in 1902. It was a characteristic British patch-up, and one of the most
active figures in the making of it was the present Lord Cecil. Under it
the schools of the various religious denominations were incorporated
in the national education scheme, and the common public was to pay the
running expenses of these schools and control the general instruction.
The managers appointed by the religious body concerned were, however,
to appoint all the teachers and control the religious instruction,
and in return for these privileges they were to provide the school
buildings and keep them in good repair. If, for instance, a particular
school belonged to the Mumbo Jumbo sect, which believes that the earth
was created flat and has never been more than slightly bent since,
that it is wrong to regard bread as nutritious and improper for men
and women to speak together in public places, then the managers were
empowered to discover and appoint teachers of geography, physiology,
and social history whose teachings would not disturb the children in
their peculiar beliefs and practices, over the heads of more efficient
and less orthodox candidates. A Mumbo Jumbo “atmosphere” would be
created within the school, the sexes would be segregated, bread never
mentioned or mentioned with a proper horror, and all terrestrial
and celestial globes, maps of the world in hemispheres, busts or
portraits of Columbus, Magellan, and the like excluded. In return
for these supremely important religious privileges the sect of the
Mumbo-Jumboites was to pay for the upkeep of the schools and keep them
up to date in their appointments.
Now it is a melancholy fact that parents belonging to the various
British religious bodies concerned, parents we understood to be so
passionately eager to see their children taught only their own tested
and certified brand of truth that this compromise was made, have shown
themselves indisposed to make any effort to pay even honestly, far less
generously, for the spiritual advantages secured to them. A recent
inquiry has directed attention to a very alarming state of affairs in
these schools--of which altogether there are about twelve thousand in
England and Wales--claiming to educate a million and a third children.
A large proportion of them, we discover, have become badly decayed.
They are described as “ill-ventilated, ill-lighted, with insufficient
or worn-out sanitary, cloakroom, and lavatory accommodation.” “A number
of schools”--I quote the Leslie report--“are noted as having been
condemned by the Board of Education before the war, but as being still
in full use. The complaint is made that the Board’s inspectors have
ceased to mention the condition of these schools in their reports,
presumably on instructions from headquarters, in the supposed interests
of economy.”
“‘Action would have to be taken with regard to playgrounds, sanitary
arrangements, etc.,’ says one authority, ‘had there been any prospect
of the requirements being carried out,’ and many others say the same
in different words. In one case there has been a sinkage of ground
resulting in the breakage of drain-pipes, with the result that the
soil is being polluted, but the managers will do nothing. In another
case the authority says that ‘both teachers and children are suffering
physically and educationally, but the only possible alternative would
be new buildings, and the managers have no funds.’”
“General complaint is made as to the condition of the playgrounds,
usually as being too small and inconvenient to begin with, and many
either unusable or dangerous for want of repair. One of the counties,
replying, says that out of 131 playgrounds attached to its Voluntary
Schools 95 per cent. are in bad condition.” ...
There is no need to extend these quotations. Enough has been cited to
show the peculiar quality of a problem which sooner or later will have
to be faced by the British people. The fact is now beyond dispute that
the Anglican, Roman Catholic, and such other denominations as maintain
these spiritually ear-marked schools, though they can be stirred indeed
to energetic action at election times in defence of their grip upon
local teaching, are far too indifferent to the health or education of
their children to keep their buildings in a good and going state. It
would seem as though they cared less about having a school than about
preventing the invasion of their lives by an open and vigorous and
efficient school. They hate a clean and impartial education far more
than they care for one upon their own lines. They are anti-educational
far more than they are religious. One might fancy the fortunate
Mumbo-Jumboites rejoicing in the special opportunities they have had
in the last twenty years and still possess, and saying: “Now, under
the happiest conditions possible, let us demonstrate and fix and
establish for ever the delightful proofs of our great doctrines. Let us
show the flatness of the earth and the inedible qualities of bread by
bright and exquisite diagrams and models. Let us irradiate the place
with all the happiness that the sedulous avoidance of the other sex
in public can give. Let us make our schools an example to all schools
with splendid buildings with new and abundant equipment, and with such
teachers as only Mumbo-Jumboism can inspire.” But there is not a hint
of that spirit in these dismal places in which their religion has had a
free hand. For two and twenty years religious denominations in England
have had these twelve thousand schools upon which to demonstrate their
qualities, and they have demonstrated that shabbiness, stuffiness,
meanness, and low standards of performance follow upon doctrinal
exclusiveness as surely as twilight leads into the night.
