The Freiherr's discourse raises a large number of questions, some of them unarguable. Others again are too much so; for if once started upon, argument with regard to them need never end. Some of his contentions have already been dealt with in previous chapters; some on the other hand, such as the British methods of recruiting, will be considered later on. It must, however, be admitted that his taunts and criticisms do not all rebound with blunted points from our shield of self-complacency; some, if only a few, get home and rankle.
We are challenged to contrast our faith in our own political institutions with that of the Germans in theirs; also to measure the intrinsic strength of that form of political organisation called 'democracy' against that other form which is known as 'autocracy.'
The German state is the most highly developed and efficient type of personal monarchy at present known to the world. Its triumphs in certain directions have been apparent from the beginning. It would be sheer waste of time to dispute the fact that Germany was incomparably better prepared, organised, and educated for this war—the purpose of which was the spoliation of herneighbours—than any of her neighbours were for offering resistance.
But what the Freiherr does not touch upon at all is the conflict between certain underlying ideas of right and wrong—old ideas, which are held by Russia, France, and ourselves, and which now find themselves confronted by new and strange ideas which have been exceedingly prevalent among the governing classes in Germany for many years past. He does not raisethisissue, any more than his fellow-countrymen now raise it either in America or at home. It is true that there was a flamboyant outburst from a few faithful Treitschkians and Nietzschians, both in prose and poetry, during those weeks of August and September which teemed with German successes; but their voices soon sank below audibility—possibly by orderverboten—in a swiftly dying fall. We, however, cannot agree to let this aspect of the matter drop, merely because patriotic Germans happen to have concluded that the present time is inopportune for the discussion of it.
There are two clear and separate issues. From the point of view of posterity the more important of these, perhaps, may prove to be this conflict in the region of moral ideas. From the point of view of the present generation, however, the chief matter of practical interest is the result of a struggle for the preservation of our own institutions, against the aggression of a race which has not yet learned the last and hardest lesson of civilisation—how to live and let live.
DEMOCRACY
The present war may result in the bankruptcy of the Habsburg and Hohenzollern dynasties. It is very desirable, however, to make clear the factthat the alternative is the bankruptcy of 'democracy.' Our institutions are now being subjected to a severer strain than they have ever yet experienced. Popular government is standing its trial. It will be judged by the result; and no one can say that this is an unfair test to apply to human institutions.
No nation, unless it be utterly mad, will retain a form of government which from some inherent defect is unable to protect itself against external attack. Is democratic government capable of looking ahead, making adequate and timely preparation, calling for and obtaining from its people the sacrifices which are necessary in order to preserve their own existence? Can it recover ground which has been lost, and maintain a long, costly, and arduous struggle, until, by victory, it has placed national security beyond the reach of danger?
Defeat in the present war would shake popular institutions to their foundations in England as well as France; possibly also in regions which are more remote than either of these. But something far short of defeat—anything indeed in the nature of a drawn game or stalemate—would assuredly bring the credit of democracy so low that it would be driven to make some composition with its creditors.
Words, like other currencies, have a way of changing their values as the world grows older. Until comparatively recent times 'democracy' was a term of contempt, as 'demagogue' still is to-day.
The founders of American Union abhorred 'Democracy,'[1] and took every precaution which occurred to them in order to ward it off. Their aim was'Popular,' or 'Representative Government'—a thing which they conceived to lie almost at the opposite pole. Their ideal was a state, the citizens of which chose their leaders at stated intervals, and trusted them. Democracy, as it appeared in their eyes, was a political chaos where the people chose its servants, and expected from them only servility. There was an ever-present danger, calling for stringent safeguards, that the first, which they esteemed the best of all constitutional arrangements, would degenerate into the second, which they judged to be the worst.
Until times not so very remote it was only the enemies of Representative Government, or its most cringing flatterers, who spoke of it by the title of Democracy. Gradually, however, in the looseness of popular discussions, the sharpness of the original distinction wore off, so that the ideal system and its opposite—the good and the evil—are now confounded together under one name. There is no use fighting against current terminology; but it is well to bear in mind that terminology has no power to alter facts, and that the difference between the two principles still remains as wide as it was at the beginning.
When a people becomes so self-complacent that it mistakes its own ignorance for omniscience—so jealous of authority and impatient of contradiction that it refuses to invest with more than a mere shadow of power those whose business it is to govern—when the stock of leadership gives out, or remains hidden and undiscovered under a litter of showy refuse—when those who succeed in pushing themselves to the front are chiefly concerned not to lead, but merely to act the parts of leaders 'in silver slippers and amid applause'—when the chiefs of parties areso fearful of unpopularity that they will not assert their own opinions, or utter timely warnings, or proclaim what they know to be the truth—when such things as these come to pass the nation has reached that state which was dreaded by the framers of the American Constitution, and which—intending to warn mankind against it—they branded as 'Democracy.'
DANGERS OF SELF-CRITICISM
Self-criticism makes for health in a people; but it may be overdone. If it purges the national spirit it is good; but if it should lead to pessimism, or to some impatient breach with tradition, it is one of the worst evils. One is conscious of a somewhat dangerous tendency in certain quarters at the present time to assume the worst with regard to the working of our own institutions.
Critics of this school have pointed out (what is undoubtedly true) that Germany has been far ahead of us in her preparations. Every month since war began has furnished fresh evidence of the far-sightedness, resourcefulness, thoroughness, and efficiency of all her military arrangements. Her commercial and financial resources have also been husbanded, and organised in a manner which excites our unwilling admiration. And what perhaps has been the rudest shock of all, is the apparent unity and devotion of the whole German people, in support of a war which, without exaggeration, may be said to have cast the shadow of death on every German home.
These critics further insist that our own nation has not shown itself more loyal, and that it did not rouse itself to the emergency with anything approaching the same swiftness. Timidity and a wilfulself-deception, they say, have marked our policy for years before this war broke out. They marked it again when the crisis came upon us. Have they not marked it ever since war began? And who can have confidence that they will not continue to mark it until the end, whatever the end may be?
