm labourers will never allow the introduction of spurious forms of co-operation. Recently, the Food departments of the various Municipalities and the co-operative stores founded by the State for its employees have made contracts with co-operative farms for the regular supply of farm products, with the effect of eliminating the middlemen profiteers and reducing considerably the current prices. The loans which the banks have granted hitherto to the co-operative farms were usually in the form of short-dated bills to cover the more urgent running expenses, or for the payment of the rent. There is no bank in Italy for the exclusive purpose of financing technical progress in agricuIture, the introduction of which takes several years, and necessitates long loans. Only in rare instances could the co-operative farms get credit through the usual channels for the improving of the land and for the purchase of fields. During the war the intensification of agriculture has become a national issue, and the co-operative farms were first tu undertake more intensive cultivation regardless of profits. The State has recognised their merits, and has issued several Decrees providing fiscal facilities for their business transactions, and allowing the banks to open accounts for the co-operative societies against special forms of guarantees as, for instance, control over the produce, live stock, machines, etc. Thus the banks are enabled to issue long loans and to aid agricultural progress. A recent law obliges the banks under State control to finance, at very advantageous terms, the purchase of fields by the Agrarian Universities. Most active in financing the co-operative farms is the National Credit Institute for Co-operative Societies. This bank was founded in 1913; it is under State control; the State has subscribed A substantial part of its capital, and the great private hanks and semi-official savings banks have subscribed the rest; moreover, the State has repeatedly put great sums at its disposal for the financing of co-operation in general and co-operative farms in particular. The bills accepted by it are endorsed and discounted by all the big banks of the country. This bank alone financed in 1918 more than 318 co-operative farms, cultivating about acres
with 125,000 members, accepting their bills for over 14 million lire, as against four million lire in the preceding year. In the most important centres this Institute, together with the National League of Co-operative Societies, has established and keeps running special bureaux, whose task is to enlarge the co-operative movement and assist the existing co-operatives with practical advice re technical, administrative and legal problems. They are running special courses to qualify young men-often labourers-for managerial positions in the co-operative societies.
Northern
Lights.
By Leopold Spero. 1.-A Very HIGH SEA. THE grey old stewardess looks into my cabin, and murmurs half-comprehended words of sympathy. In no matter- more than that of sea-sickness does an idle boast come sooner and surer home to roost. One ate freely in the Humber of all the delicacies that a Swedish tramp provides to the July passenger secure in the selfconstituted rank of a Captain of the “Pinafore.” Alas for calculations disproved and pride humbled in the midnight spindrift of the North Sea, for helpless stumblings down hatchways under the twisted smile of a disreputable moon, for long and undignified hours supine in the little. cabin, not so much unable as afraid to rise arid walk upright, as befits a man. And yet, through all the distress of body and shame of spirit, there went a sound instinct which laid down what might be attempted with safety, nay, even with the draggled remnants of dignity, and what could not be essayed without the certain penalty of shameful failure under the eyes of tactless apprentices and scornful stokers come up to Heaven for a breath of fresh air. So by degrees it came to a seat aft by the log that twirled its line in the foaming wake, while in a sky at length blue again the yellow sun, like some monstrous tailor, span out the measure of the days. A crumb of hard barley bread might now be taken with the bottle of Vichy water, an apple munched from the portmanteau where it had lain for two endless days, contemned and disregarded. The chastened stomach urged the soul to seize this grand opportunity and inquire into the higher causes of things while the lower appetites were in the irksome but finally benevolent process of discipline. But the warmth and salt breezes and the first sight of the low Danish coast, where the kind waters of Skagerack make the traveller feel again his mastership of Ocean and all the winds of Aeolus-presumptuous ingrates that we axe !-bring the mind back again to earth and human comforts and baubles for the five senses, to catch at and play with. The little Captain, tolerant and hospitable, sits down now and points out where Skogen lies, shows a mine we have just missed by yards; German, of course, you suggest, and are a trifle shocked to find he thinks it is probably an English one. Then he shows you the wreck of a good ship gone aground ; German, you hope again, and are again wrong. It was an English ship. Without a doubt, these are no friendly shores which you approach, despite the personal good-fee!ing between yourself and the little Captain, and the big first mate, whose dark, clean-shaven face with its side-whiskers, “ of moderate length,” make you baptise him Escamillo and wonder where he keeps his Carmen. You are inclined to wager that he keeps more than a few; he has already as good as admitted that there is one waiting for him in Gothenburg. He is fond of life, this marine Escamillo, envies the Captain his two cases of whisky, has at his finger ends all the lore of seaports from Bergen toConstantinople-and yet there is an air about him that commands respect, an attention to business which can but make leisure taste all the sweeter. After the Skagerack, Denmark fades unaccountably away, while one moves into that other geographic
mystery of youth, the Kattegat. It is difficult to treat either of these respectable inlets with fitting respect, not only because of their mild arid tolerant dispositions, but because they strike the ear as the Tweedledee and Tweedledum of hydrography, with whom the very fisherfolk are scarce minded to be serious. And yet there is nothing frivolous about this coast of south-west Sweden, a hard and barren coast fenced by innumerable keys of grey and purple granite, whereon hardly a green thing grows. The pilot comes amazingly out from among the inhospitable rocks, and bobs like a cork in his tiny boat by the side of the steamer, what time the boy makes fast and slings an old rope-ladder over the side. There is a homely presage of kindly feeling to all men in the air, a touch of welcome long since departed from the shores of warring lands, perhaps never to return. An untidy German cargo boat lies at anchor close by, pathetic enough in its obvious futility and neglect“ senta situ,” a modern Virgil might say. One shakes one’s fist, half comically, half in earnest; and the Captain, he who was so deferential and anxious to please the Defence of the Realm Act in Hull, smiles disapprovingly. We are no longer in the territory of partisanship; we are in the land where it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. The pilot is a brisk young man, polite and bright and capable. He brings us without delay into the deep and narrow harbour of Gothenburg, crammed with Yankee steamers hurrying to build up a Mercantile Marine in two minutes, menaced on all sides by towering masses of granite cliff, on top whereof are perched churches, museums, antique and savage castles, red brick factories. The boat is brought to anchor under the strong hand of Escamillo, while strangers clamber aboard and are greeted as old friends by the little Captainand treated to the treasured whisky. The greyhaired stewardess has not been so busy for days. Cigars, papers, peps, and ink appear, chairs are set in order round the little saloon table, and Formality is ushered to her throne. All four of the official visitors are in uniform; and then appears a civilian, an unbelievably harmless youth in a black coat and bowler hat, who is nevertheless announced in tones of grave concern as the Detective. He makes inquiries about one’s history, polite but unshakeable in his resolve to have nothing hidden. All must be told, without reserve or modesty. One looks harmless enough. to the outward eye; but seeming innocence may hide unheard-of crime, murder, forgery, peculation, bigamy. One might even be a Bolshevik, and thus compendiously comprise all evil things that are in the wicked world. There was an old man on that steamer, an aimless, rugged old man, who took no orders, but came and went the ways that pleased him. Once he was seen to take a brass lamp in his hand, and go slowly and with deliberation, but without any air of compulsion, about the work of cleaning its discoloration into the brightness of shipshape and Bristol fashion. He lived amidships, in the vague region where the first engineer has his abode. He rarely spoke to anyone, but said his “ Good morning;” with solemn politeness, and pottered away on unhurried and mysterious errands. The little Captain would nod tolerantly when he passed, and exchange a gruff word. Now behold him suddenly attired in shore-going kit, a heavy bag of English flour in his hand, ready to step into the small boat with the Passenger, the second stewardess, one deck hand going on shore leave for an hour or two, and one other to row the boat ashore and take it back afterwards. The genuine Passenger felt a strange sense of impropriety that these professional seafaring folk should pose as passengers. The tortuous path through the romantic litter of the harbour was robbed of much of its importance in such company, even though the Stewardess and the Liberty Man chattered gleefully as if the landing was a rare treat to them
