is passing an irresistible appeal for strenuous action and clear
thought, must realise the dangerous tendencies of the time, but it is
not right to look upon them as the sum-total of the present upheaval.
The present has its tragedies that pierce to the heart of our normal
self-restraint; we have to think of the future as well and see whether
there is at our door any indication of the unity and brotherhood for
which millions have waged a war from which many of the best and bravest
will never return. Is there any indication that in the times lying
before us, all classes of the community will unite to share the burdens
of the State? I think there is.
In many directions the lessons of life and death are not yet learned,
but there is one feature of our social life that is truly encouraging.
To sum it up in a phrase I would say that people whose example is
a considerable force in the national life, have decided that it is
neither a vice nor a crime to be poor. A modest establishment in
England to-day is more fashionable than an extravagant one; those of
us who are burdened by very large places are the objects of sympathy
rather than envy.
The flunkey has been redeemed from base servitude, never again I
hope and believe, to return. The descendant of Jeames de la Pluche,
immortalised by Thackeray, is with the British Expeditionary Force or
qualifying to go there. He has discovered that he too is a man. The
butler, where he still lingers, is too old for service, the footmen,
if any, have been rejected by the army doctor, or have played a part
and returned home wounded and unfit as yet for a more strenuous life.
They do not propose to remain in a discredited service. Even the
maid-servants are reduced to the minimum that is compatible with a
fair day's necessary work. The lady's-maid, that last infirmity of
conscientious minds, is allowed ample time for helping the nation.
The cook gives the benefit of her skill not only to the home but the
hospital. The sons of the house are at the front if they are old enough
and not too old to be of use, the daughters have found something better
than they had imagined possible to do with their time. They have flung
themselves as far in the pursuit of duty as they travelled formerly in
the pursuit of pleasure.
If one entertains nowadays, it is the working party or the committee
of which one is a member that is received. Simplicity is the order
of the hour among friends and one does not entertain acquaintances.
The young men have gone from stables and garage, from woods and
garden. I think the expensive dressmakers, jewellers, restaurateurs,
hairdressers, and the rest of those who catered for the days of our
vanity, are having a bad time. I think they will see a worse one. There
are still thoughtless women in our midst. I recognise them at once,
for they clothe themselves in the furs of harmless animals and wear
hats decked with the bodies or nuptial plumage of innocent birds, as if
pride of power, vanity, and lust of slaughter had not brought enough
injury to the world and vanity must still take toll of life. But these
women are a minority and belong to the class that nothing short of
ostracism can reach. I think it will reach them, and soon. There has
been such an orgie of cruelty in the world of late that the period to
be put upon it must be a full one.
The special interest in the changes briefly outlined above, and the
list might be continued indefinitely, lies in the approximation at home
to the conditions in the field of war. There the struggle for mastery
is tending, on every front, to the obliteration of class distinctions.
Many of these that in the days before August, 1914, were rigid as
Hindu caste are now dead as well as damned. Mankind has recognised
something of its essential brotherhood out there, and now womankind's
sisterhood is recognised too. This is almost the more important change,
because so many men who remain in England waging the money war that
is ever with us are far too immersed in the pursuit of pelf to care
about anything else. Against them even our defenders might fail in
times of peace if they were left unaided by the other sex. Women have
always been the creators and supporters of extravagance, though the
fault rests with the men who have until quite recent times refused
to allow them any interests that will vie with money-spending and
aimless pleasure-seeking. I do not think that even this war could have
brought about the change I recognise so gladly and record with so much
pleasure, had it not been for the feminist movement. This taught tens
of thousands of women to think and thousands to make their thoughts
articulate. War faced them with a sense of the value of the work they
had undertaken, the urgent need of its pursuit in the interests of the
world at large. I feel it is in no small part due to their influence
that so much that is unworthy in the life of the modern woman has been
voluntarily laid aside and that so much of infinite value has been
chosen to replace it.
Just as men have mingled on the battlefield, women have mingled at
home, understanding perhaps for the first time in our social history
the view-point of classes other than their own, seeing the best in each
other's lives and sharing anxieties and burdens as perhaps only women
can. But if the good understanding was to be permanent it was essential
that privilege should be laid aside. People can enjoy riches without
a thought and suffer poverty without a murmur, but contrasts build
barriers. It is the sense of sharp contrast that is the undoing of so
many girls, that makes for so much bitterness among women. All too
often the rich do not understand, the poor are painfully suspicious or
self-conscious. There could not be any common meeting ground until all
were rich or all were poor. It is not possible under existing social
conditions--soon one hopes to be amended--for all to live in comfort.
