MANCHESTER PEOPLE
If there is one thing more than another that the ordinary person cannot
endure, it is to hear a man from Manchester praising his own city.
Somebody from Leeds may tell him how beautiful a town Leeds is, and
he will not turn a hair; he will listen unruffled to a Liverpudlian
discoursing on the peculiar glories of the great city on the Mersey;
but if the man from Manchester wishes to be tolerated, he must never
let fall a word in praise of the place that witnessed his astounding
birth. Why this is so, I cannot explain. I merely record the fact.
So, for the moment, I will not praise Manchester. I will go even
farther than that. I will agree with you that it rains there every
day, that it is the ugliest city in Britain, that it is cocksure
and conceited, that its politics are damnable, that its free trade
principles are loathsome, and that its public men are aitchless
and gross. I will, I say, agree to all this. You may say anything
disagreeable you like about Manchester, and I shall not care.
Nevertheless, if I could not live in London, Manchester is the city to
which I would go. I have stayed in Athens, and Athens is a marvellous
city; I know my Paris, and Paris is not without fascination; I have
been to Cairo, and the bazaars of Cairo seemed to me so wonderful that
I held my breath as I passed through them; I know Antwerp and some of
the half-dead cities of Belgium, and in Bruges I have felt as decadent
as any nasty Belgian poet. But these places are not Manchester. They
are not so glorious as Manchester, not so vital, not so romantic, not
so adventurous.... But already I have broken my word: I have begun to
praise Manchester in my second paragraph. Let me begin a third.
It might be thought that the centre of Manchester’s intellectual life
is the University, but this is not so. Nor is it the Cathedral, nor
the big technical schools, nor yet the Gaiety Theatre. These things
count, but none of them precisely radiates intellectual energy. You do
not (unless you wish to be disappointed) go to the Bishop for ideas,
or to the man of business for culture, nor to Miss Horniman for a wide
and generous view of life. For these things, and for many other things
besides, you go to _The Manchester Guardian_. In _The Daily Mail Year
Book_, against the entry _Manchester Guardian_, you will find these
words: “The best newspaper in the world.” Now, you would imagine that
if _The Daily Mail_ really believed that, _The Daily Mail_ would strain
every nerve to be as like _The Manchester Guardian_ as possible. But
Lord Northcliffe knows better than that. He knows, we all know, that
the best newspaper in the world is not going to be the best seller
in the world. The word “best,” when applied to a newspaper, does not
signify a newspaper that shrieks louder than any other newspaper, that
has the greatest number of “stunts,” that lays reputations low in
the dust, that holds Cabinet Ministers in the hollow of its hand. It
signifies, among other things, a paper whose editor will not sacrifice
a single ideal in order to increase his circulation, who has the power
of infusing his staff with his own enthusiasms, and who regards the
arts as a necessary part of a decent human existence.
_The Daily Mail_ once upon a time compelled the whole of the British
Isles to start growing sweet-peas. That is one kind of power. That is
the kind of power that _The Manchester Guardian_ does _not_ possess.
Yet, I ask you, is there a more irritating newspaper in the whole of
Christendom than _The Manchester Guardian_? How many times have we
not all thrown it down in disgust and vowed never to read it again,
only to buy it faithfully next morning? It would sometimes appear that
every crank in England is busily engaged in airing his crazy views in
its correspondence columns. It would sometimes appear that the three
greatest highbrows in the country had laid their heads together to
write the leading article. It would sometimes appear that conscientious
objectors were really the only generous, manly and heroic people left
in this mad world.
* * * * *
Let me tell you a true story of a man who for years has been, and
still is, on the staff of _The Manchester Guardian_. I tell this
strange story, partly because it _is_ strange, and partly because it
illustrates so finely the kind of reverence that so many citizens of
Manchester have for the best paper in the world.