also, a delightful consummation of the wishes of three lonely weeks. When the boat at length pushed its nose into the landing stage, and parcels, baggage, and the more precious human freight were lifted ashore, the Liberty Man shouldered the Passenger’s portmanteau and led the way to the road where the tramway ran. This was a fit and proper proceeding. The little Captain had said, in a casual, diffident sort of way : “Ay tink you do not find place in a hotel in Goteborg. All is filled up. You go and stay with my ole Mo’er, two, t’ree days.” The Passenger, bowing to the decree of a Providence which seemed to devote a great part of its time to the consummation of his own convenience, was graciously pleased to fall in with the suggestion, and that the Liberty Man should act as luggage porter was obviously in the general scheme. Yet here was the old man joining himself to the party, bag of flour and all, boarding the same tramcar, alighting at. the same point, nay, even trotting soundlessly behind to the identical door of the Passenger’s final destination, entering in at that door and vanishing familiarly into the recesses of the trim, tiny flat, that bristled with “ Souvenirs from Ramsgate ” and “ Presents from Falmouth,” what time the kind and charming hostess bade her unexpected guest a generous Swedish welcome, and the Liberty Man, pocketing an unanticipated crown, pulled a friendly forelock and departed for the bosom of his own family among the green, yellow, and brown wooden shacks of Maiorna. It appeared, then, that the silent, antique Slave of the Lamp was the little Captain’s Ole Fader, once a sea captain himself, and now just as much a Passenger as anyone else, but modest and seemly in his state! Them was some hurried but most salutary rearrangement of ideas and prejudices while the young man and the old lady stood in embarrassment, neither knowing more than a Word or two of the other’s language, both smiling, ready to be friends, unable tor say so. . . . Fortunately, it appeared there was a Niece on the premises who had lived in England. To her the Passenger conveyed his sense of the impropriety of his appearance on that peaceful threshold; and through her he received the assurance that he was welcome, that the room should be made ready for him, that the table would be set for the voyager’s meal--in fine, all the marks of gentle courtesy that lies in no single class or race, but in the hearts of decent men and women all the world over, no less in my people than in yours. Later on, deep in the evening, Escamillo, clothed en fete, sat thoughtfully and without much gaiety in a tram, and greeted the Passenger as a welcome distraction from the gloom of his thoughts; for he, too, had an Ole Father, and there was bad news in that quarter. Escamillo shook his head, his handsome mouth drooped at the corners. It seemed that the old man had been stricken down with a stomach trouble, far from home and the care of his wife. There would be no festivity for Escamillo that night. He must go and see his Ole Father. The Passenger suggested timidly that he would like to come, too; the Passenger’s selfishness had grown somewhat less of an obsession in the sobering atmosphereof a big city of strange building. and an unknowntongue. ‘The two men traversed the streets of light and shadow, the murmuring park where the coloured lights of the trams shone through the trees. It was a night of Youth, of soft whispers and sparkling eyes. The old man sat on a couch in the dining-room of a second-floor flat. A bed had been improvised for him by the impassive landlady, who opened the door to let the visitors in, and retired at once to her own quarters without further care or concern. He lay painfully, but without complaint on his rugged Viking’s face, with the white beard sticking out obstinately from the strong
chin, and a fighting look in infinite tenderness Escamillo wrinkled head, asked how recovery, spoke of the journey
the grey-blue eyes. With bent over and patted the he was, prophesied quick over arid of the Passenger.
Drama,
By John Francis Hope. IT is always pleasing to see good acting, and not often do we see so much of it in one play as is now to be seen in “The Choice” at Wyndham’s Theatre. Mr. du Maurier, like a more exalted personage, doeth all things well; and a cast that includes himself, Mr. Leon Quartermaine,Mr. Gilbert Hare, Mr. C. V. France, Miss Mary Rorke, and Miss Compton, is not one to be forgotten. These are not merely “popular favourites,” they are artists, who put to shame all the theories of “autocratic” production about which we argued so much a few years ago. Instead of abolishing “stars,” Mr. du Maurier has made a constellation of them; and the ensemble, which was supposed to be the patent of the “producer, ” is perfectly, because instinctively, realised, while the characters are completely individualised. Du Maurier, as ever, uses what I call the “Phil May” technique, nothing superfluous, but everything positively significant, a minimum of apparent effort securing By the side of Mr. Leon a maximum of effect. Quartermaine, he seems stark, gaunt, a very Baresark of simplicity ; for Mr. Leon Quartermaine never plays a part but he imbues it with his own peculiarly vital intelligence, his own abounding humanity, his own subtlety technique. Certainly one of the most graceful of actors on the London stage, as well as one of its finest elocutionists, his genius for expression adds a rare richness of character to his impersonations, and if Du Maurier excels in showing certain types of men as they seem to be, Mr. Quartermaine excels in showing them not only as they ought to be but as they appear to the imagination. Even the play is above the ordinary; Mr. Sutro is never afraid to tackle a real problem, although he seldom rises above an official solution. He has the political rather than whet we may call the philosophical turn of mind; and he states his problem and his solution in terms of action. Instead of revealing character, he exhibits it; we get from him veridical portraits, but not those flashes of insight into common human nature that pass into proverbs and enrich both the language and the intelligence. The conflict between Love and Duty is as old as religion, is, in one sense, the essence of religion; but it cannot properly be staged in the person of a “strong, silent man.” It is the everlasting tragedy of the artist, of any man who has a vocation of any kind; and the fact that, at some point, such a man has to choose between his work and a woman is a simple but strong corrective of the sentimental assumption that the activities of the sexes are co-extensive and can be harmonised. On this side the problem is, in Biblical language, “as deep as Hell,’’ and to attempt its statement and solution on this level would tax the resources not only of a great dramatist but of a great poet. Perhaps Love is to women what Duty is to men, a categorical imperative that permits no other allegiance; certainly, in the form in which these problems are generally presented to human beings, they seem incapable of comprehension in a larger synthesis, and the compulsory choice batween two vital goods constitutes the Hegelian definition of tragedy . Mr. Sutro, as I have said, keeps nearer the surface of things than this, states the problem more practically and in a form that is more debatable on political grounds. His John Ingleby Cordways is a great capitalist,who holds the opinion (and acts on it) that the interests of Capital and Labour arc identical, and require that the capitalist shall have a free hand in the direction of industry for the benefit of the workers and the country at large. That this is a seriously contested proposition, that even as a social philosophy it is countered by the more liberal philosophy derived from the maxim, “Selfgovernment is better than good government, ” Mr. Sutro does not reveal, What he does reveal is that his
‘‘ YOU had a good passage? ” inquired the old man, in fair English. The Passenger said .he thought there had been a very high sea. “ Ah ! ” said the old man, and nodded his head. There came into his eyes the look of far adventure, of many things seen and done in distantlands. . . . ‘‘ He’s an old North Sea skipper,” explained Escamillo with all the pride in the world, as a father himself might speak of a worthy son. “Sailing and steam ships, too.” He stroked the old man’s cheek. The Passenger, ill at ease, looked round the gaudy, comfortable room for inspiration, but found none. He asked the Viking, fatuously enough, where he had been sailing; but the question pleased by its very naivete. “Ay bin to America-many times, yas. And all other places.” His eyes lit up at the memory of all those other places. The Passenger asked if he remembered the Great Eastern, and his eyes lit up again as he spoke of the hulking, useless monstrosity, which was yet a presage of better things to come. “Dey had to launch her in two bits,” said the Viking, with just a touch of the old wind-jammer’s malice at the failure of these new-fangled contraptions. His colour had returned ; he settled himself more comfortably in -his blankets. The Passenger caught Escamillo’s eye, and turned his gaze toward-, the clock on the mantelpiece. Escamillo nodded and smiled. He was quite reassured now. Things were not so bad with his Ole Father. He rose, bent lovingly over the fine, gaunt figure on the couch, caressing his father’s hands and head as though he had been a woman. They said good-night. Down below, the narrow street was quiet beyond belief. The steps of the two men rang out on the pavement like the strokes of a hammer on the anvil. Yet the city had not gone to bed. “ Very little doing hers? ” suggested the Passenger. Escamillo frowned, biting a reflective thumb. ’Then his face lit up, as with an idea of rare brilliance. “ We will walk in the Park,” said he. “ There is a Band, that plays. A Military Band.” There was. It sounded like the worst band in Europe, and was probably one of the best in Sweden. But it was-an excellently tailored organisation, and the clerks and pale-faced, lively shop-girls, and the students of both sexes, in their white-peaked University caps with the yellow and blue button of Sweden, and the ,profiteers at dinner on the Teutonic, brilliantly flaring Terrasse, heard nothing but the sweetest harmony in its outrageous discords. ‘‘ Glad your father was better,” said the Passenger. And Escamillo smiled. THE PRELATE. proud cathedral and its pomps, days are darkened with regrets, oftimes a distant shore and his partners mending nets. palace when I sleep, a stately bed, a lonely Christ wherein to lay his head.
