The new party was especially energetic. Their chief organiser, Mr.
Arthur Henderson, M.P., is one of the most gifted party managers of
this generation, and his achievement is an outstanding feature of
political organisation in this country. The old parties also had time
to repair their machinery; by the time the election was called their
organisations were in full working order. The only party which had no
organisation worth speaking of was the National Liberal party. The
others were ready for the struggle.
Nevertheless, when the election came in November nearly 5,000,000 of
the electors were not sufficiently interested in the contest to take
the trouble to record their votes. It showed an improvement of 10 per
cent. on the previous election, but there still remained nearly 20 per
cent.--making allowance for death, sickness, removals, etc.--who stayed
at home, and could not be persuaded by personal or public appeal or
pressure exercised by three or four great organisations, to walk a few
hundred yards out of their way in order to place a simple cross on the
ballot paper that was awaiting them.
The municipal elections tell a still more dismal story of apathy. But
that is an old story. It was with difficulty that the old electorate,
with all its long training, could be cajoled to visit the polling
booths where the good government of the towns in which they breathed,
lived, toiled, enjoyed themselves, and rested was being determined.
At their worst, however, they made a better show than the newly
enfranchised voters.
How does the record compare with democracy in other lands? France is
no better. On the whole, I understand it is worse. The voting in the
United States of America fluctuates according to the interest excited
by the particular election. In this respect America does not differ
from Britain. I cannot lay my hand on the percentage of the poll at the
last presidential election, but I gather it was higher than ours at
the general election. The Germans polled at their last election 89 per
cent. of their electorate; in Italy the percentage was much lower.
With an unpolled and unticketed electorate of over 4,000,000 anything
may happen. They have clearly no interest in the ordinary political
conflicts that engage the minds of their fellow-citizens; otherwise,
the excitement of two general elections would have roused them to such
faint exhibition of partisanship as is implied in the choosing of a
candidate out of the two or three who have taken the trouble to send
along their pictures.
But one day an issue may arise which will wake up the most lethargic.
What will it be? And what view will they take of it when it comes? And
who will succeed in catching the eye of the slumbering multitude when
it opens? Much depends on the answer to these questions. They may rally
to the defence of property menaced by rapacious creeds. They may rush
to the protection of their homes threatened by avaricious wealth.
Even those who have already voted are liable to sudden and devastating
changes of opinion. Witness Mitcham, Willesden, and Edgehill. These
three seats were regarded as being amongst the safest in England, and
were selected for that very reason.
Amongst many disquieting factors there is one which ought to be dealt
with ere another election arrive. Under the present system a minority
of electors may usurp absolute dominion over the fortunes of this
kingdom for fully five years.
This is one of the freaks of the group system. The present
parliamentary majority has been elected by an aggregate vote which
represents something a little better than one-fourth of the total
electorate and one-third of those who recorded their votes. If Mitcham
and Edgehill are a foretaste of what is to happen at the "General,"
Labour will be the lucky third. A similar turnover of votes in every
constituency would place them easily in that position.
America has brought its vast electorate under what seems to us to be
a perfect discipline. But in the process it has passed through much
tribulation, including the furnace of a terrible civil war. Italy has
been impelled to correct the working of democratic institutions by a
display of force. Britain may mobilise and drill its electoral forces
with less trouble. But it has a Socialist party, which has grown by
millions within less than a decade--and is still growing. This week its
most eloquent member has proposed, in the House of Commons, a solemn
motion for the abolition of private property. Deputies chosen by four
and a quarter million of British electors will vote for this proposal,
and if, four years hence, they add another million and a half to their
poll, they will be in a position to place that motion on the statute
book. Their increase between 1918 and 1922 was greater than that.
FOOTNOTE:
[10] See the _Times_, March 14, 1923.
XXV
POLITICAL REALITIES
A few weeks ago I predicted that the comparative calm which has
prevailed in the political seas of Britain during the past few years
was coming to an end. Recent parliamentary scenes leave no doubt that
the prolonged political depression is to be followed by a period of
storms--it may be hurricanes.
No amount of organisation or propaganda can excite real feeling in
an electorate over trivial and unreal issues. Why did the coalition
of 1915 fall? And why did the Liberal party split in 1916? Who was
responsible? Should the general election have taken place in 1918
or 1919? Ought open and declared opponents of the government of the
day to have then received government support or at least government
neutrality? These are questions which agitate a few who are personally
interested, but they leave the nation cold.
The war was real enough. But the war was supported by men of
all parties, and, therefore, provoked no political controversy.
The minority which opposed it was negligible, and challenged no
parliamentary discussion on the question. The treaty of peace was,
on the whole, accepted by all parties when it was first submitted to
Parliament. The leaders of the opposition parties in the Lords and
Commons at the time of its presentation offered no serious criticism of
its provisions.
