a great meeting at Belfast says, "You are sometimes asked whether you
propose to resist the English army? I reply that even if this Government
had the wickedness (which, on the whole, I believe), it is wholly
lacking in the nerve required to give an order which in my deliberate
judgment would shatter for years the civilization of these islands." If
the Government does not have the nerve to employ its troops, "It will be
for the moon-lighters and the cattle-maimers to conquer Ulster
themselves, and it will be for you to show whether you are worse men, or
your enemies better men, than the forefathers of you both. But I note
with satisfaction that you are preparing yourselves by the practice of
exercises, and by the submission to discipline, for the struggle which
is not unlikely to test your determination. The Nationalists are
determined to rule you. You are determined not to be ruled. A collision
of wills so sharp may well defy the resources of a peaceful solution....
On this we are agreed, that the crisis has called into existence one of
those supreme issues of conscience amid which the ordinary landmarks of
permissible resistance to technical law are submerged."
When one goes to the Church to escape from these sharp antagonisms, he
is confronted with huge placards giving notice of meetings to protest
against "The Robbery of God." The robber in this case is the Government,
which proposes to disendow, as well as disestablish, the Church in
Wales. Noble lords denounce the outrage. Mr. Lloyd George replies by
reminding their lordships that their landed estates were, before the
dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, Church property. If
they wish to make restitution of the spoil which their ancestors took,
well and good. But let them not talk about the robbery of God, while
their hands are "dripping with the fat of sacrilege."
The retort is effective, but it does not make Mr. Lloyd George beloved
by the people to whom it is addressed. Twitting on facts has always been
considered unmannerly.
III
When we hear the acrimonious discussions and the threats of violence, it
is well to consider the reason for it all. I think the reason is one
that is not discreditable to those concerned. These are not ordinary
times, and they are not to be judged by ordinary standards. England is
at the present time passing through a revolution, the issues of which
are still in doubt. Revolutionary passions have been liberated by the
rapid course of events. "Every battle of the warrior is with confused
noise." The confused noise may be disagreeable to persons of sensitive
nerves, but it is a part of the situation.
When we consider the nature of the changes that have been made in the
last few years, and the magnitude of those which are proposed, we do not
wonder at the tone of exasperation which is common to all parties.
It is seldom that a constitutional change, like that which deprived the
House of Lords of powers exercised for a thousand years, has been made
without an appeal to arms. But there was no civil war. Perhaps the old
fashion of sturdy blows would have been less trying to the temper.
A revolution is at the best an unmannerly proceeding. It cannot be
carried on politely, because it involves not so much a change of ideas
and methods as a change of masters. A change of ideas may be discussed
in an amiable and orderly way. The honorable gentlemen who have the
responsibility for the decision are respectfully asked to revise their
opinions in the light of new evidence which, by their leave, will be
presented.
But a change of masters cannot be managed so inoffensively. The
honorable gentlemen are not asked to revise their opinions. They are
told that their opinions are no longer important. The matter is severely
personal. The statement is not, "We do not believe in your ideas"; it
is, "We do not believe in _you_."
When political discussion takes this turn, then there is an end to the
amenities suited to a more quiet time. It is no longer a question as to
which is the better cause, but as to which is the better man.
Mr. Asquith, who has retained in this revolutionary period the manners
of the old school, recently said in his reply to a delegation of his
opponents, "When people are on opposite sides of a chasm they may be
courteous to one another, and regret the impossibility of their shaking
hands, or doing more than wave a courteous gesture across so wide a
space."
These are the words of a gentleman in politics, and express a beautiful
ideal. But they hardly describe the present situation. As to waving a
courteous salutation to the people on the other side,--that depends on
who the people are. If you know them and have been long familiar with
their good qualities, the courteous salutation is natural. They are, as
you know, much better than their opinions.
But it is different when they are people whom you do not know, and with
whom you have nothing in common. You suspect their motives, and feel a
contempt for their abilities. They are not of your set. The word
"gentleman" is derived from the word _gens_. People of the same _gens_
learn to treat each other in a considerate way. Even when they differ
they remember what is due to gentle blood and gentle training.
