PAGE PAGE OF THE NOTES WEEK . 193 THETRIUMPH OF LUCIFER.By Oswald H. Harland 207 CURRENTCANT . 195 VIEWS AND REVIEWS: ETIQUETTEOR ECONOMICS? FOREIGNAFFAIRS. By S. Verdad . 196 By A. E. R. . 209 MILITARYNOTES. By Romney . 197 TOWARDSNATIONAL GUILDS. By “National PASTICHE.By Alice Morning, L. S. D., J. 7‘. Guildsmen” . 198 Fife, C. E. Bechhofer,Edward Moore, Wil- frid Thorley frid 210 THESTRIKE IN ITALY. By OdonPor 199 . . DAMNHIS ISAACS! By CharlesBrookfarmer . 200 LETTERSTO THE EDITORfrom a National Guilds- THESPIRITUAL RENAISSANCE. By HaroldLister . 202 ‘man, Peter Fanning, J. A. Frome Wilkinson, UNEDITEDOPINIONS : THE BURDENOF SELF-CON- D. Mason, A. F. T., ChristopherGay, SCIOUSNESS . 204 Arundeldel R&, FelixElderly, Arthur F. READERSAND WRITERS. By P. SeIver and Thorn,Harold Lister, Arthur J. Penty, E. A. B. . 205 Harold B. Harrison, D. Fox Pitt . . 211

looked-after social serf who is never to be allowed to NOTES OF THE WEEK. have his fling, never to be allowed to spendhis own IF there was any doubt left that Social Reform is now money inhis own way. Good money-or, rather, good thesettled policy of allparties, it should be cleared conditions, for he willtouch very little money-are to away by the debates that took place last week upon the be securedfor him by the State. His nominal wages are not to be allowed to drop beIow a certain minimum, Budget. Mr. Asquith and Lord Haldane, in particular, but he -is to be- barred from spending that minimum as were explicit upon the direction in which the country is he likes. partlydrifting and partly paddling,; and they, at any *** rate, after whatever hesitation, have now made up their minds that in this same direction we must continue to We think (we could guess withwhose heifer the travelfor an indefiniteperiod. Inthe last ten years, “Spectator”has been ploughingtoproduce this said Mr. Asquith, the annual cost of Social Reform had straightforwardcommon sense; but for the moment risen by thirty millions; and in the next ten years, for we are more concerned than either the “Times” or the all that can be seen to the contrary, another thirty mil- “Spectator”with the whence than withthe whither’ lions will need tobe added.Lord Haldane at the of Social Reform. To what, in fact, is due the present NationalLiberal Club on Friday evening was, if any- and prospectively continuing State policy of Social Re- thing, even more confident of the persistency of the form? What is its necessity,what is its motive? Mr. present tendency. He even professed to be able to see Asquith, in, the speech above mentioned, referred to the inthe three main Budgets of Mr. LloydGeorge awakening. of the social conscience to the existence of evidences of a logical plan of,campaign upon poverty “the inevitableevils of a complexsociety.” But this in its phases of past, present and future. The ravages will scarcely do as an explanation. It may betrue, of past poverty, he said, were first ameliorated in the and we hope it is, that the socialconscience is being Budget which providedOld Age Pensions; present ‘‘vividly aroused” to something or other ; but assuredly poverty received itsshare of considerationinthe without a progressive need for social reform a progres- Budget which established the Insurance Act; and now sive policy of Social Reform couldnot exist. What, in the present Budget it was the turn of the future, of therefore, is the need? The reply, it is obvious, is that children and of maternity. From allthis, it will be the wage-system has now definitely and decisively been noticed, not a word of Radical dissent was uttered in proved unequal to the strain of maintaining the prole- Parliamentfrom the benches either of the official tariat in a tolerably civilised condition. Reflect on the Opposition or of theLabour Party. That the demands made by civilisation to-day upon every class LabourParty could scarcely beexpected intheir of society ; estimate the cost entailedupon the indi- complete ignorance of economics to rejectthe vidualin meeting these demands. It will thenappear loaves and fishes now ostentatiously being doled mostclear that while,in themain, the middle and out to theirclass, goes, of course,without saying ; upperclasses manage very well to securean income but that the Unionist Benches were equally barren of sufficient tosatisfy the demands of anadvancing standard of living, the proletariat have already- begun criticism is a little ’ moresurprising. Mr. Bonar Law did, it is true, enter a protest against the policy to fail and to lag behind thestandard even of their of taxing, the rich to provide for. the poor; but neither class, and show signs of continuing to fail more lament- he nor Mr. AustenChamberlain had any alternative ablystill inthe future. In a word,the necessity of method of financingSocial Reform to offer, andboth Social Reform lies in the failure of the wage-system as whole-heartedly agreed that, by one means or another, it concerns the proletariat of the nation. Social Reform must be continued. *** *** But if thefailure of the wage-system to provide a The “Times” of Saturdaywas venturesome enough progressive income for the working-classes is the true toraise the question whither SocialReform is taking cause of the assumed necessity for Social Reform, it fol- us; but, likePilate, it would notstay for an answer. lows that only two courses are open to us for dealing The“Spectator,” on the other hand, comes to some with it. We can attempt to restore the wage-system so conclusion upon the subject in the following passage : as to enable it once more(if it ever did)to provide wages The Liberal ideal is that of a healthy, well-fed, well- sufticient to keep the proletariat reasonably and progres- 194 sively efficient ; or we can move forward to take the es- ought to increase, for if society has not the sense to see sentially revolutionary step of substituting for an obso- that in reverting to slavery it is really betraying pro- lete wage-system some other modeof national industrial gress, the more quickly it is taught the better for itself. organisation. The“Spectator,” we observe, is still of Needless to say, however, we are not yet convinced-or opinion that the restoration of the wage-system is pos- we too should be among theanarchists-that society has sible. All that needs to bedone, we are told, is to yet made up its mind either that the direction of Social increasesavings and capital to such an extent that Reform istowards the restoration of slaveryor, still everywheretwo masters will befound competing for less, that slavery is desirable. Onthe contrary, we every workman, with the result that wageswould imme- think we see in various strata of society, by no means diatelybegin to rise. To this, however, wemake the confined tothe proletariat classes, distinct movements reply we have made before, that under modern condi- of opinion both against the existing wage-system and tions of international finance, it is impossible to produce againstthe present alternative of SocialReform. We the required glut of capital in anygiven country so are certain, moreover, that very deep repugnance exists long as there remains any countryin the world that can in themajority of minds againstthe restoration of still absorb capital at the present rate of return. What, slavery under even the most plausible name. What then therefore, the “Spectator” is inviting British workmen is to be done? For individuals belonging to the middle to do as a condition of raising their wages in this coun- and upper classes there is, we venture to suggest,a work try is to produce capital enough to surfeit the rest of awaitingtheir efforts which isno less necessary than the worldfirst of all. For onlywhen no higher return thework that must be done by theproletariat class on capital is offered to our financiers in any other part itself. True that the latter must be prepared to move of the world can it be expected that they will compete and to be moved. Nothing, in fact, can be done for a with each other for the lower return that investments in class that the same class is not anxious to do for itself. this country under those circumstanceswould offer them. But at least an approach can be made to the solution of Thisargument, we are certain, is fatal to the “Spec- our problem from the leisured classes ; and more par- tator’s’’ position. ticularly since, for the present, both political and every *** otherkind of power are intheir hands. Think, for example, of the effect that would be produced if indivi- There being, to the bestof our examination, no means duals, belonging to the governing classes, were to de- of restoring the wage-system, the alternative course of clare themselves, as Lord RobertCecil did the otherday, finding a substitute for the wage-system is, it is obvious, in favour of the abolition of the wage-system and of the not a matter of choice, but a matter of necessity. The substitution of anindustrial system not, at anyrate, process of substitution, in fact, has actually begun; and State Servile. The example should be contagious among underthe name of SocialReform society isat this his class, and we hope sincerely it may be. moment actually engaged in making the transition. The questions that arise,therefore, arethese : intowhat *** form of industrial organisation are we moving out of It remains, however, as we have said, with the pro- the broken-down wage-system ; is it the best possible letariatthemselves to showwilling first of all; and system ; cannot we devise a better? Regarding the first here, as on SO many occasions before, we have to con- of these questions we are ourselves prepared to accept fess to disappointment. Inthe articlewhich we have as far as it goes the answer given by the “Spectator,” quoted, the “Times” allowed itself to jibe at the fruit- and already quoted. There is not the least doubt in our lessness of our efforts to substitute in the minds of the mind that thefixed tendency of the presentpolicy of State workersan economicrevolution forthe present reac- Social Reform is in the direction defined by the “Spec- tionary movement towardsState slavery. “The only tator.” The conclusion, however, is more sinister than hostility to Social Reform,”says the Times,” Mr. Strachey has permittedhimself to conceive clearly ; “comes not from those who doubt the ideal, but from for to our minds it follows as a necessary consequence thosewho deny that SocialReform does or ever can on thepresent policy of the State supplementingand do anything towards realising it ; they[meaning our- gradually supplanting wages, that the proletariat must selves] pin their faith on an economic revolution, which become in the end the property of the State. Consider, takes many forms in their imaginations, but shows no if you will, the defect of private wages which at this signs of achieving any more solidexistence.” We are moment the State makes good out of revenue. The in- not aware of “many forms” in our minds of the econo- come from private wages for the whole proletariat class micrevolution on which we pin our faith. Onone isroughly, we calculate, some fifty millions short of form, in fact, we sometimes fear that we shall be found what is necessaryfor the maintenance of human effi- monotonous before we are successful in establishing it. ciency ; and by just about this amount the State iscom- But that our economic revolution, unlike the economic pelled annually to supplement wages. But this defect of revolution now being slowly but surely brought about wages is progressive; and so, too, are the positive de- by Social Reform, “shows no signs of achieving a solid mands of civilisation; with the effect that year by year existence”we unwillingly agree. Nor do the events thereal income of theworking classesfrom wages of the past week in the Labour world offer any loophole grows relatively less and less sufficient to maintain the of escape from the momentarily pessimistic conclusion. standard of life, and the further effect that more and morethe State must itselfprovide for them. But can *** theState make this provisionwithout insisting upon Thepresent policy of theNational Union of Rail- control corresponding to its expenditure? Obviously it waymen, for instance, is as bad as a policy of any kind cannot. It therefore follows that exactly to the extent can possibly be; and nothing, apparently, that we can that the State assumes the responsibilitycast upon it sayhas any effect inmodifying or changing it. Yet by the wage-system of providing for the proletariat, it we are not only certain that it is bad, but we are certain must control the proletariat. And this, when the present also that it must fail to produce even its immediately process is completed, must result in a condition for the expectedresults and, in addition, it willjeopardise proletariatindistinguishable, except by a newname, Labourinterests of a largerkind than those of fromancient slavery. the Railwaymen’sUnion alone. What,we ask, must *** be the effect upon the whole movement towards Union The position, then, is this : the wage-system is break- Federation if theexisting Triple Allianceof Railway- ing down, and it is impossible to restore it. As a substi- men,Miners and Transport Workers should prove to tute we are committing ourselves to a policy of Social beunable to carrythe Railwaymen’s programme this Reformwhich, in theend, spells the slaveryof the autumn?Will it not be tc) induce a reactionand to proletariat. Are we prepared for such a conclusion? Is throw back the Unions once more each upon its isola- that the desired goal of society? If it is, we have only to tion? Yet the defeat of such a programme as the offi- say that the number of anarchists in society must and, cials of theRailwaymen have drawn up is inevitable.; 195 no Labour power in the world can carry it or ought to carry it. It isridiculous in itself, itcontains no prin- Current Cant. ciple of social, economic or even individual importance, “Essence of Parliament.”--“Punch.” it responds to no real need or desire on the part of any sectionwhatever. Under thesecircumstances it isno less inevitable that when the defeat comes, as come it “Everyonereads Charles Garvice.”-“T.P.’s Weekly” must, all thehopes set upon success and all- the con- (Advert.) fidence engenderedby the new Alliance will fadelike smokeonly to leave the Labour movement once more “I donot like advertising.”-Sir JOSEPH BEECHAM, sick atheart and readyfor any fresh indignity the Bart. State may put upon it. *** Mr. Thomas, we see, has offered the excuse for his “The difference Christ is making.”--“British Weekly.” programmethat any other demand than one for five shillings per capita increase in wages all round would “The ‘Poor’ are detestable animals.”--“Blast.” fail to commandthe support of allhis men. “Were the minimum wage proposaladopted,” hesays, “thousands of firemen and signalmen whose wages are “Alfred Noyes typifies a revival of Poetry in England.” in the neighbourhood of 30s. a weekcould hardly be -BRIAN HOOKERIn “The Century.” expected to fight for a minimum wage they are already earning.” There’s a character for solidarity to give to your Union ! There’s an admission to make to the “The root cause of Labour unrest.”-“The Spectator.” enemy ! But, in thefirst place, we believe the charge to be withoutfoundation. Therecent “lightning” “Thepresent Government has no definiteconvictions strikes of all grades of railwaymen to restore the status on Labour questions.”-“The New Statesman.” of single individuals and with no other reward in view givethe lie to Mr. Thomas’slur up0.n therank and file whom hemisrepresents But, in the secondplace, “ ‘T.P.’s Weekly’ is a tradition. It is more than that. even if his charge were as true as it is false, the con- It is a living force.”-HOLBROOKJACKSON. clusion is not that the preposterous and inequitable de- mand for a flat rate of increase should be put forward. Supposingit to benecessary that in a generalstrike “Unless employers can rely upon the Unions to control on thisscale some advantage from success should be their members . . .”--“Evening News.” promised to everyindividual takingpart in it, the proper alternative to an impossible demand for an equal “Butperhaps men do not boast of their good looks. material reward is a demand for an equal spiritual re- . . .”-“The Times.” ward ; andthis, we aresure, wouldresult from a demand to share in the control and responsibility of the whole of the men’s industry.Cannot’ Mr. Thomas, “There is always something fresh and entertaining in even atthis tenth hour, summon a specialConference the ‘Times’ nowadays.”-Sir W. ROBERTSONNICOLL,. to reconsider his fatal programme and to substitute for itsdemands a Union demand to share with the co,m- “Mr. Wyndham Lewis has been for a decade one of the panies or with the State in railway management? Such most silent men in hndon.”--EZRA POUND. an act of intelligent courage, we can assure him, would immortalisehis name and that of hisUnion as the saviours of England from the predestined horrors of a “I walked back to my West-End house. . . As I passed completedSocial Reform. by the doors of the flaming Gin- palaces I seemed to hear *** a voice sounding in my ears, Where can you go and find such heathen as these ?’”-BRAMWELL, BOOTH. Mr. Thomas’lamentable official attitude,however, finds its parallel in the attitude of the executives of the LondonBuilding Unions. Here there can be no doubt “TheSalvation Army to-day stands a triumph of that the spirit of the rank and file is generations ahead militant mysticism.”-ARTHUR BLACKWOODin the “New of the spirit of their leaders ; for after over twenty-two Weekly.” weeks of semi-starvation and after three ballots designed to give them an excuse for submission, the men remain “Economics refreshed by Mr. I,. G, ChiozzaMoney, steadfast in defence of their claims and in defiance both M.P.”-“ The New Weekly.” of their present masters and of their own leaders. It is magnificent, even if it is also pitiable ; but the onus of the pity must lie upon the leaders as the magnificence “Civilisation owes much to Greece.”-W.C. ANDER- is certainly none of theirs. And once more, as in the case SON in the “Labour Leader.” of the Railwaymen, it is a defect of imagination on their part that bars the way to a real advance. Admitted, if you please, that matters in respect of wages and of the “TheKing’s care for the workers.”-“Daily Mirror.” principles of Trade Unionism have come to a deadlock, so that neither can masters retreat nor men surrender “We trust that Messrs. Wells, Shaw, and Arnold Ben- withoutirreparable sacrifice. Must then the men give nett, and other Socialistwriters . .”-‘‘Daily Herald.” in because the masters will not? Is there not a possible . solution outside the area of the present struggle? We know, of course, that there is; and that the Theosophical “Let me write plays for the clergy, I do not care who Societyfor one has found it. Why has not the Build- writes for the crowd.”--Israel ZANGWILL. ing Federation followed that clue, turningits whole mindand energy away from the present impasse and into that more hopeful channel? Again we have to de- “Apayment of a pennyfor one of theseAlexandra plorethe incompetency of theexisting Trade Union Roses will makeevery Londoner a man of honour.”-- leaders.Again we haveto affirm that they andthey “Daily Chronicle.” alone are holding up the sluice-gates of progress to the end that Social Reform instead of Social Revolution may “All about soft money, Interest, gold and Banking.”- become more and more necessary and inevitable. “Clarion” (Advert.) 196