The legislation proposed by the Coalition, although in ordinary seasons
much of it would have aroused angry passions, coming as it did after
the war had exhausted emotion, passed with no more than a feeble murmur
of protest. Take, for instance, such controversial topics as adult
suffrage, the enfranchisement of women, the wholesale reductions in
hours of labour, representative government in India, and notably the
conferring upon Ireland of a measure of Home Rule more complete than
any proposed by Gladstone.
Any one of these measures proposed before the war would have led to
heated discussion throughout the land. The case of Ireland is perhaps
the most significant of the changed temper of the nation immediately
after the great war. The conflict over Irish Home Rule has now
culminated in a treaty accepted by the nation as a whole and acquiesced
in by the most violent amongst its opponents.
But fiercer political passions were stirred up by the struggle between
parties over Ireland than by any political question of modern times.
The causes underlying the conflict dealt with two of the most powerful
motives which make the human heart throb--race and religion. There
was the old feud between Saxon and Gael extending over at least seven
centuries. It drenched the moors of Ireland with the blood of both
races before a keener edge was given to its hatreds by the introduction
of an acute religious quarrel.
After the Reformation the religious differences which rent Europe
with fratricidal wars added fresh fury to the racial enmities which
made poor Ireland a cauldron of perpetual strife. When Mr. Gladstone
proposed to settle this raging tumult by wresting supremacy from a race
which had been dominant in that island for 700 years and a faith which
had been supreme there for 400 years and transferring it to the race
and religion which all that time had been in a condition of servitude,
and when in order to attain his ends he had to secure the adhesion of
men of the ruling blood and creed to his proposals, the passions raised
were deeper and angrier than any witnessed in British politics for many
a day. It led for the first time in the history of parliament to scenes
of physical violence on the floor of the House. It shows what we may
expect when there are genuine divisions of opinion which profoundly
move masses of men and women in a democracy. Those who recall the
tropical heat of parliamentary debates in 1893 naturally regard their
voyage through the frigid proceedings of the last parliament as they
would a sail through Arctic seas. That voyage is now over, and there
are signs that the waters will soon be lashed into fury.
For years political controversy between parties has been suspended
in the presence of a common danger. Reaction was inevitable, and the
greater the suppression the more violent the rebound. That does not,
however, altogether account for the visible omens of a coming struggle
unprecedented in its gravity. Fundamental issues have been raised of
such moment to millions that they cannot be settled without a struggle
that will rock society.
The scene enacted in the Commons a few days ago was by no means as
exciting as that which some of us witnessed in 1893. But it gave me an
uneasy feeling that the period of calm is definitely over, and that
Parliament henceforth must expect gusts and gales--and worse. Emotions
are once more welling up, and there are signs of a great stir coming in
British politics.
The cause is easily explained. The sense of exhaustion is passing
away, and issues containing a serious challenge to the privileges and
rights of powerful classes in the community and vital to the interests
of all classes have been raised by one of the great political parties
that divide Britain. The momentous character of that challenge may be
gathered from the terms of the motion submitted by Mr. Philip Snowden
to the judgment of the House of Commons:--
"That in view of the failure of the capitalist system to
adequately utilise and organise natural resources and productive
power, or to provide the necessary standard of life for vast
numbers of the population, and believing that the cause of this
failure lies in the private ownership and control of the means of
production and distribution, this House declares that legislative
effort should be directed to the gradual supersession of the
capitalist system by an industrial and social order based on the
public ownership and democratic control of the instruments of
production and distribution."
This motion will receive the full support of every member of the Labour
party. A few men outside the Socialist party who have acquainted
themselves with the publications of that party were quite prepared
for this demand of a complete change in the organisation of society.
And as they saw that party grow with startling rapidity they knew we
should not have long to wait before these subversive ideas would be
formulated in the House of Commons. Still, even for the students of
Socialist literature, the actual tabling of the resolution on behalf
of the second largest party in the State came as a surprise and a
shock. Too much credit was given to the restraining influence of the
trade union section of the party. Sir Lynden Macassey, in his informing
book on "Labour Policy, False and True," points out that it was in
1885 that the avowed advocates of this proposal for the abolition of
private property and for the nationalisation of all the means of
production and distribution first stood for Parliament. There were
only two candidates standing on this platform, and they polled 32 and
29 votes respectively. Last election the aggregate Socialist poll
reached the imposing figure of 4,251,011 votes. The party that secured
a majority of members in the House of Commons only polled 5,457,871
votes. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald states categorically that he knows that
the Independent Liberal members--exclusive of their leaders--favour
nationalisation and the capital levy. If that be an accurate statement
of the views of the majority of these gentlemen, and of those who elect
them, nearly one-half the British electorate are already prepared to
assent to Socialism by easy stages--which is the purport of Mr. Philip
Snowden's motion.