XLIV
THE INCOMPATIBILITY OF INDIA: DIVORCE OR LEGAL SEPARATION
5.7.24
Is the Anglo-Saxon fit to govern any other race?
He sprawls across the earth. He rules hundreds of millions of brown
and black and buff peoples; he dominates and “protects” an even
larger number than he actually governs. And there are moments when
one is struck by a sense of his immense ineptitude. In many respects
he is unquestionably a fine figure, but with regard to other races
he is overbearing, he is unsympathetic, he is obtuse. Possibly he is
exceptionally so. But it is more probable that no race is fit to have
the upper hand over any other race; the possession of the upper hand
leads at best to an inconsiderate self-righteousness, and at the worst
to an extreme contempt, injustice, and cruelty. There are very few
instances in the world of an even moderately satisfactory alien rule.
The Jesuits in South America seem to have done well in a kindly
unprogressive way; the British rule in Nigeria and some of the West
Indies is a comparatively bright spot in the history of racial
interaction, the Maoris and the Basutos seem to be well-treated
peoples, and the Dutch are credited with a fairly happy and prosperous
Java. Until the last few years the British Empire seems to have dealt
justly with its old allies, the Six Nations in Canada. These are
outstanding exceptions. The general rule for peace between two races
seems to be mix or get away; the darkest tragedy comes when, as in the
southern United States, they can neither mix nor disentangle.
In the great elaborately educated State of the future towards which
human affairs are moving, everyone and every community will be most
sedulously educated and trained in inter-racial good manners. Our world
at present has scarcely such a thing yet as good manners in anyone or
a fully educated man. All the more reason, then, for maintaining the
separation of peoples unfit to associate generously and peacefully with
each other, and for releasing those who are not already separated.
The recent libel case brought by Sir Michael O’Dwyer against Sir
Sankaran Nair has brought out very vividly the tremendous failure of
the British Imperial system, after a century of opportunity, to produce
any working tradition of interaction between the British people, the
British garrison, and the Indian population. It has demonstrated the
impossibility of any very long continuation of British rule in the
peninsula.
After one has looked into the particulars of the case, one has just the
same depressing realisation of a hopeless incompatibility that one has
in some matrimonial cases. It is not so much that this or that has
been done or not done; it is that the two peoples are unequally yoked
in temperament and intelligence; that they do not get on together; that
they never will get on together while they are closely associated. The
British are not good enough nor wise enough for the job; the Indians
are not great enough nor patient enough. It is a case for a separation,
as friendly and speedy a separation as possible, if there is not
presently to be a tragic divorce.
I must confess that I cannot conjure up any very profound indignation
against General Dyer. He was, I think, stupid, spasmodically violent,
and unnecessarily bloody. I do not believe that the shooting at
Amritsar was inevitable, and he certainly went on shooting too long.
But the sort of stupid and spasmodic violence he displayed is very
characteristic of many English and many Americans. I find it in myself.
I have not, luckily for myself, had General Dyer’s opportunities,
but it is not necessary to kill people to discover that one may be
harsh and cruel when one is thwarted by mental processes one does not
understand.
I had a Dyer phase, for example, as a young, eager, and untrained
schoolmaster, whipping-in the difficult stragglers for class work
against which they rebelled. The whole story of the Punjab troubles
is really a very pitiful story not only for the native population
but for the British administrators. It is the story of a conflict of
resentments. One begins with an officialdom eager for “volunteers”
for the Great War, unable to understand that the Great War meant
nothing and should have meant nothing to any reasonable Indian person.