The conclusion therefore at which our more despondent spirits have arrived, is that the representative system has already failed us—that it has suffered that very degradation which liberal minds of the eighteenth century feared so much. How can democracy in the bad sense—democracy which has become decadent—which is concerned mainly with its rights instead of with its duties—with its comforts more than with the sacrifices which are essential to its own preservation—how can such a system make head against an efficient monarchy sustained by the enthusiastic devotion of a vigorous and intelligent people?
It does not seem altogether wise to despair of one's own institutions at the first check. Even democracy, in the best sense, is not a flawless thing. Of all forms of government it is the most delicate, more dependent than any other upon the supply of leaders. There are times of dearth when the crop of leadership is a short one. Nor are popular institutions, any more than our own vile bodies, exempt from disease. Disease, however, is not necessarily fatal. The patient may recover, and in the bracing air of a national crisis, such as the present, conditions are favourable for a cure.
And, after all, we may remind these critics that in 1792 democracy did in fact make head pretty successfully against monarchy. Though it was miserably unprovided, untrained, inferior to its enemies in everythingsave spirit and leadership, the states of Europe nevertheless—all but England—went down before it, in the years which followed, like a row of ninepins. Then as now, England, guarded by seas and sea-power, had a breathing-space allowed her, in which to adjust the spirit of her people to the new conditions. That Germany will not conquer us with her arms we may well feel confident. But unless we conquer her withour arms—and this is a much longer step—there is a considerable danger that she may yet conquer us withher ideas. In that case the world will be thrown back several hundred years; and the blame for this disaster, should it occur, will be laid—and laid rightly—at the door of Democracy, because it vaunted a system which it had neither the fortitude nor the strength to uphold.
IRRECONCILABLE OPPOSITIONS
When we pass from the conflict between systems of government, and come to the other conflict of ideas as to right and wrong, we find ourselves faced with an antagonism which is wholly incapable of accommodation. In this war the stakes are something more than any of the material interests involved. It is a conflict where one faith is pitted against another. No casuistry will reconcile the ideal which inspires English policy with the ideal which inspires German policy. There is no sense—nothing indeed but danger—in arguing round the circle to prove that the rulers of these two nations are victims of some frightful misunderstanding, and that really at the bottom of their hearts they believe the same things. This is entirely untrue: they believe quite different things; things indeed which are as nearly as possible opposites.
Our own belief is old, ingrained, and universal. It is accepted equally by the people and their rulers. We have held it so long that the articles of our creed have become somewhat blurred in outline—overgrown, like a memorial tablet, by moss and lichen.
In the case of our enemy the tablet is new and the inscription sharp. He who runs may read it in bold clear-cut lettering. But the belief of the German people in the doctrine which has been carved upon the stone is not yet universal, or anything like universal. It is not even general. It is fully understood and accepted only in certain strata of society; but it is responsible, without a doubt, for the making in cold blood of the policy which has led to this war. When the hour struck which the German rulers deemed favourable for conquest, war, according to their creed, became the duty as well as the interest of the Fatherland.
But so soon as war had been declared, the German people were allowed and even encouraged to believe that the making of war from motives of self-interest was a crime against humanity—the Sin against the Holy Ghost. They were allowed and encouraged to believe that the Allies were guilty of this crime and sin. And not only this, but war itself, which had been hymned in so many professorial rhapsodies, as a noble and splendid restorer of vigour and virtue, was now execrated with wailing and gnashing of teeth, as the most hideous of all human calamities.
It is clear from all this that the greater part of the German people regarded war in exactly the same light as the whole of the English people did. In itself it was a curse; and the man who deliberately contrived it for his own ends, or even for those of hiscountry, was a criminal. The German people applied the same tests as we did, and it is not possible to doubt that in so doing they were perfectly sincere. They acted upon instinct. They had not learned the later doctrines of the pedantocracy, or how to steer by a new magnetic pole. They still held by the old Christian rules as to duties which exist between neighbours. To their simple old-fashioned loyalty what their Kaiser said must be the truth. And what their Kaiser said was that the Fatherland was attacked by treacherous foes. That was enough to banish all doubts. For the common people that was the reality and the only reality. Phrases about world-power and will-to-power—supposing they had ever heard or noticed them—were only mouthfuls of strange words, such as preachers of all kinds love to chew in the intervals of their discourses.
APOSTASY OF THE PRIESTHOOD
When the priests and prophets found themselves at last confronted by those very horrors which they had so often invoked, did their new-found faith desert them, or was it only that their tongues, for some reason, refused to speak the old jargon? Judging by their high-flown indignation against the Allies it would rather seem as if, in the day of wrath, they had hastily abandoned sophistication for the pious memories of their unlettered childhood. Their apostasy was too well done to have been hypocrisy.
With the rulers it was different. They knew clearly enough what they had done, what they were doing, and what they meant to do. When they remained sympathetically silent, amid the popular babble about the horrors of war and iniquity of peace-breakers, their tongues were not paralysed by remorse—they were merely in their cheeks. Theirsole concern was to humour public opinion, the results of whose disapproval they feared, quite as much as they despised its judgment.
That war draws out and gives scope to some of the noblest human qualities, which in peace-time are apt to be hidden out of sight, no one will deny. That it is a great getter-rid of words and phrases, which have no real meaning behind them—that it is a great winnower of true men from shams, of staunch men from boasters and blowers of their own trumpets—that it is a great binder-together of classes, a great purifier of the hearts of nations, there is no need to dispute. Occasionally, though very rarely, it has proved itself to be a great destroyer of misunderstanding between the combatants themselves.