On that assumption we are on the eve of greater and more fundamental
changes affecting the lives of every class and condition of men and
women than have yet been seen in this country. Hence the new sense of
struggle with which the political atmosphere is palpitating. Capitalism
is to be arraigned before the Supreme Court of the Nation, condemned,
sentenced, and executed by instalments--Chinese fashion. The
composition of that court is not to-day favourable to the prosecution.
But who will be the judge after the next general election? It is
customary in political controversy to state that the election which
is for the moment impending will be the most epoch-making in history.
Without exaggeration, the next British election may well turn out to be
so. The British people, with their inherited political instinct, are
beginning to realise that grave decisions must then be taken. Hence the
greater keenness shown by the voters at by-elections--hence the new
interest taken by the public in the proceedings of Parliament. There is
still a good deal of apathy and indifference. The average comfortable
citizen is still inclined to think these Socialist schemes so crazy as
to be impossible. They cannot believe that 21,000,000 of sane people
can possibly contemplate giving their sanction to such fantasies.
There are two cardinal facts which are constantly overlooked by the
complacent. The men and women who have no property for the State to
seize constitute an overwhelming majority of the electors of the
country. The second fact to note is the great preponderance of the
industrial population over the steadier and more stolid agricultural
population. America, in spite of its gigantic manufacturing and
distributing industries, still retains 60 per cent. of its population
on the land. The same proportion of the French and Italian populations
is agrarian. Barely 10 per cent. of the British workers are engaged
in cultivating the soil. Most of our workers breathe and have their
being in the crowded and excitable atmosphere of factories, workshops,
and mines. The air is filled with germs of all kinds, and isolation in
these thronging areas is impossible. Hence the rapidity with which the
fever has spread.
Can it be arrested? Nothing will be done until the danger is visible to
every eye. To vary the metaphor, no one will believe in the flood until
it is upon us. Trained weather prophets who forecast its coming will
be laughed at or told they have a personal or party interest in ark
building. It is an old tale--as old as the dawn of history. "As in the
days before the flood, they were eating and drinking and knew not until
the flood came and took them all away."
The trouble can only be averted in two ways. One is the systematic
inculcation of sound doctrines of economic truth into the minds of the
working people of this country. The second, and the more important, is
the rooting out of the social evils which furnish the revolutionary
with striking and indisputable object-lessons of the failure of the
capitalistic system as an agent of human happiness. Without the latter
the former effort will be futile. Arguments in favour of the existing
order will be refuted by glaring and painful facts. Meanwhile, let
the champions of that order take note of the efforts put forth by the
Socialists to advertise their eagerness to redress the wrongs of the
ex-service men and to soften the asperities of discipline for the
soldier. The Socialist leaders have shrewdly taken note of the causes
that produced the overthrow of their Italian brethren, and they mean to
take such steps as will ensure that if Fascism comes in Britain it will
be an ally, and not a foe.
_London, April 16th, 1923._
XXVI
SHOULD WE MAKE PEACE WITH RUSSIA?
I am frankly delighted that negotiations between Lord Curzon and the
Soviet government seem to indicate a genuine desire on the part of both
parties to establish a more satisfactory understanding between this
country and Russia. The Bolshevist episode, like all revolutionary
terrors, has been at times a shrieking nightmare which has made the
world shudder. It did render one supreme service to civilisation--it
terrified democracy back into sanity just at the time when the
nervous excitability that followed the war was bordering on mental
instability. In our attitude towards the Soviet government we must,
however, constantly bear in mind one consideration. What matters to us
is not so much the Russian government as the people of Russia, and for
the moment the Bolshevist administration represents the only medium
for dealing with that mighty nation. As long as it remains the only
constituted authority in Russia, every act of hostility against it
injures Russia. As we discovered in 1919, you cannot wage war against
the government for the time being of a country without devastating
the land and alienating its people. You cannot refuse to trade with
it now without depriving its people of commodities--and especially of
equipments--essential to their well-being. It is the people, therefore,
who would suffer, and it is the people who would ultimately resent that
suffering. Governments come and go, but the nation goes on for ever.
The Russian people deserve--especially at the hands of all the Allied
nations--every sympathetic consideration we can extend to them. Not
only because they have to endure the sway of a tyrannical oligarchy
imposing its will by ruthless violence, but even more for the reasons
that led to the establishment of that tyranny. If the fruit is bitter
we must bear in mind how the tree came to be planted in the soil. It
may sound like quoting ancient history to revert to the events of eight
or nine years ago, but no one can understand Russia, or do justice to
its unhappy people, without recalling the incidents that led to the
great catastrophe.