Thank God, it is at least possible for all to be poor.
Not by what we have, but by what we are, let us be judged, and for
those who had great possessions there will be a certain satisfaction in
the new conditions that money could not purchase.
Flattery, adulation, jealousy, envy, malice and all uncharitableness
could be provoked by wealth even though it was wisely dispensed;
gratitude was always hard to gain in the genuine form. Love, affection,
simple unaffected candour, these were rarely vouchsafed to those
whose material prosperity was considerable. It is intolerable that one
should patronise or endure patronage, frank and simple relations cannot
endure in an atmosphere of inequalities. In England the infection of
snobbery was eating into our national life. A considerable section of
the press caters for snobs and thrives in the catering. In the United
States and in the British Dominions Overseas the state of the public
mind is far healthier. It may be that our plight had come about through
our insularity, by reason of our super-abundant national riches, by
the force of our habit of despising the creator of national wealth and
honouring only those who squander it. Whatever the cause the effect was
ugly. War has taken drastic steps to abate the evil by depriving of
their _locus standi_ those who stood for great possessions. They are
poorer and better. We shall have a certain number of plutocrats in our
midst; out of a war expenditure of four or five millions a day somebody
must make money. But the money spinners will find that while the hand
of the State will weigh heavily upon them, any lavish expenditure will
be eyed askance by the moderate-minded men and women of all classes.
The eyes of the majority are opened. Above all, English women of the
leisured classes have deliberately laid aside many of the habits and
indulgences to which their practice gave a sanction. This tendency
is still in its infancy, but the tragedy of war has enforced and will
continue to enforce it. All, or at least the greater part of Europe,
after this war will be a house of mourning. Death leads the van of
a procession in which Poverty brings up the rear. As in a flash the
world that lived almost without a serious care two years ago sees its
own real needs and duties and the terrible inadequacy of the means to
fulfil and perform them.
We find to-day that our national needs are greater than we knew, our
resources less than they have been for many years. The only true
satisfaction to be gathered from the prospect is that we recognise
it. For once in our history it is not left to a few courageous men
to preach an unpopular gospel in the ears of indifferent wealth
and vanity-stricken fashion. The people who are alive to the truth
of our national state are not devoting anxious hours to keeping up
appearances. Shams that our life seemed full of so recently, are known
for what they are. For the first time in the social history of our
generation it suffices to be an Englishman or an Englishwoman and to
have filled the _rôle_, however modest, that the fates have assigned
in this world crisis. Shall we miss the old luxuries of life? Will
those of us who accepted them without thought or comment as part of
the natural order of things, forego them without a qualm? I think we
shall, because we shall all have a serious and definite occupation.
The landowner must develop a good business faculty or go under, the
mistress of a large establishment must learn all the domestic arts that
her grandmothers practised to perfection or she will not be able to
keep it together. The younger sons will not be brought up to look upon
loafing as a career, and the girls will be trained to take a part in
the world's work, fortified by the knowledge that the State no longer
regards them as a negligible quantity. In the near future the British
Empire will be demanding more of its sons and daughters and giving
them less reward for it, but such a condition encourages the national
virtues. We are rather a flint-like people. If we are properly struck
we emit light.
Decidedly the world is out of joint, and it is possible to survey
the situation and find ample material for pessimism. But we who have
made the mistakes or inherited them can set the crooked straight if
we recognise the nature of the task. And I see on all sides of me men
and women who do. They are preparing the ground on which the virtues
engendered by a struggle for national existence may blossom and bear
fruit.
XXVII
ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS IN PEACE AND WAR
The Anglo-Saxon race is on its trial just now, and, however strenuous
the times, they do not deny us a measure of leisure in which to
estimate the forces upon which we may rely. With battleships and
regiments woman has nothing to do, she does but bring painfully into
the world those who serve both. It is her mission to shield them with
her love and devotion in the season of their helplessness and wait,
watch, and pray while the battles join. Hers too it is to do what may
be done to heal the wounds of battle, to comfort and to minister,
to know the anxiety without the excitement of conflict, to see much
of the horror and little of the glory. Yet, far outside the area of
strife, woman plays no negligible part in controlling the destinies of
nations, for there is a field of social diplomacy in which she labours
persistently and the measure of Anglo-Saxon unity that obtains to-day
is in no small measure the fruit of her effort.