But although the whole of this is true, it does not lighten the guilt of the deliberate peace-breaker. Many of the same benefits, though in a lesser degree, arise out of a pestilence, a famine, or any other great national calamity; and it is the acknowledged duty of man to strive to the uttermost against these and to ward them off with all his strength. It is the same with war. To argue, as German intellectuals have done of late, that in order to expand their territories they were justified in scattering infection and deliberately inviting this plague, that the plague itself was a thing greatly for the advantage of the moral sanitation of the world—all this is merely the casuistry of a priesthood whom the vanity of rubbing elbows with men of action has beguiled of their salvation.
THE ARROGANCE OF PEDANTS
Somewhere in one of his essays Emerson introduces an interlocutor whom he salutes as 'little Sir.' One feels tempted to personify the whole corporation of German pedants under the same title. When theytalk so vehemently and pompously about the duty of deliberate war-making for the expansion of the Fatherland, for the fulfilment of the theory of evolution, even for the glory of God on high, our minds are filled with wonder and a kind of pity.
Have they ever seen war except in their dreams, or a countryside in devastation? Have they ever looked with their own eyes on shattered limbs, or faces defaced, of which cases, and the like, there are already some hundreds of thousands in the hospitals of Europe, and may be some millions before this war is ended? Have they ever reckoned—except in columns of numerals without human meaning—how many more hundreds of thousands, in the flower of their age, have died and will die, or—more to be pitied—will linger on maimed and impotent when the war is ended? Have they realised any of these things, except in diagrams, and curves, and statistical tables, dealing with the matter—as they would say themselves, in their own dull and dry fashion—'under its broader aspects'—in terms, that is, of population, food-supply, and economic output?
Death, and suffering of many sorts occur in all wars—even in the most humane war. And this is not a humane war which the pedants have let loose upon us. Indeed, they have taught with some emphasis that humanity, under such conditions, is altogether a mistake.
"Sentimentality!" cries the 'little Sir' impatiently, "sickly sentimentality! In a world of men such things must be. God has ordained war."
Possibly. But what one feels is that the making of war is the Lord's own business and not the 'little Sir's.' It is the Lord's, as vengeance is, andearthquakes, floods, and droughts; not an office to be undertaken by mortals.
The 'little Sir,' however, has devised a new order for the world, and apparently he will never rest satisfied until Heaven itself conforms to his initiative. He is audacious, for like the Titans he has challenged Zeus. But at times we are inclined to wonder—is he not perhaps trying too much? Is he not in fact engaged in an attempt to outflank Providence, whose pivot is infinity? And for this he is relying solely upon the resources of his own active little finite mind. He presses his attack most gallantly against human nature—back and forwards, up and down—but opposing all his efforts is there not a screen of adamantine crystal which cannot be pierced, of interminable superficies which cannot be circumvented? Is he not in some ways like a wasp, which beats itself angrily against a pane of glass?
[1] Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Jay.
I saw then in my dream that he went onthus, even until he came at a bottom, where he saw, a little out of the way, three Men fast asleep with Fetters upon their heels.
The name of the one wasSimple, anotherSloth, and the thirdPresumption.
Christianthen seeing them lie in this case, went to them, if Peradventure he might awake them. And cried, you are like them that sleep on the top of a Mast, for the dead Sea is under you, a Gulf that hath no bottom. Awake therefore and come away; be willing also, and I will help you off with your Irons. He also told them, If he that goeth about like aroaring Lioncomes by, you will certainly become a prey to his teeth.
With that they lookt upon him, and began to reply in this sort:Simplesaid,I see no danger;Slothsaid,Yet a little more sleep; andPresumptionsaid,Every Vat must stand upon his own bottom. And so they lay down to sleep again, andChristianwent on his way.
The Pilgrim's Progress.
(January1901-July1914)
It is not true to say that this is a war between the rival principles of democracy and autocracy. A too great absorption in our own particular sector of the situation has led certain writers to put forward, as a general explanation, this formula which is not only inadequate, but misleading. The real issue is something wider and deeper than a struggle between forms of government. It is concerned with the groundwork of human beliefs.
And yet it is unquestionably true to say, that by reason of Germany's procedure, this war is being waged against democracy—not perhaps by intention, but certainly in effect. For if the Allies should be defeated, or even if they should fail to conquer their present enemies, the result must necessarily be wounding to the credit of popular institutions all the world over, fatal to their existence in Europe at any rate, fatal conceivably at no long distance of time to their existence elsewhere than in Europe. For mankind, we may be sure, is not going to put up with any kind of government merely because it is ideally beautiful. No system will be toleratedindefinitely which does not enable the people who live under it to protect themselves from their enemies. The instinct of self-preservation will drive them to seek for some other political arrangement which is competent, in the present imperfect condition of the world, to provide the first essential of a state, which is Security.
But although the whole fabric of democracy is threatened by this war, the principle of autocracy is not challenged by it either directly or indirectly. France and England are not fighting against personal monarchy any more than Russia is fighting against popular government. So far as the forms of constitutions are concerned each of the Allies would be well content to live and let live. They are none of them spurred on by propagandist illusions like the armies of the First Republic. Among Russians, devotion to their own institutions, and attachment to the person of their Emperor are inspired not merely by dictates of political expediency and patriotism, but also by their sense of religious duty.[1] It is inconceivable that the national spirit of Russia could ever have been roused to universal enthusiasm merely in order to fight the battles of democracy. And yet Russia is now ranged side by side with the French Republic and the British Commonwealth in perfect unison. What has induced her to submit to sacrifices—less indeed than those of Belgium, but equal to those of France, and much greater so far than our own—unless some issue was at stake wider and deeper even than the future of popular government?
The instincts of a people are vague and obscure. The reasons which are put forward, the motiveswhich appear upon the surface, the provocations which lead to action, the immediate ends which are sought after and pursued, rarely explain the true causes or proportions of any great national struggle. But for all that, the main issue, as a rule, is realised by the masses who are engaged, although it is not realised through the medium of coherent argument or articulate speech.