we had none to answer. It is only recently, where the Foreign Affairs. Guilds are concerned, thatthis determined conspiracy By S. Verdad. of silence has been broken. IFthe plans of theGovernment are carried out, the *** second reading of the India Council Bill will have been A likedesire for silence pervadesthe Indian Civil taken one day before this article appears in print. Un- Service, andhas pervaded itgradually ever since it less something very extraordinary happens the Bill will became less and less aristocratic-I use the word in its be read a second time, and will duly find its way to the best sense. That a mistake must never be admitted is the Commons. For my part I do not think the Bill ought cardinal principle of this new school of political admini- tobe read asecond timeuntil considerable modifica- strators.The official worldshrieked when Lord tions have been made ; hence these additional notes on a Hardingepardoned certain disturbers of the peace at subject which I referred to inthese columns three or Cawnpore a couple of yearsor so ago. Theraucous four weeks ago. voice of the official who regards all Indians as “bloody *+* niggers”was raised; but it was raisedin vain. The The new India Council Bill provides that the Council Viceroy, who does not always show whatever sense he shallin futureconsist of a minimum of seven and a may possess, certainly showed some when he intimated maximum of tenmembers, two of whom are to ‘be that the law would not become a laughing-stock merely Indians. The Indian members are to be selected from a because he had overruled the judgment of the local offi- panel, the panel to be chosen by the unofficial members cials. We shallbegin to makequicker progress in of the Legislative Councils. In theory the Secretary of India when the Service as a whole thoroughly realises State for India is to select the two Indians from the list that the Hindus are not Kaffirs and that the Moslems to be drawn up ; but in practice, of course, the Viceroy may lay claim to brains. will beasked for his advice on this very important +++ matter,and his recommendations will be followed. In reply to Lord Crewe’s invitation last year, as I stated a Two members of the Councilselected from a panel few weeks ago, the Indian National Congress conveyed will never put this point of view before the Secretary of to hisLordship, through several delegates who came State. Three members chosen by direct election would over fromIndia specially, two verymoderate sugges- certainly have done so when it was desirable. My con- tions in connection with the new Bill. One was that the tention is that the Service, no matter how many first- Council should consist of ninemembers, one-third of class and capable men there are connected with it, must whom should ‘be Indians. The other was that the Indian be unsound in parts if itcannot, as a whole, tolerate members should be chosen by the non-official members and even welcome criticism. Any man or institution in of theLegislative Councils-not from a panel, but by a strong position will never be overborne by the most the direct election of this very select body ; this carefully adverse criticism. Itis only theweak, nerveless man chosenelectorate of, perhaps, 150 or 160 members. whotries to stop his adversary’s mouth. I am,in consequence, very sorry to notice that Lord Crewe has *** been misled on this point. He has still an opportunity It is worth while inquiring a little more closely into of vindicating ourreputation for fair play, and it is the reasons why this suggestion of direct. election was to be hoped that he will take advantage of it. notheeded. We know perfectly well that nobody not * # ,* acceptable to the Viceroy can possibly be chosen from the panel ; the Indian Government will take care of that. In the meantime one notices with some curiosity the Three Indian members, directly elected, would have been announcement that Earl Curzon will move the rejection able to keep the Secretary of State in touch with Indian of the measure when it comes up for discussion. What thought; would have been able to criticisethe Civil will LordCurzon say? He isan uncertain man ; but Servicewherever the Civil Serviceshowed a tendency when he speaks on Indian subjects he speaks as a rule to go astray ; would have been able, in a word, to look forthe official class. If hefollows outhis usual CUS- afterthe interests of Indians.Even if thesuggestions tom we may expect to hear the views of beefy,bour- of the Congress had been adopted in their entirety there geois officials admirablysummed up in the House of would still have been an ample margin of safety for the Lords : the proposal even to select two Indians from a Government,since the Congress proposed that one- panel is revolutionary ; it will never work in practice ; third of the new Council should be formed of Indians, you will get Babus from Bengal; our prestige will go one-third of membersnominated by the Viceroy, and down,and so onfor an hour or more. This,whether one-third of members chosen from among men, not oon- said by Lord Curzon or anybody else, is nonsense. The nected with India, but well known in English public life. hard-boiled official will never consider any change that As I have already stated, Lord Crewe’s Bill was drafted tends in the least to modify his power. The only pro- before the Congress delegates had their interview with per resolution to move in the circumstances-bating a him. The Service, in short, objected to being criticised. few trifles in the details of the Bill-is that the panel clause should be taken out, and substituted by one de- *** manding the direct election of three, not two, members. This attitude of the Indian Civil Service is pusillani- mous; unjustifiable. Over a year ago, when Mr. *** Mohamed Ali and Mr. Wirza Hasan were here, I corn- Unless there is unexpected opposition, therefore, we mented on the fact that the present examination system shall probably see the Bill passed in the House of Lords. did not permit of the best men-the men of tradition and Few of theirLordships are sufficiently familiarwith character-securing posts in the Service. Pushing India to criticise the Government. If some sympathiser young men fromthe middle classes, anxious to“get with the Indians suggests that the moderate recommen- on,”are not precisely the idealtype toadminister a dations of theCongress should be carried out Lord countrywhere tact, delicacy, andinsight are more Crewe will probably insist on neglecting the “extremes” necessary than everthey were. It is a verysignificant -the ex-officials and the Congress delegates-and ap- fact, in my judgment,that the peoplein thiscountry pealing to the House to pass the compromise measure. who have opposed any policy put forward by THENEW It lookslike a compromise, butit is not. And if the AGE haveinvariably. exhibited this characteristic,this Bill does at length reach the Commons, one can only worst of all traits which we see to perfectionin the hope that in theLower House the friends and well- Englishbourgeoisie. Our editorialcomplaints have wishers of India may show themselves to be more en- always been, not that we could not answer our adver- lightened)and powerful than the well-meaning, but saries, not thatour adversaries were unfair; but that stupid, peers. 197

met anyone who could satisfy me upon the meaning of Military Notes. thatterm : but if heis not, then there is something By Romney. wrong in Mr. Fyfe’s diagnosis of the Southern, Catho- lic,Celtish character. If I werequite sure that my THE military interest of theday is centred in the memory could be trusted, and that he himself and no Nationalist Volunteers : concerning whomI also, as a other wrote the articles in question, I would go further militarycritic, musthave my say. I amhampered in and say that there was something very wrong in Mr. this by the fact that I havenever been a Nationalist Hamilton Fyfe. Volunteer : thesame, however, is true of nineout of **+ ten of theremaining critics who havewritten on the subject, so that I am not seriously handicapped in the There is, however, one respect in which the Nation- race for distinction. Onthe other hand, Ienjoy the alistsare, and seem likely to remain, inferior. They quiteconsiderable advantage of having seen and, I have no leaders in the military sense. The Ulster people think,partially understood-a goodmany Irishmen. can command a considerable proportion of the talent of And that is a thing which, I am sure, no London mili- the British Army. They are generaled by accomplished tary critic has ever done; judging by the nonsense that generals, and officered by professional and semi-profes- is written. sional officers. With the exception of a fewmen like *** Colonel Moore and Captain White, their opponentscom- would therefore like to warn the British public be- mand no military experience except a few non-commis- I sioned officers of the Militia. That there exists military fore it accepts these gentlemen’s account of the Nation- talent in their ranks I have no doubt : it exists where- alists’military condition. It is undoubtedly truethat ever Irishmen are gathered together : but it will require they have not got arms, and it isequally true that, with- a numberof defeats to discoverit. That is wherethe outthe Government’s connivance, they cannot obtain Ulstermen have really the advantage. them. So far their adversaries, English and Ulstermen, have a considerableadvantage. It is,however, doubt- *** ful whether they will not be allowed to obtain arms, for But as a matter of fact I do not think it likely that theEnglish Government has seriously considered Ulster and the South will come into serious conflict. My whethermotives of policy will notrender it advisable acquaintance with the Irish leads me to anticipate some- tostrengthen the Nationalists as a counterpoise to thing very much more serious. The Irish will fight the Ulster. This will be the easier, now that Redmond and Irish,and break off andmake itup. Their inter- companyhave got the movement in handand can racialcombats are rather in thenature of a spiritual answer for its docility-or think they can do so. exercise than a seriousmenace to the unity of the.

** * nation. There is one person, however, with whom they have always shown a consistent dislike to making it up: A number of distinguished persons, amongst whom I andthat is the Englishman. I am certain-as certain seem to remember Mr. Hamilton Fyfe-I hope I do not as I sit and write here-that if this Irish Volunteering do him an injustice, but the name of Fyfeis always continues, it will end in both parties combining to break associated in my mind with any nonsense that happens off the connection with England.The drafters of the to be floating about-have told us that the training and Home Rule Bill were careful to insist that Ireland had the discipline are on a lower level thanthat which noright to maintain an armed force. We,like the obtains inUlster. Inthis there is nothing extraordi- drivelling lunatics we are, have practically surrendered nary. The UlsterVolunteers have existed for over that right before the Bill is passed-for who candis- twelve months, and have had time to fall into soldierly arm several hundred thousand men?-we have permitted ways. Besides, an urban population, accustomed to co- theestablishment of two formidable armiesin the operation of one sort and an-other in trains, trams, and island,and we are now faced with the position that, factories, can be persuaded to act together more easily whatever we do, one army will remain overtly hostile, than a mob of extremely individualistic peasants. and the other discontented and inclined to turn against Whether it will fight better is quite another question : us. If wehand over Ulster to Mr.Redmond, the €or there enter into the business of fighting sundry fac- Ulstermen,disgusted at ouringratitude, will throw tors such as courage, tenacity and physical endurance, themselves into the arms of the Nationalists, who will which may be conspicuously absent from a force brilliant be only too glad to make the transition easy. If we do upon the parade ground. It is said for example that the not, we shall leave an open wound in northern Ireland, old Neapolitan army was the best drilledin Europe. I theresult of which will be, if not at once,then ulti- am of course not insinuating that the Ulstermen cannot mately, to uniteall parties against us forthe punish- fight as well as drill,-from what I have seen of Ulster- ment of our incompetence. men I am sure they can. But I do mean to point out **+ that a certain lack of coherency is at first to be expected Butthe solution of these things requires a compre- in a peasantforce, and that if it has taken, say, six hension of Irishmen. Now England has got into such months for the Ulstermen to begin to look like soldiers, a state that the persons responsible for the solution are it will take the Nationalists longer. a little gang of Asiatics and attorneys without even a ** * decent working comprehension of Englishmen. So that Mr. Hamilton Fyfe, however-I hope to goodness it I candidly do not cherish hope. was Mr. Hamilton Fyfe and not another, because I am going to begin to say things about the gentleman-Mr. RONDEAU. Hamilton Fyfe when hereturned to CarmeliteStreet, AfterCharles d’Orleans (1391--1465). the journalistic counterpart of Messalina-fatigued but Myne onlie love, my joye, my boone, not satiated with nonsense-wrote down and caused to More dare to me than ought beside, I prithee joyouslie doe bide be printed a lot of bosh about the obvious weakness of In hope that I maye see thee soone. character of the Southern and Catholic Celt : how the I seek a waye b nlghte, by noone, perseverance of theseweak unEnglish creatures soon To come to thee if Godde me guide, collapsed, how they ‘began a-laughing and a-talking in Myne onlie love, my joye, my boone, theranks, and so forth,and so forth.If Mr. Fyfe’s More deare to me than ought beside. journalistic duties will permit of his paying ten minutes’ And if, by wishinge it, my shoone Maye bringe me nigh thee, nought denied visit to any Territorial recruits on parade in London, he Of alle that under heaven doth hide, will discoverthe same faults there, rampant. I am of Shall sette me cryinge for the moone : course unable to say whether the London Territorial re- Myne onlie love, my joye, my boone. cruit is predominatingly Celtish, because I have never WILFRIDTHORLEY. 198

is this the case with the employers, but it is still more Towards National Guilds. thecase with the men. What advantage can beheld MR. CHIOZZAMONEY’S review of “National Guilds” in out to workmen to-day fromthe increased economic the “Daily News” of Whit Monday (a designed coin- efficiency of their industry? Far from offering them any cidence of malice prepense) isnot in theleast disap- advantage, every such transmutation actually threatens pointing. As we have many times affirmed, Mr. Money their economic position. As theirindustry progress is not a man of ideas, but a man of notions and figures. their own status as a class declines. Under these cir- Anything beyond the computation of the party calculus cumstances it is not to be wondered at that progress is is beyond hisgrasp. At thesame time, since agood slow; with so much against it, we are surprised it is not third of our book is devoted to an analysis of the wage- slower. Assuming, however, thatthe Guild is respon- system,it might have been expected that Mr.Money sible for the whole of its industry, firstly, we secure a. would at least have ventured to blunder upon the sub- single and homogeneous control ; secondly, we secure ject. Infact, however, he never mentions the wage- that, since each member will share proportionately in system. Butthere is no escape fromthe dilemma in whatever economic saving can be accomplished, every which society is now placed : the wage-system is break- member is individually interested in the progress of his ing down, and somethingmust be devised or drifted industry ; and,thirdly, we securethe submission of into as a substitute. What is it to be? If, on the one everyproposal forchange to a competent body con- hand, the Labour movement is incapable of comprehend- cerned solely with the welfare of the industry. Webe- ing the situation and of acting accordingly, we shall in- lieve, in short,that transmutations of industry, far evitably drift into a State Capitalism indistinguishable from being hindered by reason of their Guild control, from Mr.Belloc’s ServileState. Indeed, we arefast would betremendously assisted. When every gain to driftingthere already. But if, on theother hand, the the industry is a gain to the workmen engaged in it, Trade Unions canrise to theiropportunity and insist invention, we believe, would be stimulated almost to the upon ,becoming principalsand no longer subordinates degree of an intoxicating progress. in industry, the wage-system may be replaced by some- * * * thing better and not, as is otherwise certain, by some- “Altogetherdeplorable,” says Mr. Money, “is the thing worse. Ajudgment, right or wrong, on this suggestion of a perpetuation of the existing ‘divorce be- matterought to be demanded of every reviewer of tweenmental and manual occupations. . . ,. . Any “National Guilds.” worthy dream of the future cannot embrace professional’ *++ idea-mongers.” Well, it may be so; we do not dogma- Commenting on our proposals for establishing Indus- tise, still less dream, about the matter; for it is not a trial Home Rule, Mr. Money “cannot imagine a more Utopia we are constructing, but one of the two alterna- retrograde step.” “To erect,” he says, “trade interests tives before society that we are forecasting. It does into self-governing States within the State would be for not appear probable to us that the delegation by society society to commit suicide.’’ Itis odd how in respect of manualindustry to theNational Guilds will either of industry political Liberals suddenly find themselves .necessitate or even make desirable the abolition of the old-fashioned Tories ! Home Rule, devolution,inde- professions or of professional“idea-mongers.” Ne pendence, liberty, local autonomy, etc., are the Liberal such narrow-minded desire,in fact,appears to us to rule in questions of political power ; but in respect of possess even theTrade Unions of to-day. If there is. economic power, it is the rule of a centralised bureau- any jealousy amongthe manualworkers against the. cracy that appears to commend itself to them. But we professional scholars, philosophers and other competent affirm that by precisely thesame argument by which “idea-mongers” of to-day we have yet to discover it. political devolution was justified economic devolution On the contrary, our experience is that manual workers- may be justified ; and we prophesy that experience will have, if anything, anexaggerated respect for “idea- support the one as conclusively as it has supported the mongers,” at the same time, be it said, that they have. other. little comprehension of the “ideas” themselves. To put **+ the matter explicitly, we state it as our’belief that, given Mr. Money reiterateshis fears, as expressedsome thecreation of NationalIndustrial Guilds, not only time ago in the “New Statesman,” that an autonomous would the desirefor education in the widestsense be Guild would militate against any transmutation and re- stimulated,but respect for educators (that is, idea- modelling of industries rendereddesirable by the pro- mongers) would increase in thesame proportion. We gress of invention. Butwhat justification isthere for writers of THE NEW AGE, at anyrate, non-manual any such fear? To our mind itis based upon a mis- workers and professional idea-mongers as we are, would apprehension both of the constitution of the Guild and cheerfully riskthe exchange of our present economic, of the motives by which the Guild will be actuated. In position for one of dependence upon the Guilds. the first place Mr.Money is under an impression that I,+* we have wearied ourselves to dispel, namely, that the existing Trade Unions with their present circumscribed Mr. Money makes several minor errors in his review, membership are destined to become Guilds by mere pro- andone gratuitously. He reproaches us with being- motion, so to say. On the contrary, however, we have “half Syndicalist’’ in ourdoctrine, as if we hadnot said over and over againthat to the existingTrade specifically claimed and explained thefact. Of course” Unions must be added the organisedsalariat of each we are half Syndicalist,and equally it is true we are industry before a true Guild canbe formed. Is that half Collectivist. Infact, as Mr.Money claims us for- plain enough? And what becomes then of Mr. Money’s Syndicalism, the “Clarion” reviewer claims us for Col- objection that “a Trade Union could not take a large lectivism. Butthe half isnot the whole, and we are- outlook upon the needs of the nation as a whole”? Who entitled to say that the idea of National Guilds, though ever said that it could? derived in part from Syndicalism and in part from Col- *** lectivism, is neither Syndicalism nor Collectivism. In the second place, which admitting that the present Again, Mr. Money accuses us of citing the Panama un- transmutations of industry are slow, Mr.Money fears dertaking as a “working model of a Guild.’’ We made they may be slower if, instead of capitalists, the Guilds no such statement. It was as an approximation in cer-- themselves are made responsible for their industry. But tain of itsfeatures to Guild organisationthat one of’ let us ask why transmutation under existing conditions us, after personalinvestigation on the spot, employed! is slow. Is it not because there is no unity of control the Panama organisation as an illustration of a few of and no common interest in any given industry? Com- our contentions.Finally, Mr. Money attributes the peting as each profiteer is with every other, any transrnu- authorship of the book to theEditor ofthis journal. tation that is not immediately profitable threatens all but How many times must we insist that we are not one, but. the very largest firms with bankruptcy. And not only several NATIONALGUILDSMEN. 199

