Part 20

That is, in a figure, the vision for which we must hope and pray.

III

"DISSOLVING THROES"

I borrow my title from a poet.

"He grew old in an age he condemned; He looked on the rushing decay Of the times which had sheltered his youth; Felt the dissolving throes Of a social order he loved."

It seems odd that Matthew Arnold should have spoken thus about Wordsworth; for one would have expected that the man who wrote so gloriously of the French Revolution, "as it appeared to enthusiasts at its commencement," would have rejoiced in the new order which it established for all Europe. But the younger poet knew the elder with an intimacy which defies contradiction; and one must, I suppose, number Wordsworth among those who, in each succeeding age, have shed tears of useless regret over the unreturning past. Talleyrand said that, to know what an enjoyable thing life was capable of being, one must have been a member of the ancienne noblesse before the Revolution. It was the cynical and characteristic utterance of a nature singularly base; but even the divine Burke (though he had no personal or selfish interests in the matter) was convinced that the Revolution had not only destroyed political freedom, but also social welfare, and had "crushed everything respectable and virtuous in the nation." What, in the view of Burke and Talleyrand, the Revolution did for France, that, by a curious irony of fate, our attempt to defeat the Revolution did for England. Burke forced us into the Revolutionary War, and that war (as Gladstone once said in a letter to the present writer) "almost unmade the liberties, the Constitution, even the material interests and prosperity, of our country." Patriots like William Cobbett and Sydney Smith, though absolutely convinced that the war was just and necessary, doubted if England could ever rally from the immense strain which it had imposed on her resources, or regain the freedom which, in order to beat France, she had so lightly surrendered.

At a time when Manchester was unrepresented and Gatton sent two Members to Parliament, it was steadily maintained by lovers of the established order that the proposed enlargement of the electorate was "incompatible with a just equality of civil rights, or with the necessary restraints of social obligation." If it were carried, religion, morality, and property would perish together, and our venerable Constitution would topple down in ruins. "A thousand years have scarce sufficed to make England what she is: one hour may lay her in the dust." In 1861 J. W. Croker wrote to his patron, the great borough-monger Lord Hertford: "There can be no doubt that the Reform Bill is a stepping-stone in England to a republic, and in Ireland to separation. Both may happen without the Bill, but with it they are inevitable." Next year the Bill became law. Lord Bathurst cut off his pigtail, exclaiming: "Ichabod, for the glory is departed"--an exquisitely significant combination of act and word--and the Duke of Wellington announced that England had accomplished "a revolution by due course of law." In some sense the words were true. Political power had passed from the aristocracy to the middle class. The English equivalents of Talleyrand--the men who directly or in their ancestors had ruled England since 1688, had enjoyed power without responsibility, and privilege which alike Kings and mobs had questioned in vain--were filled with the wildest alarms. Emotional orators saw visions of the guillotine; calmer spirits anticipated the ballot-box; and the one implement of anarchy was scarcely more dreaded than the other.

Sixteen years passed. Property and freedom seemed pretty secure. Even privilege, though shaken, had not been overthrown; and a generation had grown up to which the fears of revolution seemed fantastic. Then suddenly came the uprising of the nations in '48; and once again "dissolving throes" were felt, with pain or joy according to the temperament of those who felt them. "We have seen," said Charles Greville, "such a stirring-up of all the elements of society as nobody ever dreamt of; we have seen a general saturnalia--ignorance, vanity, insolence, poverty, ambition, escaping from every kind of restraint, ranging over the world, and turning it topsy-turvy as it pleased. All Europe exhibits the result--a mass of ruin, terror, and despair." Matthew Arnold, young and ardent, and in some ways democratic, wrote in a different vein: "The hour of the hereditary peerage, and eldest sonship, and immense properties, has, I am convinced, as Lamartine would say, struck." Seventy years ago! And that "hour" has not struck yet!