Prince Yet For I And
of this all my behold Peter
At night in this vast A pious prelate in I bear the burden of With no sure place
Upstanding in the midst of this vast host Of yearning folk, who bow their heads to me, I see afar the scoffing crowd that gave A patient Christ to death on Calvary. And clad in robes as sumptuous as kings’ I pray that my great gain may not be loss, My inward gaze fixed on the meek-eyed Christ Exposed in nakedness upon the Cross. Frederick L. MITCHELL.
capitalist control of industry (for whose benefit is irrelevant)does require a discipline modelled on that of the Army. The capitalist is the “captain” of industry; he gives orders (in this case that a certain man shall not drink intoxicating liquors), and when those orders are disobeyed claims the right not only to degrade that man, but to dismiss him from the army of industry. Mr. Sutro, with a fine pretence of impartiality, allows to Jack Aincliffe all the virtues except the necessary one of obedience. He was a hero, with the Military Cross, the Croix de Guerre, and I know not what; he was passionately fond of his work, he was even that remarkable phenomenon a foreman beloved of his subordinates. His so-called “drunkenness” was minimised to the toxic effect produced by a little alcohol on a man who had been twice gassed. Three times had he been warned; and now, though the men struck, though the Press criticised, though his very board of directors disagreed, though his beloved pleaded with him, though the very heavens fell, John Ingleby Cordways insisted on his right to control industry €or the benefit of everybody but himself by dismissing Jack Aincliffe. The choice that he is compelled to make is not the choice with which the enlightened capitalist of to-day is being confronted ; he does not have to choose between imposing his discipline on the workers and letting the workers develop and impose their own discipline. His beloved appeals to him, certainly on ethically illegitimate grounds, but grounds not less natural than human ; she has pledged her word that jack Aincliffe shall be reinstated, he refuses to honour it; she pleads for the reinstatement as a personal favour, he refuses it, and she forces the issue to a choice between having his own way and herself. Although it breaks his heart, he will have his own way, and he faces his work of reconstruction alone. This is a legitimate development of the theme, and it is powerfully presented by Mr. du Maurier and Miss Viola Tree; but Mr. Sutro sentimentalises, in the anticlimax of the fourth act, his theory of the capitalist For he asks us to believe that control of industry. John Ingleby Cordways went to the men’s meeting, addressed it, and convinced not only the mass but the man, Jack, Aincliffe himself, that his regimental It is all very well to discipline of industry was right. crown a hero with laurels, but the autocratic capitalist has not won that battle yet ; he may compel obedience to his mandates for the time being, but he certainly has not convinced the workers’ sense of justice. His actions are challenged in the name of a different ideal, an ideal that Mr. Sutro does not state; and although the men may yield to force majeure, they do so convinced of its fundamental injustice. John Ingleby Cordways has a lot to learn yet about the labour problem; I did not notice one reference to the existence of such organisations as trade unions, for example; but, most of all, he will learn that he cannot, for the benefit of the capitalist control of industry, exploit the military virtues that patriotism evoked. But although “The Choice” contains no new or valuable contribution to pure or social philosophy, it is none the less a very skilful piece of drama which provides opportunities for very fine acting. Miss Compton, I believe, could make a character of the Court Guide, and Mr. Sutro gives her something much better than that for her part of Mrs. Malaprop. Mr. Gilbert Hare contributes another study of our “effete aristocracy” in his inimitable manner ; and Miss Mary Rorke, although she has little to do as John Cordways’ mother, does that little with a fine dignity. Among the subsidiary characters, Miss Irene Ward’s study of Jack Aincliffe’s sweetheart stands out as a masterly rendering of pathetic sentiment-and I dare not begin talking again of Mr. Quatermaine’s playing of Robert Dalman for fear of becoming hyperbolical. Let it suffice that the acting of “The Choice” reveals some of the resources
and indicates some of the possibilities of the London stage, and when our dramatists are courageous enough to write up to the level of our actors we shall be able to talk of the renascence of English drama.
Language
and Self-knowledge.
There arc many who think that introspection, or study of one’s own thought and feeling, is an especially modern habit-a modern vice, even, is the opinion of some. Although both the belief and the prejudice are mistaken, there are good reasons for them. For one thing, the very history of the English language seems to show that we have become more conscious of what passes within us. Mr. Pearsall Smith, in his little book on the English Language, points out that a new kind of words began to appear after the end of the Elizabethan age. These words are sympathetic names for states of mind, clearly derived from a special land of thought about oneself. Not only do many new words, such as aversion, daydream, dissatisfaction, ennui, chagrin, diffidence, apathy, take their place in the language after this time, but some older words denoting material objects or events, such as depression, constraint, embarrassment, and disappointment, begin first to be used to describe feelings. This accompanies a tendency to describe passions, moods, and sensations as they appear to ourselves individually. As Mr. Pearsall Smith himself says:“The older kind of names for human passions and feelings we may call ‘objective,’ that is to say, they are observed from outside, and named by their effects and moral consequences. . . . Most people must have felt at one time or another the incongruity of ugly names like greed or malice for feelings delightful at the moment; and a con-human observer from another planet might be puzzled to find that the passions and propensities that were called by the least attractive names were the ones that mankind most persistently indulged. ” But though the change in the language certainly accompanied an .important change in thought, that change was not really an increased introspection ; and, far from growing clearer, man’s consciousness of himself grew cloudier in the days when he invented softer words to name his moods. Shakespeare came before this change, and yet his characters are the chief dramatic types for intensity of inner life and trenchant self-criticism. Who could be more conscious than Hamlet of his moods and thoughts or judge himself so terribly as Macbeth? The fresher air of Shakespeare’s world is breathed by beings who know splendidly what they are and what is in their thoughts; the audience they delighted must have had something of the same clearness of mind. And the Renascence did not give this quality to Shakespeare’s age, but found it there : it was the Renascence, with its culture of personalities, portraits and characters, that began to obscure men’s vision of themselves. It is always difficult to see ourselves, and an excessively individualist philosophy makes it almost impossible. For that unconscious guardian of our consciousness which psycho-analysts call the “censor” is a power within us which, without our knowledge, suppresses unwelcome memories and prevents unwelcome thoughts; by his kind and unknown ministrations we remember chiefly our happier experiences, and the past grows more golden as it recedes. He does still more if he can. For the simple truth, the clear reason by which we must judge and understand men and the world is often an unpleasant thought in relation to our own directions of will and desire. Any thought that may impede an instinct may be unpleasant; and the “censor” becomes the enemy of true self-knowledge as he works on every truth that enters the mind and, more than half unknown to us, accommodates it to what we want.