more restless, a mere local incident (the prohibition of The Strike in Italy. a meeting in Ancona) sufficed, therefore, to bring about a bloody conflict between theconstabulary and the THEfeverishly intense pace which characterises life and mass,and to throwthe whole working population of labour in modern Italyoften reminds us of America. Italy into a spontaneous strike. But while inAmerica the lines of development spring For the first time in the history of Italy the mass has from the objective necessities of the country, they seem risensimultaneously in every locality from the Alps to rest in Italy rather on lofty aspirations, high ambi- down to the most southern district of Sicily. The great tions and on a rich phantasy. Therefore we often meet industrial cities and the vast agricultural communities with initiatives thatare out of proportionwith the haveequally answered the call. For a couple of days potentialities and needs of the country and that do not practically all work was stopped. The situation in many correspond to itsstage ofeconomic andintellectual localities was revolutionary. The Republic was pro- preparation.Many of theseinitiatives fail, only to be claimedin somecities and revolutionary committees takenup again inmore natural proportions. But directed their. affairs. manyinitiatives, which at first sight seemimpossible But at the lastmoment, when the strikeof the railroad of realisation, are obstinatelycarried through despite men seemed about to become complete and consequently gigantic difficulties. Again,many ingenious initiatives a revolutionary situation was delineating itself through- inthe realms of invention,thought and action alike, out the nation, and before the Government had decided aretaken up by othercountries only to return,per- uponactive resistance, the General Confederation of fected and completed, to the mother country. Labourand the Socialist Party called off thestrike Sometimes this unbalanced state of things has disas- against the will of the great majority of the workers trous effects. Thegreat strike, last June,has com- andin fear of grave events.Confusion followed, and pletely brokendown the untenablesituation resulting this lasteffort, springing from the unbalanced conditions from a lack of equilibriumbetween the economic and and aiming at their balancing, has failed too. Only the ideologicaltendencies. Thewasted and still to be proletariat, which constitute the bulk of the nation, has wastedmillions of theLybian war are missedevery- not failed. Since it was not organised for the purposes where. Private ‘business goesthrough a period of of the revolution, if it was collectively and materially not financial and economiccrisis. Itis impossible to in- prepared yet to usher in a new social order, yet it has crease production, whilemany industries have actually revealed thedignity of itsrevolutionary mentality. It reducedit. Old factoriesare neither renewed nor ex- showedsuch a psychological preparationand such a tended,the building activity is stagnating. Unem- degree of revolutionary faith that even the most opti- ployment assumesmenacing proportions. The mistic revolutionists were surprised. It ruled the situa- treasury of theState is tied up. The promisedsocial tionwith a marvelloussense of responsibility. Where reforms cannot be effected, and the State is unable to it was at liberty to kill, to destroy, and to avenge, it raise the salaries of its numerous employees in response was satisfied with protesting and with expropriating col- to the increasing cost of living. lectively a littlefood for distribution amongstthe The over-taxed population is exasperated over the re- starving. Its sense of responsibility was tested in many cently levied and the impending new taxes. The doub- a critical conflict and proved itself every time im- ling of.the Socialist Parliamentary group at thelast bued withdeep human and social motives. elections was the first clear sign of popular discontent. Thanks to this social discipline-the result of Socialist Then followed the revolt of the employees in the various and Syndicalist propaganda-no violence was committed State enterprises and the strikes in all the great indus- by the strikers on persons. Where wounding and kill- trialand agricultural districts. There is everywhere ing occurred it was always due to the brutality of the unrest and tension. constabulary. And itis remarkable that only a few Whenduring the war and immediately afterit the churches,railway stations and houses were destroyed, Nationalists were able, by means of inflating the ideo- though hundreds of thousands of exasperated workmen logy of “national dignity’’ and by promisingtangible wereon strike. benefits from a successful campaign in Africa, to direct This forceand courage, this profoundly sincere and the interests of the various industrial categories, now, dignified manifestation of revolutionary will gives us a in the face of palpable failure, they can no longer exercise joyous foreboding of the future revolution which marks with a mere ideology any controlling function. Having not merely inits aims, but alsoin its means, a new realised theanomaly of theirposition, they sought at social departure.This revelation of a vitalsocial atti- their fast congress to establish an alliancewith the tude in the whole working class of Italy is of deep sig- clericals and the supporters of high tariffs in order to nificance, and full of lessonsfor the international re- initiate a more vigorous national, political and economic volutionary movements. activity. In fact, however, if theseelements are at During these eventful days the attitudeof the Govern- all progressive they represent only the progress cf pro- ment was that of indecision and impotence. They were fiteering groupsand not national progress, which is not able to send soldierswhere, from their point ofview, entrenchedand suffocatedby theexisting high tariff theywere most needed,because therethe strike was on the prime necessaries of everyday life and on the raw general,the railroads were tied upand the telegraph materials of the basic industries. The nationalists have wires were cut. Further, they dared not use the military sold out to the profiteeringinterests in order to gain forcesfor the suppression of the movementlest they moral andmaterial support in the contest for Parlia- should unite with the demonstrating mass and provoke mentaryseats. Thusthe noisynationalist movement a revolution throughout the country. hasgone morally bankrupt.The Socialist Party has Thus neither could thehigh-spirited nationalist and led, during and after the war, a fierce campaign against imperialist propaganda, nor the enthusiastic revolution- the Government and the Nationalists. It has demanded ary preaching, though they seemed to rule, in turn, the a waron poverty at home,vast social reforms, soul of the nation for a short minute, over-rule the neces- threateningthe ruling classes with socialrevolution. sities and aspiration resulting from the objective econo- Thisenergetic attitude of theSocialists has placated mic and politicalconditions of the country.Whether the rebellious proletariat and diverted its energies into the nation desires to follow the ways of imperialism or an intenseelectoral movement. But,though swelling the ways of a social state of things it must first of all itsranks in andoutside of Parliament,the Socialist prepare for them. Party could not secureresults, could not drive the However, this premature socialwill of the proletariat Government towards vital economic and cultural legis- SO wonderfully manifested, presents a difficult problem lation and could not limit the military expenses. for solution. Is it possible to establish an equilibrium The revolutionary socialist ideology, though keeping between the mature social state of mind of the workers the masses for a short period of time under control, has andthe economicforces of society?Must this social failedentirely. The disillusioned masseshave become mentality, reflecting the future and a result of a spiritual 200

propaganda,succumb to thecapitalistic tendencies of Mr. HUNT: Ladies and Gentlemen . . . Mr. Chesterton society?Can this social will find itsmaterial expres- has-er asked me to say-er two or three words- sion 3 . . . . In the-er old days we were--er--erruled It is evident thatsuch a socialmentality cannot be by an aristocracy composed of men who had done kept alive indefinitely without the support of a specific something for their country, or-er-er by the sons material form, and it is equally evident that such mate- of people who . . . Thecandidate bribedwith rial forms cannot develop alongside of the development hisown money, but nowadays . . . SO that really of full-fledged Capitalism.Unbridled capitalistic de- he is bribing th-r people with the people’s own velopment will inexorablyweaken and transform this money. Well, I thinkthat’s all bad. . The social will throughsetting a pace which theworking “Nation,” whichI daresay you knowis a very class will have to follow. strong Government organ (yes, yes) . . . Men who Can the Italian proletariat make a saltum? Is it pos- will put their country before ther party. . . . OUT sible to take a short cut? greatestindustry agriculture . . . and really . I believe thatthe Italian working class which has number of agriculturallabourers employedin shown such a degree of psychological preparation, and Germany and America is more than four times as such strong instincts for a social state of things could large as thenumber in this country-(etc., etc. take a short cut towards it provided that it returned to Mr. Cecil Chesterton,having begun with a sweet concentrating its attention and activity to those formsof smile, begins to lookglum). You, I am sure, are organisations which during the last decade before the. interestedin the general welfare of theworking Lybianwar, developed so wonderfully, creating new classes of ourcountry. . . National Service. . . . institutionsand launching new ideas. I referto those How to remedy this I dm’t know, but perhaps Mr. tendencies of organisation which were first conceived in Chesterton can tell us. Whether it would be better Italy, but which were interrupted in their development if the ladies got the vote-(Tremendous applause) by the general economic and political backwardness of -I don’tknow . . . tax on tea . . . theworking- thecountry, and which reappear now,in substantially man’s tobacco . . . simple luxuries of the working the same form, in Great Britain and elsewhere with the people. . . I hope if theladies do get the vote advantage of making their appeal to big labour organi- -(More applause)-the first thing they will do will sations, and of having to deal with a developed Capital- be to oppose this. (Sits down, having wasted half ism distinctly in a period of crisis. an hour.Rises Mr. C. CHESTERTON.) It is only the organisation of National Guilds which, Mr. C. C.(with a cold) : Ladies ad Gedlebad, Bister blocking the way of capitalist progress, could save, de- Rowland Hunt, in the very interesting speech you velop and finally realise the social will of theItalian have just listened to, stamped the present GoverE- working class. And in this it would only follow living mentwith the word that reallydescribes the andactive tendencies. Theindustrial union of the plutocracy . . . meeahwealth as such . . . Any- Italian railroadmen has aimed, for more than a decade, one can go in and say, “I will pay this money and at establishing a monopoly of its labour, and at taking youshall adopt my policy” . . . whether you over the railroads, under the control of the State, and favour, as I favour, a democraticgovernment, or managing them efficiently for the benefit of the commu- whether,like many cleeah-headedmen, you sup- nity. The National Federation of Italian Seamen, which portan aristocratic government or a monarchical embraces the captains down to the youngest sailor who government, for which there is a good deal to be workson a ship-a true guildand perhaps the only said. . . . Nowhow are wegoverned? You are oneexisting-offered, a fewweeks ago, after a vic- told, “by the elected representatives of the people.” toriousstrike and upon the claim of the Shipowners’ Now: talking to an intelligent audience who knows Federation that business cannot be carried on under the something of what’s goingon, I need notwaste new labour conditions, to take over the ships and run time telling them it is a hideous lie. . . Now how them with success under the control of the State, and are wegoverned? I’tell ye ! A small group of to the satisfaction of the public and the employees alike. brofessiodal boliticiads . . . How do they govern? And thereare numerous agricultural organisations I’tell ye ! . . . SecretBarty Fudds. . . Barcodi which have realised a great deal on this line of develop- tradsactiod. . . SecretBarty Fudds. I’ tell ye ment. how they’re spent in broad general terms-They’re A scientific attitude towards the problemsof organisa- spent in corruptingParliament. . . Frodt Bedches tion coupled with the proven social morality of the Italian . . . the Caucus.V’ry well ! Dealing now with proletariat might accomplish a socialrevolution which people who are acquainted with the inside of poli- our politicians and economists consistently relegate into tics, I need notlabour it. . . Sale of peerages. thecategory of the impossible,because theyhave no We have checked it. There’snothing doing in faithin the constructive capacities of the organised peerages this year. We all expected Sir Alfred Mond workers, ODON POR. . .. . theyhaven’t dared to deliver the goods. I don’tknow if theypay interest on the money to Sir AlfredMond, butthey ought to. . . . The Isaacs Caucus . . . theBarty Fudds . . . sale of places Damn his on the Frodt Bedches and the sale of policies, On or The Green Government League. the Liberal side you had the sale of the Insurance By Charles Brookfarmer. Act. . . . Onthe Udiodistside . . . Anyonewith the merest remnant of intelligence bust realise that (REPORTof the Clean Government League Meeting at the first industry to protect is agriculture-(forced the ImperialClub, Earl’s Court, Saturday, June 27, applause). Any batriotic boliticiadwould at once at 8.30 p.m. Enter that prince of reporters, STUDENT, broceed. . . . What’sthe reason? I’ tellye the to hot room wherein are about ninety sympathisers, in- reason ! The UdiodistBarty is very buch afraid cluding at least twelvemen, several of whomunder- of the plutocrats. . . To giveyou sub iddustra- stand a littleEnglish. Exceptions are a dome-headed tiods . . . Old moneylender namedSamuel . . . Syrian, a Hindu and some Magyars, etc. The audience changed it to Montagu . . . becabe Lord Swayth- is prattling three hundred to the dozen.) ling. This is very interesting because. it all shows VOICES: Do you know anything of the Young Unionist what I was explaining to you just now . . . bought League?-I’m a member.-Oh, how sweet of you; positions on the Front Bedch, for his son and his a girl I used to go to schoolwith, shelives in nephew . . . I don’t know how many people here SouthKensington, her brother belongs to it.- know what the Barcodi scandalreally was . . . . Well, I’m gettin’ fed up with politics now, I don’t “gamble” . . . Thereis an expressioncalled oftengo., etc., etc. (Mr. ROWWNDHUNT, M. P., 44welshing,” but possibly the best phrase to de- rises, as Chairman.) scribeit is “marking the cards.’’ They didn’t 20 I

gamble,they cheated. . . Barcodi . . . Rufus Dupery. . . . . Of theeighty men onthe Front Isaacs . . Isaacs . . Samuel . . Samuel . . Benches there are about fifty or sixty honest men. Suddenly Mr Samuel came forward and said, “No, (Dr. M. M. : So miny ?) Yes,I think so. . . . If wemust have Barcodi.” Thesubcommittee said I’m invited to dinner . . . Isaacs . . . Samuel. . . WO.” V’ry well ! Now thisis the interesting Only a personalopinion. . . . The opinion of an thing. . . BarcodiCompany. . . Butnow this is idealist, a poet, an ass. . . . Ifyou’re invited to theinteresting thing. Godfrey Isaacssaid, “All dinner. . . . Again,only a personal opinion. . . . right, he’d consent to iton condition it weren’t Theatmosphere of corruptionmakes them open made public.” What do you think Mr. Samuel to be dupes. . . . Loss of liberty. . . . When I said? “I’m an honest,decent, English statesman. wasfighting on the “Eye-Witness,” they said, Clearout ! Get out of my office.” Na-a-ah. He “You’rein danger” . . . When a manlike Cecil said “It might be arranged if the other terms were Chesterton or myself or Gilbert Chesterton or the settled. ” Now I’ tell ye ! The great Barcodi boob few men who carry on this fight are in danger. . . bywhich the boliticians badetheir bodey was Takethe “Daily Express’’ . . . editedby a floated ! (Tch,tch, tch !) . . . Barcodi . . . Mr. GermanJew from NewYork named Blumenthal. Samuel. . . ‘That won’twash in thelaw of the . . . You mustsay Weetman Pearson, now Lord land ! ! LordRussell of Killowen . . . Isaacs . . . Cowdray, or Alfred Mond,now, thank God, not a They lied !-(laughter)- . . . the acme of corrup- peer. You mustattack individuals, with bodies tion,Rufus Isaacs . . . LordRussell of Killowen to bekicked and souls to be damned. . . . I’d (etc., etc., etc.). That’s the Barcodi scandal, and I rather write a good piece of verse than be an M.P. hope you like it . . . aid us in the difficult task we . . . . Isit possible to purifyGovernment? I have set ourselves. verymuch doubt it, and that has been the reason Mr. COWLEY(Sec. C. G. L.) : We are not having any why I havenot joinedin the campaign. . . . If questionsuntil after the refreshments . . . small thesecret Party Funds were audited, another boy . . . top of staircase . . . tickets,price one secret PartyFund wouldbe started. . . . I think shllling,and you will thenbe entitled to refresh- Parliament’sdone for. . . We may through in- ments.(Interval. Enter Mr. Hilaire Belloc. The creasing the power of the Crown do something for audiencediscusses the revelations, thus : ‘They’re the country. If we don’t do it someone will do it great financiers, the Americans, you know, and they for us. God alwaysworks. saythat Lloyd Georgedoesn’t even know arith- Mr. C. C. : I think there’s a great deal of truth in what metic,simple arithmetic,”etc., etc. Difficulty is Mr. Belloc says. Butwhere I think Mr. Belloc’s foundin getting anyone t0 open thediscussion, not quite-where I think he’s wrong,is this; all but at last -) these things batter the system. Dr. MILLERMAGUIRE (in very high spirits) : F’why on Mr. BELLOC: But, Chesterton, the point is this.Could earth Oi am called upon to open the discussion Oi you have a free Parliament? don’t know. . . . . Iveryword you haveheard is Mr. C. C. : Oh, I agree withyou, Belloc . . . the true in esse andin posse. . . Oi amalmost in- strengthened power of the Crown provides a check- cloined to weep tears, but Oi’ve spent the ivining ing authority. . . ButI do think we shouldinsist insuch charmin’ company that would washthe upon payment of election expenses. . . Fixed dura- tears away from iny man’s oiyes. . . Oireland, that tion of Parliaments, as in France. . . that’s not an portion of theUnited Kingdom where my father ideal remedy. Nobody pretends it is. . . . Keep on had the good fortune or ill fortune to marry and exposure as much as ever we can. . . Barcodi. . . produce the individualnow speakin’. (Suddenly.) I don’t think you’ve ever heard it before, unless you Is yourarmy equal to your requirements? Is it? read the“New Witness.” . . . We wantabout (Interruptionfrom Mr. HUNT.) Thehonourable ten menin Parliament who will carry on a cam- gentlemanis willin’ to getup and prove it is ! paign of exposure . . five or six men in Parliament. Fwhere’syour militia? Fwhere is it?Your Mr. BELLOC: What do you think it would cost to get militia has beenabolished to make a SpecialRe- six men in Parliament? serve . . . (A voice : Time.)Toime, isit? Oi’11 Dr. M. M. : One hundred an’twinty thousand pounds. stop talkin’any toime you like. Takethe Terri- Mr. BELLOC: Where are you going to get it from? I torial Army. Comparewithit our alloys, the haven’t got it. Japanese. Is it as good as theKobi or the Gobi Mr. C. C. : The most immediate thing to do is to keep or any other Obi? Is it? Is that true? Ivery word onexposing . . . (A woman asks if theleague saidabout Lloyd Georgetrue,is and it’s is in favour of Proportional Representation.) Well, . not trueenough ! . . . Oicame here to discuss, the League as a league has no opinion upon it. But not to disgust. . . . An’ Oithought Oi’d give a if you ask for my personal opinion, I should say, partyat the “Three Nuns” public-house, d’ye “Yes, it might be of some use. ”’ knowit? We gave a shillin’s worth of whiskey Mr. BELLOC: Not in thecountry constituencies ! You to inyone who wanted it, gettin’ in Harry Marks, see, Chesterton, Winterton does represent my part d’ye knowhim? (Voice : Time.)Toime, is it? of Sussex. Oi’d no desoire to stand up and Oi want very much Mr. C. C. : Oh, I’m notvery strongon it. Perhaps to sit down. . . . . If Oiwas alone Oi’d move in the cities it, might be of some use. a resolution repudiating the whole policy that these Sir ROBERTMUIR-MACKENZIE : In consideration of the gintlemen are so strenuouslyinvoking. (Loud allegationsmade here to-night, Ishould like to applause and laughter.) know if the proceedings are goingto be published. Mr. BELLOC: Ladies and Gentlemen, I don’t know that Mr. HUNT: There were two reporters here, but they’ve I have any wight to speak a word here to-night. I gone. don’t belong to the Clean Government League, ‘but Sir R. M.-M. : In fairness to Mr. Lloyd George, I wish I’ve had a good deal to do with its inception and theallegations made against himto-night could the policy under which it has come. . . . Marconi have the fullest publicity. Isaacs . . . Parliamentary life, I was in itfor Mr. C. C. : I wish I could getit for them ! (Heand five years. . . . If youdon’t believe me, alwight, Sir R. M.-M. glareat eachother. Above it’spersonala opinion . . . That’snot very the Babel, Mr. BELLOC(to a Lady Politician) : You pwetty . . . Krupp. . . . Goand look at a mustnurse the constituencies. LADY,P. : What ‘Krupp 75 millimeter battery and then go and look does nursing the constituencies mean, Mr. Belloc? at a French 75 millibattermeter and you’ll find that Exit STUD.,proud to have participated in such an the Krupp 75 millimeter battery does not recoil so eventful, such a decisive, such a wonderful, such an quickly as the French 75 milimeter battery . . . . historic demonstration.) 202

