Part 20

Undoubtedly, external policy has helped Italy greatly. Whilst France and England have played a fitfully obstructionist and generally uninspired policy towards the restoration of European trade, Italy has been steadily working in a positive direction. She has received substantial help from Germany, help in return for help. The wasteful process of using Switzerland as a fence for German goods has largely been abandoned in favour of a direct commercial exchange. Italian shipping, augmented by its Austrian spoils, has obtained considerable help and advice. Quite surprising how many Germans have posts in the Italian shipping companies! Germany has lost her own ships, but she has a large business executive in the background, the administrative organization of what was once a great mercantile marine. She has still a preponderant power in allocating business. The Italian benefit and the success of Italy's new policy have been reflected in the phenomenal appreciation of the lira which during the spring of 1921 actually gained 33 1/2 per cent in value, mounting from 110 to the pound sterling in January to 73 in May. Such a rise in the value of the currency naturally helps Italian industry, facilitating the import of raw materials and coal and oil. In the summer of 1921 Italy became glutted with coal.

Such progress is not good news in Moscow. The chief external hope of Moscow must for long have been in Italy. And conversely the chief hope of the Socialists in Italy must have been in the progress of Moscow's international ideal. Not that the proletarian leaders of comfortable Italy realized what they were advocating. They are not such idealists in Italy as to be ready to commit national suicide for the good of humanity as a whole, or even for the good of humanity as a class, as a working class. But, be that as it may, the moral authority waned when the Russo-British trading treaty was signed. Krassin killed the Third Internationale. You do not trade with a capitalistic State in order to destroy it. Moscow began to set up a new bourgeois class, started shops again, and banks and private trading, and generally speaking, having buried the devil, dug him up again.

With that, Moscow ceased to inspire the grand international solidarity of proletariats. There was a set-back in wages over the whole world. At the same time the strike-weapon tended to fail. May Day, 1921, was one of the quietest of May Days. In Paris it was a joyous holiday; in Berlin, though the jewellers ordered new steel screens for their goods, not a window was broken; in London the gloomy coal strike pursued its lonely road towards defeat, unsupported by even its own allies of transport and railroad, far less by an ideal from Moscow. And bourgeois Western Europe--and Italy not least--breathed afresh.

Rome is a spacious city. One feels that the great houses were built originally, not on streets, but on chosen spots, and the streets came to them. The house came to the man, and the street to the house, and that makes a nobler city than street-controlled lines and blocks. In Rome there is no bondage of the street. And the many fountains with water-spouting nymphs and Neptunes kill the drabness of business, and freshen modern civilization so that it ceases to know itself as such. When one compares Rome with Paris or Berlin or London or New York, the newer capitals suffer. The mighty ruins have such authority over all that is new. It is one of the greatest standing-grounds and points of vantage in the world. It has been interpreted as the mountain of temptation from which Satan showed the kingdom of this world. It is the birthplace of Caesardom and the modern idea of world-imperialism. It was once the seat of world-empire, and remains even now the rock of the Church. For many all roads still lead to the Cathedral of St. Peter's as to the most representative temple in Christendom. Spiritually, Rome abhors all sects and other centres of religious persuasion. Spiritually, she claims to be the coincident centre of two worlds, this and the world to come.

How fine is the interior of St. Peter's, built to defy time, with its massive marbles and gigantic figures as fresh and new as if, indeed, a few hundred years were but as yesterday in God's sight. The exterior of the cathedral is transitory-looking, like an aspect of "this world." But inside is part of the eternal silence such as one might experience in a profound subterranean chamber. There is no aspiration, no adoration--but there is a sense of eternal law. The Church is imposed on earth. About the dome is written, "Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church," in letters of gold--Rome's ultimate authority. All is square and solid and heavy. There are no seats, but the extensive floor is of varying granites and marbles, on which those who believe kneel, and look so small, smaller than life-size in the presence of the thrice-magnified statues of the Popes. So much for one Mother-Church of the world. It is well cared for in 1921. The other Mother-Church of Sancta Sophia in Constantinople still languishes under the Pagan.