Yet the censor’s power to pervert thought is limited while truth is believed to be absolute, and good and It is in the reign of evil things plainly classified. individualist doctrine that his power is greatest, where no truth is believed to be final, except that the personal sou! is separate from the whole world, a private thing and the really sacred secret. And the Renascence established this ego-worship and self-isolation : a thing serviceable for the acquirement of some kinds of knowledge, but the worst possible for knowledge of self. * A feature of the age of religion which came before this was the universal rite of confession, a regular exercise in self-criticism according to the same recognised criteria and ideals used in thought about others, and expressed in the same words. And among the important changes of post-Renascence life is an increasing disbelief that anything is absolute, or finally true, except natural physical law-is also a decline of introspectionas a religious exercise-and is, moreover, the growth of this new vocabulary of words by which to think more “sympathetically” of our own thoughts and feelings. These things accompanied a real change in human knowledge-a phenomenal expansion in science, or the knowledge of things, but an equally great decrease in self-study, or the knowledge of thoughts. Nature was studied for the first time with no reference to human needs, but to find the objective truth of her own customs; but this search for objective truth, in the spirit which we call “scientific,” was more and more completely given up in man’s thought of himself. Such forces as greed, lust, and malice, when experienced inwardly, were no, longer thought of in the same way or by the same words as when they appeared in the outer world. Not, of course, that self-deception dates from any special period; but the chief currents of thought at this time unconsciously strengthened and sanctioned man’s tendency to judge himself differently from other men, almost everywhere destroying the power of true introspection, which is the ability to know clearly, in one’s own thought and feeling, the same forces which are manifest in all human activities, good and bad. Introspection is often quite rightly condemned as an unhealthy tendency, for it is fairly common, and very disastrous, to study feelings in order to increase their pleasantness. But natural objects, to be used and controlled, require study; and so do thoughts and feelings, whether we regard these as natural or supernatural. And no one’s speech flows clear with truth who has not discovered and stopped the springs of falsehood in his own brain. What are the worst results from this loss of objective self-criticism ? Probably the commonest and most The sentimentalist dangerous has been sentimentalism. has succeeded not merely in softening or concealing his ordinary and crude instincts from himself, but actually in glorifying them would persuade himself and others that they are quite lofty spiritual motives. And a later fruit, no less poisonous, is the growth of language quite apathetic, generalised until it is without meaning. “Bore” and “interest,” according to Mr. Pearsall Smith, are words of late arrival in the eighteenth century, since when they have grown in currency so much that most of us know persons who would be lost to conversation without them. Psychologically, vague and ambiguous language is related to increased isolation, separation, and self-preservation. Before the invention of these and similar verbal anaesthetics one stated a liking or disliking by asserting some quality of the thing judged. Now we declare one of the least significant facts about an object (our individual reaction it) in the dullest, most generalised way, by the to adjectives “boring” or ”interesting. ” And, in the * It encourages the Censor to suppress all truth which is lese majeste.
end, to lose objective consciousness of self is to lose objective vision of nature: the glass grows dim and the image smudges. Our physical-intellectual being is the sensorium of Nature, but it is also one thing among other natural things. It is the mirror in which we view the world, but also part of the world, the part most necessary for us to know and work upon, and its value to us depends upon our knowledge of its natural distortions, how to test and correct them. The necessary work of correcting this only instrument we have to perceive the world with involves, with every individual student, individual, introspective work. He does not, as some imagine, sink into a warm bath of self-contemplation, but makes the coldest effort to regard his own organism as one among the others. P. A. MAIRET.
On the Translation of Poetry.
IV. THERE is, unfortunately, no lack of instances where translations which are, perhaps. admirable in themselves merely evoke head-shakings on comparison with their originals. In choosing examples, I have purposely avoided cases where the translator was hampered by exceptional difficulties in the rhyme-scheme of the original. These are matters to be investigated later. In his translations from Verlaine, Arthur Symons provides object-lessons both in how one should, and should not, translate poetry. So we get the tantalising ‘‘Art Poetique” rendered in an alternation of good and bad stanzas. To begin with, De la musique avant toute chose, Est pour cela prefere l’Impair Plus vague et plus soluble dans l’air, Sans rien en lui qui pese ou qui pose. appears as Music first and foremost of all! Choose your measure of odd, not even, Let it melt in the air of heaven, Pose not, poise not, but rise and fall. Why “rise and fall”? Mr. Bithell, by the way, produces the following, which, without audible comment, I quote for the sake of instructive comparison :Music as rich as the rose is ( !) Not equal lines pair by pair, But floating vague in the air, With nothing that weighs down or poses. The second stanza, which runs thus, I1 faut aussi que tu n’ailles point Choisir tes mots sans quelque meprise : Rien de plus cher que la chanson grise Ou l’Indecis au Precis se joint. is rendered by Arthur Symons in what seems to me an ingenious interpretation :Choose your words, but think not whether Each to other of old belong: What so dear as the dim grey song Where clear and vague are joined together? Mr. BithellLet not thy keen brain be racked (!) For words that cannot be wrong (!!) Dearest the drunken song That marries vague to exact. In his translation of the third stanzaC’est des beaux yeux derriere des voiles, C’est le grand jour tremblant de midi, C’est, par un ciel d’automne attiedi, Le bleu fouillis des claires etoiles! which is as follows‘Tis veils of beauty for beautiful eyes, ‘Tis the trembling light of the naked. noon, ‘Tis a medley of blue and gold, the moon And stars in the cool of autumn skies.
he lapses into that type of translation whose chief object, apparently, is to embroider and insert. As a result we are given veils “of beauty,’’ a medley of blue “and gold,” and then, for quite-obvious reasons, “the moon” appears, contrary to any expressed desire on the part of Verlaine. Considering that the original consistsof only four shortish lines, we cannot help feeling that we are here provided with a superabundance of Mr. Bithell comes off rather well :Symons. Veils making lovelier eyes, Noon’s shivering heat, and in warm Autumn evenings the swarm Of stars shining clear in the skies. To avoid becoming monotonous, I will conclude this comparison with the eighth stanza :De la musique encore et toujours ! Que ton vers soit la chose envolee. Qu’on sent qui fuit d’une ame en allee Vers d’autres cieux a d’autres amours. where Arthur Symons does himself credit with :Music always and music still! Let your verse be the wandering thing That flutters in flight from a soul on the wing Towards other skies at a new whim’s will. This is what Mr. Bithell gives us :Give us music more than of rimes! Let thy verse be a thing in the skies, Be it felt that a spirit flies To other loves, other climes. Now look at this : Nocturne IN G MAJOR. The night-wind sings and murmurs through the reed. The “I The The gold laburnum to my boat duth bend. wait; why dost thou linger to descend stone steps? Hush! make speed. night-wind sings and murmurs through swings and whispers
the recd.
to have excelled the original. The following extract from the speech of Max (Piccolomini, Act III, Scene 4) gives a tolerable idea of how it is done :For fable is Love’s world, his home, his birthplace : Delightedly dwells he ’mong fays and talismans And spirits; and delightedly believes Divinities, being himself divine. The intelligible forms of ancient poets, The fair humanities of old religion, The power, the beauty, and the majesty, That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain, Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms and wat’ry depths; all these have vanished: They live no longer in the faith of reason! But still the heart doth need a language, still Doth the old instinct bring back the old names. These thirteen lines represent seven in the original, the italicised portions being pure Coleridge I am willing to grant the merits of this passage as poetry, but I refuse to regard it as a translation at all, if that word is to be left with any intelligible meaning. On the other hand, Coleridge must be credited with having remarked in his “Table Talk” :-“. . . I do not admit the argument prose translations. for I would in general rather see verse in so capable a language as ours. The French cannot help themselves, of course, with such a language as theirs. ” But I am anticipating. Longfellow’s achievements as a translator are of a somewhat different order. He certainly cannot be accused of adding to his originals through an excess of poetical fancy. This, for example, is how he translates the haunting verses of August von Platen :How I started up in the night, in the night, Drawn on without rest or reprieval! The streets, with their watchmen, were lost to my sight, As I wandered so light In the night, in the night, Through the gate with the arch mediaeval. The mill-brook rushed from the rocky height, I leaned o’er the bridge in my yearning; Deep under me watched I the waves in their flight, As they glided so light In the night, in the night, Yet backward not one was returning. O’erhead were revolving, so countless and bright, The stars in melodious existence; And with them the moon more serenely bedight; They sparkled so light In the night, in the night, Through the magical, measureless distance. And upward I gazed in the night, in the night, And again on the waves in their fleeting; Ah, woe! thou hast wasted thy days in delight, Now silence thou light In the night, in the night, The remorse in thy heart that is beating. Of this it may fairly be said that Longfellow is more in the night than von Platen. The reader will see for himself that much of the diction is clumsy, “Now silence thou light,” for instance, being mere gibberish, Moreover, “The stars in melodious existence” are very dubious astronomical phenomena, while in the original the distance is neither “magical” nor “measureless. ” But what I wish to point out in particular are the shifts to which Longfellow is reduced in order to secure his rhymes. In the original there is nothing about “rest or reprieval,” which have to be inserted because of the “gate mediaeval” (this, by the way, is simply “Gothic” in the German text). For similar reasons the poet is gratuitously made to speak of his “yearning,” of the waves “in their fleeting,” and of days “wasted in delight.” By this ingenious method of eking out the ends of lines with rhymable tags of his own, Longfellow has considerably simplified the difficult art of translating poetry. If the matter mere as easy as he has made it for himself, I should not need to discuss it at this length.