spoken word. (Think of our“strong men,”and our The Spiritual Renaissance. emotional actresses, and that. tenth part of a man, the THE Grecian took life seriously; he felt the need of a swivelled-eyed, semaphoring cinemaniac.) To a people beautiful life to make up for the tragedy of living. To notdead the word is everything, as it is in the East the effeminated Englishman Greek tragedy seems just still, and the actor in hisplace. Imperialise if you must, awful, senseless; to the educated Greek tragedy was a but you cannot boss the nigger and the red man without necessity. It reminded him of his aloneness, as their vices rebounding on you. Nietzsche says. Tragedy, to make use of a saying that And when one protests against all this folly-and who has become tarnished, enabled the Greek to commune that has a soul in his belly can help but protest-the with the infinite, the vision of eternity. To the modern, whining reply is, invariably, oh, you expect too much. beautyand ornamentation are synonymous. We use Your ideals are impracticable. You should try and adapt ornamentation as a means of covering up. The Greek yourself to circumstances. The implication being that demanded the beautiful as a means to getting the best circumstances are prettygood, considering. . . . Of out of life. Could he see us to-day he could say with course,one does not expect consistency, and the only greater truth that our mode of life was truly awful in reply to such people should be, go wash your Blenner- its devitalising brutishness. He would say, these people hasset neck. This comes of our sloppy talk about evolu- are insane. The beautifulwas his religion, and his tion. Evolution is progress; we are all progressing to- religion was embodied in his life, in hisarchitecture, gether; and with the pit in full view we hope for the and in sculpture. best ! To a people with a pupil dilated by “movies,” How many, I wonder, realise what it means when I and all such-like diluted pap-to whom seeing is believ- say that there were no ugly people then. (As we know, ing.--motor-cars, aeroplanes, and rag-time are an indi- animals do not breed incaptivity, and the prevailing cation of progress.Therefore, adapt yourself to cir- ugliness to-day isthe psychical representationof the cumstances, and get your aristocratic nose into the swill anxietybegot of industrialism-coming, let us say, as with the rest. a climax to a false morality,) We have the word de- No wonder, then, that we have problems, and without coration. To a Greek such a word could convey no any realdesire to settlethose problems. Butlife is a meaning. Beauty should beinherent in the thing con- problem only to the Fabianisedlover of thiskind of ceived : it can never be added. With ourselves decora- acrostic. There are no problems; much less is there a tion means gloss. How debasingly ugly modern life is Social problem save to the intellectually effeminate, who can be seen in the fact that in the very act of making ‘makeuse of a social problem to fill the gap intheir use of decoration we display our spiritualdestitution. noddles. Or isit that they aredog in themanger in Our be-slabbed, lined, and burlesque architecture does this, too, and will not have the problem solved save to not“glow with a faith in immortality.” Moreover, their own advantage, and with a cent. per cent. return we are not a clean people. To put it another way, we for their investment ! Sops, and cocoa, what a crew ! And wash only our faces. We have fine, wide spaces-a the Stateis the creationof the weak, and is consequently good concept-broad streets, buildings with a pretence in the service of the weak. The State? What is that? to be imposing in that we childishly confuse size with I will open my ears, and I will recount you the story of majesty. Look atthe mad Americans, the leaders in thedeath of nations. “The State is the coldest of all the dance of bedevilment. Thus, we have wide cold monsters. It lies coldly ; and this is the lie which thoroughfares,swank buildings, and .the vilest slums proceedsfrom itsmouth, ‘ I, theState, am also the imaginable immediately ’behind. We donot wash our People.’ ” It is a lie. It is a most ungodly lie. The de- necks,and our ornamentation is themark of our nationalisedsquad of Tartuffeanswho man-handle us decadence. are certainly not the English people. Let ’em go back When it comes to the mere act of living, the act of to Zion-which is in Wales. eating and drinking, the pig can easily beat the Euro- The various crowd ‘of petticoated .neuters who gloat pean. The pig in the wild state can easily nose out a over statistics, and who like nothing better than to play subsistence. But see what a hoggishbusiness the ducks ‘and drakes with our material existence, are the human with his speech, andhis many inventions, has intellectual whelk-pickers of the period. And these are made of it. And what a tragic lack of self restraint- the folk who have picked the soul out of man. Neither “of that inability not to react to a stimulus”-is implied do these wash their necks. And their idea embodies the in the fact that we have a mass of penury in the midst hardness of theirhearts. No grace, no hope,and cer- of plenty. The Greek interpreted life in terms, asit tainly no charity. When you are up you are successful were, of architecture; but the modern interprets life in youhave arrived ; and when you are down, be damned terms of the belly. We “drinkin” a fineview. With to you. So drink and be merry, for to-morrow the penal all the possibilities of life before him, and with only one colony-hospitality a la mode, andwith a plug in the life so far as he knows with which to make his mark ear-awaits you. Inconsistency, thy nameis English upon the monuments of Time, the European, and par- nonconformity. Picklesand pap. Christianity may be ticularly theEnglishman, can only emulatethe scrip- a “misfortune,” but these people are certainly an ana- tural swine; and living, that should be the divinest of chronism. arts, becomes a greedy rush to the trough. This is not They did not, cannot, realise what ‘acraft means, what tragedy,it is tragic. Tragedy was the price the edu- it stood for, and they introduced the division of labour, cated Greek was willing to pay forthe privilege of thinking that the worker could “pick up” a culture in living. To the Greek life was a divine gift-the gift or: hisspare time. They destroyed a-craftsmanshipthat the gods. was Greek in spirit, that was religious to its very mar- To men like myself the deadness of the greater mass row, and madeof theartisan ababbling, blustering and, above all, the lack of the beautiful in life, gives rise atheist. A free-thinker like unto their own image. to a numbness of heart that makes the struggle to keep Yet the grab-alls have at least, solved one problem. alive simply hellish. I am not sure that to keep on as While the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof- things are is not tantamount tolowering one’s standard. that is, while there is more than enough for all-they The sloppy, slack mouths, voluble in bluster, bleary learnt that if you hold on long enough you can create a eyes, and shapeless noses. What a swallow is here for monopoly, beit food or labour, andget rich quick. sentimentality. And theirshepherds, the middle- They have not got over this discovery yet. It is neces- classes : The leary-eyed men and women, sexually agog. sary to remind these children of -the mists that wealth The probability is that the Greeks compelled their actors is the sum of man’s control over nature, and that they to wear a mask because, despising the mime, they did have yet to learn to control themselves. Also, it is just not relish thecontortions of thchuman features with as well to remind these sport-loving “English” that the emotions at second-hand. Or possibly they did not wish real battle of life is fought above the belt. to have the mime’s grimacing as a distraction from the No wonder thathaving knocked the bottomout of 203 life,that, havingtaken the soul out of it,and blas- Europeans’ vices-to speed up, and stampede a standard phemed against the Holy Ghost-no wonder, then, that ofvalue-quantity-already on the run. Under the old the non-coms. are sick unto death ; that they are ”bored Guilds qualitywas its own criterion,and the “boss” with intellect nowadays, that they mistrust it, and that element was therefore superfluous. Thus, craftsmanship politics swallow up all seriousness for really intellectual is essentially masculine, and a development of the whole matters.” Give usbread, they cry; and life, with a man. The psychology of the boss can be summed up in fine irony, gives them a stone. And yet they ought to one word, he is the waster in civilisation. In that he is be happy. They have Reality and Rationalism, Science agoverning factor he is also a disintegrating factor. andProgress, and a materialheaven on earth. Pro- The pernicious reflex of his Yankified influence is to be bably they would feel safer in their shoes if they could seenin thestrike for quantity, for more instead of eliminate the worker. His pig-headed leadersnotwith- better. The boss must go, certainly ;but only a coward standing, the worker is yet an unknown quantity. “And looks forward to a bloody revolution to shift this indus- the workers will not obey their leaders,” says G. A. G. trial dog in the manger. in the “Daily Bleeder.” Having robbed him of his soul, The boss element represents a factor inherent in all they regret, with Bismarck, thattheir whelk-picking of us, as showingwhat man becomes under a trans- was not done with a hammer. valuation of values ; the more so when everything tends The evolution hypothesis istoo childish for words. to encourage a lack of self-restraint, or when there is The fine things of life arenot the luckypacket outcome no traditional influence to act as a guide. The master of a chance conglomeration of this, that and the other. under the Guilds was a master of his craft rather than The belief in Progress, that life in all its profundity is an employer. The boss element typifies, too, the mungo a haphazard affair, is a purely Mancunian credo; and, morality of theage in thatit needs a mob of over- just as Darwin and Herbert Spencer were of the same lookers,touts, and bosses, and such like female spies school, so were they tainted by its insistence on thecent. to keep it on the go. It is the subjugation of this ele- percent. Had you told the Greek thathis superb ment in us which is the justification of living. Without civilisation was the outcome of a series of minute this essential quality of discipline life is degraded, de- forms hittingone hathe would have howled. The humanised. Thegluttons for work, along with the Greek Willed his civilisation, just as he Willed that his businessman, must be brought to book. Man cannot gods should be men he could hob-nob with, and not be live by bread alone. There is absolutely no justification ashamed of. for a life in which the beautiful has no part. There must Evolution is bred of pessimism. You may hearit be unlimited freedoms in order to beget a resilient man- said, as JudgeParry said theother day, that things hood ; the freedom to develop fully, physically, spiritu- will be all right in 2,000 years. In 2,000 years you may ally,and mentally. Herein isthe sole justification of be very sure that the spiritually damned will be just as life. Life isan art. keen on keeping their end up as they are now. These To your Guilds, 0 England. What ails you that you things do not come by chance. There is no Always in should be conscious-stricken? That you shouId be life, any morethan there is in theindustrial phase. fretted with a Hamletpanic of diffidence? Must you Thatis the philosophy of women. Theindustrial era have a faith, a religion, to spur you on? Then oppose jumped into being, just as, according to de Vries, there theirrabbit morality of Might with your categorical are “jumps” in species. And if theTrade Unionists imperative, Right, and to hell with thtir consequences. have but the pluck of a louse, the industrial phase can (The system is theirshout, not yours.) Exert your be made to jump out of his life. Those precious leaders manhood and put these industrial eunuchs in their glace. that G. A. G. weeps for will ask for five bob, and then In havingthrown over yourleaders you have shown compromise with eighteen-pence. And havinggiven that the breath of life-the Holy Ghost-is yet within you your Judas-money they’ll get five shillings back in you. Status, and the Guilds : England was yours before rent, profit andinterest. That thereis a turn in the thesesharks weredreamt of. “There is no force eternal cycle is evidenced in the fact that capital, for- superior to force,”and you have the whole force of getful of the Hindoo proverb, has so often repeated that Tradition at back.your HAROLDLISTER. capital is indispensable to labour that by a jolly paradox capital actually believes it-labour does not. “BOIL.” “After the French Revolution young Germany looked THE CAFE eagerlytowards political freedom, but they reckoned An awful blur of faces and the din Of half a hundred parrots on the spree : without Metternich. Baulked of theirhopes thegreat Parrots? Jehoshaphat ! I’d rather spend majority fell a quick prey to carelessness and political Ten years within the bounds of Regent’s Park indifference.” “The educated classes sought a kind of Thanchat with these ten seconds.Oh, you wits, compensation for their exclusion in the theatre. Never Where are your mothers? Do they know you’re out ? before had the adoration of a prima donna or a ballet- You know, you’re drinkinglager! You’ll get squiffed! dancer been carried to such an extreme.’’ ‘‘Even in Such potent liquor is too much for you, 1832, everything-the agitation in France,the Polish You mighty-mouthed, harmonious buffoons. defeat, sympathy with the exiled Poles-everything was The air lies thick and hot with heavy breath, forgotten in the enthusiasm forthe feet of thegreat The lights are dim, the rafters crack for noise, danseuseTaglioni.” HQWhistory does bawl outthe The waiters work like Trojans. Opposite, lesson. Whenthe workers won the franchisethey Not five yards distant, sits the type of all. reckoned without the Government,Taglioni and the The inkish face and gently curving nose tango. And in the theatre, thatcocknified Cruso, Shaw. Are backed with backward sweep of golden hair For upwards of 100 years now we have had political That hits the collar : most preposterous action, and are not yet, apparently, sick of our vomit. In attitude, in aspect ,and in wit, Truly,the industrial revolution has been the greatest Self-consciousness sedate upon its stool. discovery of the Ancient of Days for the bull-dozing of It may be critic to the “Daily Spade,” the people. After a cycle of 100 years the same listless It may be “Everyboor’s” compiling hack, feeling of nothing to do has, apparently, descended upon It may write verse for fatherly Monro, the people, willing as ever to put off, and put off, and For blue reviews and Fabian gazettes. forever. to put off, in the very face of the fact that that It may be Cubist, Archiplasticist, home for lost dogs, the House of Commons, is now a Marionette, and play the fife and drum. kennel f delegates : Beer, Coal, Railways, Canteen It may be all of these. It is a boil, touts, and Labour Leaders are all there. A boil symbolical, a boil parboiled, To burst in filth before reality : Undoubtedly the advent of the industrial era prepared When matter meets it in material guise the way for the intellectually shiftless. It was not diffi- To introduce the father of its lies. cult for the Americans-who reflect the worst of the If.s. D. 204

ance.Reason desires tounderstand everything, to be Unedited Opinions. omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. Timidlybut undoubtingly I sayyes ! Andnow of The Burden of Self-Consciousness, the ways of retreat? You were saying the other day that Reason has lately But before I continue let me just indicate the test of gone out of fashion-can you account for it? therational process ; forwe are notomnipotent and Perhaps I can. The failure of science to perform its omniscientyet, are we? We are only endeavouring to promises, for example. Does that satisfy you? become so; and there should be some mark by which we Well, does it satisfy you? may know whether we are really trying or not. No. I prefer anexplanation more after the nature Yes, of course; but tell me what it is. of thingsand less dependent uponchance. For,after Well, I should say that the man who is still courage- all, who knows whether science may not be on the eve ously plodding across the Desert towards the Promised of great discovery, and whyshould Reason be aban- Land may be known by this : that at any moment and doned while such a hope remains? in whatever he is engaged, his effort is to understand Then to what do you attributethe present reaction what he is doing and to make it reasonable, if it does against it? notappear to him reasonablealready. By theway, E I should sayto the burden of self-consciousness recall an uncanonicalstory of Jesus.He saw a man Reason entails upon us. ploughing upon the Sabbath day ; and He said to him : Burden ? “Friend, if thouknowest what thou doest, happy art Yes,burden ! Butlet me ask you-have you ever thou ; but if thou knowest not, thou art damned.” sufferedfrom a feeling of beingexcessively self-con- You know, of course, that Nietzscheamong others scious ; have you ever wished yourself less self-analytic ; hasprotested against the doctrine? I thinkhe said have youever wished you could actspontaneously, that he was not an ass with panniers to carry about a naturally, and without all the paraphernalia of premedi- load of reasons with him. tation, criticism and subsequent reflection? Have you, Thatshows how Nietzsche misunderstood himself; in short, been a modern? for noman carried a greaterburden of reasonthan That I have. Nietzsche. I suspecthe intended by hisremark to And at such moments did the thought occur to you mislead his stupid disciples ; for he must have known- that you were morbid, too introspective, and somewhat the subtle dog-how the weaklings would snatch at the tragically Hamlet-like ? hint to ceasefollowing hisown example. Moses, too, It did. if the truth were known, probably advised some of his And did you find yourself indeterminate indecision, followers to return to Egypt-and laughed whenthey valcillating inopinion, self-doubting and practically took his advice. He would take care not to return ! sterile of action? But that “ return ”--you were going to describe the All these things have I known from my manhood up. ways of retreat. Were theypleasant moods to experience?Did you I have not forgotten. We shall come to them. Have feel the joie devivre and skip like a ram upon the you ever, may I ask, been hypnotised? mountains?Were you a blessed Bohemianwithout a What a strange question ! No, not to my knowledge. care and with no thought of the day before yesterday You do well to say not to your knowledge ; for, in or of the day after to-morrow ? truth, we are usually under hypnosis when we are not Do not mock me. You know I cannot have been and aware of what we are doing ! Have you ever been I was not. drunk ? God forbid that I should mock you since to do so I Really ! Well, yes, if you must know. shouldonly mock myself ! Butlet us pursue the sub- And was it pleasant or unpleasant, may I ask? ject a littlefurther. Did you feel yourself throughout Oh,pleasant, decidedly,while it lasted:. this phase under restraint, nothing but restraint? Were And was it not because for a space your damned offi- you aware that you were being lookedupon as bour- cious, interfering,inhibitory, serious, bourgeois, self- geois,dull, serious? And almostagreed with those conscious Reason was absent? who said it ? Well, it was not present ; and I was conscious of the It is all horribly true. I confess it. relief. Courage, my friend, for so did the Chosen People be- Relief-retreat-it is all one while the desert is being fore us ! You rememberthe forty years they spent in crossed. Intoxication is therefore one of the paths back the wilderness and their murmurings against the Reason to Egypt.But youwould not, forall the relief it of Moses? You remember how they doubted the reality brings, be drunk all the time? of thePromised Land? You areaware, though the No. mythdoes not say so, that someslipped backinto Then farewell to Lower Egypt, forwe shall not return Egypt? thither.But what about Upper Egypt?-Have you Yes,but I amanxious to be reminded of itagain. everexperienced the ecstasy of acting onimpulse, of Tell me, what is the Promised Land? What is Egypt? doing as you like, of irresponsibility and of the feeling The Promised Land is whither Reason leads. Egypt of divine inspiration ? iswhere Reason cannot dwell. And remark that there I suppose I have ; it is a kind of higher intoxication, were two Egypts, a Lower and an Upper ! you mean, with Reason below instead of above? I’m afraid I shall be lost in the myth like Moses in the Upper Egypt ! bulrushes. Will youapply it to our case? Oh, never saythat ! Arethese godlike intuitions, As best I can. We have agreed that for the present thesejoyous impulses, these moments of inspiration, Reason,entailing as it doesself-consciousness, must these veritable intimations of immortality, only a path reeds seem a doubtful and burdensome guide-is it not of retreat from Reason? Unsay Upper Egypt and call natural under the circumstances that, without a bright it the Promised Land. faith in the end of Reason, we should incline to desert Notharsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, But it? More especially as the way of retreat is always open musical as is Apollo’s lute. And a perpetual feast . . . and always enticing ? You know to what Milton referred-tell me,was it But what is the endof Reason ; and what are the ways doing as youplease, actingon impulse, inspiration, of retreat? ecstasy ? No,it was Philosophy-Reason, self-posses- First, of the end of Reason-I conceive this to be the sion,self-control, self-knowledge, self-direction. And maintenance of self-possession (implying self-conscious- are we self-possessed when we are possessed even by the cess, self-control and self-direction) throughout life. It gods? Are we not to encounter gods as well as devils? is the aspiration of Reason that not a sparrow should It is a hard saying. fall without its knowledge; not a muscle or a nerve or Yes, harsh and crabbed ! I admit it-why should I a feeling or a thought move without Reason’s cogniz- not? We are crossing the desert. Let us trudge along. 205