It is quite evident that the challenge of the new democracy to the old
ruling classes has everywhere produced exasperation. It is no longer
easy to wave courteous salutations across the chasms which divide
parties. Political discussion takes a rude turn. It is no longer
possible to preserve the proprieties. We may expect the minor moralities
to suffer while the major moralities are being determined by hard
knocks.
Good manners depend on the tacit understanding of all parties as to
their relations to one another. Nothing can be more brutal than for one
to claim superiority, or more rude than for another to dispute the
claim. Such differences of station should, if they exist, be taken for
granted.
Relations which were established by force may, after a time, be made so
beautiful that their origin is forgotten. There must be no display of
unnecessary force. The battle having been decided, victor and vanquished
change parts. It pleases the conqueror to sign himself, "Your obedient
servant," and to inquire whether certain terms would be agreeable. Of
course they would be agreeable. So says the disarmed man looking upward
to his late foe, now become his protector.
And the conqueror with grave good will takes up the burden which
Providence has imposed upon him. Is not the motto of the true knight,
_Ich dien_? Such service as he can render shall be given ungrudgingly.
Now, this is not hypocrisy. It may be Christianity and Chivalry and all
sorts of fine things. It is making the best of an accepted situation.
When relations which were established by force have been sanctioned by
custom, and embodied in law, and sanctified by religion, they form a
soil in which many pleasant things may grow. In the vicinity of Vesuvius
they will tell you that the best soils are of volcanic origin.
Hodge and Sir Lionel meet in the garden which one owns, and in which the
other digs with the sweat of his brow. There is kindly interest on the
one hand, and decent respect on the other. But all this sense of ordered
righteousness is dependent on one condition. Neither must eat of the
fruit of the tree of knowledge that grows in the midst of the garden. A
little knowledge is dangerous, a good deal of knowledge may be even more
dangerous, to the relations which custom has established.
What right has Sir Lionel to lay down the law for Hodge? Why should not
Hodge have a right to have his point of view considered? When Hodge
begins seriously to ponder this question his manners suffer. And when
Sir Lionel begins to assert his superiority, instead of taking it for
granted, his behavior lacks its easy charm. It is very hard to explain
such things in a gentlemanly way.
Now, the exasperation in the tone of political discussion in Great
Britain, as elsewhere in the world, is largely explained by the fact
that all sorts of superiorities have been challenged at the same time.
Everywhere the issue is sharply made. "Who shall rule?"
Shall Ireland any longer submit to be ruled by the English? The Irish
Nationalists swear by all the saints that, rather than submit, they will
overthrow the present Government and return to their former methods of
agitation.
If the Home Rule Bill be enacted into law, will Ulster submit to be
ruled by a Catholic majority? The men of Ulster call upon the spirits of
their heroic sires, who triumphed at the Boyne, to bear witness that
they will never yield.
Will the masses of the people submit any longer to the existing
inequalities in political representation? No! They demand immediate
recognition of the principle, "One man, one vote." The many will not
allow the few to make laws for them.
Will the women of England kindly wait a little till their demands can be
considered in a dignified way? No! They will not take their place in the
waiting-line. Others get what they want by pushing; so will they.
Will the Labor party be a little less noisy and insistent in its
demands? All will come in time, but one Reform must say to another,
"After you." Hoarse voices cry, "We care nothing for etiquette, we must
have what we demand, and have it at once. We cannot stand still. If we
are pushing, we are also pushed from behind. If you do not give us what
we ask for, the Socialists and the Syndicalists will be upon you." There
is always the threat of a General Strike. Laborers have hitherto been
starved into submission. But two can play at that game.
IV
This is not the England of Sir Roger de Coverley with its cheerful
contentment with the actual, and its deference for all sorts of
dignitaries. It is not, in its present temper, a model of propriety.
But, in my judgment, it is all the more interesting, and full of hope.