How could it matter to them? One goes on to a story of “pressure”
increasing in its ugly details until we come to thrashings, deep
indignities, and tortures to stimulate the cheerful “volunteer.”
Pressure passes from chief to subordinate and degenerates towards
cruelty at every transition; it is hard to fix responsibility at any
point. It rouses resistance. The pestered and tormented populace
begin to hold meetings, make vague gestures of counter violence. The
irritable ass in the Anglo-Saxon make-up responds with “firmness.” The
firmness loads the rifles and prepares aeroplane bombs to disperse
“dangerous assemblies.”
There is a mood of scared obstinacy in which the Anglo-Saxon becomes
capable of almost any swift atrocity. He is rarely deliberately cruel,
but he is easily clumsily and hotly cruel. In the twilight the highly
strung creature will shoot or lynch at very slight provocation indeed.
Confronted with the dead body, his self-respect demands an adequate
reason for the murder he has done. So soon as the Amritsar gardens
were littered with dead and dying people, it became clear to General
Dyer that a very dangerous rebellion, a second Indian Mutiny, had been
heroically nipped in the bud.
His military superiors did not think so. He was rebuked and punished,
very properly, very necessarily. Some amends were made to smitten and
outraged India in that treatment of General Dyer, and the wretched
incident of Amritsar would have passed into the receding perspectives
of history if it had not been for the litigious enterprise of Sir
Michael O’Dwyer. Sir C. Sankaran Nair, in a book that was extensively
used by the British Government for propaganda purposes in India, wrote
phrases that certainly put an unjustifiable blame upon Sir Michael
O’Dwyer for the Punjab outrages. Sir Michael brought his action and
reopened the question.
Now the alarming and disconcerting thing is that the Court of King’s
Bench showed itself far less intelligent, far less alive to the
realities of the Indian situation, than General Dyer’s military
superiors in India. It is impossible to read the reports of the case
without realising that the mutual irritation of English and Indian,
the profound temperamental incompatibility of the two worlds, was
manifested in that Court in an exaggerated degree. The case transcended
its proper limits and became a wrangle on the whole Punjab question.
Mr. Justice McCardie took upon himself to inform the world at large and
the people of India in particular, with all the weight and prestige of
the High Court upon him, “speaking with due deliberation,” that in his
view General Dyer had been wrongly punished by the Secretary of State
for India.
The case of General Dyer was not before the Court. This announcement
was a lawless outbreak on the part of Justice McCardie. How much due
deliberation there was in Justice McCardie’s utterance and how much
instinctive passion may be judged by the fact that General Dyer does
not seem to have been punished by the Secretary of State for India at
all; his case did not come up to the Secretary of State for India;
he was punished for his hasty excessive violence by his own proper
military superiors in India. Internal dissension restrained the jury
from inflicting excessive and exemplary damages upon Sir C. Sankaran
Nair for his careless libel; the damages awarded amounted to five
hundred pounds, but it will be very difficult, it will be impossible,
to persuade the sore and sensitive, quick and resentful mind of India
that Britain has not gone back upon even such clumsy and insufficient
apologies and atonements as she had made for Amritsar and its
associated sins.
There comes a time in the relationships of nations and peoples, as in
the relationships of partners and lovers and married couples, when
offences become irrevocable. The breaking point seemed to have been
reached by the British in India. The argument is practically over,
the negotiations at an end. When in the opening stages of the Great
War Ireland was bilked of Home Rule there remained nothing for it,
between Britain and Ireland, but a practical separation. Englishmen
like myself, who regard the present detachment of Ireland and England
as excessive and regrettable, were entangled, in spite of themselves,
in that offence; and we were helpless to avert its just and logical
consequences. So now with India. It is a sort of treachery to Indians
to go on talking liberally to them, to seek their friendship, to
attempt co-operations, with Dyer’s impenitent rifles reloaded and our
Justice McCardies ready and eager to tear up our poor attempts to make
amends.
