by John Buchan
Carey nodded and looked across the table to Lord Appin. “Mr Wakefield has brought us to the subject which we had arranged to discuss to-night. I think you will all agree that it is our first business to look at the condition of political thought in England, and incidentally at the position of political parties. England, even Mr Wakefield will admit, is still the imperial centre of gravity. Our creed is, of course, not identified with any party formula, but we Imperialists must work through existing agencies. It is most important, therefore, to know what materials we have to deal with.”
“May I make a suggestion before we begin?” Mr Wakefield interrupted. “I agree with you, Carey, about the importance of the subject. But it is one which lends itself most readily to a barren speculative treatment. As ours is a practical inquiry, I suggest that we keep very close to facts and disregard what I believe is called the metaphysical basis of politics. I mean that in discussing Liberalism we should not ask ourselves what Liberalism may imply in its ultimate analysis, but merely what it means to the several millions who have voted Liberal at the polls. Otherwise we shall talk in a language which few of us can pretend to understand. We are not all philosophers like Lord Appin.”
Lord Appin mildly dissented. “If I may say so, we are all philosophers, even Lady Flora, though we don’t all of us know it. To be a philosopher it is not necessary that you should have formulated your creed in a system; it is sufficient if it governs your thought and conduct. I could label you all with your appropriate badges. I myself, for example, with certain private reservations, am a follower of Hegel. You, Mr Wakefield, I should class without hesitation as a disciple of the much - esteemed and lately deceased Mr Herbert Spencer. Lord Launceston, if I recall his Oxford reputation rightly, agrees with me. Our host is as fine an instance as I know of the Transcendental Idealist, though I don’t suppose he has ever read a page of Fichte. Hugh, I think, is one of those peculiar people who go back to Kant and misunderstand that great man’s meaning. Mrs Deloraine is a Platonist, and my sister is in her methods a crude Baconian. Even Sir Edward has a creed, and worships, with Nietzsche, the Superman. Did you ever hear his name, Teddy?”
“Yes,” said that gentleman pensively; “and I once read a book of his — something about ‘Zarathustra’ — which my wife gave me for a birthday present. I liked it so much that I called a horse of mine after the author — won the Oaks in’99, you may remember. There was rather a muddle about it, for it was ridden by a jockey called Neish, and the sporting papers confused the two, and made him the horse and the other fellow the jockey.”
“To return to what I was saying,” continued Mr “Wakefield with some slight asperity of tone, “I do earnestly beg of you all to keep on the hard highroad of facts. We have enough political metaphysicians in the world, and their works are to be found in the leading articles of the halfpenny Radical press. Our raison d’être is that we look more squarely at the realities of life. We have ample knowledge in our party to reconstruct the policies of the globe. For Heaven’s sake let us keep off windy generalities.”
Carey smiled benevolently during the interruption. “I am not a practical man. If I were, I should still be managing a little mine on the Rand. But I agree with Mr Wakefield up to a point — we must take full account of the data we have to work upon. That is why I propose that we should begin with the state of politics in England to-day. On this I have one remark to make, with which I think all will agree. The old creeds which still appear in the text-books are as dead as Julius Caesar.”
The Duchess looked uneasy. Born of high Tory stock, she had married the head of a great Whig house and had zealously adopted its politics. “I do not admit that Liberalism is dead,” she said. “On the contrary, it was never more alive than to-day. It has won a victory unprecedented since the date of the great Reform Bill.”
“Nevertheless, Susan, I maintain that it is as dead as a door-nail. And to appease you I will add that Conservatism — for Lady Amysfort’s sake I will not say Toryism — is in the same position. I propose to ask Lord Appin, who still reads the newspapers, to quote to us definitions of Liberalism, prepared both by friend and foe, and then I will ask you if the thing has not long been decently buried, though its wraith still walks the earth. Lady Amysfort will be kind enough to provide us with some account of that peculiar faith which she calls Toryism and proposes to identify with Imperialism. When we know what are the avowed creeds of the parties, we can fairly consider how much or how little of the vital spark is left in them. Then we can talk of Imperialism and those new doctrines which are its real rivals. Our country is hungering and thirsting for a living faith. We are all like sick folk by the Pool of Bethesda, waiting for the angel to descend and trouble the waters.”