The night-wind
round the boat.
The lake lies hushed-enfold me with thine arm, Give me thy youthful bosom, chaste and warm. (How red thy mouth ! how moist doth glow thy throat !) The night-wind swings and whispers round the boat. The night-wind shivers trembling through the reed.
Hark ! early birds--could such a rapture die ? Thou weep’st and sweet and sore weep I. The gate goes soft-the moon still lights the mead. The night-wind rustles shuddering through the reed. This is a translation by Miss Broicher of a rather effective little poem by Karl Gustav Vollmoeller. I do not intend to criticise it in detail, for without any further indications on my part, the reader will be able to detect where the English is harsh and clumsy. I am more concernedwith pointing out that the translator has supplied the “gold laburnum” (the original has “pale lilac”), the “stone” steps, the order to “make speed,” and, of course, the “mead” for the moon to shine on. It is an irritating example of how, for the lack of perhaps half an hour’s additional work, what might have been a good translation is left in a halting and imperfect state. A distinction may perhaps he drawn between interpolations which are deliberate and those which represent translator’s weak surrender to the demands of the rhyme. Deliberate interpolations are regarded by some as a special merit, although on what grounds I have never really understood. There seems to be a vague idea that they are a sign of strong poetical originality, and so because of his arbitrary additions to Schiller’s “Wallenstein,*’ Coleridge is alleged (even by Professor Saintsbury, who says “. . . the translation of Wallenstein, which to all but Germans, and to some of them, seems a much greater thing than Schiller’s own work”*) * “A Short History of English Literature,” p. 656.
Art Notes.
By B. H. Dias. GUY BAKER’S COLLECTION AT THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. THE NEW AGE “representative was this day permitted” to inspect the drawings from the Guy Baker collection now at the South Kensington Museum, and he can now firmly compliment England on having the most fecund and inventive draughtsman in Europe and on not having the public control of her galleries entrusted to an hopeless atavism like M. Leonce Benedite (of the Luxembourg). The French have recently been with us; M. Benedite has long, alas, been with the French; so have the Beaux Arts; and Paris was the artistic capital of Europe; Paris is, perhaps, the artistic capiltal in so far as she contains (possibly) a greater number of good artists than London. Derain is perhaps a little effeminate ; Marchand is an excellent portrait painter with abundance of technique ; Vlaminck can be most briefly described to an English. public by stating that he does, really does, what the London Group tries and fails to accomplish. Vlaminck is an excellent painter, in and out of the dynasty of Constable and Corot, whom he does not resemble. We does not paint in pretty-picture colours, but colours solidly comparable to chairs and doors and other objects. His white is white, his green is green, as pillar-box red is red. Our contemporaries would go to some length in describing the psychological rapport between M. Vlaminck’s temperament and his landscapes. I can but suggest that M. Vlaminck is a lyrist and that his chief technical interest, merit, lies in his colour and in the stern, broad application of it, and in a much more skilful “decomposition” or dissection or dissociation of colour than was to be found in the pointillistes. He is one of the most formidable painters in Paris at the moment. Piccasso is in London, is Spanish, and is by no means as fecund or as vigorous as the creator of the twenty-seven coloured drawings by Wyndham Lewis which I have just examined. And I think it is only with the final cataloguing and exhibiting of these drawings that the public, the limited public which has already seen Mr. Lewis’ war show and his “Timon,” will be in a position to judge Mr. Lewis, if not in entirety, at least with some adequate data. The drawings are as follows: CACTUS: three green figures, mood lyric, horn-player and figure leaning on pole. EARLYMORNING: two dark figures, tropic sun, simplicitybut skill in the conveyance of bright light unsurpassed so far as I know. FIRST IMPRESSIONS dramatic interest, : black and white. GOSSIPS: shows the Rowlandson attitude of mind, depiction of character, blue ink and green. MOONLIGHT musicians in the mode of the horn-player : in “Cactus,” the hollow moon, sylvan profusion. COMBAT massiveness : of the two central figures, energy not to be found in Piccasso, wholly different from Blake, who is the one English predecessor of Lewis in presenting dynamic energy, as is Rowlandson the one British forbear of Lewis in social satire. THEATRE MANAGER very early Lewis (drawn in 1909) ; : it has Daumier for its grandfather, but I doubt if Daumier has done anything better. AT THE SEA-SIDE:calm blue. Ninthly and tenthly, two satires on the human animal, the cat in man (and woman); the chicken in man (and woman). There is super-irony in the cats. PROSCENIUM note the spectators. : BABY’S HEAD : excellent, and contains nothing that CAPT.
cannot be grasped by even the most general public. GROUP OF Two (Demonstration), among the best of Lewis’ developments in his vitreous mode. THREE PHILOSOPHERS, the mode of ‘‘Gossips. “ in Late head, “A GREAT VEGETARIAN”; early head, “ANTHONY,’’ blue and orange. Vitreous FIGURE, delicacy of colour. A FEMALE, obviously of the thinner and “lower” classes. MARKETWOMEN,DIEPPE: The Queen Vic. type and another selling apples (1917). THE DOMINO: two figures, cat formula, discover a mask. COMBAT 3 : thin, insect-like figures at prise, part of the combat series, with thin piston-energy in contrast to the weight-energy of the other “Combat.” SUNSET Among Michaelangelos. The chief piece of the collection, four Titan figures against dull flush crimson-to-vermilion background. SECOND MOVEMENT, depiction of animal, aimless exuberance, yellow figures. THE COURTESAN, shows Wyndham Lewis’ mastery in the use of chalks, soft effects in rich colour, scale and modus of colour very different from his vitreous gamuts. PASTORALTOILET, on the other hand, illustrates his peculiar and personal use of inks; half satire and rural disinvoltura. RUSSIAN MADONNA contains parody of all pseudoItalian oldmasterism in the little background landscape. THE LABOUR Deputation should be reproduced broadcast for popular education. It would not help the Conservative Party, but it would protect us from half-baked excesses. I have given this list in detail because no one drawing by Lewis is convincing in the degree that two dozen of his drawings are convincing. Some critic has said that the evidence of a great poet is not to be found in any single line, but in an undercurrent or element everywhere present. We have here twentyseven drawings in almost as many different modalities, each representing a phase and a movement of the artist’s development ; the first public document of his existence between the Timon period and the transient phase of the war drawings. This collection or at least some part of it will be open to everyone in a few weeks; it is worth the detailed enumeration I give it, because the work of a nation’s few best artists is worth infinitely more attention than the work of the two hundred second-bests, and because out of each generation of painters only a few have anything to say to the day after to-morrow. Wm. Robert’s “Dancer” is also contained in the Baker bequest. Among other modern things to be seen at the South Kensington (other wing) are Epstein’s infant head, the torse by Gaudier-Brzeska, and an early “Dancer,” slim and with raised arms, by Gaudier-Brzeska ; also an unfortunate “Christ” by Gill. All these things should be borne in mind by people who are wont to sigh after Paris and to suppose that all advances, artistic and bureaucratic, proceed from the left bank of the Seine. Admitting that we have no Renoirs to speak of, admitting that art from 1880 to 1905 is almost wholly absent from English galleries, let us also note that art since 1905 is almost wholly absent from French public galleries; and therefore mix with our envy of one fact a little pity for the other, with thanks to the South Kensington and to Captain Martin Hardy, of the Department‘ of Drawings, who has braved, possibly, the furies of Bloomsbury and of the “Omega” by an acceptance which should encourage other men, interested in the present, to revive or to initiate an interest in the permanent public collection of modern
art as distinct from Chantrey Bequests and other public misfortunes. Here, at least, British official receptivity has attained a higher plane than the French. There are two channels open to the public; one, and the simpler, to insist that adequate space be provided at South Kensington for permanent open exposition of the best work in the collection, not only of drawings, hut of sculpture and contemporary painting ; secondly, to defeat the malign intention of the Chantrey Bequest by opening the British Academy to works of ant. (In which there is, alas, small hope of signal success.)
Views
and Reviews.