eloquent tribute to the poet whose music he has under- Readers and Writers. taken to transcribe for anotherinstrument of lan- “ “DAS Literarische Echo” for June I contains an article guage. . . . . on “Nietzsche in England” by Professor Leon Kell- * 7’’ * ner. In it, Dr. Oscar Levy obtains some share of the I have thought it worth while to copy these few sen- credit he deserves. Among other things, Dr. Levy has tences, for, together with certain principles which I my- succeeded inmaking a London publisher (never mind self have laid down,’ they form the law and prophets of which one) admit himself in the ‘wrong. Perhaps Pro- lyrical translation. And it seems to me that Dr. fessor Kellner does not know of this incident; at any Nordauwrites better at sixty-five than a number of rate,he does not mention it. ButDr. Levy’s own critics (including himself) of half that age ! writings come infor notice. His book “Das neun- *+* zehnte Jahrhundert” (which appeared in English as The memoirs of the late J. V. Sladek (a Czech poet “The Revival of Aristocracy”)merits, in Professor and translator of Shakespeare) contain at least one in- Kellner’s opinion, no more attention than it received; cident which deserves to be recorded .here. In 1879 for, says he, “the struggle against Liberalism is, from SlAdek and Zeyer, who was the greatest epic talent of the German standpoint, a most superfluous matter.” He modern Bohemia, visited .Copenhagen. Whilein the thinksmore of Dr. Levy’s collection of verses“AUS company of two Danish friends, Lund and Bauditz, they dem Exil,” with theirdelicate Heinesque malice. Pro- met a young man to whom they were introduced. “The fessor Kellner concludes hisappreciation of Dr. Levy youngman looked hard at us both; it only lasted an by doubting whether Nietzsche’s maxims can with pro- instant, but his gaze seemed to me so long and search- priety be applied to current political matters. ing, as if he were taking in our whole nature. ‘Then he IC** gave us his hand and said, ‘Welcome.’ I felt the pres- Then he asks a strange and alarming question. “Has sure of his hand, I looked at him, and as I heard the Nietzsche had any influence on other [English] writers unaffected and hearty tone of his voice, I at once felt besides BernardShaw, W. S. Maughamand Gilbert myself at home with him. . . . He wastallish, lean Canning?” Assuming that this last name is a misprint . . . . with a pale complexion, a broadforehead, for Gilbert Cannan (as I fear it must be), then I should tightly-closed lips,short, dark hair.. . . ‘Thegreatest suggest to the Professor that, just to go onwith, he personality in ourliterature,’ said Bauditz, ‘and Den- mightalso consider thecase of William Le Queux, mark doesnot know him.’ Then I declared thesame Elinor Glyn and Charles Garvice. With a little profes- of Zeyer,‘and he, too, is not known in our country.’ sorial pow-wow he could perhaps work the whole thing Zeyer and the young man had gone on in advance, and up into a triumph of tedescan insight. they now returnedarm in arm.” “The eveningsun ** * shone upon them,and long shadows were falling at Since writing of Dr. Max Nordau last month, I have their feet,”says SlAdek. The youngman whom Den- found my views corroborated by an article of his in the markignored in 1879 wasJens Peter Jacobsen. In ‘‘ Pester Lloyd.” Apartfrom some observations on Englandhestrangelyis unknown, although Mr. modern Hungarian poetry, that make one regret that Heinemann has published a version of “Niels Lyhne,” Dr. Nordau hasnot written more on the subject, he his greatest noveI, and THENEW AGE has printed some speaks of lyrical translationas follows : “I havea of his lyrics. He died sixyears after the episode de- high opinion of a man who proves his claim to trans- scribed by SlAdek, and while on hisdeath-bed he re- lateforeign lyric poetry. He fulfils a mission which ceived a copy of “Lumir,” a Czech journal inwhich demands as much character as talent. . . . He must SlAdek had translated “En Skud i Taaget,” one of his have a suprememastery of his own language, almost short stories.Jacobsen, of course, could not under- in a higher degree than an original poet, since he must stand a word of the Czech text, with its bewildering keep abreast of what he is translating, and not deviate array of accents, hooks, and unfamiliar groups of con- from it. He mustalso understand the foreignlan- sonants.But the very fact that he could see his own guage, not only in its finest nuances, but he must also work in this novel form came as an omen of wider re- feel it, hear all its high notes with their far-reaching vi- cognition in the future. As forZeyer, he, too, was brations, catch all the unpronounced meanings which the destined,after a long period of hostility and indiffer- native surmises into certain words and phrases of his ence, to find a late welcome from the younger genera- mother tongue. But uncommon qualities are demanded tion of critics. ofhis character as well. He mustpossess the noble *** virtue of ability to admire. He must practise modesty, ‘‘The reason why the Continental European is, to the and with a clear conception of his own value, subordi- Englishmanor American, so surprisinglyignorant of nate himself toan alien spirit. . . . And sincethis the Bible, isthat the authorisedEnglish version is a union of great qualities is extremely rare, really good great work of literary art, and the Continental versions translatorsare the greatest exceptions in the world’s are comparativelyartless.” You will probably recog- literature. Goethe and Heine tried their hand at Byron. nise this as a quotation from Mr. Shaw’s podgy preface Both only hadpatience for a fewstrophes of Childe on “Parents and Children.” Let us examinethis Harold,’although Heine also did a fragment from passage a littlecloser, and see where it leads us. On ‘Manfred.’ Inthe case of such great poets as these, the assumption thatthe statement is true,the logical there is an obvious danger that their mighty embrace conclusion is that Englishmen and Americans are eager will destroy the object of it, even as Jupiter’s love did andattentive readers of great works of literaryart. to Semele. . . . If, on theother hand, the translator Now Mr. Shaw himself does not believe this, EO why is too far behind his poet in greatness and power, he does he expect that we shall? In fact, a little later on in collapses beneathhis weight. . . .” And this,too, is thesame overfed discoursehe says : “ . . . . . Eliza- worth attention : “For a man who does translating as a bethan English, which is, except for people steeped in piece of manual labour, thereare no difficulties. He the Bible from childhood, like SirWalter Scott and translates away in a mechanical and rule-of-thumb Ruskin,a dead language.” Of course,the first state- manner. Thereis always someresult, even though it ment is grossly inaccurate, as might be expected. For may be lamentable stuff. But the artist with a delicate who the Pygmalion is Mr. Shaw (‘‘ . . . I am, as to conscience realises thatthere are crucialendeavours classicaleducation, another Shakespeare. I canread which pass beyond hisstrength. When he finds him- French as easily as English,and under pressure of self face to face with such a super-earthly revelation, necessity I can turn to account some scraps of German a mighty epiphany, when he is called upon to reproduce and a littleoperatic Italian. ”) to make free in his own language a voice from the burning bush, he with‘ hisopinions about Continental versions of is overwhelmed into silence and sinks down in venera- the Bible? The silly fellow gives himselfaway.: tion. This humble muteness is thetranslator’s most It iscertainly no boast for me to declare that 206

I haveread the Bible in more languagesthan Mr. Mr. Yeats, voicing a number of his young colleagues, Shaw. And to go no farther afield than Germany, there tells us that it isonly in Paris “that our poets can learn is Martin Luther’s version with its fine mellow phrasing theircraft,” Mr. Phillips tells themthey must go to and old-world associations. This,forsooth, is “corn- America forcriticism, and itis not so long since parativelyartless.” The remark gains in ironical sug- Mrs. Wharton entertainedthe Harmsworth ‘‘Times” gestion when you recall that Mr. Shawauthorised in readers ,with an account of the superiority of French Germany an edition of his works, which as a piece of literary critics. With much of what she said of English incompetence will remain a by-word anda laughing- criticism nobody will disagree; but I cease to follow her stock to European critics. P. SELVER. inher laudation of contemporaryFrench criticism. I *** defy any Englishreviewer to surpass thepiffling “puffs” AMERICANNOTES. with which mostFrench novels are received. In fact, I have seen Hall Caine and Marie Corelli reviewed in a The “New York Times” has been interviewing Miss style that no French journalist would dare to employ in Gertrude Atherton on the subject of American literature. speaking of HenryBordeaux, Rene Bazin, or Marcel I need not summarise her criticisms, for they are mine. Prevost. YetPrevost’s novels are clichCfied in style, Stuffiness, artificiality, illiteracy and an absence of philo- mannerand situation to an extent that not even his sophic background are, she considers, the qualities of chair at the Academy can conceal. Such a book as his the contemporary novel in the UnitedStates. As the last,“Les AngesGardiens,” is simply ludicrous. judgment of a feminist, however, I think the following Nevertheless, all the usualphrases were strung to- worthquoting : “The empty-headedness of so many gether to belaud it. thousands of our women is the secret of so much that is *** criticisedin our literature.’’ This confirmation of my It has several times been my .unpleasant task to re- impressions of the influence of the American woman on view studies of theIrish Literary Revivalwritten by literature hasthe advantage of being the opinion of Americans. Mr. Horatio S. Kraus’s book onYeats, a woman by no means indisposed towards the “intellec- for example, in the still-born “Contemporary Men of tual” claims of her sex. When Miss Gertrude Atherton Letters” series,and more recently, “IrishPlays and hasto complain of the“chattering silliness” of the Playwrights” by a certain Mr. C. Weygandt of Penn- feminine public in this country, the“most empty- sylvania University. Even with the recollection of the headed in the world,” my readers will guess how latter still rankling, I mustrecognise that worse was moderate my remarks have been. possible. “NovaHibernia,” by Michael Monahan *e* (Mitchell Kennedy. $1.50) is, I fancy,the most exe- Whilevarious Americans have been confessing the crable farrago of nonsense ever dignified as a book of sinsand transgressions of their literature and its literary criticism. Mr. Monahanis, I ‘believe, of Irish readers, Mr. Stephen Phillips has come forward not to origin,and the author of a book on Heine. He edits bury butto praise them. Inthe “Poetry Review” I “The Phoenix,” one of thosesmall monthly reviews find him proclaiming that “America has become far peculiar to this country, of which Mr. Elbert Hubbard’s more than England both the market and the assize of “Philistine”is the most familiar. These reviews are modern Anglo-Saxon verse.” As a more or less left- frequently the work of one man, the editor, and profess handed compliment to the United States this may pass to be esoteric in their appeal. Those that I have read -the Press indeed has smacked its lips after swallowing are a weird compound which can only be described as the morsel-but what, I wonder, isits intentionto- the Dionysianspirit expressed in the terms of a half- wardsEngland? Does Mr. Phillipsmean tosuggest penny comic paper, Mr. Monahanis, therefore, no that English people have lost their sense of good litera- novice and may be held responsible for his action. What ture,that they cannotdiscern the merit of their own then are we to think of a man who, professing to judge verse until ithas been pointed out by foreigners? literature, writes in cold blood, “waiving the specific Surely this is pushing too far the popular superstition gifts of poetryand craftsmanship, I amnot sure but of the superiority of the alien in literary matters? That thatSynge achieved the more difficult andoriginal America should be a good “market” is natural, but has work.” This by way of anappraisal of the relative it never occurred to Mr. Phillips that a “market” is often merits of Synge and Yeats ! What else, I wonder, will found abroad for what cannot be disposed of at home? Mr. Monahan“waive” before he discovers that he is Professed ignoramuses of economics as ouryoung poets simply excluding the only considerations that could give are, they musthave heard of the processknown as anysense of value to hiscomparison? Clearly this “dumping.”If they have not, their American friends “hustled criticism” offers great openings to journalists are certainly familiar with it. in search of copy. Waiving the specific gifts of style, *** poetryand craftsmanship I amnot surethat the Colonel Roosevelt recently travelled from New York “Fabian Essays” are not a more interesting sociological to Washington, and as he sat reading in the train he document than“The Marriage of Heavenand Hell.” was photographed by a reporter whose newspaper de- Harmsworth papers please copy. livered itself thus : “The Colonel was shown reclining in +** a Pullman chair deeply absorbed in the pranks and say- The first six lines of the essay on Gerald Griffin con- ings of Booth Tarkington’s ‘Penrod.’ . . . . One of tain no fewer than five cliches ! “Children of men,” “a the most remarkable features about the picture was the pain and a .weariness,” “apple of discord,” “the great manner in which it showed up so clearly the title of the public,” “the vulgar many”-in addition the stereotype book the Colonel was reading. ‘Penrod’ stoodout of the whole thing in conception as in execution. But boldly and dearly on the cover. On the veryday the theentire book is a series of hackneyed phrasesand photographappeared in the ‘Sun’ thingsbegan to worn-gut “ficelles. ” Mr. Monahan has innumerable happen in places wherebooks are sold in Baltimore. passages as bad as the following :- Therewas averitable boom inthe ‘Penrod’ sales. It The poetry of Callanan and Griffin calls up many a has been at the top of the list of ‘six best sellers’ here haunting vision of Innisfail, the Sacred Isle. This is ever since. ” one I often see at the bidding of the gentle poet : It is a *** green land of a greenness unmatched elsewhere, and over it the peace of the Sabbath is brooding. Yonder is a When Mr. Tarkington’spublishers saw this photo- grey ruin, its garniture of ivy and climbing wild-flowers graph, they telegraphed for the original. Knowing the hiding old wounds that mutely tell some glorious story American public, they have used thispicture all over of the long ago, etc., etc. the country, as they consider it Ihe best advertisement Inshort, to the horrors of incompetentjournalistic the book has received. What a chance missed by Mr. “criticism,”and themost overworked cliches of Phillips andhis friends. Themarket and the assize, journalese jargon, he adds the pathos of Irish-American indeed ! sentimentality. E. A. B. 207