“I think, Francis, we might wait for the angel in the outer hall,” said the voice of the Duchess. “It is very cold to-night, and that place is my ideal of comfort. Let us all go and have our coffee there and talk.”
CHAPTER III.
THE great log-fire in the outer hall threw strange shadows upon the walls, and made the lion heads grin like outlandish ogres. Lamps were lit on the small tables, and the company settled in deep chairs, within the glow of the fire but outside its disquieting warmth.
Lord Appin, who had seated himself near the centre of the circle, produced a little volume in which newspaper extracts were pasted.
“I am, as you know,” he said, “a connoisseur of public opinion. In my belief no statesman can afford to neglect the ingenuous manifestations of it which from time to time appear in its popular organs. There you will find the will of certain classes of the community stated, no doubt with imperfect grammar and more imperfect taste, but still with all the frankness and confusion of the original. So I subscribe to several press-cutting agencies, and my secretary, who knows my desires, keeps for me the more characteristic extracts. I ought, however, first of all to define what I mean by public opinion. Properly understood, it is the bed-rock, the cardinal fact of all democratic politics such as ours. It is the sum total of the instincts, traditions, and desires of our race, created not only by reasoned beliefs, but by those impalpable forces of persuasion which no contemporary can hope to diagnose. I am no despiser of the average man. What he thinks at the bottom of his heart, when he thinks at all, is what is sooner or later going to happen. Now creeds are not necessarily public opinion. They are the attempts to interpret it made by its official interpreters — preachers, journalists, and politicians. When I quote from the Press, therefore, I do not profess to be quoting public opinion in its real meaning, but an interpretation of it which has a vogue among a certain section of the interpreting class.
“Let me begin with a definition of the creed which has just won so conspicuous a victory. The bright flamboyant style betrays its source: —
“A sigh of thankfulness and hope is heard throughout the land. England with no uncertain voice has turned her face against Toryism, with all its moral défaillance, its insincerity, its opportunism, its lack of seriousness, its narrow and trifling sophistries, its unabashed class interest. The white soul of our people turns towards its true sun. Once more the large and generous spirit of Liberalism is abroad. We are on the threshold of a new era, and behind us lies nothing but confusion. Foreign affairs have been conducted from hand to mouth without any perception of large issues; domestic affairs have been dominated by an obscurantism which, under the influence of momentary panic, blossomed forth into ill-considered experiments in reaction. The heart of the nation needed a solemn purification, and by the grace of God that purification has come. Men go about in the streets to-day with a new light in their eyes — poor men who see at last a hope for their starving households, earnest men who have fretted in secret at the long reign of apathy, young men who have now before them a career of civic usefulness. From warder to warder runs the challenge, ‘Brother, is it well with the State?’ and the answer comes, ‘It is well!’”
Lord Appin paused. “It is a charming picture of a national renaissanc
e. But let us look,” he continued, “at what Liberalism has to give: —
“The policy of Liberalism is clear. Men’s minds have been too long dazzled by the jingo generalities of empire. Imperialism battens on the basest attributes of humanity, the lust of conquest and power, the greed of gold, the morbid unsettlement and discontent of a degenerate age. It is for Liberalism to bring back the people to the paths of political wisdom, which are also those of peace and pleasantness. Purity of character must be insisted upon in our public men. The heresies of a decadence must be expunged, and we must return to the sober and rational orthodoxy of our fathers. The House of Commons, the People’s House, must be restored to its old prestige. The overgrown burden of armaments must be reduced, and England must appear before the world as the herald of a truce between nations. The cost of administration must be lessened that the private comfort of the citizen may be increased. Provision must be made for the old and feeble of the land; the slums — that eyesore of our civilisation — must be opened up to the wholesome air and light; the workman must be placed on a level with the master in the economic struggle, and for that purpose raised above the caprice of juries; in the exploitation of her neglected assets, the State must find work for those who are squeezed out of the capitalist mill. For each class of the community the way must be made plain for that development which is its due. Education must be freed from the blighting influence of clericalism; the liquor traffic must be curbed in the public interest; capitalism and the servitude it entails must be checked with a strong and earnest hand. In a word, Liberalism must lift again its old banner, on which its great master inscribed its never-to-be-forgotten creed—’Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform!’”