IT must be eight or nine years since I reviewed in THE NEW AGE the most complete and satisfactory explanation of the problem of Hamlet known to me. At that time psycho-analysis was not so well known in this country as it is now, and Dr. Ernest Jones’ essay, “The Oedipus-Complex as an Explanation of Hamlet’s Mystery: A Study in Motive,” did not meet with so favourable a reception as it deserved. I have, at different times, reviewed and contested other explanations, either on the ground of inadequacy or irrelevancy; and the essay” at present under consideration suffers, as all except the psycho-analytic explanation suffer, from inadequacy. There are times when the tendency to be mystified by Hamlet results in the simple ignoring of the text; Mr. J. M. Robertson, for example, gratuitously admits that “Hamlet’s age is certainly a conundrum,” although the gravedigger tells us that Hamlet was thirty years old. “HOW long hast thou been a grave-maker?” asked Hamlet. “. . . . I came to’t that day that our last King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. . . . It was that very day that young Hamlet was born. . . . I have been sexton here, man, and boy, thirty years.” There is no need to puzzle ourselves about Hamlet’s age. Mr. Robertson reviews all the explanations except the psycho-analytic, and finds them inadequate-as they are. It cannot successfully he maintained that the man who said : Haste me to know it; that I, with wings as swift As meditation, or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge, had any scruples, religious or other, to taking revenge. It cannot successfully be maintained that he was a gently asinine creature, incapable of prompt decision and action, when we remember his killing of Polonius, his planning of the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, his fight with the pirates, his leaping into the grave with Laertes, his following of the ghost to the battlements, and so on. Hamlet is in Shakespeare’s version, as much as in the saga, a man capable of very prompt and decisive action. It cannot successfully be maintained that there were any external difficulties to the accomplishment of the task; Claudius was not a popular king, Laertes had no difficulty in raising the people against him, and he said himself: The other motive, Why to a public count I might not go, Is the great love the general gender bear him. Beloved of his mother, beloved of the people, Hamlet’s position was incomparably stronger than that of Claudius, so much so that Claudius could only plan. to dispose of him treacherously. In Shakespeare’s version the external difficulties of the task were diminished to extinction; why, then, did he write a play that turns upon procrastination ? Mr. Robertson advances the theory that Shakespeare “has suffered or accepted a compulsion imposed by material which, as a stage-manager revising a popular play of marked action, he did not care to reject.” Mr. * “The Problem of ‘Hamlet.’” By the Right J. M. Robertson. (Allen & Unwin. 5s. net.) Hon.
Robertson substantiates his case by an elaborate comparisonbetween the work of Thomas Kyd and that of Shakespeare, proving to demonstration that Shakespeare indebted to Kyd for practically all of the was material, necessary and superfluous, of “Hamlet. ” It is a detailed analysis which I have not the space nor the inclination to follow; it shows clearly enough the sources from which Shakespeare was inspired, but it does not show the nature of the inspiration. Shakespeare added something to Kyd, not merely in verbal style, but in actual psychology; he made his Hamlet attempt, and fail, to explain himself, and as Mr. Robertson says that “it is not rightly the business of a dramatist to leave a character unintelligible, ” we can only conclude that Hamlet did not know why he procrastinated because Shakespeare did not know. There are two ways of meeting this difficulty. Mr. Robertson takes one, I another. He says : “When, then, the play falls short of intelligibility in itself it is at once the economical and the necessary course to look for the solution in the conditions imposed by the material.” The most obvious and powerful objection to this argumentis that Shakespeare was under no compulsion to accept any of Kyd’s material that did not suit his purpose; and as Mr. Robertson says in the preceding sentence that “in Hamlet, the first of the great plays in which Shakespeare fully reveaIs his supremacy, there is far more evidence of superabundant power and of keen interest in the main theme than of haste or carelessness,” the “conditions imposed by the material,” which he need not have accepted, do not explain the mystery. “Hamlet” admittedly meant something to Shakespeare, and not only in Hamlet’s hesitancy, but in his ignorance of and searching- for the cause, Shakespeare expressed very much more than a stagemanager’s care for the applause of the public. As Dr. Jones has shown, the subjective explanations have all failed because the critics, from Goethe onward, did not know enough of psychology. They could only allege what is called “a general aboulia,” a general lack of will, sometimes explained as an overbalance of the contemplative faculty. The main lines of the argument were that, because Hamlet was a thinker, he could not be a man of action; and the argument is easily refuted from the text of the play, which reveals Hamlet as a man of action in everything except what he has accepted as a duty. The aboulia is not general, but specific; it relates only to the one thing, although that thing happens to be the main purpose of the play. The problem is not aesthetic, it is distinctly psychological ; Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a man. who does not do what he thinks he wants to do, although there are no external difficulties to the execution of the task, and who tortures himself in the attempt to discover the reason why he cannot do it. As Dr. Jones says: “Instances of such specific aboulias in real life invariably prove, when analysed, to he due to an unconscious repulsion against the act that cannot he performed. In other words, whenever a person cannot bring himself to do something that every conscious consideration tells him he should do, it is always because for some reason he does not want to do it; this reason he will not own to himself and is only dimly if at all aware of. That is exactly the case with Hamlet. Time and again he works himself up, points out to himself his obvious duty, with the cruellest self-reproaches lashes himself to agonies of remorse, and once more falls away into inaction. ” That is the Hamlet that Shakespeare created ; it is not the Hamlet of the saga, it is not the Hamlet of Thomas Kyd, and the demonstration of Shakespeare’s indebtedness to Kyd does not explain the mystery of those characteristics of Hamlet for which Shakespeare was not indebted to Kyd. I have left myself no space to outline the psychoanalytic explanation; but I have done it so often before in the pages of The NEW AGE that it is unnecessary. Those who are interested may be referred to the
January, 1910, number of the “American Journal of Psychology,” in which Dr. Jones’ essay appeared. It is a thesis that still holds the field as the only one that faces the facts and explains them, and, incidentally, throws more light on the nature of artistic inspiration than does the theory of Shakespeare, as stage-manager, trying to give the public as much of Kyd and as little of Shakespeare as he possibly could-a thesis which, as I have said, is contradicted by Mr. Robertson himself in his assertion of Shakespeare’s “keen interest in the main theme. ” The “heart of Hamlet’s mystery” requires special knowledge for its probing, knowledge which Shakespeare himself did not consciously possess -although it inspired the creative ‘activity that has provided material for the analytic ability of thousands of critics. In spite of Kyd. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a creation and his mystery is his own, A. E. R.
Reviews.