hisexample. The air was filled: with the rustle of the “The Triumph of Lucifer.” leaves. Atlast God seemedsatisfied. By Oswald Harland. “We will sing hymn number four two four,” he an- H. nounced, andforthwith an organ in the dimdistance IT was the day of Lucifer’s trial, and excitement was behind crashedout the firstchords. Everybody stood almost at itshighest pitch. Inthe great city of God up except God and Lucifer, the first chord was sounded all was babel and: confusion-angels running hither and again, and then the thunder of innumerablevoices filled thither, from group to group,seeking information. the hall with the noble harmony of that great hymn- Everybody was in the streets, and an immense crowd ‘‘ There’s a royal standard given for display had gathered round the doors of the great Hall of Jus- To the soldiers of the King.” tice. From corner to corner the huge square was tightly Five verses and a rollicking chorus repeated after each, packed with those clamouring for admittance, and the and God expanded with pleasure. The hymn ended, the hum of the mighty multitude rose like hot air into the echoes died away once more, and those who had seats blazingsky. Itwas July,and in thegardens of God subsided into them with a great deal of rustling, cough- thenightingales sang in the thickets, thefresh wind ing and shuffling. swung in and out the leaves of the sycamores, and the “Goodhymn, that !” remarkedone cherub to his grass was green and sparkling aftera night of rain. The next-door neighbour. sun was mounting high in the blue of heaven, set in a “Bah ! Shut up and listen,” returned the other. He halo of clear gold. But nobody looked at these things. had not sung a word. God held up his hand. They were waiting for the doors to be opened. “Now you mayproceed,” he said. The Recording The great clock at last chimed a quarter to midday ; Angel began again, reading very quickly, and this time the jewelled doorsswung inwards, and the multitude managedto finish withoutinterruption. He sat down surgedtowards them like a stormy ocean.Inside, the triumphantly. The Devil looked inquiringly at God. cherubimhad been working since theearly dawn. “You have heard the charge?” asked God. “I wrote Everythingwas spotless and polished. Thefretted in- it myself. ” tricacies of the roof threwdown sparkles of celestial “Really?” Luciferlifted hiseyebrows. Godpre- radiancelike a shower of meteorites,and the great tended not to notice the interruption. throne of God blazed like a furnace of jewels and bright “You are accused,” he said sternly, “of being great metal, multi-coloured, skilfully wrought by the workmen enoughto challengemy supremacy. You look small of Mulciber. The goldencandlesticks hadeach its enough, sitting there, butsomehow I made you wrongly. lighted candle, but in the extremities of the hall dark- I’m inclined tothink youunexplainable. Therest of nesswas brooding.A cherubwas busily distributing your fellowsI created as best Icould, and they were little black books upon every seat. certainlygood enough at the time. But you-you are The multitudesurged in, andthe hall rapidly filled more ambitious than I am ; you are prouder than I am ; in every quarter. Every seat occupied, rank upon rank you are as intolerant of equals. I-I-made a mistake stood crowded at the back, round, the sides, in the aisles withyou, and-and-and1 I charge you with it. What andgangways. From the square outside came the have you to say?” roar of the disappointed-angry, turbulent,ominous, The Devil muttered something behind his hand. drowning the babblewhich rose to the roof. The excite- (Sensation in court, and some laughter.) mentwas growing tense. It was veryhot. . . Twelve God’sneck grew purple, andhe bellowed roundly, o’clock boomed forth its last stroke, and Michael on the “What have you to say?” dais below thethrone looked across at the Recording The Devil said nothing. He sneered audibly. Angel, andthe Recording Angellooked across at (Loud laughter, and some cheering in the body of the Gabriel, who stood guarding a little door at the back. hall.) Gabriel nodded anxiously. The crowd was waiting irn- God glared into the dim rows of faces below, but with patiently. Where were the chief actors? noresult. Michael and Gabriel followed his example, Tenminutes later, God enteredthrough the door andnearly succeeded;in looking very ridiculous. God which Gabriel was guarding. He was a great being in seemed to be ill at ease.Finally he looked at Lucifer purple robes, somewhat heavy-featured, and with a long appealingly. Lucifer smiled amiably, and then spoke. grey beard. His eyesseemed old andwatery, and his “Since you will haveme speak you shall hear the step and bearing had none of the spring of youth. But truth. God,. you have admitted your mistake, and you therewas determination in the set of his mouth, and hope to rectlfy it. Let me assure you that that is im- the frownon his brow. He was accuser,judge, jury, possible. Yourmistakes are as immortaland as un- in one. He made his way slowly to the throne and sat changeable as yourright actions.I am yourfirst down. He lookedhot and flustered. He was evidently mistake. ” out of breath, his face seemed somewhat apoplectic, and He paused for a momentand lookedround. Every hewas holding up his purple robes to avoid tripping face wasturned towards him, and Godlooked ill at overthem. The echoesdied awayin the intricacies of beingso little a centre of attraction.Lucifer seemed thefretted roof. Therewas no sound in theHall of satisfied and smiledcuriously. Then,addressing him- Justice as Gabriel called for order. self to the vast assembly, he went on rapidly. “Letus get down to bed-rock. Itis obvious that The Recording Angel stood up by his little table and this God can be no God of mine, since I can never be began to read the charge. subject to a law which I do not naturally obey. He is “Stop,” said God, and the Recording Angel stopped a clever God as a rule, and generally a careful thinker. halfway through a sentence. The trouble began when he made me-his first mistake. “We have forgotten the prisoner. Bring him in.” Of course,” he said confidentially, “he intended me to After some delay, through another door came Lucifer, be like that fool Michael-over there”- guarded by fourArchangels. Hewas smalland very “No, no,” groaned God. “Never !” But Lucifer did dark.His brows were knitted in fiercedetermination not notice the interruption. over dark, deepseteyes that flashed with the light of -“and the rest of the Ten. But his law failed him, infinite ambition and pride, though there was also the and I stand here, though a prisoner, yet the equal of glint of evil purpose. He walkedin with a confident Himwho sits upon the throne. Listen. You knowme step, and there was some stifled applause. to be as great as He, to have as much power. I can “YOU maysit down,” said God sternly,and the create as well as He, and I can destroy his creations. Devil sat. Did I not invent gunpowder?” The Recording Angel began again. There was a roar of assent, taken up and multiplied ‘‘Stop,” said God. “We have forgotten the hymn.” by the throngs without. He picked up the hymn-book from his desk, adjusted “Well now. When I cameinto being, all was not his glasses, and skimmed the pages. Everyone followed well in heaven. This God of yours was not ruling well, 208 andsoon, in fact,put most of hisbusiness upon my know, and if to carry out these reforms it wasnecessary shoulders”- to use public funds in private enterprise, I was resolved “B-b-but didn’t you ask for it ?” inquired God. Again to do it. Immediately I am made prisoner by the com- Lucifer disdained to respond. Heshrugged his mand of God, and here I am brought to trial for rebel- shoulders and went on. lion. I ask you : Is it a just thing that this should be? “I should have been content,” he cried querulously, Call you this rebellion?” “had there not been jealousy from the very first. hd He pausedagain, and a roar of negationwent up day by day I grew more and more convinced that the that made theheavens flame and the sun grow dully red. policy of God was not right. This Adam and Eve busi- “NOW therefore we stand, I and my fellows, firm in ness, for instance”- the principles of freedom, against the rule of an unjust Therewas a roar of derision. God drewhis hand One. We stand for the principle of three acres and a wearily acrosshis brow, but this time did notspeak. cow, but they will never be yours while you consent to Lucifer held up his hand, and silence fell once mare. be ruled by Him who made you. I am one of you, and “This Adam and Eve business,for instance, is too I know that you are with me. Now with my own hands, perfect not to endure, and too imperfect to last. It is which are the hands of the angels of heaven, I tear off a gigantic paradox, a gigantic blunder, and I said so myshackles. I will beyour democratic king-your at the time. It is neither success nor failure. Moreover friend, your counsellor.But not in Heaven. Ours shall in all things bad has become worse, and nothing could be a gloriousHell and a wonderfulEarth. God we be said. Quarrels between God and myself grew more will leave to ponder on his throne, over the consequences and more frequent, till one day he accused me of specu- of his misdeeds and the failure that shall be his here- lating with public funds.” after and for ever. Heaven shall be his, but it shall be Deepmurmurs of “Shame !” camefrom all sides. an empty Heaven. Let himwho will, follow me.” God was shaking his head and crying plaintively, “But The speech was ended.Multitude upon multitude it’s true-it’s true !” The crowds in the open doorways acclaimed their new ruler in one terrific shout that rent became more and more demonstrative in their sympathy the heavens. Thename of “Lucifer,Lucifer,” went withLucifer. There was the sound of a scuffle some- up in a mighty conflagration of sound. Once more Luci- where. Lucifer held up his hand, and again a hush fell fer smiled amiably upon a God now shrunk almost to over the hall. nothingness, and quitted the dock in the midst of four “I must give you details of that quarrel.” cheering Archangels. Down he descended into the body God writhed upon the great throne, and looked even of the hall. Beelzebubpressed forward to greethim, more deadly than before. and the two linked arms familiarly. “Stop hixh !” He cried to the four Archangels, but “Sheep !” mutteredLucifer into Beelzebub’s ear. such a shout of protest went up that God, was fain to “Sheep ! But, Beelzebub, we’ve done it. Thegame’s give in. Moreover, the four Archangels had not moved. ours. Gulled ’em nicely, by jingo !” Satan continued : And hesmote Beelzebub betweenthe Atlantean “It began with the housing question. I had appointed shoulders in great glee.Beelzebub grinned. a committee to inquire into the condition of the tene- Down into the body of the hall, down the long aisle ments of heaven. Theywere found to bedisgraceful, through the crashing thunders of acclamation,and so disgusting. As many as five cherubs were found living down to the great doors of the Hall of Justice, followed in one room. They were ill-clothed, badly fed, cramped byhis myriad tributaries. Out through the doors into and stunted, in their growth. ” thesquare, out from the square, out from the city of (4Ay, ay, we know. Go on !” God, to found the new kingdom of Lucifer, and begin “The root of all the distress, I am convinced, lies in the era of three acres and a cow. therule of the One as againstthe rule of the many. God wasleft upon the throne, Michael on thedais For ages you have been contentto submit to a One below the throne, and Gabriel still stood guarding the whom you thoughtthe Source of allWisdom. You littledoor at theback. The Recording Angel had have bawledyour hymns, and suffered.You have al- vanishedwith his books. Except for those three the lowed him to do things thatwould not be tolerated else- hall was empty.Michael looked across at Gabriel and where. The sacred name of Liberty became but a name, nodded sadly. Gabriel quitted his post, and with bowed and Happiness died. And all this dreadful grinding you heads both advanced, up the steps till they stood one on have suffered,you havetamely borne, to be crushed each side of the throne. God did not move at their ap- under the heel of this your God.” proach.They spoke to him,but he did notstir. Out- He pointed an accusing finger at thethrone. Again sidethe volume of cheeringdied away towards the God stammered out a feeble “ B-b-but !” . . . North. “We will endure it no longer. You know how I have God was dead. A new tyranny had begun. toiled on your behalf. You know that in me your great Trade Unionshad their origin. Theyhave become a power in the land, you have become a power. And you TO PRESENT-DAYCRITICS. are not without your leaders. During the past few years If I a poet were, in love with fame, your Unions have been under wise control, and the Gate And thought to leave to Time an honoured name, and Street-Polishers’ Union under Beelzebub, the Gold One brief request, one only, would I make Workers underMammon, theFire-Workers under Of you who for our names such labour take. Moloch, the Builders and Decorators underMulciber, and lastly the Amalgamated Harpers under Belial, whereof To praise me not, but go your silent way, YOU are allmembers, testify to yourgreatness. But Nor e’en one word of loathed tribute pay, inthe beginning you weredisorganised. Your educa- For praise from you polluted is with shame Who Masefield praise-and even Glyn acclaim. tion was acons obsolete, and your hours Gf labour were far too long.Reform was imperative. I began to talk to the lower hierarchies : they were sympathetic ;to the APRESENT-DAY AUTHOR TO THE CRITICS. higher hierarchies-they were eager for reform. In the Masefield you honour and Hall Caine you scorn. Now ’twixt two hells my dubious soul is torn. name of LibertyI determined to go on. But mypro- To be with Masefield praised, or scorned with Caine? jects for reform were constantly ignored, and my hands Ah, spare me both, and silent quite remain ! were tied. I have beenkicked andcuffed, but I have not forgotten to kick and cuff in return.” . THE SAME. There were deep murmurs of applause. God looked Some buy your praise-and straight beneath it smart, very white and old. Your blundering praise wounds worsethan Envy’s dart. “I have been called traitor, demagogue, betrayer of But I would rather for our silence pay. my trust. But I have gone my way, for my way was You can’t affront me wzen you’ve naught to say. yourway. I am a comparativelypoor man, as you EDWARDMOORE. 209

respond : “Before your awful power, we bow the head” : Views and Reviews.’ musicby Gounod. Economics then continues : “It would also recognise the spheres and rights of the fac- Etiquette or Economics ? tors in production.Land, apart from questions of SYNDICALISMis dead ! Birminghamhas heard of it, ownership, would receive the rent to which its position and the professor of Finance in its University has de- or fertilityentitled it. Capital-that is,the wealth de- nounced it in this addition to the series of “Cambridge voted to industrial purposes-accumulated by thrift and Manuals.” A whole professor of Finance was required abstinence, would beavailable for thelabour force, to do the work effectively, but there is no doubt that which would pay the rightful interest for its use. With- ithas been done.Syndicalism was rude, was, py- out this, wealth will not be accumulated and the commu- haps,even indecent. To Mr. TomMann’s declaration nity will suffer.” As it says in the Bible (z Kings, xix, that “the Syndicalist also declares thatin the near future 35) : “And when they arose early in the morning, behold, theindustrially organised workers will themselves they were all dead corpses.” undertake the entire responsibility of running the indus- Let us consider thelast two propositions. “Land, ‘tries in the interests of all who work, and are entitled to apart fromquestions of ownership, wouldreceive the enjoy the results of Labour,” Economics (or is it Eti- rentto which its position or fertilityentitled it.” In quette?) replies : “A moreimpudent proposal has thisbeautiful dream of an industrial commonwealth seldom or never been putforward seriously.’’After land, “apart from questions of ownership, ” will have quotingan example of theca’ canny policy from to do its ownrent-collecting. It will have to become “ The Miners’Next Step,”Economics (alias Eti- vocal, as it was in the days of Cain, as it was even in quette), says : “Here, then, is the policy in all its naked- thedays of Shakespeare;but instead of shrieking : ness,and in all its impudence.” ‘That is criticism. “Murder,” as it did when Abel was slain, or preaching Syndicalism was vulgar, and Economics would not speak sermons, as the stones of the Forest of Arden did to the to it; so Syndicalismdied of a broken heart.Let us Duke in “As You Like it,” land will only say : “I have regard it as the only romance of the “dismal science.” calledfor the rent.” The idea is capable of muchde- But Economics doesnot turn the balefuleye on velopment : the idea of Hampstead Heath being entitled Socialism. Afterreading Mr. Robert Blatchford’s to a penny per day for every pair of feet placed upon it, “Britain for the British,”Economics saysthat ‘‘one isonly a normaldevelopment of this beautiful dream. sympathisesdeeply with theaim, but sober common Land, “apart fromquestions of ownership,”does not sense tells one that it is easier to say that the State is receive rent ; the brutal facts are that itreceives manure going to do all these things for the benefit of all, than it and tillage, or is left to harbour vermin and weeds. is toframe a practical policy forcarrying them into “Capital, accumulated by thrift and abstinence, would effect.” If Mr. Blatchford only had sober common sense, be available for the labour force, which would pay the he would be an economist, he might even be a professor rightfulinterest for its use. Withoutthis, wealth will of Finance;and, instead of writing“Britain for the not be accumulatedand the community will suffer.’’ British,” hemight be able to write “Economics and Capital seems to be the same as wealth in this respect, Syndicalism.’’ DadBatchett should be pleased at the that it can be accumulated ; but Economics tells us, in prospect.Evidently he has convinced Economics that this very book, that “capital can only be used by con- State Socialismis not “naked”or “impudent” in its suming it. Thus,unless the user produces, firstly, an proposals. “Socialists wish to dethrone capitalism, and equalamount to replacewhat he has destroyed, and to organise society on a new basis, ,givingto all members then a further quantity to pay the lender for his thrift, of the community a level chance. rhis m5y be Utopian, and. himself for his risk., the community suffers because butit is notanti-social.” State Socialism islike the the capital available for industry has been decreased in “modest request of two lovers” that Swift reported : amount.” Obviously, then, Capital is created from year Ye Gods, annihilate but Space and Time to year, and is not accumulated ; and if “wages are not And make two lovers happy ! fixed by dividing some definite amount of capital by the Economics must have fallen in love with Dad Batchett’s number of workers ;the wages fund of a country is only beautiful English, which is the best that has been writ- limited by production itself, for wages are paid out of tensince Cobbett wrote, as the “Clarion”is always theresult of production,”then rent, interest, profits, telling us. State Socialism is a beautifuldream : Dad and wages, are all created from year to year. The “ac- Batchett is a beautiful dreamer; and Economics loves cumulations of capital,” as the revolutionary or “shar- boththe dream and the dreamer. “Romeo, Romeo, ing out” Socialists are always being told, do not exist ; wherefore art thou Romeo? ” and what does not exist has no right to interest. When Butthe world wasnot made forlovers, and, after a railway company gets the permission of Parliament to a little billing and cooing, Economics begins to exercise call a A100 share a A200 share (there are~198,000,000 its“sober commonsense.” It“looks confidently” to of “water” added to British railway stock), we under- theadvent of the “harmoniouslyworking community stand how Capital is “accumulated,” what “thrift and of the future,” and it mentions several “points” that abstinence” mean, and we see that Capital is really only “Socialists and Syndicalists should realise.” I shall be a claim to a share in the produce of the future. pleased to seeDad Batchett trying to “realise” a A. E. R. “point.” The first “point” is : “The labour force of a country is in its essence one and indivisible [consult the Thirty-Nine Articles for analogies] ; it includes all those SONG. engaged in the work of production, from the man whose After Clement Marot (149j-I5#.) brain organises, to the boy whose hand fetches and car- What evil woes dull Hate may breede ries.” “Solomon ; that’sme !” says Economics. “In I wot not nor desire to wit, Bue well I wot the wounds doe bleede that labour force there are elements of varying capacity Since in my heart Love hath alit. and worth--a secondpoint to realise.” We live and Love should bear other name more fit, learn. “It isclearly unjust that men of allcapacities Who well were hight or flow’r or weede should receive an equal award; as unjust as that a man So swift his blooms be blown to seede. of inferior capacity should hold a superior position. In

the harmoniously working community of the future (to So fleet, or weede ,&r flow’r inside whoseadvent one confidently looks)each man would Her fickle heart whereon I dote, rise to that position he was qualified by nature, charac- In myne where he. doth ever bide 0 ! calle him rock or starrie mote. ter,and his ownefforts to occupy. This wouldbe a For I doe ever live devote system of justice.” The Socialists and Syndicalists here To Love, and lovinge doe deride * “Economics and Syndicalism.” By A. W. Kirkaldy. Death that maye never vail his pride. (Cambridge University Press. IS. net.) WILFRIDTHORLEY. 210