The "dissolving throes" were lulled again, and I scarcely made themselves felt till 1866, when a mild attempt to admit the pick of the artisans to the electoral privileges of the middle class woke the panic-stricken vehemence of Robert Lowe. "If," he asked, "you want venality, ignorance, drunkenness, and the means of intimidation; if you want impulsive, unreflecting, and violent people, where will you go to look for them--to the top or to the bottom?" Well might Bishop Wilberforce report to a friend, "It was enough to make the flesh creep to hear Bob Lowe's prognostications for the future of England."

Next year the artisans got the vote, though the great Lord Shaftesbury, who knew more than most of his peers about working-men, plainly told the House of Lords that "a large proportion of the working classes have a deep and solemn conviction that property is not distributed as property ought to be; that some checks ought to be kept upon the accumulation of property in single hands; and that to take away by legislation that which is in excess with a view to bestowing it on those who have less, is not a breach of any law, human or Divine."

Yet once more. When in 1885 the agricultural labourers (of whom a Tory M.P. said that they were no fitter for a vote than the beasts they tended), were admitted to the franchise, the same terrors shook the squirearchy. We were warned that the land would soon be broken up into small holdings; that sport would become impossible; and that "the stately homes of England" must all be closed, for lack of money to keep them open. The country, we were told, had seen its best days, and "Merry England" had vanished for ever.

I only recall these "dissolving throes," real or imaginary, because I fancy that just now they are again making themselves felt, and perhaps with better reason than ever before in our history. People who venture to look ahead are asking themselves this question: If this war goes on much longer, what sort of England will emerge? Some are looking forward with rapture to a new heaven and a new earth; others dread the impending destruction "of a social order they loved." Can we not trace something of this dread in Lord Lansdowne's much-canvassed letter? He is one of the most patriotic and most experienced men in public life; he "looks on the rushing decay of the times which sheltered his youth"; and it may well be that he is striving to avert what seems to him a social catastrophe.

INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER

As a rule, I call a spade a spade. When I mean The Times, I say The Times, and I condemn the old-fashioned twaddle of talking about "a morning contemporary." But to-day I depart from my rule and content myself with saying that I lately read in an important newspaper a letter dealing with Mr. Asquith's distinction between "Prussian Militarism" and "German Democracy." For my own part, I did not think that distinction very sound. The experience of the last three years has led me to the conclusion that the German democracy is to the full as bellicose as the military caste, and that it has in no way dissociated itself from the abominable crimes against decency and humanity which the military caste has committed. I hold that the German people, as we know it to-day, is brutalized; but when one thus frames an indictment against a whole nation, one is bound to ask oneself what it is that has produced so calamitous a result. How can a whole nation go wrong? Has any race a "double dose of original sin"? I do not believe it. Human nature as it leaves the Creator's hand is pretty much the same everywhere; and when we see it deformed and degraded, we must look for the influence which has been its bane. In dealing with individuals the enquiry is comparatively simple, and the answer not far to seek. But when we deal with nations we cannot, as a rule; point to a single figure, or even a group of figures, and say, "He, or they, did the mischief." We are forced to look wider and deeper, and we shall be well advised if we learn from Burke to realize "the mastery of laws, institutions, and government over the character and happiness of man." Let me apply Burke's teaching to the case before us.

The writer of the letter which I am discussing has a whole-hearted dislike of the Germans, and especially of the Prussians; charges them with "cruelty, brutal arrogance, deceit, cunning, manners and customs below those of savages"; includes in the indictment professors, commercial men, and women; recites the hideous list of crimes committed during the present war; and roundly says that, however you label him, "the Prussian will always remain a beast."

I dispute none of these propositions. I believe them to be sadly and bitterly true; but if I am to follow Burke's counsel, I must enquire into the "laws, institutions, and government" which have prevailed in Germany, and which have exercised so disastrous a "mastery over the character and happiness of man." In this enquiry it would be obvious to touch military ascendency, despotic monarchy, representative institutions deprived of effective power, administration made omnipotent, and bureaucratic interference with every detail of human life. Sydney Smith's words about unreformed England apply perfectly to modern Germany. "Of all ingenious instruments of despotism I most commend a popular assembly where the majority are paid and hired, and a few bold and able men, by their brave speeches, make the people believe they are free."