“It is a spirited piece of prose,” said Lord Appin as he concluded, “though I am afraid it is mostly made up of what logicians call ‘identical propositions.’ Notice, too, the refrain throughout, ‘Return,’ ‘our historic creed,’ political orthodoxy.’ Somehow it does not strike me as inspiring, but I think it is a not unfair statement of what a great many of the interpreting class wish the nation to believe. I propose to read as a pendant some remarks of my friend, the editor of the ‘International Review.’ With him the English language is a spiked mace, and perhaps some of the spikes are too long and sharp for my liking: —
“Triumphant Liberalism has promulgated its creed, and we trust that the world is edified. For ourselves, we can only see pathos in colossal travail with a ridiculus mus as the fruit of it. We have waited for a sign, and behold! we are referred to an ancient, vulgar, and half-effaced street-poster; we ask for some new thing, and we are given the oldest of pothouse cries. A contemporary, which claims to be the exponent of the new gospel, has given us a long and turgid exposition, in a style adorned by imperfectly remembered fragments of the Sermon on the Mount and the culture of the Mechanics’ Institute. And the result? It is our old friend Gladstonianism with a more pronounced Nonconformist accent. The prophet of the future, it appears, is that poisonous politician — we dare not misuse the word ‘statesman’ — who, with the morbid conscience and purblind eyes of the egotist, was ready to sacrifice his country’s honour to a fetich begotten of his own vanity. England, it seems, is to put her pride in her pocket and go whimpering among the nations as an apostle of peace, bleating about the grievous cost of her army and navy. The poor are to be elevated by tinkering expedients of re-housing and pauperised by doles from the Exchequer, while the law will be so amended as to give carte-blanche to mob violence. Education will once more be flung into the hands of clerics, only the frock-coat will take the place of the cassock, and the snuffle of Little Bethel will oust the more scholarly tones of the Church. The prestige of the Parliamentary “talking-shop,” which all thinking men have long ago come to disregard, is to be revived and increased. An egregious economy will play havoc with our revenue system, and the deficit will be made up by the plunder, not of the rich parvenus, but of the unfortunate owners of ancestral lands. Our Empire, won by the blood and sweat of our great progenitors, and maintained by that class which alone is worthy of the name of Englishmen — our Empire, which gives to generous youth its only horizon, is to be lightly cast aside to satisfy the whimsies of a few dropsical pedants. Not one constructive idea emerges from the chaos of absurdities. Not once do the propagandists dare to look at the facts of a living world. Let us re-shuffle the cards, they say; let us pull down a little here and add a little there; but for God’s sake do not tell us that conditions can change, for we know that our great leader has laid down once and for all the principles of our English policy. Let no man lay a finger upon that Ark of the Covenant!”