Those who denounce any dealings with the existing order seem to have
persuaded themselves that pre-revolutionary Russia was governed by
a gentle and beneficent despotism which conferred the blessings of
a tolerant and kindly fatherland upon a well-ruled household. In no
particular is this a true picture of the _ancien régime_. The fortress
of Peter and Paul was not erected, nor its dungeons dug, by the
Bolshevists. Siberia was not set up as a penal settlement for political
offenders for the first time--if at all--by the Bolshevists. In 1906
alone 45,000 political offenders were deported to endure the severities
of Siberia. Persecution of suspected religious leaders was not started
by the Soviets. To them does not belong the discredit of initiating the
methods of Pogromism. Under the "paternal" reign of the Tsars dissent
from the Orthodox faith was proscribed and persecuted, and the Jews
were hunted like vermin.
Let us not forget also that beyond all these circumstances the
revolution was rendered inevitable by the ineptitude and corruption
of the old system, and especially by the terrible suffering and
humiliation which that state of things inflicted on Russia in the Great
War.
Any one who has read the _Memoirs of an Ambassador_, by M. Paléologue,
will find a complete explanation in its pages of the savage hatred with
which the Russian revolutionaries view all those who were associated
in any degree with the old order. He tells the story of how the
gallant army found itself at the critical hour without ammunition,
rifles, transport, and often without food. No braver or more devoted
men ever fought for their country than the young peasants who made up
the Russian armies of 1914-15-16. With little and often no artillery
support, they faced without faltering the best-equipped heavy artillery
in the world. They were mown down by shell fire and machine guns by
the million. Their aggregate casualties up to September, 1916, even
according to the reluctant admissions of the Tsarist generals of the
day, were five millions. In reality they were much heavier. Often they
went into action with sticks, as the Russian War Office had no rifles
with which to arm them. They picked up as they advanced rifles dropped
by fallen comrades. There is nothing in the war comparable to the
trustful heroism of these poor peasants. We know now why there were no
rifles, or shells, or wagons. The wholesale corruption of the _régime_
has been exposed to the world by irrefutable documentary evidence.
Here are a few extracts from M. Paléologue's interesting book. One
extract from his diary reads:--
"The lack of ammunition means that the rôle of the artillery
in battle is necessarily insignificant. The whole burden of
the fighting falls on the infantry and the result is a ghastly
expenditure of human life. A day or two ago one of the Grand
Duke Sergius's collaborators, Colonel Englehardt, said to Major
Wehrlin, my second military attaché: 'We're paying for the crimes
of our administration with the blood of our men.'"
About the same date talking about the deplorable state of things, the
Grand Duke Sergius, who was Inspector-General of Artillery, said to the
French ambassador, "When I think that this exhibition of impotence is
all that our aristocratic system has to show, it makes me want to be a
Republican."
When a Grand Duke talked like that early in 1915, what must a peasant
soldier have thought by the spring of 1917, after many more millions of
his comrades had been slaughtered as a result of the same "exhibition
of impotence."
It is no use pointing to the fact that our army was also short of
ammunition at that date. The British army was a small army organised
on the basis of a maximum expeditionary force of six divisions. The
Russian army was a great conscript force organised on the basis of a
hundred divisions in the field.
I recollect well our own military reports from the Russian fronts. They
provided much distressing reading. They filled you with compassion for
the millions of gallant men who were the victims of corruption and
stupidity in high places. I recall one statement made to our general
which betrays the callous indifference with which men in authority
seemed to treat the appalling sacrifice of life amongst loyal soldiers
who were facing death without a murmur, because the "Little Father"
willed it. Whenever anxious inquiries were directed by our officer as
to the gigantic losses in men which filled him with dismay as well
as horror, the usual reply was, "Don't worry yourself. Thank God, of
men at all events we have enough." An answer which sends a thrill of
horror through you when you read it. That is why at the end of two
and a half years the patient men in the field at last mutinied. That
is why their parents and brothers in the fields supported them. The
"Little Father" had failed them, and his minions had betrayed them. It
is a sordid and horrid tale of peculation, maladministration, and cruel
treachery. Millions of British and French money went in shameless and
open bribery, whilst the soldiers in the field, for need of what the
money could buy, were opposing bare breasts covering brave hearts to
the most terrible artillery in the world. If the rest of the money had
been well spent, what was left after providing for profuse graft would
still have sufficed to save that gallant army from destruction. But
unhappily no real interest was taken in anything beyond the amount and
the payment of the pocket-money. That seemed to be the main purpose of
the transaction. Nothing was well managed except the inevitable bribe.
There were honourable and upright men who did their duty by their
distracted and plundered country, but they were helpless in the torrent
of corruption.