To say that England is in the midst of a revolution is not to say that
some dreadful disaster is impending. It only means that this is a time
when events move very rapidly, and when precedents count for little. But
it is a time when common sense and courage and energy count for a great
deal; and there is no evidence that these qualities are lacking. I
suspect that the alarmists are not so alarmed as their language would
lead us to suppose. They know their countrymen, and that they have the
good sense to avoid most of the collisions that they declare to be
inevitable.
I take comfort in the philosophy which I glean from the top of a London
motor-bus. From my point of vantage I look down upon pedestrian humanity
as a Superman might look down upon it. It seems to consist of a vast
multitude of ignorant folk who are predestined to immediate
annihilation. As the ungainly machine on which I am seated rushes down
the street, it seems admirably adapted for its mission of destruction.
The barricade in front of me, devoted to the praise of BOVRIL, is just
high enough to prevent my seeing what actually happens, but it gives a
bloodcurdling view of catastrophes that are imminent. I have an
impression of a procession of innocent victims rushing heedlessly upon
destruction. Three yards in front of the onrushing wheels is an old
gentleman crossing the street. He suddenly stops. There is, humanly
speaking, no hope for him. Two nursemaids appear in the field of danger.
A butcher's boy on a bicycle steers directly for the bus. He may be
given up for lost. I am not able to see what becomes of them, but I am
prepared for the worst. Still the expected crunch does not come, and the
bus goes on.
Between Notting Hill Gate and Charing Cross I have seen eighteen persons
disappear in this mysterious fashion. I could swear that when I last saw
them it seemed too late for them to escape their doom.
But on sober reflection I come to the conclusion that I should have
taken a more hopeful view if I had not been so high up; if, for example,
I had been sitting with the driver where I could have seen what happened
at the last moment.
There was much comfort in the old couplet:--
"Betwixt the saddle and the ground,
He mercy sought and mercy found."
And betwixt the pedestrian and the motor-bus, there are many chances of
safety that I could not foresee. The old gentleman was perhaps more spry
than he looked. The nursemaids and the butcher's boy must assuredly have
perished unless they happened to have their wits about them. But in all
probability they did have their wits about them, and so did the driver
of the motor-bus.
THE TORYISM OF TRAVELERS
I
When we think of a thorough-going conservative we are likely to picture
him as a stay-at-home person, a barnacle fastened to one spot. We take
for granted that aversion to locomotion and aversion to change are the
same thing. But in thinking thus we leave out of account the inherent
instability of human nature. Everybody likes a little change now and
then. If a person cannot get it in one way, he gets it in another. The
stay-at-home gratifies his wandering fancy by making little alterations
in his too-familiar surroundings. Even the Vicar of Wakefield in the
days of his placid prosperity would occasionally migrate from the blue
bed to the brown. A life that had such vicissitudes could not be called
uneventful.
When you read the weekly newspaper published in the quietest hill-town
in Vermont, you become aware that a great deal is going on. Deacon Pratt
shingled his barn last week. Miss Maria Jones had new shutters put on
her house, and it is a great improvement. These revolutions in
Goshenville are matters of keen interest to those concerned. They
furnish inexhaustible material for conversation.
The true enemy to innovation is the traveler who sets out to see
historic lands. His natural love of change is satiated by rapid change
of locality. But his natural conservatism asserts itself in his
insistence that the places which he visits shall be true to their own
reputations. Having journeyed, at considerable expense, to a celebrated
spot, he wants to see the thing it was celebrated for, and he will
accept no substitute. From his point of view the present inhabitants are
merely caretakers who should not be allowed to disturb the remains
intrusted to their custody. Everything must be kept as it used to be.
The moment any one packs his trunk and puts money in his purse to visit
lands old in story he becomes a hopeless reactionary. He is sallying
forth to see things not as they are, but as they were "once upon a
time." He is attracted to certain localities by something which happened
long ago. A great many things may have happened since, but these must be
put out of the way. One period of time must be preserved to satisfy his
romantic imagination. He loves the good old ways, and he has a curiosity
to see the bad old ways that may still be preserved. It is only the
modern that offends him.