The present war is a fight, not between democracy and autocracy, but between the modern spirit of Germany and the unchanging spirit of civilisation. And it is well to bear in mind that the second of these is not invincible. It has suffered defeat before now, at various epochs in the world's history, when attacked by the same forces which assail it to-day. Barbarism is not any the less barbarism because it employs weapons of precision, because it avails itself of the discoveries of science and the mechanism of finance, or because it thinks it worth while to hire bands of learned men to shriek pæans in its praise and invectives against its victims. Barbarism is not any the less barbarism because its methods are up to date. It is known for what it is by the ends which it pursues and the spirit in which it pursues them.
GERMAN MATERIALISM
The modern spirit of Germany is materialism in its crudest form—the undistracted pursuit of wealth, and of power as a means to wealth. It is materialism, rampant and self-confident, fostered by the state—subsidised, regulated, and, where thought advisable, controlled by the state—supported everywhere by the diplomatic resources of the state—backed in the last resort by the fleets and armies of the state. It is the most highly organised machine,the most deliberate and thorough-going system, for arriving at material ends which has ever yet been devised by man. It is far more efficient, but not a whit less material, than 'Manchesterism' of the Victorian era, which placed its hopes in 'free' competition, and also than that later development of trusts and syndicates—hailing from America—which aims at levying tribute on society by means of 'voluntary' co-operation. And just as the English professors, who fell prostrate in adoration before the prosperity of cotton-spinners, found no difficulty in placing self-interest upon the loftiest pedestal of morality, so German professors have succeeded in erecting for the joint worship of the Golden Calf and the War-god Wotun, high twin altars which look down with pity and contempt upon the humbler shrines of the Christian faith.
The morality made in Manchester has long ago lost its reputation. That which has been made in Germany more recently must in the end follow suit; for, like its predecessor, it is founded upon a false conception of human nature and cannot endure. But in the interval, if it be allowed to triumph, it may work evil, in comparison with which that done by our own devil-take-the-hindmost philosophers sinks into insignificance.
WANT OF A NATIONAL POLICY
Looking at the present war from the standpoint of the Allies, the object of it is to repel the encroachments of materialism, working its way through the ruin of ideas, which have been cherished always, save in the dark ages when civilisation was overwhelmed by barbarism. Looking at the matter from our own particular standpoint, it is also incidentally a struggle for the existence of democracy. The chief questionwe have to ask ourselves is whether our people will fight for their faith and traditions with the same skill and courage as the Germans for their material ends? Will they endure sacrifices with the same fortitude as France and Russia? Will they face the inevitable eagerly and promptly, or will they play the laggard and by delay ruin all—themselves most of all? ... This war is not going to be won for us by other people, or by some miraculous intervention of Providence, or by the Germans running short of copper, or by revolutions in Berlin, nor even by the break-up of the Austrian Empire. In order to win it we shall have to put out our full strength, to organise our resources in men and material as we have never done before during the whole of our history. We have not accomplished these things as yet, although we have expressed our determination, and are indeed willing to attempt them. We were taken by surprise, and the immediate result has been a great confusion, very hard to disentangle.
Considering how little, before war began, our people had been taken into the confidence of successive governments, as to the relations of the British Empire with the outside world; how little education of opinion there had been, as to risks, and dangers, and means of defence; how little leading and clear guidance, both before and since, as to duties—considering all these omissions one can only marvel that the popular response has been what it is, and that the confusion was not many times worse.
What was the mood of the British race when this war broke upon them so unexpectedly? To what extent were they provided against it in a material sense? And still more important, how far weretheir minds and hearts prepared to encounter it? It is important to understand those things, but in order to do this it is necessary to look back over a few years.
By a coincidence which may prove convenient to historians, the end of the nineteenth century marked the beginning of a new epoch[2]—an interlude, of brief duration as it proved—upon which the curtain was rung down shortly before midnight on the 4th of August 1914.
Between these two dates, in a space of something over thirteen years, events had happened in a quick succession, both within the empire and abroad, which disturbed or dissolved many ancient understandings. The spirit of change had been busy with mankind, and needs unknown to a former generation had grown clamorous. Objects of hope had presented themselves, driving old ideas to the wall, and unforeseen dangers had produced fresh groupings, compacts, and associations between states, and parties, and individual men.
In Europe during this period the manifest determination of Germany to challenge the naval supremacy of Britain, by the creation of a fleet designed and projected as the counterpart of her overwhelming army, had threatened the security of the whole continent, and had put France, Russia, and England upon terms not far removed from those of an alliance. The gravity of this emergency had induced our politicians to exclude, for the time being, this department of public affairs from the bitterness of their party struggles; and it had also drawnthe governments of the United Kingdom and the Dominions into relations closer than ever before, for the purpose of mutual defence.[3]
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EAST
In the meanwhile there had been developments even more startling in the hitherto unchanging East. Japan, as the result of a great war,[4] had become a first-class power, redoubtable both by sea and land. China, the most populous, the most ancient, and the most conservative of despotisms, had suddenly sought her salvation under the milder institutions of a republic.[5]
The South African war, ended by the Peace of Pretoria, had paved the way for South African Union.[6] The achievement of this endeavour had been applauded by men of all parties; some finding in it a welcome confirmation of their theories with regard to liberty and self-government; others again drawing from it encouragement to a still bolder undertaking. For if South Africa had made a precedent, the existing state of the world had supplied a motive, for the closer union of the empire.
Within the narrower limits of the United Kingdom changes had also occurred within this period which, from another point of view, were equally momentous. In 1903 Mr. Chamberlain had poured new wine into old bottles, and in so doing had hastened the inevitable end of Unionist predominance by changing on a sudden the direction of party policy. In the unparalleled defeat which ensued two and a half years later the Labour party appeared for the first time, formidable both in numbers and ideas.