Lord Appin looked up from his book. “There is a great deal more, but that is the gist of my friend’s criticism; and though I deplore its intemperance, I am inclined to agree with it. Liberalism, so far as I can judge, is correctly described as a shuffling of the cards. One further quotation I cannot resist. My friend goes on to show that the Conservative party is equally barren of ideas, and he gives far from flattering portraits of some of those leaders — he calls them ‘Mandarins’ — who have just gone out of office, and in many cases out of Parliament. ‘Oh for one hour,’ he exclaims, ‘of Randolph Churchill!’ Then he turns to myself: —
“Lord Appin stands in a different position. He is, at least, untouched by the administrative incompetence of his former colleagues. He may choose to play the grand seigneur out of office, but once in the toils of a department he shows an industry as unwearied and a mind as acute as any statesman who has risen by merit alone. But he is cursed with a fatal temperamental weakness. He is intolerant of mediocrity, impatient of the pedestrian and the dull, and his shining gifts of intellect and character are available only in emergencies. His metaphysical habit of mind interposes a veil between him and the will of the people. He will not condescend to join in the dusty squabbles amid which the political life must be lived. He will do brilliantly in the field if he is permitted either to issue orders from a luxurious tent in the rear or to charge some desperate position at the head of the Maison du Roi.... But he will neither fight in the ranks nor in their immediate vicinity. The result is that he has fallen out of the battle-line of public life. He might have ruled England as Disraeli ruled her, but he has chosen to make elegant speeches and write agreeable books. He has, definitely and of set purpose, given up to a coterie what was due to the Empire. He might have been a second Pitt; he has succeeded in becoming a second Lord Houghton.”
The quotation was received with amusement by the company, with the exception of Mr Wakefield, who had listened to it with serious approval, glad of support for the views he had aired at the dinner-table.
“I have given you the current interpretation of Liberalism,” Lord Appin continued, “and I have here a long extract containing the creed of the new Labour party. I do not propose to read it to you, for it is very long, and the gist of it can be put in a few words. It is written by Ainsworth, and is an excellent piece of work.”
The Duchess made a mouth of disgust. “I do not see how one can attach much value to the views of a man like Mr Ainsworth. He washes so seldom and so imperfectly. Oh yes, Flora! I know that your mother was foolish enough to take him up, and that she pretends to admire and understand him. But I have no patience with such a course. If the man hates us and is going to destroy us and all our belongings, then let us treat him as an enemy and not as a tame cat.”
“But, Aunt Susan,” said Lady Flora, “he is really quite a dear. When he came to stay at Wirlesdon he wrote his letter of thanks on our own notepaper, and left it on his dressing-table.”
“The gist of Ainsworth’s argument,” Lord Appin resumed, in a tone of mild expostulation, “is more or less what Imperialists say themselves. He claims that none of our old creeds are applicable, because the conditions have changed, and he asks for a fresh analysis. We shall, of course, differ from him profoundly as to the nature of the new conditions and the principles which govern their interpretation, but our general attitude
is the same. Provided the whole Empire is taken as the battle-ground, I am quite content to see Socialism and Individualism fight out their quarrel unhampered. So there remains for our present consideration only the wide word ‘Conservatism.’ The elder Toryism, we shall all agree, is dead. Indeed, I am far from certain if it ever existed to any large extent in modern times. I am afraid that it was in the main, like the doctrine of Innate Ideas, a fiction of its opponents. It still makes an excellent Aunt Sally to knock down on the hustings, but a modern Lucian would have to go far afield to find an honest exponent of it. In the depths of the country, in vicarages and manor-houses, one or two very old or very stupid men and a few innocent women may still hold to it. There is, however, a Conservatism — I beg Lady Amysfort’s pardon, a Toryism — which is a more living creed, or perhaps we had better call it an attitude of mind. Lady Amysfort is going to be very kind and read us her confession of faith.”
The lady thus appealed to flung away her cigarette and, lying back in her chair so that the glow of the lamp was behind her head, opened a small manuscript.
“I ought to say,” she began, “that I wrote this originally as an address to a meeting of Primrose Dames. You know the kind of thing — the local mayoress, the wives of rising tradespeople, and a sprinkling of the female clergy. But Henry Parworth, who read it, said that it would break up the Primrose League altogether, so I had to give them a chapter of ‘Sibyl’ instead.” She adjusted her head and began to read in slow, clear accents: —