The American who, in his own country, is in feverish haste to improve
conditions, when he sets foot in Europe becomes the fanatical foe to
progress. The Old World, in his judgment, ought to look old. He longs to
hear the clatter of wooden shoes. If he had his way he would have laws
enacted forbidding peasant folk to change their ancient costumes. He
would preserve every relic of feudalism. He bitterly laments the
division of great estates. A nobleman's park with its beautiful idle
acres, its deer, its pheasants, and its scurrying rabbits, is so much
more pleasant to look at than a succession of market-gardens. Poachers,
game-keepers, and squires are alike interesting, if only they would
dress so that he could know them apart. He is enchanted with thatched
cottages which look damp and picturesque. He detests the model dwellings
which are built with a too obvious regard for sanitation. He seeks
narrow and ill-smelling streets where the houses nod at each other, as
if in the last stages of senility, muttering mysterious reminiscences of
old tragedies. He frequents scenes of ancient murders, and places where
bandits once did congregate. He leaves the railway carriage, to cross a
heath where romantic highwaymen used to ask the traveler to stand and
deliver. He is indignant to find electric lights and policemen. A heath
ought to be lonely, and fens ought to be preserved from drainage.
He seeks dungeons and instruments of torture. The dungeons must be
underground, and only a single ray of light must penetrate. He is much
troubled to find that the dungeon in the Castle of Chillon is much more
cheerful than he had supposed it was. The Bridge of Sighs in Venice
disappoints him in the same way. Indeed, there are few places mentioned
by Lord Byron that are as gloomy as they are in the poetical
description.
The traveler is very insistent in his plea for the preservation of
battlefields. Now, Europe is very rich in battlefields, many of the most
fertile sections having been fought over many times. But the ravages of
agriculture are everywhere seen. There is no such leveler as the
ploughman. Often when one has come to refresh his mind with the events
of one terrible day, he finds that there is nothing whatever to remind
him of what happened. For centuries there has been ploughing and
harvesting. Nature takes so kindly to these peaceful pursuits that one
is tempted to think of the battle as merely an episode.
Commerce is almost as destructive. Cities that have been noted for their
sieges often turn out to be surprisingly prosperous. The old walls are
torn down to give way to parks and boulevards. Massacres which in their
day were noted leave no trace behind. One can get more of an idea of the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve by reading a book by one's fireside
than by going to Paris. For all one can see there, there might have been
no such accident.
Moral considerations have little place in the traveler's mind. The
progressive ameliorations that have taken place tend to obscure our
sense of the old conflicts. A reform once accomplished becomes a part of
our ordinary consciousness. We take it for granted, and find it hard to
understand what the reformer was so excited about.
As a consequence, the chief object of an historical pilgrimage is to
discover some place where the old conditions have not been improved
away. The religious pilgrim does not expect to find the old prophets,
but he has a pious hope of finding the abuses which the prophets
denounced.
I have in mind a clergyman who, in his own home, is progressive to a
fault. He is impatient of any delay. He is all the time seeking out the
very latest inventions in social and economic reforms. But several years
ago he made a journey to the Holy Land, and when he came back he
delivered a lecture on his experiences. A more reactionary attitude
could not be imagined. Not a word did he say about the progress of
education or civil-service reform in Palestine. There was not a
sympathetic reference to sanitation or good roads. The rights of women
were not mentioned. Representative government seemed to be an
abomination to him. All his enthusiasm was for the other side. He was
for Oriental conservatism in all its forms. He was for preserving every
survival of ancient custom. He told of the delight with which he watched
the laborious efforts of the peasants ploughing with a forked stick. He
believed that there had not been a single improvement in agriculture
since the days of Abraham.