A revolution had likewise been proceeding inour institutions as well as in the minds of our people. The balance of the state had been shifted by a curtailment of the powers of the House of Lords[7]—the first change which had been made by statute in the fundamental principle of the Constitution since the passing of the Act of Settlement.[8] In July 1914 further changes of a similar character, hardly less important under a practical aspect, were upon the point of receiving the Royal Assent.[9]
Both these sets of changes—that which had been already accomplished and the other which was about to pass into law—had this in common, that even upon the admissions of their own authors they were incomplete. Neither in the Parliament Act nor in the Home Rule Act was there finality. The composition of the Second Chamber had been set down for early consideration, whilst a revision of the constitutional relations between England, Scotland, and Wales was promised so soon as the case of Ireland had been dealt with.
It seemed as if the modern spirit had at last, in earnest, opened an inquisition upon the adequacy of our ancient unwritten compact, which upon the whole, had served its purpose well for upwards of two hundred years. It seemed as if that compact were in the near future to be tested thoroughly, and examined in respect of its fitness for dealing with the needs of the time—with the complexities and the vastness of the British Empire—with the evils which prey upon us from within, and with the dangers which threaten us from without.
Questioners were not drawn from one party alone.They were pressing forwards from all sides. It was not merely the case of Ireland, or the powers of the Second Chamber, or its composition, or the general congestion of business, or the efficiency of the House of Commons: it was the whole machinery of government which seemed to need overhauling and reconsideration in the light of new conditions. Most important of all these constitutional issues was that which concerned the closer union of the Empire.
CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES
It was little more than eighty years since the Iron Duke had described the British Constitution as an incomparably devised perfection which none but a madman would seek to change. That was not now the creed of any political party or indeed of any thinking man. No one was satisfied with things as they were. Many of the most respectable old phrases had become known for empty husks, out of which long since had dropped whatever seed they may originally have contained. Many of the old traditions were dead or sickly, and their former adherents were now wandering at large, like soldiers in the middle ages, when armies were disbanded in foreign parts, seeking a new allegiance, and constituting in the meanwhile a danger to security and the public peace.
And also, within this brief period, the highest offices had become vacant, and many great figures had passed from the scene. Two sovereigns had died full of honour. Two Prime Ministers had also died, having first put off the burden of office, each at the zenith of his popularity. Of the two famous men upon the Unionist side who remained when Lord Salisbury tendered his resignation, the one since 1906 had been wholly withdrawn from public life,while the other, four years later, had passed the leadership into younger hands.[10]
There is room for an almost infinite variety of estimate as to the influence which is exercised by pre-eminent characters upon public affairs and national ideals. The verdict of the day after is always different from that of a year after. The verdict of the next generation, while differing from both, is apt to be markedly different from that of the generation which follows it. The admiration or censure of the moment is followed by a reaction no less surely than the reaction itself is followed by a counter-reaction. Gradually the oscillations become shorter, as matters pass out of the hands of journalists and politicians into those of the historian. Possibly later judgments are more true. We have more knowledge, of a kind. Seals are broken one by one, and we learn how this man really thought and how the other acted, in both cases differently from what had been supposed. We have new facts submitted to us, and possibly come nearer the truth. But while we gain so much, we also lose in other directions. We lose the sharp savour of the air. The keen glance and alert curiosity of contemporary vigilance are lacking. Conditions and circumstances are no longer clear, and as generation after generation passes away they become more dim. The narratives of the great historians and novelists are to a large extent either faded or false. We do not trust the most vivid presentments written by the man of genius in his study a century after the event, while we know well that even the shrewdest of contemporaneous observers is certain to omit manyof the essentials. If Macaulay is inadequate in one direction, Pepys is equally inadequate in another. And if the chronicler at the moment, and the historian in the future are not to be wholly believed, the writer who comments after a decade or less upon things which are fresh in his memory is liable to another form of error; for either he is swept away by the full current of the reaction, or else his judgments are embittered by a sense of the hopelessness of swimming against it.
DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA
This much, however, may be said safely—that the withdrawal of any pre-eminent character from the scene, whether it be Queen Victoria or King Edward, Lord Salisbury or Mr. Chamberlain, produces in a greater or less degree that same loosening of allegiance and disturbance of ideas, which are so much dreaded by the conservative temperament from the removal of an ancient institution. For a pre-eminent character is of the same nature as an institution. The beliefs, loyalties, and ideals of millions were attached to the personality of the Queen. The whole of that prestige which Queen Victoria drew from the awe, reverence, affection, and prayers of her people could not be passed along with the crown to King Edward. The office of sovereign was for the moment stripped and impoverished of some part of its strength, and was only gradually replenished as the new monarch created a new, and to some extent a different, loyalty of his own. So much is a truism. But, when there is already a ferment in men's minds, the disappearance in rapid succession of the pre-eminent characters of the age helps on revolution by putting an end to a multitude of customary attachments, and by setting sentiments adrift to wander in search of new heroes.
A change of some importance had also come over the character of the House of Commons. The old idea that it was a kind of grand jury of plain men, capable in times of crisis of breaking with their parties, had at last finally disappeared. In politics there was no longer any place for plain men. The need was for professionals, and professionals of this sort, like experts in other walks of life, were worthy of their hire.
The decision to pay members of Parliament came as no surprise. The marvel was rather that it had not been taken at an earlier date, seeing that for considerably more than a century this item had figured in the programmes of all advanced reformers. The change, nevertheless, when it came, was no trivial occurrence, but one which was bound fundamentally to affect the character of the popular assembly; whether for better or worse was a matter of dispute.
Immense, however, as were the possibilities contained in the conversion of unpaid amateurs into professional and stipendiary politicians, what excited even more notice at the time than the thing itself, were the means by which it was accomplished. No attempt was made to place this great constitutional reform definitely and securely upon the statute book. To have followed this course would have meant submitting a bill, and a bill would have invited discussion at all its various stages. Moreover, the measure might have been challenged by the House of Lords, in which case delay would have ensued; and a subject, peculiarly susceptible to malicious misrepresentation, would have been kept—possibly for so long as three years—under the critical eyes of public opinion.Apparently this beneficent proposal was one of those instances, so rare in modern political life, where neither publicity nor advertisement was sought. On the contrary, the object seemed to be to do good by stealth; and for this purpose a simple financial resolution was all that the law required. The Lords had recently been warned off and forbidden to interfere with money matters, their judgment being under suspicion, owing to its supposed liability to be affected by motives of self-interest. The House of Commons was therefore sole custodian of the public purse; and in this capacity its members were invited to vote themselves four hundred pounds a year all round, as the shortest and least ostentatious way of raising the character and improving the quality of the people's representatives.