Rome swarms with all peoples. Its base is Italian, but it attracts the people of all nations--Englishmen, Americans, Frenchmen, Russians, are very common. The Anglo-Saxon party, guide-book in hand, is still staring at the ruins of ancient Rome. The war has intervened, but it looks as if the tourist, engrossed in his "Baedeker" had been doing the same every day all these years. The post card vendors and would-be guides still fret round the old monuments like crows. They alone disturb the equanimity of the old men and middle-aged ladies who love Rome most. For the lovers of Rome look at those wonderful columns of Marcus Aurelius and Trajan with whole histories in spiral processionals climbing upwards to the pinnacle of fame--and their thoughts are not on these times.

Mightiest of the ruins of Rome is certainly that of the Colosseum, symbol of the decay of a great people debauched by their lusts and their rulers. The Colosseum is sometimes included in the list of the wonders of the world, and it is certainly one of the most remarkable ruins of antiquity. If all modern Rome were swept away by pestilence and earthquake, the Colosseum would no doubt still stand, and be as provocative of thought as the Pyramids themselves. It has already survived many earthquake shocks and nineteen noisy centuries. It stands to-day in grey serenity--a mighty stone structure of great height and massivity, with tier upon tier of galleries where could be accommodated surely all the Rome of its day. There is no other place like it--with its two hundred and forty arched entrances, and its cages and prisons. It is vast and cruel and vain even now. All the circles glare down into the empty arena.

Imagine a festival at the Albert Hall when that little fragile building is packed from the expensive fringe of the stalls and the boxes to the mysterious height of the gallery, then magnify many times, and change wood into hewn rock, and take off the roof, and give Roman air and sunlight, and change the character and dress of the people, and make them lust for blood and for strange sights, and give voices to their bellies and violent animation and excitability to their limbs and their features, and you have the Roman amphitheatre, built to be a butchering-place for Christians and captives of war, an arena for gladiators and a place of circuses.

It is the symbol of the decay of Rome. Bede is said to have prophesied: "Whilst the Colosseum stands Rome will stand; when the Colosseum falls the world itself will fall," but that was merely testimony to its mighty structure. Five or six palaces have been built of the marbles and other materials which have been taken away, and still the Colosseum stands in all its architectural impressiveness. But the thing this amphitheatre was built for ruined Rome. The taste for brutal pleasure which the emperors encouraged debauched the spirit of the Romans, and deprived them of that traditional virtue of which they had been so proud. Panem et circenses, the giving of bread unworked for, and the making of grand gladiatorial shows for the plebs.

Standing-room for twenty thousand plebians was actually given free, and the other eighty thousand people who could be accommodated paid little enough. The shows which gave pleasure also gave glory, and emperors and magistrates sunned themselves in the people's favour by the entertainment they could procure for the masses. Wild beasts were let out upon little crowds of kneeling Christian victims and tore them to pieces amid the guffaws and delighted yells of that vast concourse of people. Or men fought with infuriated beasts--the foundation of the bull-fight. Bears and lions and rhinoceroses and elephants and many other animals were opposed to men for the popular delight. Or men fought men with swords, and champions arose and championships in plenty. We read of one gladiator worsting hundreds of other gladiators in the arena of the Colosseum to the joy of the people, who got extremely excited as to whether the fight had been a sporting one, and whether they should have the defeated gladiator killed or let him go: thumbs up or thumbs down!

Rome fell: its era was supplanted by another greater era. The barbarian whom the Romans had enslaved and tormented at last threw down the mighty empire.

I see before me the gladiator lie Butchered to make a Roman holiday . . . Shall he expire And unavenged? Arise! Ye Goths and glut your ire

as Byron wrote.

Now little children are playing where wild beasts were held, and tourists peep into the empty dens where the Christian prisoners were kept.

A great war has lately been raging when all manner of anachronistic tendencies of mankind were displayed, but the popular lust for cruelty and blood, which once raged from all those burning Roman eyes about the great arena, has not returned. Few people now can bear to look on at cruelty. Even executions are hidden from men's eyes, and if, upon occasion, we will cruelty, we demand that it shall be accomplished away from our eyes, and that we shall not be confronted with the details. Here, where such gory things were done, if one of us saw an organ-grinder threatening a monkey with a knife we should leap to save the monkey--and ourselves.

It may be the leaven of Christianity, or the development of man, or the racial predominance of the sympathetic Northern European, but it is none the less a remarkable fact that cruelty which was once public meat and drink for every one is now a hidden thing, lurking only in the secrets of prison-life or in places like those parts of the New World where the mob still burns its negroes alive and takes pleasure in the sight.