Anatole France. By Lewis Paget Shanks. (Open Court Publishing Company.) A Philadelphian admirer has celebrated Anatole France with a volume of deliberate and thoughtful praise. Who has the heart to grudge him this or any other prize of fame? No one, in common gratitude, who has ever enjoyed him in any of his works. So let him be called “perhaps the greatest living man of letters,” and me will also acclaim him the chief living literary lion of France. Let him, if possible, be crowned with laurel and feasted gorgeously with wine: but speedily, for time is passing, and is adding much‘ to Mr. Shanks’ conclusion that Anatole France is “Greek, yet subtly national” a classic, and assured to posterity as classic. The qualities praised by his lovers are of the nature of expression, his elegance and geniality. But the substance and power of his work is a mood of romantic atheism and fickle humanitarianism, the finde-siecle mood of his nation, destined never to reappear. So gratitude to Anatole for Sylvestre Bonnard and some others, and political admiration for such power to fight with aromatic venom. Thanks also to Mr. Shanks for expressing ours so profusely. The great merit of Anatole France is rewarded and may yet have some reward to come. But his fame will also suffer recompense a life of shameless flirtation with the idea of for Christian sainthood, issuing in the portrayal of saints as fools, though blessed; for a life also devoted to Socialism, .pacifism, and the international, most mockingly culminating in a gust of popular disfavour and a hurried enlistment. The Great Change, By Charles W. Wood. (Boni and Liveright. $1.50 net.) Interviews are more often interesting than illuminating, and the theoretical blinkers worn by Governments during the war enabled them to do things without callingthem by their proper names, or confessing their implications. Mr. Charles Wood interviewed such people as the Chairman of the War Industries Board, the Director-General of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, the Chairman of the War Labour Policies Board, the Chairman of the Woman’s Division of the War Labour Administration, the Secretary of the Interior, a production engineer, a child specialist, a professor of psychology, and a whole host of similar people in the hope of discovering what they thought the war was doing to America. He believed that the radical transformation of the political and economic system of America must have significance apart from the mere necessity of winning the war, that even if the improvised authorities did not endure, their activities indicated an alternative to the pre-war system and showed the way to ,Utopia. But when he tried to get them to say “Socialism,” they said “engineering, ” or ‘‘maximum production,” or simply “winning the war,” and refused to speculate on even the probable result of their work. Mr. Wood establishes the fact that unconstitutionally
appointed bodies, without any power (as they always declared), governed America batter than it had ever been governed; he enlarges on the successful accomplishment their task, ignores everything irrelevant of to the “note of hope” that he strikes with a sledgehammer throughout the book. Actually, of course, he has only stumbled on the elementary truth that organisation whatever purpose eliminates waste and for inspires activity with a real zest. If life were as simple as any one of its purposes, Utopia could be improvised to-morrow by Order in Council; but life is as complex as human nature, and advance, even towards Utopia, does tend to take all directions. Even the American improvisations did not achieve complete success ; there was, for example, a little squabble about wooden ships, there were strikes in war-time, and as it is rumoured that some manufacturers made excess profits we incline to the opinion that the system was “engineering” and not “Socialism. ” Tales of Florence. By Isolde Kurz. Translated by Lilian Dundas. (Melrose. 6s. net.) These two stories are a translator’s triumph; although translated from the German, they produce the literary effect of direct translation from the Italian. The stories have intrinsic merit, too ; for, although “The Marriage of the Dead” is reminiscent of “Romeo and Juliet,” it is not a plagiarism of it. “Saint Sebastian” is perhaps too well constructed for a story of the period of Lorenzo de Medici, but it reveals with astonishing skill and simplicity the conflict between politics and religion in Florence, the antagonism of purpose between Lorenzo and Savonarola, in portraying the tragedy of “the painter Gaetano.” It is a most moving story, told autobiographically ; and, although it has a moralising intention (it was written after the painter had renounced his art and entered the cloister), it reveals with. classical simplicity the growth of his mind and spirit as the result of the disaster wrought by his art not only to his own happiness but to the happiness of the two people lie loved. In its own way it is as successful a study as one of Browning’s painter monologues, treated more objectively. but The Inferno. By Henri Barbusse. (Boni and Liveright.) There seems to be no form of bad taste for which someone will not find a justification, and Mr. Edward J. O’Brien, in his own introduction to this, his own, translation of Barbusse’s work, alleges a “spiritual” justification for the activity of “Peeping Tom. ” He says : “Although the action of this story is spiritual as well as physical, and occupies less than a month of time, it is focussed intensely upon reality. Everything that the author permits us to see and understand is seen through a single point of life-a hole pierced in the wall between two rooms of a grey Paris boarding-house. The time is most often twilight, darkening into the obscurity of night by imperceptible degrees. M. Barbussehas conceived the idea of making a man perceive the whole spiritual tragedy of life through a cranny in the wall, and there is a fine symbolism in this as if he were vouchsafing us the oppontunity to perceive eternal things through the tiny crack which is all that is revealed to us of infinity, so that the gates of Horn, darkened by our human blindness, scarcely swing open before they close again.” On this reasoning it is passibleto justify the spy being symbolic of the “all-seeing Eye”; but in both cases the analogy is falsified by the personal interest of the observer. A man who takes advantage of a hole in the wall to spy upon women in the throes of child-birth, men in the throes of death, lovers in the plenitude of their passion, is not revealing ; lie is befouling by a low curiosity the mysteries on which he has no right to look. The more the “spiritual” nature of these revelations is exalted the more certain it is that the revelation is illegitimate; when the mysterieswere really revered it was an offence punishable with death for any unauthorised person to witness them.
A man has a right to reveal his own experience and to divine, if he can, the spiritual meaning of it; he is entitled to all the creations of his imagination; but he has no right to knowledge which, but for an accident of which he took advantage, would have been withheld from him, or to make of the mysteries a mere spectacle for the uninitiated. M. Barbusse has blundered not into reality, but into profanation.
CATHOLICISM. Sir,-As “A. E. R.’s” second article starts what is virtually a new controversy, I will answer it separately. First, to deal with a minor point, I wondered whether ‘‘ A. E. R.” would seize upon my remark as to his being in a sense my literary father and compare it with another remark in Mr. Chesterton’s article in the “ New Witness.” The thing looked so much like a trap designed in collusion (though actually it was a coincidence) that I expected “A. E. R.” to avoid it in consequence. Rut jolly old “A. E. R.”-the most obliging of menwalked straight in! Now “If the Reformation was the parent of Capitalism, then Catholicism was the parent of the Reformation and consequently the grandparent of Capitalism ” must mean one of two things : either that Protestantism was the child of Catholicism because it came after it in time or because it contradicted it, or, if you like, reacted from it; either because it is chronologically later or philosophically different. My theory. that Capitalism is the child of the Reformation was based upon the facts (i) that there is a philosophical connection (not a difference) between the two things, and (ii) that, historically speaking, the way for Capitalism was opened by Protestantism. My playful little remark about paternity was merely It was a family joke for ‘‘ A. E. R.’s ” benefit. inconsequential and supported no argument (unlike ‘‘ A. E. R.’s ” theory of the blood relationship of opposites), and “A. E. R.” must have been lacking in his usual acuteness not to have seen what was obvious. To come to the main point of “A. E. R.’s ” last article-that ‘‘ the Reformation did not create Capitalism (that existed long before the Catholic Church) ; it transferred revenues and property of the Church to the the Crown and capitalised Monarchy at the expense of Theocracy” he describes as “a simple and clear statement of the historical fact.” Historical ? M’yes-in the sense that attributing two separate personalities, one human and one divine, to our Blessed Lord would be “theological.” That would be as bad as theology as “ A. E. R.’s ” history is bad as history. The plunder of the monasteries did not, in the main, “transfer the revenues and property of the Church to the Crown.” It did transfer them to the new nobility. Though Capitalism doubtlessly existed before the Reformation, it was kept in check by the spiritual authority of the Church plus the economic power of the Church, both of which disappeared at the Reformation. The Guilds fell with the Church; the commons were enclosed; and Capitalism was triumphant. ‘‘ A. E. R.” sees a psychological likeness between the Church and Capitalism : both are, he says, autocratic,and too monopolistic-for the same reasons, in the Guilds again, and he will see that my only criticism of “ National Guilds ” was on the ground of their being “ National ’’ instead of local like the mediaeval Guilds. I objected to them because (in my opinion) “National Guilds ” would be too large, too impersonal, too autocratic,and too monopolistic-for the same reasons, in short, that “A. E. R.” objects to the Catholic Church! To suggest that the ‘‘ Catholic Revival ” corresponds with the extension of Capitalism is shameless “A. E. R.” must know perfectly well that dishonesty. the real correspondence is between the reaction against Capitalism and the reaction towards the Church. The greater part of “A. E. R.’s” article is taken up with matters unconnected with this debate. He is like the Kensitian (or whatever you call him) who, while one is defending the doctrine of Purgatory, suddenly asks, “ Well, what about holy water?’’ and while one is explaining that jumps off into prayers for the dead. Moreover, “ A. E. R.’s ” mentality sinks to the level of Kensit’s-which is a pity. But when he trots out