Some thirty years ago a male child was born to a worthy and not
unprosperous man in Manchester. Now this man had one faith, one
gospel, one ambition. His faith was of the Liberal persuasion. (Why,
may I ask in passing, do people refer to Jews as men and women of the
Jewish “persuasion”? Can a man, indeed, be persuaded to Jewry?) But to
resume. His faith, as I said, was Liberal, his gospel _The Manchester
Guardian_, his ambition to have some close connection with that paper.
Being unfitted by the nature of his own talents to join the staff, he
resolved that in the fullness of time that distinction should belong to
his son. So he wrote to the editor, thus:
Sir,—I have the honour to inform you that last night my wife
gave birth to a son. It is my ambition that, when his intellect
is ripe and his powers mature, he shall be chosen by you as a
member of your staff. His education, his whole upbringing, shall
be directed to that end. I shall report to you his progress from
time to time.
I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant,
—— ——.
I have not this letter before me; indeed, I have never seen it. But I
am assured it was couched in those or similar terms.
Years passed. Harry—we will call him Harry—survived the perils of
babyhood and was sent to a school for the sons of gentlemen, and the
editor was duly apprised of the fact. Harry studied hard, for his
ambition was even that of his father. Harry took scholarships, Harry
had a private tutor, and, eventually, Harry went to the ’varsity. In
the meantime, reports passed at regular intervals from Harry’s father
to the editor of _The Manchester Guardian_, who now, as nurses say,
began to sit up and take notice. He desired to meet Harry. He did meet
him. Harry took an honours degree, came back to Manchester, and was
duly installed among the blessed, where he still is. Harry’s dream,
Harry’s father’s dream, is fulfilled. But are those reports, I wonder,
still being written. As, for example:
Sir,—I have the honour to inform you that my son, Harold,
contemplates marriage. It has always appeared to me that the
married state is peculiarly useful in developing....
* * * * *
But not all the members of _The Manchester Guardian_ staff are ’varsity
men: for which, indeed, one may be thankful. The men of letters whom
they admire most—Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Joseph Conrad and Arnold
Bennett—never even dimly espied the towers and spires of Oxford and
Cambridge. But the paper has the manner of Oxford, though not Oxford’s
intellectual outlook.
For myself, I have never been on the staff of this paper, though I have
written scores of articles for its commercial pages. Some of the most
distinguished intellects in the country write for it regularly—Allan
Monkhouse, whose play, _Mary Broome_, has not been and scarcely can be
sufficiently praised; C. E. Montague, now in the Army; Professor C. H.
Herford, whose scholarship is in excess of his human feeling; Samuel
Langford, whom I have dealt with elsewhere in this book; J. E. Agate,
whose fastidious style is a pure delight. Indeed, nearly every man who
can write and who has something definitely new to say will find the
columns of this paper open to him.
* * * * *
The drawback to social life in Manchester is that there is no central
meeting-place where kindred spirits can foregather. It is true, there is
the Arts Club, but when you have said the Arts Club is there, you have
said all that it is necessary to say about the Arts Club. It is true,
also, that if you stroll into the American bar of the Midland Hotel
at almost any hour of the day, you are pretty sure to meet someone
amusing; but you really can’t make music, or rehearse plays, or play
the fool (at least, not to any great extent) in an American bar. The
consequence of this lack of a good democratic club is that all kinds
of little coteries are formed, and it is about one of these little
coteries that I wish to tell you.
Of course, Manchester is not London. You know that. In London, if you
don’t like one play, you can go to another. If the music that Sir Henry
J. Wood gives you is not to your taste, you can go to hear Mr Landon
Ronald, or (if truly desperate) join the Philharmonic Society. But in
Manchester this is not so. You have either to like the music or do
without it. Well, some years ago we didn’t like it, and Jack Kahane,
talking to me one day in a mood of disgust, casually remarked:
“I’m going to kick Richter out of Manchester. We’ve had enough of him.”