XLV
THE SPIRIT OF FASCISM: IS THERE ANY GOOD IN IT AT ALL?
12.7.24
During the last few weeks an extraordinary fuss has been made over the
brutal murder of one of Signor Mussolini’s most able and honourable
opponents. Fascism has been put upon its defence. Weak but distinct
sounds of disapproval have come from the more respectable sections
of the Italian public. Even the London _Times_ has published leading
articles that seem to hint at a faint reluctant perception that the
Italian dictator is remotely connected with the bloody and filthy
terrorism on which his power rests.
It is, I say, an extraordinary fuss, a remarkable and almost
unaccountable outbreak of the public conscience of Europe. Because it
is surely a matter of common knowledge that hundreds of people have
been beaten and tortured to death by the Fascisti, that innumerable
outrages of a peculiarly dirty kind have been committed, that arson,
wreckage, and threats are the normal expedients of Italian political
life, and that the power of Mussolini has been built up upon the
organisation of such violence. These things have been going on for
some years in Italy. Ambitious imitators have arisen in France and
Germany and Britain. British “Crusaders” have gathered for the blessing
of the Duke of York and strange young men in Oxford and Cambridge have
braved misunderstanding by wearing badges bearing the challenging
initials B. F. Young Italians in black shirts have even been allowed
to insult the decent British dead by cocking snooks--or performing
whatever the Fascist salutation is--holding out an arm and twiddling
the fingers or something of that sort--at the Westminster Cenotaph.
In America, however, there does not seem to be much of a Fascist
movement. There has been no temptation for America, with the Ku Klux
Klan in active operation and a long tradition of lynch law, to adopt
the Italian model. But there have been many American expressions of
sympathy with Fascism. And then in the full tide of sunny approval just
one more little murder occurs--a murder not essentially different from
many other Fascist murders--and the world wakes up to the infernal
vileness of a thing that has been plainly before its eyes for years.
There never was so remarkable a case of the camel bearing itself
bravely up to the very moment of the last straw.
To me this break back from Fascism is astonishing. I am inclined to
think that Signor Mussolini found it so too. His prompt repudiation of
the crime, his eager search for the body of his butchered antagonist,
his sacrifice of valued cronies and close associates seem to show
that his rich, emotional, rhetorical nature was very considerably
scared. Nitti’s house had been burnt and Nitti driven abroad. No one
had protested, except perhaps Nitti. No apology to Nitti has been made
by Mussolini, and no apology, no reparation for the stupid, malicious
violence shown him, is likely to be made. And now, simply because
Matteotti had been more difficult to handle and had got himself rather
nastily killed, this uproar! It may be some time before the dictator is
really comfortable again about the matter.
I do not propose to speculate here whether the storm will blow itself
out and leave Signor Mussolini still on his blood-stained pedestal
doing his solemn gestures of good government before the world, or
whether we are in sight of the beginning of the end of Fascism. What
interests me most is the complex of motives that drives behind Fascism,
Ku Klux Klanism, the British Crusaders, and all these romantic attempts
to organise ultra-legal tyrannies. The destructive instinct that gives
us all a pleasure in smashing plates is plainly there, the natural
malice against the unlike or the disturbing is very powerfully present,
and the craving to exercise power. The stuff is in all of us, almost
ineradicably so. (It betrays itself in this article.) We repress these
impulses to a very large extent largely out of a fear of our fellow
creatures’ reprisals. But by joining a great society with high and
disinterested professions of purpose we can conspire with a certain
number of our fellows for a common indulgence of this malignant drive,
and we can get some protection from the consequences and establish a
real sense of moral justification. Many of us who would never dare
to stab a negro in the street because of his offensive contrast with
ourselves, or even to push him off the sidewalk if we encountered
him alone, can respond to the call for his lynching with a tremulous
reassurance. Many an Italian employer who would not dare to face his
workers in a crisis about wages will help burn up a Labour Party office
with a stout heart.