SOmehOw manage tokill the. artist, that beats any- Pastiche, thing Omar ever did. A great friend of mine who fished about ces gens artistes (these artistic chaps : Tauchnitz) IMPRESSIONS DE PARIS-VI. sold a picture last week for 800 francs. The Same even- For the last two weeks I have lost my cigarette-holder, ing I saw him in company with a Nut, next day he had and I’ve only had one impression. Yesterday a delight- a new hat, to-day he promised me a bouquet, and on ful Roumanian rendered it to me, and so I feel lively Sunday I shall send it to his funeral, certain ! enough to record an English feminine opinion of these I like not myself ces gens artistes. Thoughthey are impressions, brought also yesterday by word of mouth. So spick and span always, yet in a room they do seem: It appears that I air the few French words I’ve picked a litter about the place, like the goldbands, off cigars. up, and that’sall there is to it. Clever creature! Pre- Besides, they’re spiteful. One hashis studio opposite sentlyI’ll go Baedekking. One says here thatnot to mine, which I’ve found by the way-no trees, only ivy have Baedekked once in all these weeks argues the com- and roses, but lovely old red tiles and air and blue sky- mencement of a great career, but my explanation is that and I asked him if he minded the piano. No ; loved it ! one’s tenth hundred custom-house produces an aversion And he has revenged himself by singing all the evening for its city. Sometimes I think I can see in my face an in just the sort of trained voice I don’t like. impression of all the steps I’ve mounted to inspect mar- ALICEMORNING. vels. I mounted the other day to be shown some Picassos and Rousseaus at a private show. I couldn’t abide them, THE POET’S RHAPSODY. and sat down to read Paul Fort in a magazine that lay For a guinea, or two guineas, or three guineas I can sing, comfortably CUI a table by an armchair. I couldn’t abide Dance on paper, prance and caper, Joke on any blessed him either, went to sleep, and waked up to find every- thing ; body gone, and nobody outside seemed ever to have heard Make a name just like anactor, act asspuriously as Tree, of the street I live in. I was bouleversee (see Tauchnitz And be hailed a true Bohemian, razzling out upon the --overthrown,upset) for ten minutes until my friends spree. came racing back just as I had found a gendarme. No! I can’t say there is much to it, but what the devil ! it’s But the streetsare filth and cartwheels, and the shops all there IS ! I didn’t like the Picassos, and, if I did, I are shoddy blurs; could not, I suppose, presume tosay more thanthe Dunce and cockney on the pavements, Jew and Yank artists I went with : “ Superbe ! Magnifique ! Oui ! within the doors. Tres joli !” Shall I tell this to their magazines, or print it for their A friend brought me reams of London scandal yester- news ? day. People seem to be leading terrible lives nowadays. Shall I tour the country searching for a colly dog that I shan’t be able to speak to crowds of people when I get mews ? back. Whata comfort! But that’sall there is toit sweet lady! Paris-Imean mythree streets and a cafe They will treat a clown with bounty, they will bow before -has a very especial kind of scandal. People don’t buffoons- report on each other’s physiological frailties-they try Witness Masefield, witness Stephens, witness Chelsea to attack the spirit, like my deep critic. Mention whom- round its moons. soever you may, someone will tell you that he is In the face of their advertisements the end shall be un- “ finished.” At one moment oranother I have heard furled, everyone pronounced finished, from Picasso to my friend Horrid end to crowns of parsley, now the merchants hold the poorpoet who has not very well begun. To escape the world. I,. S. D. being finished in Mont Parnasse, the only way is never to begin really, but to get the description serieux. (Tr. PLAINTOF THE TOWN-BIRD. serious, sweet lad !) Serieux is a “ boss ” epithet in It’s all a horrid cheat about the joys Paris. To me it lookslike dominos and tufts of beard Of country life compared with those of town. and beer andinattention toanything except thenext And he who says it with the truth but toys,, person to say how-go-you to and well, what are you For it is life but fit for country clown. doing now? ‘(Ah, a merchant has bought one of my But I, beguiled by such a lying throng, things! He is en voyage at this moment, but when he Those copiers of copiers who write, returns-h’m, a-ha!” These merchants seem togo to Have left my city thro’ their syren song, Jericho and farther amazing frequent. Andfind myself in pitiableplight. On the day the Ribot Cabinet fell, after which every- For mid this waste of fields, and meads, and woods, thing was just as ever, the“Figaro,” which smashed Where everything is either green or gray, about like the “Saturday Review” in a wax, announcing Mid dusty lanes and roads where silence broods, the end of all order, had a literary supplement with I suffer spirit-crushing agony. twelve more orless original contributions, talesand I wish I were back in the roaring town, studies and poems and criticisms, and not a single ad- Watching the traffic hurtle round and round. vertisement on this supplement. Voila du bon goat, messieurs lesAnglais! All advertisement was relegated The Spring, the bright green Spring the Poets sing, to the ordinary issue. You do not see in Paris,either, Must bless some other clime than that of ours; many advertisements on the walls. The most frequent For here the wind and hail our faces sting, is : Advertisements forbidden ! The modern Hun, the And when it rains it comes in deluge showers. Harmsworth, has not yet got muchof a foothold here. And blooming Summer of the flowery meads, No doubt, he comes, and the cheap andsky-scraping Must blossom in the land where all are dead ; builder is his advance-guard. For tho’ less cold than Spring, no less our needs, If I stayed in Paris, I should discover that snobbery is’ For rain or dust is buffeting one’s head. not insular. They have the English of it, but it’s equally And Autumn’s golden grain and golden days French. Le snob ! Theparticular sort of snob I have Is dross to one oppressed b sultry heats. met here is what visits the studios of promising artists. And chill Winter with its killing ways, It is often, deliriously often, a Continental rinceor The sickly seasons’ suffering completes. princess, damn dull, that regards the works with neither I would be back to where the time of year love nor aversion, but it has heard that this. young man Is marked by games that ever grow more dear. goes toarrive! It never buys, this Snob; It patronises in a fashion at once to infuriate and to give prestige. What I cannot choose my friends as I should list, a horrible metier ! to be Some women are talking For any soul at all is precious here. very good French. “Why did you hid2 yourself this morn- Old Nature naked, is what I ne’er wist, ing ? Were you ashamed?” “ Yes. You had reason And her oppressive silence makes me fear. -you believewell, you Bad reason! But that arrives I find the Simple Life but vanity; to everybody! Don’t get red! And how goes thelittle The folly of it makes me agitated, husband?” It’s impossible for an Englishwoman not to Its dull and deadly uniformity laugh in Paris. The naivete is‘ as azure and Pagan as Would soon reduce me till I vegetated. the sky! But I was saying what a metier to be at once I bed at eight, tho’ I can scarcely sleep ; the Caliph and Maecenas, ta destroy the work while One beds because there’s nothing else to do. patronising theartist ! M comparison doesn’t quite I rise at six, tho’ not to work to creep ; gang. True, the snob usually like Omar, is in the pay One rises or his boneswould cut him through. of America, and only a masterpiece has a chance of being But if I heard the city’s rush and roar, overlooked, but that isn’t allthere is to it-the snobs I’d sleep and wake refreshed, and sigh for more. 211

Back to the crowded city soon I’ll hie, And be a man among my fellow men, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Rejoicing in the throngs that surge meby, Forgetting all the country and its pain. POPULATION ANI) WAGES. My faith would triumph in the city life, Sir-Mr. R. B. Kerr’s attempt, in your last issue, to I’d heed no more the Poets and their song. show that wages can be raised while the competitive wage I’d be a new man mid the stir and strife, system remains in being, and that the means is a volun- And sing the raises it has waited long. tary restriction of population, is notsupported by Pro- My eyes would lighten at its glaring shows, fessor Thorold Rogers, in spite of Mr. Kerr’s quotations The myriad lights along the streets at night. from “Work and Wages.” If there were anything at all My soul would blaze to be again with those in Mr. Kerr’s argument, the fact that the rise in .wages Of kindred thought, and speech, that bring delight. after the Black Death persisted for more than 175 years Oh keep your country and its browsing life, ought to mean that the population was restricted during I pant to struggle mid the city’s strife. the whole of that period. But we are toldby Professor J. T. FIFE. Rogers, in the very chapter from which Mr. Kerr quotes, that “we learnfrom contemporary accounts, and here we can trustthem, that arapid growth of population followed oq the destruction of the Black Death. It is said that after this event double and triple births were MORE CONTEMPTORARIES. frequent ; that marriages were singularly fertile ; and that, By C. E. BECHHOFER. in a short time, the void made by the pestilence was no (6) “The New Witness.” longer visible.’’ According to Mr. Kerr’ssimple economics, wages ought speedily to have returned to their THE CAUCUS AND MARCONI AND THE PARTY FUNDS. former level; but, as he says, the rise in wages persisted Sir Alfred Ju didnot get his peerage. That was be- for nearly two centuries after the plague. Evidently, the cause“The New Witness’’ disclosed the deal, andthe matter is not so simple as Mr. Kerr thinks that it is, for partiesinterested funked. Good for us ! . . . Sir James in chapter twelve of the same book Prof. Thorold Rogers Jitsu has been made a peer, as we foreshadowed weeks says : “I do not, indeed, imagine .&at the economist who ago. “The New Witness,” in fact, disclosed the deal, duly corrects his inferences from a wide range of facts and our readers knew what to expect. Good for US ! . . . would be under the impression that such a result would Caucus . . . Marconi . . . Party Funds . . . Caucus . . . necessarily ensue, or,indeed, unless .there were other Marconi . . . Party Funds. causes at work, conclude that the tendency of population COMMENTS OF THE WEEK. would be to grow up to the limits of subsistence, as it grew for special causes in the seventeenth and eighteenth . . . Marconi . . . Party Funds . . . Caucus . . . Marconi centuries. We shall see inthe course of this’inquiry . ,. Party Funds . . . Caucus . . . that an excess of population is quite compatible with no THE CATHOLICGOVERNMENT LEAGUE. increase in numbers, and that the misery of the working . . . Party Funds . . . Caucus . . . Marconi . . . Party classes can be frequently ascribed to other causes besides Funds . . . Caucus . . . Marconi . . . their own improvidenceand recklessness.” Mr. Kerr’s GOLF IN SCOTLAND. contention was proleptically refuted in this passage, taken from the same chapter : “The notes I find of plagues in BY J. STEPHEN.. . . the fifteenthcentury arein 1477, 1478,and 1479, when unusual mortality seems to have prevailed in the Eastern DULLSHIRE. Counties; and during the sixteenth, in 1521, in 1538, in BY THOMASSECCOMBE. 1545 and 1546, when It was at Cambridge and Oxford; in 1555 and 1556, in 1570 and in 1579. All these are re- In Dullshire many a Seccombe lies dead. Joe Seccombe, appearances of theLevant plague; foranother disease, “old irrational Seccombe,” we used to callhim, is at Jubblewick. Dick Seccombe reststwenty miles away. which occurred for the first time in the fifteenth century, Harry Seccombe moulders near by. All of them lie sleep- will be treatedseparately. In some of these cases, the ing, dead and dull; but none so dead and dull as poor note is of precautions taken against a possible visitation; butin 1579, the Norwich registerexpressly states that old TomSeccombe, wherever he lay his “bones” . . . 4,918 people died, a loss of life which must have been as CHARLES PEACE. serious as that in the first attack. But I cannot discover that the wages of labour were affected by any of these BY F. HUGH O’DONNELL. Occurrences of the fifteenth century, nor by those of the This man, this bit of seaweed masquerading as a man, sixteenth, until the general change in money values puts this blackguard, this idle master of a pretty gang of in- it out of one’s power to infer anything from such events. viting followers, this monster, this fiend-this thing was I conclude, therefore, thatthe steadinesswith which notonly a brute, a flagellant, a swindler,a thief, a high relative wages were secured was in no sense due to murderer, buthe was far worse, fareviller and loath- the losses which laboursuffered from pestiIence. The =mer ; he was an adulterer ! ! . . . existence of this formidable disease mayhave checked the growth of population; but if abundant evidence as to the rate of wages and silence as to the loss of life are to THIS WEEK’S RACING. go for anything, it did not create a sensible void in the BY CAURIRE. number of labourers.” Jingle,by Tingle out of Bingle, daughter of Single It is admitted, then, that a rise in wages did follow the out of Spingle, who was by Cringle oat of Dingle, and Black Death of the ‘fourteenth century; but it is denied, SO related to Fingle (a son of Ringle by Mingle) . . . on the same authority, that the limitation of population ADvT.-Charles VilliersPlantagenet. Turf Commis- had anything to do with it. I do not want to confuse the sioner. No Limit . . . issue by introducing the question of the real causes of the rise in wages, but I must make just one more quotation MOTORING. fromThorold Rogers. He concludes hiseighth chapter BY GEOFFREYDE HOLDEN-STONE. withthis remark : “So thepeasant farmer and the labourer were to try conclusions with the landlord. We By the way, an excellent car for speed, silence, smooth shall see how the strugglewas fought out. The machinery running and smell is the Ashbury . . . which the former used had been longin preparation; ADvr.-The Best Car on the Market is the Ashbury. though no one guessed its efficiency.” The rise In wages L200 . . . was to some extentdue to the organisation of the INSURANCE. labourers making it possible for them to score a triumph BY ALEXANDERMITCHELL. during a national calamity; but that it would have been better for them as a class not to have raised wages, but The coming month is always a bad month for fires . . . to have abolished them, is madequite clearby Prof. ADVT.-The SouthBritish Insurance Co. Funds- Rogers. ~~,ooo,o0o. . . I cannot, therefore, accept Mr. Kerr’s inference from a VARIA. hypothesis that has no relation to fact. Even if it were BY J. K. BLITHEROE AND C. SHERIDANJONES . . . “perfectlymanifest thatthe limitation of population ADVT.-Wm. Pierrepont, Inquiry Agent. Go to him If caused by a plague” could raise wages, it does not follow blackmailed . . . . that “a similarlimitation caused by ’ humanvolition (When writingto,.advertisers mention “The New would’have results of the same character.” A natural Witness.”) calamity may reduce the number of available labourers, 212 but human volition can only check the reproduction of “AS a matter of fact I believe that the Orangemen have labourers. The 800,000 children born last year will not more to gain than to lose by the change.” be competing againsttheir fathers for employment for Now, thethoughts expressed inthe above several quite a long time yet, and it matters .nothing to current quotations are clear, logical, and uniform, and appear to rates of wages whether soO,ooo or ~,zoo,ooochildren were proceed from a sane person, conversant with the subject born last year. To restrict the number of children born he is handling. But what must be the real mental condi- cannot raise wages now, although it might seem possible tion of the man who could, at the same time, in the same that the restriction would raise wages in anything over articles, treating of the same, subject, reach such contra- fourteen years’ time. But the birth-rate began to fall dictory conclusions as these :- after 1876, and by 1895 the first Neo-Malthusian genera- “The high-water mark of political sagacity.” tion was in the labour market. Then real wages began “Will leave the Protestants and Unionists of the South to fall. The birth-rate is still falling; so are real wages ; of Ireland at the mercy of their religious and political and it is evident that Neo-Malthusianism is not the cure enemies.” for poverty. for A NATIONALGUILDSMAN. ** * Or take this pair :- ‘‘I am a confirmedHome Ruler.” ADDRESSED .TO MR.REDMOND-HOWARD. “ Yet it may be seriously doubted whether the Sir,-I observe that young Mr. Redmond-Howard has bureaucracy which it is intended to supplant in Ireland broken out again. Will you, therefore, permit me to offer is half so corrupt as the Parliamentary system it is in- a few more remarksto this gentleman, which may, I tended to establish.” hope, act as a cure for the complaint which evidently The above appear to disclose a mind hopelessly con- afflicts him? fused. But I think the following selections will prove Mr. Redmond-Howard.-Sir,-I never heard of you till conclusively that the Omadhaun still flourishes amongst recently (my own fault, of course), and, therefore, know us. nothing about you, except as you stand self-confessed and “The militarism of Sir Edward Carson is logical.” revealed in the pages of THE NEW AGE. What are your “Logic, in fact, has gone to the winds.” characteristics as disclosed by these articles ? Ignorance And, then, the above pair are beautifully matched by -instability and verbosity ! You can prattle prettily and the following gems :- dress a piece of fudge as well as a suburban milliner “I have always maintained, and still maintain, that Sir would a bonnet, but your fudge remains-just fudge, and Edward Carson’s tactical olicy is one which is far more is quite apparent beneath all its trimmings. dangerous to thecause he hasat heart than to theenemies You remind us in your latest effort that you have he has at hand.” already explained on many occasions your views on the “And this was my meaning when I, a confirmed Home Irish question. You have, Sir,indeed! And anything Ruler, signed on as an Ulster Volunteer.” more idiotic has never appeared in print. Well, Mr. Redmond-Howard, they say theshow is never If, for a youngster, to offer instructions to its grand- complete without Punch. So I suppose, in times of stress mother, on how eggs should be sucked, is the classical like these, we should feel grateful to you for providing example of the ridiculous-how should I rightly char- a little comic relief. To induce us to indulge in a grin, acterise your latest impertinence in undertaking to in these days of tension, is no slight contribution. Of instruct your uncle John how he should conduct the course, that is not the effect you desired to produce. But Nationalist side of theIrish movement ? What qualifi- you need not get alarmed at the effects produced by your cations have you to pose as an authority on Irish Affairs ? antics. I think you may reasonably hope to get re- So far as you have committed yourself to anything defi- warded, whatever happens. nite in THENEW AGE your alleged statements of facts Dean Swift declared that, although he always spoke are as false as your speculations are absurd. well of heaven, nothing would induce him to speak ill of Take the following as an example :- -hell. Hehad friends in both places. “As for the (Ulster) Volunteers theyare in principle Twice happy Mr. Redmond-Howard! With an uncle, what the Fenians were.” Prime Minister of the Irish National Parliament in You lie, Sir! Indeed, it wouldbe difficult to pack a Dublin, and your friend and leader, President of the Pro- greater falsehood into fewerwords. And, such a conten- visional Government in Belfast, your chances of a good tion will be repudiated by Orangemen with the same thing, whatever befalls, look exceedingly rosy. But, be vehemence as by the Fenians. careful, you may have heard of the danger of sitting on To English readers of THE NEWAGE, unacquainted, or two stools, or, of the sad fate of the Ass who took up a only partly acquainted, with the history of these move- position between two hay stacks-but could not make up ments, such astatement may pass muster. But, let us Its mind which to eat from? Don’t let such a fate over- review,briefly, the composition, conduct, object, and take you. treatment of these two organisations. Frankly, I do not think it will. The conclusion I Orangeism to-day, as ever, is an aristocratic, clerical, have drawn from your contributions to THE NEW AGE is political organisation, owned, controlled, and financed by this. You took advantage of the Ulster Covenant to get what Winston Churchill recently termed the proprietary up on the side where you imagine your interests lie ; and, classes of these kingdoms. certainly where you desired to be. Therefore, instead of But what was the Fenian organisation like? Were offering explanations for your action, consoleyourself there any dukes, lords, or clerics in that ? Not one ! On with the reflection that you are not the first “confirmed the contrary-itwould be safe to say that ninety-nine Home Ruler” who turned his coat. per cent. of its members were of the working class. Were PETER FANNING. they smiled upon by the Church to which they belonged? **+ Not they ! They were denounced from the altars, refused absolution in the Confessionals, and refused Holy Com- “THE BASIS OF THE GUILD.” munion at the altar rails : and a Catholic Bishop declared Sir,-In reply to Mr. Hoffmann, I would suggest that that “hell was not hot enough nor eternity long enough distribution is not a good basis for a National Guild, but to roast a Fenian.” And yet you have the hardihood to is better organised as an Association inter-penetrating dl declare‘that there was a likeness in principle between the guilds. This Association (The National Union of them and class-pampered Orangeism. Shop Assistants, for example), would discuss all matters It won’tdo, Mr. Redmond-Howard. And, as most of connected with its special functions, as defined on p. 234 them are now dead-you leave the memory of the Fenians of “National Guilds.” alone. They never did you any injury, and you are quite The distributive workers would form an integral part incapable either of comprehending or explaining their of each separate guild, and would, in consequence of “principle.” theirguild training understand thethings they were Now, let me recall some of your political speculations. selling. (Howoften is this the case now ?) Each guild In one of your previous articles w en dealing with the would have its shop or shops in each distributive centre, proposed exclusion of Ulster, you fell into ecstasies of the shopassistants being ordinaryguild members. In- approval, your satisfaction gushed forth in a flood-thus : cidentally, their numbers would probably be considerably “What could be more philosophical?” reduced with the elimination. of competition and the “The concession must represent the high-water mark wasteful distributive methods of the present economic of political sagacit .” system. This surplus would go towards the extra two “It was one of txe greatest examples of statesmanship million workers which the National Guildsmen suggest ever displayed by an English Prime Minister in his dear will be required for production. ings with Ireland.” J. A. FROME WICKINSON. 213