With Kahane, to think is to act, and within a week he had formed the
Manchester Musical Society and begun a Press campaign against the
famous old conductor. This Society was Kahane’s new toy, and he played
with it to some purpose. We talked a great deal, gave innumerable
concerts, hired lecturers, wrote articles, and held enormously
thrilling committee meetings. Our programmes consisted almost
exclusively of new and very “modern” music, just the kind of music that
the guarantors of the Hallé Concerts Society detested. We were all
for the new spirit in music, and some of us in our enthusiasm liked
new music just because it _was_ new. In three months Richter began to
totter on his throne and, later on, he resigned his post, and now Sir
Thomas Beecham most fitly reigns in his stead.
This little Society was extremely typical of Manchester. It was typical
because it was enthusiastic, because every member of it worked hard
for no monetary reward, and because it had a definite object in view
and achieved that object. Above all, it was young; the spirit of it
was young. I have never found in London a band of young men and women
putting their noses to the grindstone for months on end with the sole
object of achieving an artistic ideal. People in London exploit art,
but they do not work at art for art’s sake. Manchester is England’s
musical metropolis. Elgar said so ten years ago; Beecham echoed his
words the other day. I claim for Manchester also that the level of
culture is much higher than it is in London. In proportion to its
size Manchester has during the last fifty years given to England more
writers, musicians, politicians, actors, business men, reformers and
social workers of distinction than any other city.... But all this, I
think, is a little offensive——
And yet how difficult it is for the stranger to understand
Manchester!—and difficult in spite of the fact that Manchester loves
being understood.
Mr J. Nicol Dunn, who, as editor of _The Morning Post_ and, later,
of _The Johannesburg Star_, did most brilliant work, utterly failed
to understand Lancashire people when he came to edit _The Manchester
Courier_. I think he regarded them as a peculiar race of savages. “A
wealthy Lancashire manufacturer,” he said to me once, “will ask you to
dinner and will order a bumper of champagne. But if you ask him for a
half-guinea subscription for a political society, he will give you a
curt refusal. What is to be done with such folk?” Dunn thought us hard
and unimaginative, incapable of seeing in what direction lay our best
interests, and utterly childish in our notions of political economy.
“Cumberland,” he said, unexpectedly, one evening, “is your father a
Conservative?”
“He is,” said I.
“What paper does he take?”
“_The Manchester Guardian._”
“I _knew_ he did! Of course he would take _The Manchester Guardian_!
Good Lord! To what a strange set of people have I come!”
And he grunted and went on with his work.
My native town is young and strenuous and guileless. Its vanity is the
vanity of the clever youngster who loves “showing off” in his exuberant
way. So young and guileless is it that it is the easiest thing in
the world to deceive it. How easy it is to deceive Manchester is
illustrated by the case of Captain Schlagintweit, the German consul for
some years in that city.
Schlagintweit was an enormous German whose mission in life it was to
induce Manchester to believe that Germany was our bosom friend, that
Germany’s first thought was to help Great Britain, and that the two
peoples were so closely akin in their spiritual aims that a quarrel
between them, even a temporary misunderstanding, was utterly and for
ever impossible. As I have said, he was enormous: a great man with a
fair round belly: a man who talked a lot and ate a lot, and who, when
he talked even with a solitary companion, spoke as though he were
addressing a huge audience. He “bounded” beautifully and with so much
aplomb and zest that it seemed right he should bound and do nothing
else.
I met him everywhere—in the Press Club, at concerts, at the Schiller
Anstalt, in restaurants; and nine times out of ten he was in the
company either of a journalist, a member of the City Council, or a
Member of Parliament. I never knew any man who worked so hard for his
country as he did. He distilled sweet poison into our ears and we
believed him every time.
I must confess I felt rather flattered by the way in which he
constantly sought my company. I thought for a long time that he
loved me for my own sweet sake, and it was not until the, for him,
tragic _dénouement_ came that I realised that it was because I was a
journalist, and for that reason alone, he dined and wined me and talked
discreetly of Germany’s heartache for Great Britain. As I very rarely
wrote on international politics, I do not think his evil counsel had
any appreciable effect on my work, but it is impossible to imagine that
his overflowing bonhomie, his cleverness, his subtle scheming did not
greatly influence the thought of Manchester. He was made much of by
more than one member of _The Manchester Guardian_ staff.