It will be remembered that before there was an Anglo-American social
life, relations between the mother country and the United States
were the reverse of cordial. Many people in the States regarded this
country with suspicion, many in this country looked upon the States
with the contempt born of ignorance. Emerson, James Russell Lowell,
Oliver Wendell Holmes, and others helped Englishmen to understand
Americans, but perhaps the best work was done by women. As soon as they
began to understand one another the divergent standpoints were brought
into line, old prejudices were seen to lie no deeper than the surface
of things. The freshness and vigour of American manhood, the honest,
unconventional outlook of the country's womanhood were instantly
recognised when social intercourse had been established and visitors
from the States began to realise that in coming to England they were
but returning to the land of their fathers. Mistakes are not immortal.
The worst blunderer of a hundred years ago and the people who suffered
most by the blunders have long been one in the dust to which all that
is mortal of us must return. Latent and underlying sympathies have
declared themselves. For thirty years I have watched the slow conquest
of prejudice, the steady discovery of points of sympathy, the dismissal
of the old stereotyped ideas that made for antagonism. To-day, when we
are fighting for our life against a Power that has sworn to dominate
civilisation or perish in the attempt, we find ourselves rich in the
sympathy and moral support of all the North American continent, not
only the British born of Canada are with us, but in the United States,
despite the multitude of foreign influences and the great admixture
of interests the general tone is manifestly sympathetic. The German
menace has stirred Anglo-Saxon blood throughout the whole world. The
observance of a strict and proper neutrality is no bar to American
goodwill, our cousins know that this struggle has been forced upon us
and that we would have avoided it had not honour forbade.
In the brief intervals of the work of organising the woman's service
in my native county of Essex I have been trying to estimate the forces
that have brought the changed conditions about, and I think I can see
most of them. I have met most if not all the leading men and women of
America, both in their own country and here, and no subject has been
more completely canvassed in our conversations than the future that the
Anglo-Saxon race may hope to share. My views, right or wrong, are my
own, and I ask nobody to accept any responsibility for them; if they
are correct they should help to explain the present and to indicate
lines that the future may follow.
First and foremost among the forces that have improved Anglo-American
relations I place the Anglo-American marriages that should go far to
improve not only the finances but the breed of our English aristocracy.
Byron writes of mixed marriages that they "ruin the blood but much
improve the breed." I accept only the latter proposition. I think the
young generation born of these marriages will be powerful, mentally
and physically, that it may even be in time to stand in the breach and
save the class to which it will belong from submersion. Certainly our
aristocracy, enfeebled by intermarriage and circumscribed financially
by modern taxation and the depreciation in agricultural values,
degraded by the sale of "honours," would be bound to go under in the
struggle with democracy, and if it is possible to predicate any of the
results of the present cataclysm I should say that the democracy will
issue from it as the dominating force in Europe. Another section of a
royalty that tends ever to diminish has been weighed in the balances of
war and will, I imagine, be found wanting.
Anglo-American marriages have given our cousins of the New World an
interest in the old firm's business, have made them, even if in a
limited sense, partners in the British Empire unlimited. I said as much
at the dinner-table the other night and was promptly challenged until
I reminded my critic that an ex-First Lord of the Admiralty, to whose
genius all, including Lord Charles Beresford, now pay tribute, is as
much American as English. Miss Jerome, Lady Randolph Churchill, was one
of the first recruits to the ranks of the British aristocracy and has
played no small part in English social life. Winston Churchill has had
time to grow up, there are dozens of Anglo-American lads to whom in the
course of time opportunity will be given. Who shall say that they too
will not prove worthy?