CHANGE IN HOUSE OF COMMONS
Even by July 1914 the effect of this constitutional amendment upon our old political traditions had become noticeable in various directions. But the means by which it was accomplished are no less worthy of note than the reform itself, when we are endeavouring to estimate the changes which have come over Parliament during this short but revolutionary epoch. The method adopted seemed to indicate a novel attitude on the part of members of the House of Commons towards the Imperial Exchequer, on the part of the Government towards members of the House of Commons, and on the part of both towards the people whom they trusted. It was adroit, expeditious, and businesslike; and to this extent seemed to promise well for years to come, when the professionals should have finally got rid of the amateurs, and taken things wholly into their own hands. Hostile critics, it is true, denounced thereform bluntly as corruption, and the method of its achievement as furtive and cynical; but for this class of persons no slander is ever too gross—They have said. Quhat say they? Let them be saying.
The party leaders were probably neither worse men nor better than they had been in the past; but they were certainly smaller; while on the other hand the issues with which they found themselves confronted were bigger.
Great characters are like tent-pegs. One of their uses is to prevent the political camp from being blown to ribbons. Where they are too short or too frail, we may look for such disorders as have repeated themselves at intervals during the past few years. A blast of anger or ill-temper has blown, or a gust of sentiment, or even a gentle zephyr of sentimentality, and the whole scene has at once become a confusion of flapping canvas, tangled cordage, and shouting, struggling humanity. Such unstable conditions are fatal to equanimity; they disturb the fortitude of the most stalwart follower, and cause doubt and distrust on every hand.
Since the Liberal Government came into power in the autumn of 1905, neither of the great parties had succeeded in earning the respect of the other; and as the nature of man is not subject to violent fluctuations, it may safely be concluded that this misfortune had been due either to some defect or inadequacy of leadership, or else to conditions of an altogether extraordinary character.
During these ten sessions the bulk of the statute book had greatly increased, and much of this increase was no doubt healthy tissue. This period, notwithstanding,will ever dwell in the memory as a squalid episode. Especially is this the case when we contrast the high hopes and promises, not of one party alone, with the results which were actually achieved.
DEMOCRACY AND LEADERSHIP
Democracy, if the best, is also the most delicate form of human government. None suffers so swiftly or so sorely from any shortage in the crop of character. None is so dependent upon men, and so little capable of being supported by the machine alone. When the leading of parties is in the hands of those who lack vision and firmness, the first effect which manifests itself is that parties begin to slip their principles. Some secondary object calls for and obtains the sacrifice of an ideal. So the Unionists in 1909 threw over the order and tradition of the state, the very ark of their political covenant, when they procured the rejection of the Budget by the House of Lords. So the Liberal Government in 1910, having solemnly undertaken to reform the constitution—a work not unworthy of the most earnest endeavour—went back upon their word, and abandoned their original purpose. For one thing they grew afraid of the clamour of their partisans. For another they were tempted by the opportunity of advantages which—as they fondly imagined—could be easily and safely secured during the interval while all legislative powers were temporarily vested in the Commons. Nor were these the only instances where traditional policy had been diverted, and where ideals had been bargained away, in the hope that thereby objects of a more material sort might be had at once in exchange.
The business of leadership is to prevent the abandonment of the long aim for the sake of the short. The rank and file of every army is at all times mostdangerously inclined to this fatal temptation, not necessarily dishonestly, but from a lack of foresight and sense of proportion.
Some dim perception of cause and effect had begun to dawn during the years 1912 and 1913 upon the country, and even upon the more sober section of the politicians. An apprehension had been growing rapidly, and defied concealment, that the country was faced by a very formidable something, to which men hesitated to give a name, but which was clearly not to be got rid of by the customary methods of holding high debates about it, and thereafter marching into division lobbies. While in public, each party was concerned to attribute the appearance of this unwelcome monster solely to the misdeeds of their opponents, each party knew well enough in their hearts that the danger was due at least in some measure to their own abandonment of pledges, principles, and traditions.
At Midsummer 1914 most people would probably have said that the immediate peril was Ireland and civil war. A few months earlier many imagined that trouble of a more general character was brewing between the civil and military powers, and that an issue which they described as that of 'the Army versus the People' would have to be faced. A few years earlier there was a widespread fear that the country might be confronted by some organised stoppage of industry, and that this would lead to revolution. Throughout the whole of this period of fourteen years the menace of war with Germany had been appearing, and disappearing, and reappearing, very much as a whale shows his back, dives, rises at some different spot, and dives again. For the moment,however, this particular anxiety did not weigh heavily on the public mind. The man in the street had been assured of late by the greater part of the press and politicians—even by ministers themselves—that our relations with this formidable neighbour were friendlier and more satisfactory than they had been for some considerable time.
MR. ASQUITH'S PRE-EMINENCE
At Midsummer 1914, that is to say about six weeks before war broke out, the pre-eminent character in British politics was the Prime Minister. No other on either side of the House approached him in prestige, and so much was freely admitted by foes as well as friends.
When we are able to arrive at a fair estimate of the man who is regarded as the chief figure of his age, we have an important clue to the aspirations and modes of thought of the period in which he lived. A people may be known to some extent by the leaders whom it has chosen to follow.