His daughter came to sing at a concert I organised, and it was after
this concert that he so overwhelmed me with flattery that I looked at
him in amazement. I said to myself: “You are a humbug.” But on looking
at him again, I said: “No; you’re not a humbug: you’re a fool.” A third
scrutiny, however, left me in doubt, and I said: “I’m damned if I know
what you are.” Certainly I never suspected he was first cousin to a
spy, that he was paid handsomely by his Government for his propaganda
work in Manchester, and that he secretly despised and hated us.
Shortly after war broke out, many things were discovered about
Schlagintweit that had hitherto been unknown, and he was led,
handcuffed, to Knutsford gaol, but not before he had broken through the
five-mile radius to which, as a German, he was confined, and not before
he had motored through a far-off district where tens of thousands of
our soldiers were encamped.
I do not believe London would have been deceived by him, and I am sure
that Ecclefechan wouldn’t. Yet Manchester was.
Manchester is young, ingenuous, trusting, guileless.
* * * * *
Have you ever noticed (but you must have done!) that the self-made
man—and half the prosperous men in Manchester are self-made—will
frequently part with a ten-pound note much more readily than he will
with a few pence? The economical habits of his youth still cling to and
dominate him, and he counts the halfpence and is careless of the pounds.
One Saturday night in the summer, I was taking a walk with a friend in
the country ten or twelve miles from Manchester. Our talk was of County
cricket, in which my companion—a most magnificent person, with ships
sailing on half the oceans of the world—was greatly interested. For
three days Lancashire had been playing Yorkshire a very close match,
and we knew that by now the game would be over.
“We sha’n’t know the result till we get _The Sunday Chronicle_
to-morrow,” said X. regretfully.
But, five minutes later, we met, most miraculously, a newsboy with a
bundle of papers under his arm.
X. took a penny from his pocket, handed it to the boy, and received
_The Evening News_ in exchange.
“Very sorry, sir,” said the boy, “but I’ve got no change. I’ve got no
halfpennies.”
X. turned to me.
“Oh, I’ve no change either,” said I, amused.
With an exclamation of annoyance, X. handed the paper back to the boy
and pocketed his penny.
After we had proceeded a few paces:
“Lancashire has won by two wickets,” he said. “I saw it in the corner
in the Stop Press news.”
Now, X. had great riches.
An incredible story, isn’t it? But it is true, and it gives you the
self-made Manchester man—at least, one side of him—in a nutshell.
* * * * *
It used to be a great delight to me to see Dr J. Kendrick Pyne walking
near the Cathedral or in Albert Square, for he used to suggest to me
a bygone age and a remote place. His short, thick-set figure used to
move with the utmost precision, unhurried, unperturbed. His plump,
clean-shaven face, his well-shaped head, surmounted by a new silk hat
of old-fashioned shape, his gold-rimmed spectacles with the peering
eyes behind them, his inevitable umbrella, and his correct dress—all
these conspired to make a figure of great dignity, a figure that always
seemed to carry about with it the atmosphere of the Cathedral whose
organ he played for so many smooth years. There hung about him the
tradition of the famous Dr Wesley.
In character and disposition also he belonged to a different era. He
never underestimated the importance of the position he held in the city
as Cathedral organist, City organist, and Professor at the Manchester
Royal College of Music, and wherever he went and in the execution of
whatever work to which he set his mind, his word was law. A very fine
type of Englishman. He would brook no interference from Bishop or
Dean, and his combative, upright spirit fought unceasingly to uphold
the dignity of his art.
His childlike vanity was most alluring, and I used to love him for it
and respect him for the way he clung to his belief in himself.