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
the dirtiest and most discredited of the Protestant lies, that the Church ever sold forgiveness of sins for money, I can only suggest that before we continue the debate “ A. E. R.” might make himself acquainted with our subject. THEODOREMAYNARD. *** PSYCHO-ANALYSIS. Sir,-I am very sorry, but I still feel an impulse to afflict “ M.B. Oxon ” a little. His point about reality I concede. Reality cannot but be a relative thing as matters stand at present. This is, I suppose, why ‘‘ M.B. Oxon ” cannot find an underlying reality postulated in the ‘‘ Psychology of the Unconscious.” Dr. Jung is still employed in bringing reality to birth. As I understand psycho-analysis, Freud has demonstrated the sexual impulse at the bottom of life, and Dr. Jung pointed out the tendency to sublimation of this impulse. If, as “ M.B. Oxon” says, some psycho-analysts are admitting that sex is not so frequent a reality in neurosis as Freud states, it is because they have been misled by the fact that some neuroses (e.g., many cases of warshock) clear up after quite a superficial analysis. It is neither necessary nor advisable always to probe a patient to the roots of his being. How far you should go depends greatly on his intellectual capacity. Rut the pint I wish to make cleat- is that Cross and Phallus are not two distinct separate things, but are, as reality now stands, one and invisible. “M.B. Oxon’s ” reaction to this statement is due partly to what he has called his “energy-complex” and partly to his misunderstanding of the phenomenon of sublimation of the libido. Let me quote Dr. Jung: “The significance of a symbol is not that it is a disguised indication of something that, is generally known, but that. it is an endeavour to elucidate by analogy what is as yet completely unknown and only in process of formation. The phantasy presents to us that which is just developing under the form of a more or less apposite analogy. By analytical reduction to something universally known, we destroy the actual value of the symbol [‘M.B. Oxon’s ’ ‘tragedy ’], but it is appropriate to its value and meaning to give it an hermeneutical interpretation. ” (“ Analytical Psychology,” p. 468.) Finally, the refutation ’or confirmation of the psychoanalytic diagnosis of a myth rests on its comparison with dreams. The individual unconscious and the collectiveunconscious work to a similar plan. Dreams are the product of the one, as are myths of the other. The only outraged God is a neurosis, as common to-day as ever. “Description ” was a word I used after some deliberation, and I hope ‘‘ M.B. Oxon ” will induce his complex to release sufficient energy to assimilate it. And perhaps he will also now explain what applications, if any, the words ‘‘ dirty ” and “ tragedy ” have to the subject-matter of his article! J. A. M. ALCOCK. *** “ IN SCHOOL.” Sir,-Mr. Coxon’s generous acknowledgment to me, in concluding his series of articles, must not obscure the fact that his method is, in all essentials, his own discovery. It was a later discovery for us both that we had been working on closely similar lines. I point this out in order to claim Mr. Coxon as an independent witness to certain psycho-educational truths-that is, as something more than a disciple. His most exciting discovery, to my mind, is that a thing which seems to bore children intensely, in school, may all the time be interesting their unconscious minds in ways that are hidden from the teacher, until the product of the unconscious interest emerges later on. It is a vital feature of Mr. Coxon’s method that this “later on ” is provided for, and that the child’s conscious and unconscious mind can rely upon an outlet. We can get no further with the question of what we ought to put into a child’s mind until we can learn to observe what comes out in consequence; and Mr. Coxon’s studies imply a technique of observation that is well worth emulating. KENNETH RICHMOND. *** TRANSLATION. Sir,-I can give a French parallel to the mistranslation instanced by G. D. Brook. About a year ago I saw in a shop-window in Montreuil (then British G.H.Q. in France) a translation of H. G. Wells’ novel entitled “ M. Britling commence a voir- clair.” W. N.
Pastiche.
REGIONAL. XI. There is little to regret in the fall of any social order; there is perhaps nothing to regret save the ensuing disorder; and it is probably impossible to say whether the disorder is not greater in ratio as the “order ” has been too long maintained. At any rate, the disorder is in proportionto the preceding refusal of the former aristocracy or government to educate the mass of its people and to execute its own proper functions. There is likewise little to be expected from the fall of any social order ; in which fall there participate usually a few generous Utopians, numerous cranks, and a vast number ill-mannered and loud-voiced persons, lacking aim, of coherence, and perceptive intelligence. It is said that all popular eloquence works by envy and hatred. The rhetoric of the Magnificat has the mark of a slave religion. The exaltation of those of low degree is not usually an unmixed or incontestable blessing, and but substitutes one pomposity for another, often with debasement of manner. Though the maxim, ‘‘ Le beau monde toujours gouverne,” has lost its prestige, the gentler spirits among us might accept the statement in modified form. A beau monde might govern us and be blessed if anyone could discover its existence. But it appears to have become as legendary as the old Balzacian countess who still bobs up in every other I fr. 50 French novel (sweet and immoral old lady who knows gently all about it). Archaeologists have been long disputing the site of the “dernier salon ou l’on cause.” I myself have met a few elderly people who sought this graal in their youth, and there may yet come pilgrims from far countries hoping to discover traces and fragments. Guillaume de Poitiers brought in the fashion of poetry ; that is to say, in feudal democracy he opened a channel for equality and intercourse on the basis of comparative faculty, separate from “ arms,” i.e., physical prowess at that date almost wholly utilitarian. Edward VII brought in sartorial effects, racehorses, Marie Corelli, and the “ Pink ’Un.” He was a very popular monarch, perhaps an important historical figure; knowing his democratic age, he brought in a fashion demanding a solid entrance fee. I am not suggesting that he would have been better employed in following Queen Elizabeth’s example of translating Latin poets indifferently. He wanted, presumably, to make a monarchy popular. He certainly knew his world, and his means to his end are perhaps the measure of the present importance of monarchs (hereditary and elected). Coeur de Lion’s grandfather could afford to take up a fashion demanding no cash entrance fee, but demanding, on the other hand, an element of intelligence. May the gods (plural), however, preserve us from Universities and from self-styled aristocracies of the intellect. The last phase of a monarchy is when its personal contacts become wholly official. In appraising, however, an order of society, a caste, a system, an oligarchy, one asks what it gives for its cushions, its flunkeys, its long dinners. Is, in brief, the decoration of paper lanterns on the Capital worth the expense? Does the system or a system of social arrangement provide the proportionate number of models and inventions ; of architecture ; of the arts ; of literature which is the constant castigation and improvement of our means of thought and communication; of life, i.e., manners intercourse ? in EZRA POUND. DANSE MACABRE. They bid us dance. Then come, my sisters, rise, What though you have the vision in your eyes Of those who lie with lips awry with pain, And shattered limbs, who will not dance again? What though the seal of bloody war is set Upon our brows and breasts all redly wet? For “ You are young,” they say to us, “and youth THE
Is made for dancing.”. What allure it hasThe fox-trot, * murry-roll, and jazzOh, blinded eyes, that cannot see the truth! Come, sisters, hearken ye to the endearments, The music lisps for us, and cast aside Your ghastly cerements, Those shrouds that hide, Those clouds that do eclipse Fair rounded limbs, white breasts, and flying feet. Drop honied laughter from once pallid lips; And dance, my sisters, dancing is most sweet. And some there are who, smiling, look on us Wrapt in our sparkling beauty, and they say: “Embodiments of golden youth are they,” And cannot tear their spell-bound gaze away. Poor fools! Blind fools! A throng of prostitutes In garish dance were less lascivious. Were you to see The graves gape wide asunder, Cracking with noise of thunder The marble monuments and thenceforth rise Strange things with cavernous emptiness for eyes, And wormy horrors in a ropy mesh Where there should be round limbs and veined flesh, Dance, as we dance, a light and am’rous round, With many a creaking sound, Your brain would reel and spin. Turn you your eyes within On us-even such, even such as these are we. For naught to us is left Saving the outward semblance of our youth, Mocking the mirror, Truth. Of all are we bereft. And ye will see, whose sight is keen, Death dwelleth in our breasts unseen, With our rose-crowns is crowned, With our gold girdles bound. Dance then, my sisters, know at every breath Youth is profaned-in his guise dances Death. Dance on, dance on, a wild unmeasured dance, Until our beauty fadeth and is gone, And all the sunny sparkle of our glance That like a jewel in the darkness shone Has flickered out ; until our foamy hair Hangs slack, and our white breasts are nothing more Than yellowing, corrupted, sagging skin, And outward are we what we were within. And from the bloody, furrowed fields ofFrance We seem to hear dead, twisted lips again Utter a thin, uncadenced sound of pain. I hear you, sweet-oh, Christ, what joy to dance! PHYLLISMARKS. THE CURSE. Doggerel, dithyramb, madrigal, jumble Of Jackanape rimes through my brain twist and tumble. Reader, my scourges imprint Mark, mark and pardon This inchoate jargon, These strophes I have sung. as you thumb.
Deafen me, blind me, and cut out my tongue, Bruise me, abuse me, I cannot be dumb. H. R. BARBOR.
</p>
</body>
</text>
</TEI>