Mr. Asquith entered Parliament in 1886, and before many months had passed his reputation was secure. Mr. Gladstone, ever watchful for youthful talent, promoted him at a bound to be Home Secretary, when the Cabinet of 1892 came into precarious existence. No member of this government justified his selection more admirably. But the period of office was brief. Three years later, the Liberal party found itself once again in the wilderness, where it continued to wander, rent by dissensions both as to persons and principles, for rather more than a decade.
When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman returned to office in the autumn of 1905, Mr. Asquith becameChancellor of the Exchequer, and was speedily accepted as the minister next in succession to his chief. He was then just turned fifty, so that, despite the delays which had occurred, it could not be said that fortune had behaved altogether unkindly. Two and a half years later, in April 1908, he succeeded to the premiership without a rival, and without a dissentient voice.
The ambition, however, which brought him so successfully to the highest post appeared to have exhausted a great part of its force in attainment, and to have left its possessor without sufficient energy for exercising those functions which the post itself required. The career of Mr. Asquith in the highest office reminds one a little of the fable of the Hare and the Tortoise. In the race which we all run with slow-footed fate, he had a signal advantage in the speed of his intellect, in his capacity for overtaking arrears of work which would have appalled any other minister, and for finding, on the spur of the moment, means for extricating his administration from the most threatening positions. But of late, like the Hare, he had come to believe himself invincible, and had yielded more and more to a drowsy inclination. He had seemed to fall asleep for long periods, apparently in serene confidence that, before the Tortoise could pass the winning-post, somebody or something—in all probability the Unionist party with the clamour of a premature jubilation—would awaken him in time to save the race.
So far as Parliament was concerned, his confidence in his own qualities was not misplaced. Again and again, the unleadered energies or ungoaded indolence of his colleagues landed the Governmentin a mess. But as often as this happened Mr. Asquith always advanced upon the scene and rescued his party, by putting the worst blunder in the best light. He obligingly picked his stumbling lieutenants out of the bogs into which—largely, it must be admitted, for want of proper guidance from their chief—they had had the misfortune to fall. Having done this in the most chivalrous manner imaginable, he earned their gratitude and devotion. In this way he maintained a firm hold upon the leadership; if indeed it can properly be termed leadership to be the best acrobat of the troupe, and to step forward and do the feats after your companions have failed, and the audience has begun to 'boo.'
WAIT AND SEE
Some years ago Mr. Asquith propounded a maxim—wait-and-see—which greatly scandalised and annoyed the other side. This formula was the perfectly natural expression of his character and policy. In the peculiar circumstances of the case it proved itself to be a successful parliamentary expedient. Again and again it wrought confusion among his simple-minded opponents, who—not being held together by any firm authority—followed their own noses, now in one direction, now in another, upon the impulse of the moment. It is probable that against a powerful leader, who had his party well in hand, this policy of makeshift and delay would have brought its author to grief. But Unionists were neither disciplined nor united, and they had lacked leadership ever since they entered upon opposition.
For all its excellency, Mr. Asquith's oratory never touched the heart. And very rarely indeed did it succeed in convincing the cool judgment of people who had experience at first hand of the mattersunder discussion. There was lacking anything in the nature of a personal note, which might have related the ego of the speaker to the sentiments which he announced so admirably. Also there was something which suggested that his knowledge had not been gained by looking at the facts face to face; but rather by the rapid digestion of minutes and memoranda, which had been prepared for him by clerks and secretaries, and which purported to provide, in convenient tabloids, all that it was necessary for a parliamentarian to know.
The style of speaking which is popular nowadays, and of which Mr. Asquith is by far the greatest master, would not have been listened to with an equal favour in the days of our grandfathers. In the Parliaments which assembled at Westminster in the period between the passing of the Reform Bill and the founding of the Eighty Club,[11] the country-gentlemen and the men-of-business—two classes of humanity who are constantly in touch with, and drawing strength from, our mother earth of hard fact[12]—met and fought out their differences during two generations. In that golden age it was all but unthinkable that a practising barrister should ever have become Prime Minister. The legal profession at this time had but little influence in counsel; still less in Parliament and on the platform. The middle classes were every whit as jealous and distrustfulof the intervention of the lawyer-advocate in public affairs as the landed gentry themselves. But in the stage of democratic evolution, which we entered on the morrow of the Mid-Lothian campaigns, and in which we still remain, the popular, and even the parliamentary, audience has gradually ceased to consist mainly of country-gentlemen interested in the land, and of the middle-classes who are engaged in trade. It has grown to be at once less discriminating as to the substance of speeches, and more exacting as to their form.
POLITICAL LAWYERS
A representative assembly which entirely lacked lawyers would be impoverished; but one in which they are the predominant, or even a very important element, is usually in its decline. It is strange that an order of men, who in their private and professional capacities are so admirable, should nevertheless produce baleful effects when they come to play too great a part in public affairs. Trusty friends, delightful companions, stricter perhaps than any other civil profession in all rules of honour, they are none the less, without seeking to be so, the worst enemies of representative institutions. The peculiar danger of personal monarchy is that it so easily submits to draw its inspiration from an adulatory priesthood, and the peculiar danger of that modern form of constitutional government which we call democracy, is that lawyers, with the most patriotic intentions, are so apt to undo it.
Lawyers see too much of life in one way, too little in another, to make them safe guides in practical matters. Their experience of human affairs is made up of an infinite number of scraps cut out of other people's lives. They learn and do hardly anythingexcept through intermediaries. Their clients are introduced, not in person, but in the first instance, on paper—through the medium of solicitors' 'instructions.' Litigants appear at consultations in their counsel's chambers under the chaperonage of their attorneys; their case is considered; they receive advice. Then perhaps, if the issue comes into court, they appear once again, in the witness-box, and are there examined, cross-examined, and re-examined under that admirable system for the discovery of truth which is ordained in Anglo-Saxon countries, and which consists in turning, for the time being, nine people in every ten out of their true natures into hypnotised rabbits. Then the whole thing is ended, and the client disappears into the void from whence he came. What happens to him afterwards seldom reaches the ears of his former counsel. Whether the advice given to him in consultation has proved right or wrong in practice, rarely becomes known to the great man who gave it.
