_FREEDOM'S NEW FRIENDS_
Many, said the Greek proverb, are they who bear the mystic reed,
but few are the true bacchanals. Many, in the present day, are
they who make an outward display of devotion to Liberty, but few,
methinks, are her real worshippers. "We are fighting for Freedom"
is a cry which rises from the most unexpected quarters; and, though
'twere ungracious to question its sincerity, we must admit that
this generous enthusiasm is of very recent growth.
Liberty has always had her friends in England; but where she could
count one, Authority could count two.[*] Five years ago, how many
Englishmen really cared for Liberty, not rendering her mere lip-service,
but honestly devoting themselves to her sacred cause? If you polled
the nation from top to bottom, how many liberty-lovers would you
find? At one election their number, as disclosed by the polls,
would rise, at another it would sink. At the best of times, if you
divide the nation into strata, you would find large sections in
which Liberty had no worshippers and very few friends. It had long
been one of the bad signs of the times that the love of Liberty had
almost ceased to animate what are called, in the odious language of
social convention, "the upper classes." For generations the despised
and calumniated Whigs had maintained the cause of Freedom in their
peculiarly dogged though unemotional fashion, and had established
the political liberties of England on a strong foundation. But their
day was done, their work was accomplished, and their descendants
had made common cause with their hereditary opponents.
[Footnote *: I am speaking here of England only--not of Scotland,
Ireland, or Wales.]
After the great split of 1886 a genuine lover of Freedom in the upper
strata of society was so rare a character that people encountering
him instinctively asked, "Is he insincere? Or only mad?" Deserted
by the aristocracy, Liberty turned for her followers to the great
Middle Class; but there also the process of apostasy had begun;
and substantial people, whose fathers had fought and suffered for
Freedom, waxed reactionary as the claims of Labour became more
audible, and betook themselves to the side of Authority as being
the natural guardian of property. If you make the division
geographically, you may say, in the broadest terms, that the North
stood firm for Freedom; but that London and the South were always
unfriendly to it, and, after 1886, the Midlands joined the enemy.
If we apply a test which, though often illusory, cannot be regarded
as wholly misleading, the Metropolitan Press was, in a remarkable
degree, hostile to Freedom, and reflected, as one must suppose,
the sentiments of the huge constituency for whom it catered. How
many friends could Irish Nationalism count? How many could Greece,
in her struggle with Turkey? How many the Balkan States? How many
Armenia? How many, even in the ranks of professed Liberalism, opposed
the annexation of the South African Republics? At each extension
of the suffrage; at each tussle with the Lords; at each attempt
to place the burden of taxation on the shoulders best able to bear
it, few indeed were the friends of Freedom in the upper classes of
society; in the opulent Middle Class; in London and the Midlands
and the South; in the Church, alas!; in the Universities, the
Professions, and the Press.
And yet, at the present moment, from these unlikely quarters there
rises a diapason of liberty-loving eloquence which contrasts very
discordantly with the habitual language of five years ago. To-day
the friends of Freedom are strangely numerous and admirably vocal.
Our Lady of Liberty, one thinks, must marvel at the number and the
energy of her new worshippers. Lapses from grace are not unknown in
the after-history of revivals, but we must, in charity, assume the
conversion to be genuine until experience has proved it insincere.
And to what are we to attribute it? Various answers are possible.
Perhaps, as long as it was only other people's liberty which was
imperilled, we could look on without concern. Perhaps we never
realized the value of Freedom, as the chief good of temporal life,
till the prospect of losing it, under a world-wide reign of force,
first dawned on our imagination. Perhaps--and this is the happiest
supposition--we have learnt our lesson by contemplating the effects
of a doglike submission to Authority in corrupting the morals and
wrecking the civilization of a powerful and once friendly people.
But, theorize as we may about the cause, the effect is unmistakable,
and, at least on the surface, satisfactory. To-day we all are the
friends and lovers of Liberty--and yet the very multitude of our
new comrades gives us, the veterans in the cause, some ground for
perplexity and even for concern. "He who really loves Liberty must
walk alone." In spite of all that has come and gone, I believe that
this stern dogma still holds good; and I seem to see it illustrated
afresh in the career, so lately closed amid universal respect and
regret, of Leonard, Lord Courtney.[*]
[Footnote *: Leonard, Henry Courtney (Lord Courtney of Penwith),
died May 11, 1918, in his eighty-sixth year.]
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