THE WAGE SYSTEM ANDITS SUPPORTERS. unsatisfactory, it is not rebellion but licence. Each young man has to face the problem for himself, and it is a hard Sir,-No part of the country has so kindly acce ted matter. Oftener than not it leads to carelessness, yet the recent servile State legislation as Scotland, the &nd what has he to go upon? Eugenics are still too young of the free,” for beyond a few grunts of disapproval by to afford any sort of efficient moral guide, social morality Socialists no cry antagonistic to the Lloyd George cum is very loose, religion is of the past, sanitary considera- Webbpolitical iniquitieshas been heard. All the tions are either disregarded or they lead to other forms Puritans and cold-water philosophers have been rejoicing of sex satisfaction which are considered equally immoral. lately because of the operation of one of the provisions of The sex question, meanwhile, gets more complicated as the recent Scottish Temperance Act, which prohibits the the race gets more highly sensitised. of IO opening licensed houses before a.m. The pernicious England is one of the few countries that tries to ignore teetotallers and kill-joys are busy prophesying khat by prostitution on one side and to account it a sin on the 1920 the drink trade will be-so far as Scotland is con- other ;yet what does it offer in its stead 2 What is needed cerned-an “also ran.” That those gentryare only the is a dean start, as far as this may be feasible, from a jackals of the wage-system is proved by the following practical standpoint, not from a philanthropic one. The letter which has been addressed to employers of labour in only way to attain this is free and open and impartial Glasgow. discussion, or, to put it more concretely, a Sex Congress, “Glasgow and the West of Scotland. such as was held in Italy, for instance, some years ago. “The Editor of the ‘Scottish Reformer’ is desirous of From the comparison of every point of view some good obtaining for his next issue reliable information as to the might arise, andwith it stimulatethe interest of the results following upon the IO o’clock opening of licensed premises. general public inthis matter. I feel certainthat in “He wouldbe glad to know if, in your opinion, the advancing this proition, I am voicing the opinions of results have, on the whole,been beneficial, and if the many others, who, gemyself, without having a technical average number of working hours per week has been knowledge of the subject, are, nevertheless, keen and better maintained under the new regime. awake to its vital im rtance, and would support such a “This information is for publication but not with the proposal. I should be much obliged, therefore, if you name of the firm supplying it attached thereto.” would publish this letter in your paper, and give the Always work, and more work, and then,, of course, matter your attention and support. temperance means thrifty workers, and no discontent, ***ARUNDEL DEL RE. A las, myAlas, poor country. D, MASON. *** PROPUTTY, PROPUTTY ! Sir,-Mr.Cecil Chesterton seems to think he has laid PANELPATIENTS. his finger on a weak spot in your system of National Sir,-Your contributor, Mr. Christopher Gay, will be Guilds when he asks how democratic control is to be interested in the following, for surely there is no bitterer maintained over the directors of the Guild policy. Your heart thanhis where the harlot Insurance Act is con- instance of the miners’ general accuracy of judgment in cerned. appointingtheir checkweighmen is deemed irrelevant. While I was having my hair cut to-day, the barber in- Surelyrather hastily SO. Mr. Chesterton’s analogy of formed me that a doctor customer of his was unwell on the present futile election of Members of Parliament does Saturday and sent a note round to the barber’s shop ask- not seem peculiarly apt.At least, as I understand your ing the barber .to go round and trim his hair. Upon his scheme, the fact of a Guild comprehending a number of arrival at the “doctor’s” house, the “doctor” said : “I ramifiications all over the country, or even in one town was very unwell on Saturda in fact, I don’t know how only, does not necessarily entail the appointment of one I mana ed to do my round: but it didn’t matter, they central directorate to organise the internal management were only Panel patients.” A. F. T. of each factory. I see no reason why each factory should *+* not appoint as manager, foremen, etc., members person- MOREEXPOSTULATION. ally known to all its workers as the checkweighman is Sir,-It is true that Lucretius nobly theorised on the to his fellows. The manager of a branch factory, say, virtues of Venus, but it has been left to a Welsh solicitor in York, is not, I suppose, to be appointed by a clique in to make profit for hismasters out of generation. To London. Mr. Chesterton has fastened on the particular brin this matter up to date, I would ask Mr. Thomas instance of your suggested Transport Guild-probably Saddto picture Venus rising from the foam to the sound selected by you for a “working model”because, being of that well-known hymn familiar to all Labour members, the most comprehensive, it is the most instructive, and “Pull for the Shore.” The holy hands of political affords, perhaps, the most crucial test of the soundness of soldiers of Christ can safely be trusted to make of Venus your theoryand saddles it with a Central Board of a low fertile strumpet; when she is barren, commercial Management, a sort of Board of Trade asat present utility makes of her an advertisement for Gospo as your constituted, the members of which are assumed to be as contnbutor pointed out the other week. far beyond the control of the democracy of the Guild as The Insurance Act, with all its filthy conceptions of is the present “set of politicians.” He forgets that your human nature, has hastened my acceptance of the position theory precludes “profiteering,” and that, therefore, the as a National Guildsman, .I stand or fall by this faith temptation to which the present “sets of politicians” are with its impregnable foundation of reason, and I shall exposed, and too often succumb, is eliminated. The not “cease my tedious theme” until you speak the word. “hierarchy” you postulate would, I fancy, be elected If Mr. Thomas Sadd wants “La-ave” what is the matter quite as satisfactorily by the democracy of the Guild as with Tagore, or “Home-Chat” ? Or, better still, let him are the general managers of railways by the shareholders read “The Lotos-Eaters,” and then take a goodlook at of the railways. In that respect I think Mr. Chesterton’s his insurance card. CHRISTOPHERGAY. fear is illusory-as illusoryas his simple faith in the *** magic of “Property,” whichfrom its very nature must perpetuate the evils of rent and interest.For the term A SEX CONGRESS. “Property,” as used by Mr. Chesterton and his genial Sir,-The recent Abolitionist Congress that has been Gamaliel, Mr. Belloc, implies the dog-in-the-manger right held at Portsmouth in connection with the prevention of of withholding the use of Land (and all included in that contagious diseases seems to raise a much wider issue term), unless an unearned profit can be extorted from the than the one directly involved. Before it is possible to landless and needy. As interpreted by Guild Socialists, attempt the abolition of prostitution it seems to me to “Property” is the earned product from this legitimate be necessary to change the whole of our present attitude use of the Land, and is just as sacred to them s to selfish towards “sex life,” and to abolish the harmful Pruderies individualists. The National Guilds, I fancy, do not connectedwith it. While we have a religious phantom preclude a man from “owning” his house, garden, furni- overshadowing, if ever so little, this most vital of all ture, books, pictures, oranything fairly earned by his social and individual functions, and upholding a moral labour or accumulated by his thrift. code which does not belong and does not satisfy the needs Again, it is not averred thatthe establishment of of our age, an attempt at solution will grove fruitless. National Guilds will realise any dream of a Utopia among The abolition of prostitution, given that it may become whose inhabitantsthere will be no “wasters.” How an accomplished fact, will not do away with the cause of theseare to be dealt with under the Guild system, I the evil, If human nature may be called evil. Weneed confess I do not know-but, allowed to “waste,” I hope ! new tables of the law. Those handed down by tradition As one man who has consistently and consciously been have, in most cases, been cast away or disregarded. This a so-called “waster,” livinglike those happy, foolish is the law of progress, and it is time that legislation and virgins au jour Ee jour, eating my cake when I had it, social morality should take it, into account. The un- and letting the morrow look out for itself, if I am to be limitedegoism which seems to govern such matters is regimented a la Sidney Webb, then, No, thank you; 214

I’m not taking any! In respect of personal freedom to recentlyderided Nietzsche as a madman ! Alas, poor live my own life, I am as confirmed an Individualist as a Nietzsche! Theyare reading you, andthey are begin- Rockefeller could desire. Like a surly Don John, “1 ningto understand you! However, we maybreathe had rather be a cauker in a hedge,’’ or sleep under one, freely. It is not Nietzsche the intellectualthey are than be dragooned into thrift and prudence, or deprived mimicking, but Nietzsche the fool; andthere was a of mycakes and ale by your virtuous Malvolios. But biggish lump of fool humanity in Nietzsche. By the in- Guild Socialism is not State Socialism nor yet Utopia. ternal evidence of his writings, and by the law of impli- FELIXELDERLY. cation, we maysafely presume that Nietzsche was not *** onlyimpotent, as Romney says, but thathe was re- “A MODERNCONVERSATION.” tiringto the point of timidity. Hence his overweening Sir,-You will be pleased to hear that my recent con- worship of Napoleon. He was at one withCarlyle in tribution, entitled “A Modern Conversation,” has drawn hero-worship. blood fromManchester (post mark). An anonymous It is high time that Nietzsche’s gospel of the Overman “critic”sends methe latter portion of my sketch was re-valued. Probably in no other race on earth is the scribbled overwith strange comments. My sketch con- ‘‘ ostrich ” bump so large as it is on the Anglo-Teuton cluded : ‘(He stooped down, picked up his handbag, shook cranium.Where there 1s spiritualstagnation, the con- my hand anddisappeared.” The anonymous person’s ditions which makefor the existence of fine typeslie comment runs on as follows : “Yes, he’d hadas much in abeyance. Hence, as I say,the Teuton beinghalf- (pure’ platitudinous Piffle aswill last him until he’s a ostrich, and in several other respects half-goat, then you boy again! Whom, in theName of all that’s damnable, envisage his infinite capacity for shutting his eyes to the do you expect to come to alter th.e ‘conditions’ of those very conditions which make life what it is for the under- ‘sixbeer-shifting Navvies’? Can any help avail them, dog. Man is a plant amenable to stimuli in a subtle and anythingwhile they persist in beer-shifting?.-.- How? gloriousfashion, but we, the chosen ones, have found Whose?” out that by keeping man at a subsistence level (“ plenty The anonymous person is in a fearful state about the of cerealsand a littlemeat ’,) we canmake him very “beer-shifting,” isn’t he? But let me reassure him ; no docile, veryobedient to our decrees, and,oh ! so very navvy “persists in beer-shifting.” Theyhave a large useful to us, the twentieth-century Overmen. Hence the margin of sober hours, and in these they are learning of Nelson trick ! “ What is it to US that man wasmade the power of unionwith their fellows. Publicopinion in God’s image ? Are we not the chosen people? Then (the old fool in my sketch) does insanely“persist” in fore shalt thou have none other gods but us.” (Extract regarding the lower classes generally as “beer-shifters.” from the book of tLe “Bun and the Apenn .”) But it is a fallacy, as sooner or later it will to its cost Those cursed social problems are all or their own de- discover. People, likemy anonymous“critic,” with no vising ; and it is because we know this, and because we knowledge of psychology, will be the last to wake up, know the impotence of these chosen ones (allowing even andthen it willbe too late. If the lower classes are theintention) adequately todeal withthese problems, always “half-boozed,” then it would be advisable for that we urge the mass of trade unionists to take matters every other class to get into the same condition, for it in hand before these panic-stricken ones box the political would seem to create intelligence. It is the lower classes compass. Forthat is whatthey are after.Legislation to-daywho are aliveto the possibilities of union; it is in the past twenty years, and more so in the last five, thelower classes who are moving anddeveloping-in has been fomented by pure funk. It is only by tighten- spite of the bad beer, in spite of evil conditions of exist- ingto bursting point every nutand bolt thatthe in- ence, and in spite of such feeble intelligences as those of dustrial machine can be got to run; and how smoothly the Manchester person. I advisehim or her to go out it works the noble and official army of greasersdoth andget “blind” on four-ale. ARTHURF. THORN. attest. **+ But this overman business is the very deuce. Remem- A CHOCOLATE NAPOLEON. ber that Nietzsche, like Carlyle, wasa Puritan. As Mr. Sir,-The German Ambassador at Oxford, Wednesday, Chatterton-Hill says, Nietzsche “ was brought up in an June 3. “TheUnity of Anglo-German Ideals.” So let atmosphere which, without being bigoted or austere, was us have a look at ’em. deeplyreligious. Thisearly educationwas destined to SaidPrince Lichnowsky, “Cecil Rhodes . . . believed influence profoundly the whole life of the philosopher.” in the survival of the fittest. . . . I am of opinion, gentle- Of course it was. Nonconformity willout. Bearing in men, thatthe roots of politicalethics (sic) are to be mind, then,that Nietzsche wasa Puritan,in spite of found in the recognition of this law, in the extension himself, you will understand how strongly his bossmanity andthe dominance of the most powerful andsuperior ideal appeals to the non-composes : To that vicious, frost- races, whose success mustsimultaneously benefit and bitten instinct in them to lord it over their kind, to pull improve the whole of mankind. Cecil Rhodes . . .” etc., black sheep into the fold, as it were. “You must not be etc. Surely, a finer example of cerebralfustiness never too venturesome; we might have to suffer for it.” (Book was. The politicalethics of tf?e big stick are to secure of the ‘‘ B. and A,,” as aforesaid.) Oh, these noble ones, our pre-eminence, because [how truly German !] our suc- these adventurous ones ! Swistles and swipes ! cess must benefit and improve the whole of mankind. I Long, long will the lean sides of the Ancient of Days don’t see it, as the Frenchman said, but let it pass. Wake ripple and heave at the thought of those chocolate Napo- up now, ye inferior races, the Germans are coming, God leons assembled to meet Prince Lichnowsky. help you. The disciples of Cecil Rhodes aregoing to HAROLDLISTER. save you. Though I amafraid my warning is too late *** by a century. If we do not prosper, how on earth is the ART AND ARISTOCRACY. world going tocarry on inour absence? Perish the thought.The world cannot, must not, go on without Sir,-The letters of Mr. Mackey and Mr. Norton seem to our “powerful and superior” aid. It might die laughing! me to bring us nearer to the issues as to how the arts And so the Prince is now an honorary D.C.L., bless him. are revived. On reading their letters I am not quite sure Intellect may be an Anglo-Teuton aspiration, but it whether we have reached a deadlock or whether at the certainly is notone of their characteristics.Capitalism bottom we mean the same thing and that the differences having abolished’ any standard of value save that of rent, are not due to a different way of using words. But I will interest,and profit, the “law” of thesurvival of the do my best to state my position in regard to what they fittest is no law, in that it isinoperative in human affairs. have said. Thecapitalists having called a haltto allspiritual Let me say, in the first place, that in a certain sense it growth, there can be no law where there is only st?-gna- may be said that the Arts andCrafts movement has failed tion. Given anyset of predetermining conditions, just as in a certain sense it may be held that the demo- certainstrictly definable resultsare bound to follow. cratic movement has failed. Both of these movements are (And it is no good Dean (off his) Hinge trying to make experimental, and both of them have discovered that the out that Darwinism is at fault. Not Darwin but modern problems for which they sought to find a solution are not conditions areto blame. Butwhat a sly,priestly quiteas simple as they first appeared to be. And both attempt to discredit intellectualism !) of them in consequence havesuffered reaction. But the And just picture to yourselves this scratch crew of con- reaction does not mean thatwhat they fought for was fused Israelites. Just imagine how they pricked up their false, but that before further advance is possible certain ears When the noblePrince mentioned Nietzsche, as he ideas will have to be changed, or, in other words, that the did several times.And these, these arethe chosen case for each needs to be restated. I regard the Arts and people. After twenty centuries of Progress we have Crafts and the democratic movements as complementary achieved the Overman. St. Cadbury, save us all before to each other,and the solution I am persuaded must we explode! And these, too, arethe creatures who but finally come by their co-operation. But in the mean- 215 time certain ideas stand in the way of their co-operation. notimmediately. Revolution impliesdirection. Before it ’rhe first of these is that hitherto the democratic move- is possible to changeanything it is necessary to have ment has not taken the Arts and Crafts movement seri- some idea of what to put in its place. The ordinary work- ously. The ordinary man has no idea that Art has any- man to-day is too slave driven to think about questions of thing to do with economics. What I am trying to do is aesthetics. And the aesthetic sense is revived by personal to dispel this illusion. If we can secure acceptance of the contactwith someone in whom it is alive. It existsin idea that art is a factor in social reform, the kind of dis- potentiality in a large number of people, but it remains cussion in which I find myself engaged would disappear. dormant until it is quickened into life by personal con- The issues would never be raised. Thosewho were tact. I doubtwhether even genius could dispensewith ignorant about questions affecting the arts would seek the the need of personal contact. advice of those who had studied them. And ideas of those Personal contact is what makes the difference. We are who had studied them would soon be widely distributed, all very feeble when we are isolated; but become strong because people would desire to learn. Mr. Mackey mis- when we come into contact with living traditions. When, interpretsme when hesays I regard the problem asa therefore, Mr. Norton says “every trade and craft is to be matter of form and not of spirit. What I do say is that it revived by its members,” I want to know how, apart from is a matter of form and spirit. I believe in duality. ‘I be- its members coming into contact with those who have in- lieve it is necessary to revive the spirit and it is neces- herited living traditions. To come into contact with living sary to revive the form, and that it is by bringing these traditions is to be born again. And the trade craftsman two together that a new art is created.For remember will need to be born again before he will be capable of the history of art supports this idea. Mr. T. G. Jackson, good work, just as much as the rest of us. In “Modern Gothic Architecture,”says, “When Charle- ARTHURJ. PENTY. magne undertook to restore the arts which were extinct **+ in hiscountry he had no dream of creating a new art. His SICKERTINE. intention was to revive that Roman art whose splendid Sir,-I know that I am lat,e on the scene, but my NEW remains then overspread the whole of Gaul, and he sent AGE only arrives here some days after publication, qad, for architects to the Eastern Empire which still called It- Facit indignatio versus. The faculty of Sticking to

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