Plausibility, an alert eye for the technical trip or fall—the great qualities of an advocate—do not necessarily imply judgment of the most valuable sort outside courts of law. The farmer who manures, ploughs, harrows, sows, and rolls in his crop is punished in his income, if he has done any one of these things wrongly, or at the wrong season. The shopkeeper who blunders in his buying or his selling, or the manufacturer who makes things as they should not be made, suffers painful consequences to a certainty. His error pounds him relentlessly on the head. Not so the lawyer. His errors for the most part are visited on others. His own success or non-success is largely a matter of words and pose. If he is confident andadroit, the dulness of the jury or the senility of the bench can be made to appear, in the eyes of the worsted client, as the true causes of his defeat. And the misfortune is that in politics, which under its modern aspect is a trade very much akin to advocacy, there is a temptation, with all but the most patriotic lawyers, to turn to account at Westminster the skill which they have so laboriously acquired in the Temple.
Of course there have been, and will ever be, exceptions. Alexander Hamilton was a lawyer, though he was a soldier in the first instance. Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer. But we should have to go back to the 'glorious revolution' of 1688 before we could find a parallel to either of these two in our own history. Until the last two decades England has never looked favourably on lawyer leaders. This was regarded by some as a national peculiarity; by others as a safeguard of our institutions. But by the beginning of the twentieth century it was clear that lawyers had succeeded in establishing their predominance in the higher walks of English politics, as thoroughly as they had already done wherever parliamentary government exists throughout the world.
MR. ASQUITH'S ORATORY
During this epoch, when everything was sacrificed to perspicuity and the avoidance of boredom, Mr. Asquith's utterances led the fashion. His ministry was composed to a large extent of politicians bred in the same profession and proficient in the same arts as himself; but he towered above them all, the supreme type of the lawyer-statesman.
His method was supremely skilful. In its own way it had the charm of perfect artistry, even thoughthe product of the art was hardly more permanent than that of thecordon bleuwho confections ices in fancy patterns. And not only was the method well suited to the taste of popular audiences, but equally so to the modern House of Commons. That body, also, was now much better educated in matters which can be learned out of newspapers and books; far more capable of expressing its meanings in well-chosen phrases arranged in a logical sequence; far more critical of words—if somewhat less observant of things—than it was during the greater part of the reign of Queen Victoria.
To a large extent the House of Commons consisted of persons with whom public utterance was a trade. There were lawyers in vast numbers, journalists, political organisers, and professional lecturers on a large variety of subjects. And even among the labour party, where we might have expected to find a corrective, the same tendency was at work, perhaps as strongly as in any other quarter. For although few types of mankind have a shrewder judgment between reality and dialectic than a thoroughly competent 'workman,' labour leaders were not chosen because they were first-class workmen, but because they happened to be effective speakers on the platform or at the committee table.
To a critic, looking on at the play from outside, Mr. Asquith's oratory appeared to lack heart and the instinct for reality; his leadership, the qualities of vigilance, steadfastness, and authority. He did not prevail by personal force, but by adroit confutation. His debating, as distinguished from his political, courage would have been admitted with few reservations even by an opponent.Few were so ready to meet their enemies in the gate of discussion. Few, if any, were so capable of retrieving the fortunes of their party—even when things looked blackest—if it were at all possible to accomplish this by the weapons of debate. But the medium must be debate—not action or counsel—if Mr. Asquith's pre-eminence was to assert itself. In debate he had all the confidence and valour of themaître d'armes, who knows himself to be the superior in skill of any fencer in his own school.
HIS CHARACTER
Next to Lord Rosebery he was the figure of most authority among the Liberal Imperialists, and yet this did not sustain his resolution when the Cabinet of 1905 proceeded to pare down the naval estimates. He was the champion of equal justice, as regards the status of Trades Unions, repelling the idea of exceptional and favouring legislation with an eloquent scorn. Yet he continued to hold his place when his principles were thrown overboard by his colleagues in 1906. Again when he met Parliament in February 1910 he announced his programme with an air of heroic firmness.[13] It is unnecessary to recall the particulars of this episode, and how he was upheld in his command only upon condition that he would alter his course to suit the wishes of mutineers. And in regard to the question of Home Rule, his treatment of it from first to last had been characterised by the virtues of patience and humility, rather than by those of prescience or courage.
A 'stellar and undiminishable' something, around which the qualities and capacities of a man revolve obediently, and under harmonious restraint—likethe planetary bodies—is perhaps as near as we can get to a definition of human greatness. But in the case of Mr. Asquith, for some years prior to July 1914, the central force of his nature had seemed inadequate for imposing the law of its will upon those brilliant satellites his talents. As a result, the solar system of his character had fallen into confusion, and especially since the opening of that year had appeared to be swinging lop-sided across the political firmament hastening to inevitable disaster.
[1] Cf. 'Russia and her Ideals,'Round Table, December 1914.
[2] Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901.
[3] Imperial Conference on Defence, summer of 1909.
[4] 1904-1905.
[5] 1911.
[6] May 1902.
[7] Parliament Act became law August 1911.
[8] 1689.
[9] Home Rule Bill became law August 1914.
[10] Mr. Chamberlain died July 2, 1914; Mr. Balfour resigned the leadership of the Unionist party on November 8, 1911.
[11] 1832-1880.
[12] They had an excellent sense of reality as regards their own affairs, and there between them covered a fairly wide area; but they were singularly lacking either in sympathy or imagination with regard to the affairs of other nations and classes. Their interest in the poor was confined for the most part to criticism ofone anotherwith regard to conditions of labour. The millowners thought that the oppression of the peasantry was a scandal; while the landowners considered that the state of things prevailing in factories was much worse than slavery. Cf. Disraeli'sSybil.
[13]I.e.curtailment of the powers of the House of Lords and its reform. Only the first was proceeded with.