Joy in sheer cruelty has, however, been supplanted by brutal sport. The bull-fights of Spain are true Colosseum spectacles, and whilst the danger-thrills which throb through a human concourse at the assaults of an infuriated bull may not be as degrading as mere gloating over pain, what can we say of the disembowelling of the horses which is such a feature of that sport. And the modern prize fight and boxing championship has something of the gladiatorial spirit. The enormous interest in the Dempsey-Carpentier contest is evidence of the increasingly debauched taste of the world's democracies. The Olympic Games have much more to be said in their favour. But whilst they encourage professional athleticism it can hardly be said that they encourage Europe to be more athletic. The Sokol movement in Czecho-slovakia and the Boy Scout movement are much more promising. The more you look on at games the less you play them, and the more you play them the less are you content to look on. The scene of our modern Olympic Games goes from capital to capital in Europe, and thanks to public spirit and the subscriptions of industrial magnates, great stadiums such as that which we have now at Athens, have come into being. Perhaps when our old world has become the ancient world, and living civilization has fled across the oceans, the most remarkable of our ruins and remains of the past may be our Stadiums and Colosseums and arenas designed for international games and prize fights. Ancient Rome and its fate is our great unheeded warning.

W A popular hieroglyphic for Viva.

LETTERS OF TRAVEL

XV. FROM MONTE CARLO

The voice of a man in the Riviera express: "I am absolutely broke. I'm up against it, up against the great It, and it's neck or nothing for me, my boy--so I'm off for Monte Carlo. I'm going to leave it to Chance, and Chance is the best counsellor after all. What's human wisdom by the side of Chance? Just a turn of the wheel, and all my troubles are solved."

"God d---n it, it's more sporting than fretting my brains out in a dirty city like London or Paris, and trying to find a way out of my tangle. Heads I win, tails----well, devil take it, tails doesn't matter. I've lost, anyway."

It reminded me somehow of the title of a famous story: "Never Bet the Devil your Head." But there's no need to feel righteous. We all do it. We yield to despair. A wise man said, "Gambling is the real sin against the Holy Ghost because no man should be so unfaithful to his God-given reason as to resort to chance, and all things are possible for the man who believes."

All things are possible for a man, for a nation, for a Europe, no matter in what plight they find themselves, if only they will yield to the Spirit.

However, it is not of much use talking in this wise to a scoffer. He that maun to Cupar maun to Cupar. We're all in the same express train, plunging towards the Riviera.

The wild shore of North-western Italy and Southern France, tamed with villas and white halls, and luxurious with palms and vineyards hinting of North Africa. You roll along a magnificent coast to the Principality of Monaco, and Europe's formal garden of sin. It makes much difference whether you arrive there in despair, or just in a spirit of curiosity, or for a change, or "to make a little money," or for your health, or whether you just land up there through weariness of travel. But you always find Monte Carlo has been arranged for your arrival. It is serious; it is smart and clean. Everything seems first class. There is something of the smartness of execution morning when a court-martial sentence is being carried out.

Yes, there are no poor at Monte Carlo; a poor person is thought to be ugly in himself, and is not allowed to dwell there. Even an ill-dressed person might be conducted to the frontier. No beggars are allowed. No bits of dirty paper or refuse are lying in the streets, and certainly there are no weeds in the gardens. The profits of the gambling-tables provide the most efficient municipality in the world, and no one who lives in Monaco is charged any taxes; the revenue derived from roulette covers all that and more besides. At the same time, no actual resident is allowed to stake his money at the tables.

Everything here is perfect. It has been produced like the scenery of a piece, and when you arrive the curtain goes slowly up, and it is your first night. The beauty which you see is strangely artificial, and all partakes of the grotesque. Here flourishes that monstrous cactus-like growth called prickly-pear, with flat flap-like leaves resembling fingerless green hands; warped and brutal-looking stems looking like palsied arms. The cactus is abloom in red-hot poker ends. Orange trees and lemon trees and olive trees abound. Burlesquely-shaped palms, swathed in their overcoats, stand on the green lawns like waxwork figures. There is a strange field of palms, and above and behind them the great rocks of the mountain coast, and then the sea-serpents of green water and white foam.