The economic condition of the people had not changed for the better
since patriarchal times, and one could still have a good idea of a
famine such as sent the brothers of Joseph down into Egypt. Turkish
misgovernment furnished him with a much clearer idea of the publicans,
and the hatred they aroused in the minds of the people, than he had ever
hoped to obtain. In fact, one could hardly appreciate the term
"publicans and sinners" without seeing the Oriental tax-gatherers. He
was very fortunate in being able to visit several villages which had
been impoverished by their exactions. The rate of wages throws much
light on the Sunday-School lessons. A penny a day does not seem such an
insufficient minimum wage to a traveler, as it does to a stay-at-home
person. On going down from Jerusalem to Jericho he fell among thieves,
or at least among a group of thievish-looking Bedouins who gave him a
new appreciation of the parable of the Samaritan. It was a wonderful
experience. And he found that the animosity between the Jews and the
Samaritans had not abated. To be sure, there are very few Samaritans
left, and those few are thoroughly despised.
The good-roads movement has not yet invaded Palestine, and we can still
experience all the discomforts of the earlier times. Many a time when he
took his life in his hands and wandered across the Judæan hills, my
friend repeated to himself the text, "In the days of Shamgar the son of
Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the people
walked through by-ways."
To most people Shamgar is a mere name. But after you have walked for
hours over those rocky by-ways, never knowing at what moment you may be
attacked by a treacherous robber, you know how Shamgar felt. He becomes
a real person. You are carried back into the days when "there was no
king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes."
The railway between Joppa and Jerusalem is to be regretted, but
fortunately it is a small affair. There are rumors of commercial
enterprises which, if successful, would change the appearance of many of
the towns. Fortunately they are not likely to be successful, at least in
our day. The brooding spirit of the East can be trusted to defend itself
against the innovating West. For the present, at least, Palestine is a
fascinating country to travel in.
A traveler in Ceylon and India writes to a religious paper of his
journey. He says, "Colombo has little to interest the tourist, yet it is
a fine city." One who reads between the lines understands that the fact
that it is a fine city is the cause of its uninterestingness. His
impression of Madura was more satisfactory. There one can see the
Juggernaut car drawn through the streets by a thousand men, though it is
reluctantly admitted that the self-immolation of fanatics under the
wheels is no longer allowed. "The Shiva temple at Madura is the more
interesting as its towers are ornamented with six thousand idols."
The writer who rejoiced at the sight of six thousand idols in Madura,
would have been shocked at the exhibition of a single crucifix in his
meeting-house at home.
I confess that I have not been able to overcome the Tory prejudice in
favor of vested interests in historical places. If one has traveled
to see "the old paths which wicked men have trodden," it is a
disappointment to find that they are not there. I had such an experience
in Capri. We had wandered through the vineyards and up the steep, rocky
way to the Villa of Tiberius. On the top of the cliff are the ruins of
the pleasure-house which the Emperor in his wicked old age built for
himself. Was there ever a greater contrast between an earthly paradise
and abounding sinfulness? Here, indeed, was "spiritual wickedness in
high places." The marvelously blue sea and all the glories of the Bay of
Naples ought to have made Tiberius a better man; but apparently they
didn't. We were prepared for the thrilling moment when we were led to
the edge of the cliff, and told to look down. Here was the very place
where Tiberius amused himself by throwing his slaves into the sea to
feed the fishes. Cruel old monster! But it was a long time ago. Time
had marvelously softened the atrocity of the act, and heightened its
picturesque character. If Tiberius must exhibit his colossal inhumanity,
could he have anywhere in all the world chosen a better spot? Just think
of his coming to this island and, on this high cliff above the azure
sea, building this palace! And then to think of him on a night when the
moon was full, and the nightingales were singing, coming out and hurling
a shuddering slave into the abyss!
When we returned to the hotel, our friend the Professor, who had made a
study of the subject, informed us that it was all a mistake. The stories
of the wicked doings of Tiberius in Capri were malicious slanders. The
Emperor was an elderly invalid living in dignified retirement. As for
the slaves, we might set our minds at rest in regard to them. If any of
them fell over the cliff it was pure accident. We must give up the idea
that the invalid Emperor pushed them off.