But it is claimed in the case of all these societies for intimidation
and cruelty that the main motive is something higher and better than
this. A state of danger, social indiscipline, and slackness is alleged;
a failure of the normal processes of law and police. The cruelties and
filthy outrages that are the normal activities of these organisations
are declared to be the acts of strong men resolute to restore peace,
justice, and confidence to a disordered world.
There is something in this plea. It is not to be too lightly dismissed.
The condition of Italy before the Fascista movement crystallised out
was certainly very bad. The lawlessness of Italian life existed before
the Fascists and will outlive them. After the war it expressed itself
in terms of Communism; robbing took the name of expropriation, and
the natural resentment of human beings at uninteresting and inferior
work expressed itself in entirely mischievous strikes. The manifest
injustices of the social system were made the plea for a multitude of
outrages that did nothing to remedy them. There have been Communist
murders and Communist outrages in Italy, though nothing to parallel the
extensive systematic terrorism of the Fascista régime. The difference
between Communist and Fascist is mainly this, that one conspires and
does mischief and cruelty to bring about a state of order and justice
that cannot exist, and the other to defend and sustain one that exists
only in his imagination.
Moscow and Rome are alike in this, that they embody the rule of a
minority conceited enough to believe that they have a clue to the
tangled incoherencies of human life, and need only sufficiently
terrorise criticism and opposition to achieve a general happiness.
Violent revolution and violent reaction are two aspects of one asinine
thing, violent uncritical conviction. Neither recognises the enormously
tentative quality of human institutions, and the tangled and scarcely
explored difficulties in the path of social reconstruction. But they
feel these things they will not recognise, these tangles and possible
complications, as perverse opposition, and their impatient souls rebel.
Your party Communist, like your Fascist, is neither hero nor criminal;
he is an ignorant, immodest, impatient fool who wants to grab the
glory of inaugurating an epoch that cannot yet possibly begin. The
great future of our race will owe little to either of these current
nuisances. The maker of that future is the unconvenanted scientific man
who works on without hurry and without delay, dissolving problem after
problem in the solvent of clear knowledge, insisting on plain speech
and free publication, refusing concealment, refusing to conspire and
compel, respecting himself completely in his infinite respect for his
fellow-men.
At the present level of education in the world, progress is like
pushing one’s way through a riot. The underlying fact in all these
matters is that the common uneducated man is a violent fool in social
and public affairs. He can work in no way better than his quality. He
has not sufficient understanding to work in any other way. If there
were no Fascism there would be something else of the same sort. The
hope of the world lies in a broader and altogether more powerful
organisation of education. Only as that develops will the vehement
self-righteous and malignant ass abate his mischief in the world.
XLVI
THE RACE CONFLICT: IS IT UNAVOIDABLE?
19.7.24
The action of the United States in setting aside its gentlemanly
understanding with Japan in the matter of immigration and excluding the
Japanese altogether has greatly exercised the British mind. At this
distance it strikes us as an altogether uncivilised thing to do. We
believe that for all practical purposes the peace of the Pacific rests
on the tripod, America, Britain, Japan; we attached immense importance
to the Washington Agreement and the feeling of concord it developed;
we abandoned the Anglo-Japanese alliance to American feeling and,
after a struggle at home, the threat of the Singapore developments was
withdrawn. Our dominant idea was the collaboration, mutual trust, and
mutual forbearance of three great civilised Powers. Then, apparently
as a move in the dismal party game that still rules American political
life, in order to secure California for the Republican Party, Japan
is smacked on the face good and hard, and most of this difficult and
elaborate work of reassurance is undone.
It is not a question of excluding cheap labour or alien mass
immigration; that has been fairly well done for some time. It is an
intolerable assertion that individual educated Japanese are unfitted by
race and culture for helpful participation in the high civilisation of
the Pacific Coast. It implies that Japanese and Americans are for ever
incompatible, are for ever two peoples; that for ever on this little
planet their destinies are to be worked out parallel or apart--or to
mingle only in a bitter conflict for exclusive survival.