The American girl, married into the wide circle of Britain's
comfortable classes, finds many interests that unite the country of her
adoption with the land of her birth. Visited by her family and friends,
giving introductions for use in the United States to her husband's
relatives, she has been powerful in spreading social intercourse and
in establishing the vital truth that, in face of many of the great
world problems, England and America see eye to eye and may work hand
in hand. Philanthropy and social service are the finest solvents of
prejudice between people speaking one language and, when that prejudice
is not founded on fundamental disagreement, and is dependent for its
maintenance upon ignorance, suspicion and the absence of intercourse,
it cannot long survive under modern conditions. Every Atlantic Liner
is a missionary of Anglo-American good-will. London and New York can
exchange their thoughts in a few moments, the great sundering force of
the Atlantic grows ever less, and the American girl has played a part
in unifying Anglo-Saxon thought and sympathy that makes her social
reward seem but a small payment for a great service.
Perhaps the great antagonising force in America has been the Irishman.
Our administration of the Sister Island has left scars that had been
past healing but for Mr. Gladstone and his successors in the office of
Liberalism. Happily to-day we stand upon the brink of wiser times, a
sane policy has promised to realise the national ambitions of Ireland
and a grave danger has united in resistance to foreign aggression the
two antagonistic camps. They will meet in the service of a common
cause, they will face danger side by side, happily they may learn
the full lesson of toleration and mutual respect. It is better I
think, much as I hate war, that a thousand Home Rulers and Ulstermen
should fall side by side resisting foreign aggression than that fifty
should fall in civil strife each by the other's hands. The effect in
America of Home Rule, and a union of hearts and hands in the national
defence, cannot but be significant. The powerful Irish contingent,
as generous as it is quick to anger, almost as prompt to forgive an
injury for which atonement has been made as to resent one that is
not repaired, will cease to be a hostile factor. Conscious that the
old country has done its best to right a grave and lasting wrong, it
will forget, as the American born citizen is forgetting, the days of
Lords North and Castlereagh. All these quarrels, however serious, have
been family quarrels, in the face of foreign aggression the old wounds
are healed. I was struck by the splendid action of all parties to the
labour disputes when war broke out. In twenty-four hours there were no
disputants.
To-day the Anglo-American influences at which I have hinted find no
opposing factors in their path. Good will is well-nigh universal,
moral support and encouragement are freely ours at this grave moment
when we stand so much in need of them. I have always thought, when
I have been in America and when I have been entertained by or have
entertained Americans at home, that there is a little feeling of pride
in the old country. If our short-sighted policy of the third Georgian
era turned friends to foes we have paid the price in full and to-day
the Anglo-American marriages are giving our trans-Atlantic cousins the
material for a noble revenge. They are coming to the relief of the
class that persecuted them of old time, renewing its blood, refilling
its coffers and preparing through it to administer the world's
greatest Empire. It is no unworthy ambition that animates the American
girl to-day when she quits the land of her fathers for the land of
her grandparents and their forebears, and she has shown herself well
able to fulfil it. The pages of Debrett bear witness to what she has
done, while those who have been brought into constant and intimate
association with her realise that she has shown exceptional capacity
in adapting herself to the new environment, in mastering the rather
formidable etiquette, in modifying old points of view, and in fitting
herself to fill the rather exacting _rôle_ she has undertaken.
When I look round social London and see the many-sided work of the
American women I feel that they will cover the whole ground. Their
energy and resource are admirable and many of their houses are centres
of philanthropic as well as social life. Think of the reflex action
of all this energy in the States, think of the tens of thousands of
American visitors to London in the course of the year and of the
hundreds who see English social life as it is and partake of it, and
the sympathy and understanding that are ours to-day can be accounted
for and understood.
I have long been cognisant of the two great forces that were working,
side by side though independently, to destroy Anglo-American
friendship. The first was Irish-American resentment, a perfectly
natural expression of feeling. Home Rule for Ireland was the only
possible permanent cure, and the time for palliatives has long passed.
With the coming of the cure we may look for the end of the complaint.
The other force was more subtle, and was founded upon the presence in
the States of tens of thousands of the Kaiser's subjects. They have
carried across the Atlantic their old mischievous motto, "Deutschland
über Alles," and have lost no opportunity of giving it effect. A
powerful press, a great financial group, direct encouragement from the
Kaiser, whose policy--a relic of Bismarck's day--was to sow ill-will
between Great Britain and the United States under all circumstances,
have been their weapons. To conciliate the States, to flatter them, to
suggest that they needed German help against British intrigue, to show
their leading representatives every courtesy, even to affect a sympathy
with democracy, all this was the part of a settled programme. It lacked
nothing but success.