One day he took me to the town hall to look once more at the wonderful
series of frescoes that Ford Madox Brown painted in the great hall.
When he came to the fresco picturing the Duke of Bridgewater at the
ceremonial “opening” of the Bridgewater Canal, he pointed to the
features of the Duke, and inquired:
“Whom do you think he resembles?”
There was just a note of anxiety in his voice as though he were afraid
I should not be able to answer his question. For the life of me I could
not think of anyone who resembled Madox Brown’s Duke, and I stood
silent. Pyne then turned his face full upon me, and again inquired,
somewhat imperiously:
“Whom do you think he resembles?”
“Why,” exclaimed I, guessing wildly, “it is a portrait of you!”
“Yes,” said he, with naïve satisfaction, “it is. I sat to Madox Brown
for the great Duke. The portrait is immortal.”
But whether the portrait was immortal because Kendrick Pyne had sat for
it, or Madox Brown had painted it, I did not gather.
On another occasion he again used the word “immortal,” but this time it
was in reference to one of his own works.
“You know,” said he, apropos of something I have forgotten, “I should
have made a name as a writer if I had gone in for literature, but I
felt that music had stronger claims upon me. My organ-playing will not,
so to speak, live, because the art of the executant necessarily dies
with him. But my Mass in A flat is, in itself, enough to keep my name
immortal.”
There was such innocent satisfaction in his tone, such a bland look
upon his face, that he seemed to me like a delicious grown-up child.
But have not all men of genius this superb confidence in themselves? I
am convinced they have. Could they possibly “carry on” without it? But
only a few men of genius have the courage, or the artlessness, to speak
what is really in their hearts.
* * * * *
One of the “characters” of Manchester, a man who loves being a
character, is Mr Charles Rowley, who for an unconscionable number
of years has been doing splendid educational and recreative work
in Ancoats, a congeries of slums, a district of appalling poverty.
Here, in the Islington Hall, on most Sunday afternoons, one can hear
first-rate chamber music and, as a rule, a lecture delivered by some
local or London celebrity. I myself have heard Bernard Shaw and Hilaire
Belloc lecture there and, after the lectures, I have gone to the clean
little cottage where Mr Rowley occasionally entertains a few chosen
friends to tea and talk.
I do not know if Mr Rowley is a Manchester man, but he is of a type
that I have found only in that city. He is combative and energetic;
he is a little red flame of enthusiasm. Though, no doubt, interested
in and pleased with himself, he is equally interested in local public
affairs and equally pleased with the people for whom he works. His
broad and pungent humour is just the kind of humour the so-called
lower classes understand, and his energy of mind and readiness of wit
are remarkable. I have seen him on several occasions talking to—or,
perhaps, talking _with_ is what I really mean—a huge audience in order
to keep them in good humour until the arrival of the lecturer of the
afternoon. He bandies jokes with anybody who cares to shout to him, and
he has the true democrat’s gift—he never by a look, a word or a gesture
implies that he is in any way superior to the meanest member of his
audience. These rough people love him, admire him and laugh at him.
And, of course, he is able to laugh at himself. Perhaps, all things
considered, he is the most human man I have met, and I like to think
that in him the spirit of Manchester is embodied. I do not mean you to
infer that I think the spirit of Manchester is the finest spirit in the
world, but I do believe that it is a spirit that might well be emulated
by many other towns.
What is that spirit? Well, Manchester has a sincere and very proper
respect for success, and particularly for success that has been won
in the face of great difficulties. Manchester loves education and
knowledge, not only because these things are useful in achieving
success, but also for their own sake. Manchester is public-spirited,
proud of its traditions, loyal to its principles. It is cultured—not in
the super-refined, lily-fingered sense, but in the sense that it loves
literature, music, art. It is enthusiastic about these things; it works
hard to come by them and treasures them when they are obtained.
One could, of course, say many disagreeable and true things about
Manchester, but as these have been said frequently by other people, I
refrain from repeating what is already known.