But for our present purpose I must concentrate attention on another institution which has had an even more direct and practical bearing on the character of the German people--and this is the enforcement of military service. This, like every other institution, must be judged by its effects on the character of those who are subject to it. The writer of the letter holds that "the only good thing about the German nation" is the "national service through which all men pass, and which makes soldiers of all not physically unfit, and which inculcates patriotism, loyalty, obedience, courage, discipline, duty." Now, these words, read in connexion with the description of the German people quoted above, suggest a puzzling problem. The Germans are cruel, brutally arrogant, deceitful, and cunning, and "the Prussian will always remain a beast." Yet these same people have all passed through a discipline "which inculcates patriotism, loyalty, obedience, courage, discipline, duty." Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Does the same system make men patriotic and cruel, loyal and arrogant, obedient and deceitful, courageous and cunning, dutiful and beastly?

Perhaps it does. I can conceive some of these pairs of qualities united in a single character. A man might be a zealous patriot, and yet horribly cruel; loyal to his Sovereign, but arrogant to his inferiors; obedient to authority, yet deceitful among coequals; courageous in danger, yet cunning in avoiding it; dutiful according to his own standard of duty, and yet as "beastly" as the torturers of Belgium. But a system which produces such a very chequered type of character is scarcely to be commended.

Now, the writer might reply, "I only said that the military system inculcated certain virtues. I did not say that it ensured them." Then it fails. If it has produced only the "vile German race" which the writer so justly dislikes, unredeemed by any of the virtues which it "inculcates," then it has nothing to say for itself. It stands confessed as an unmixed evil.

It is right to expose a logical fallacy, but I am not fond of the attempt to obscure by logic-chopping what is a writer's real meaning. I will therefore say that, as far as I can make out, what this particular writer really believes is that the German people, through some innate and incurable frowardness of disposition, have turned the inestimable blessings of compulsory soldiership to their own moral undoing, and have made themselves wholly bad and beastly, in spite of a beneficent institution which would have made them good and even pleasant.

Here I take leave to differ, and to range myself on the side of Burke. Great, indeed--nay, incalculable--is "the mastery of laws, institutions, and government over the character and happiness of man." The system is known by its fruits. We may think as badly as we like of the Germans--as badly as they deserve--but we must remember the "laws, institutions, and government" that have dominated their national development. And this is not only a matter of just and rational thinking, but is also a counsel of safety for ourselves. If, as a result of this war, we allow our personal and social liberties (rightly suspended for the moment) to be permanently abolished or restricted; and, above all, if we bend our necks to the yoke of a military despotism; we shall be inviting a profound degradation of our national character. It would indeed be a tragical consummation of our great fight for Freedom if, when it is over, the other nations could point to us and say: "England has sunk to the moral level of Germany."

REVOLUTION--AND RATIONS

"A revolution by due course of law." This, as we have seen, was the Duke of Wellington's description of the Reform Act of 1832, which transferred the government of England from the aristocracy to the middle class. Though eventually accomplished by law, it did not pass without bloodshed and conflagration; and timid people satisfied themselves that not only the downfall of England, but the end of the world, must be close at hand.

Twenty years passed, and nothing in particular happened. National wealth increased, all established institutions seemed secure, and people began to forget that they had passed through a revolution. Then arose John Bright, reminding the working-men of the Midlands that their fathers "had shaken the citadel of Privilege to its base," and inciting them to give the tottering structure another push. A second revolution seemed to be drawing near. Dickens put on record, in chapter xxvi. of Little Dorrit, the alarms which agitated respectable and reactionary circles. The one point, as Dickens remarked, on which everyone agreed, was that the country was in very imminent danger, and wanted all the preserving it could get. Presently, but not till 1867, the second revolution arrived. Some of the finest oratory ever heard in England was lavished on the question whether the power, formerly exercised by the aristocracy and more recently by the middle class, was to be extended to the artisans. The great Lord Shaftesbury predicted "the destruction of the Empire," and Bishop Wilberforce "did not see how we were to escape fundamental changes in Church and State." "History," exclaimed Lowe, "may record other catastrophes as signal and as disastrous, but none so wanton and so disgraceful." However, the artisans made a singularly moderate use of their newly acquired power; voted Conservative as often as they voted Liberal; and so again belied the apprehensions of the alarmists.

When the workman of the town had been enfranchised, it was impossible to keep his brother who worked on the land permanently in the position of a serf or a cipher. So we began to agitate for the "County Franchise"; and once again the cry of "Revolution" was heard--perhaps in its most typical form from the lips of a Tory M.P., who, as I said before, affirmed that the labourer was no fitter for the suffrage than the beasts he tended. Even ten years later, Lord Goschen, who was by nature distrustful of popular movements, prognosticated that, if ever the Union with Ireland were lost, it would be lost through the votes of the agricultural labourers. To those who, like myself, were brought up in agricultural districts, the notion that the labourer was a revolutionary seemed strangely unreal; but it was a haunting obsession in the minds of clubmen and town-dwellers.

So, in each succeeding decade, the next extension of constitutional freedom has been acclaimed by its supporters as an instalment of the millennium, and denounced by its opponents as the destruction of social order. So it had been, time out of mind; and so it would have been to the end had not the European war burst upon us, and shaken us out of all our habitual concernments. Now "the oracles are dumb." The voices, of lugubrious prophecy are silent. The Reform Act which has become law this year is beyond doubt the greatest revolution which has as yet been effected "by due course of law." It has doubled the electorate; it has enfranchised the women; it has practically established universal suffrage; it has placed all property, as well as all policy, under the control of a class, if only that class chooses to vote and act together. All these effects of the Act (except one) are objects which I have desired to see attained ever since I was a boy at Harrow, supporting the present Bishop of Oxford and the late Lord Grey in the School Debating Society; so it is not for me to express even the faintest apprehension of evil results. But I am deliberately of opinion that the change now effected in our electoral arrangements is of farther-reaching significance than the substitution of a republic for a monarchy; and the amazing part of the business is that no one has protested at any stage of it. We were told at the beginning of the war that there was to be no controversial legislation till it was over. That engagement was broken; no one protested. A vitally important transaction was removed from the purview of Parliament to a secret conference; no one protested. If we suggested that the House of Commons was morally and constitutionally dead, and that it ought to renew its life by an appeal to the constituencies before it enforced a revolution, we were told that it was impossible to hold a General Election with the soldiers all out of the country; but now it seems that this is to be the next step, and no one protests against it.

But these may be dismissed as constitutional pedantries. So be it. The Whigs, who made the Constitution, may be pardoned if they have a sneaking regard for their handiwork. Much more astonishing is the fact that no resistance was offered on behalf of wealth and privilege by the classes who have most of both to lose. The men of £100,000 a year--not numerous, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but influential--have been as meekly acquiescent as clerks or curates. Men who own half a county have smiled on an Act which will destroy territorial domination. What is the explanation? Was their silence due to patriotism or to fear? Did they laudably decline the responsibility of opposing a Government which is conducting a great war? Or did they, less laudably, shrink from the prospect of appearing as the inveterate enemies of a social and economic revolution which they saw to be inevitable? Let us charitably incline to the former hypothesis.

But there is something about this, our most recent revolution, which is even more astonishing than the absence of opposition and panic. It is that no one, whether friend or foe, has paid the least attention to the subject. In ordinary society it has been impossible to turn the conversation that way. Any topic in the world--but pre-eminently Rations,--seemed more vital and more pressing. "The Reform Bill? What Bill is that? Tell me, do you find it very difficult to get sugar?" "The Speaker's Conference? Haven't heard about it. I'm sure James Lowther won't allow them to do anything very silly--but I really cannot imagine how we are to get on without meat." Or yet again: A triumphant Suffragist said to a Belgravian sister: "So we've got the vote at last!" "What vote?" replied the sister. "Surely we've had a vote for ever so long? I'm sure I have, though I never used it."