{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_57778/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_57778","id":"gutenberg_57778","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57778","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Essays","Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 20th century","Nobel Prizes in Literature","World War, 1914-1918 -- Great Britain"],"text":"Produced by Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed\nProofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net\n\n\n\n\n\n                                A SHEAF\n\n\n                                   BY\n                            JOHN GALSWORTHY\n\n\n                             [Illustration]\n\n\n                                 LONDON\n                           WILLIAM HEINEMANN\n\n\n\n\n                   _London: William Heinemann._ 1916.\n\n\n\n\n                                   To\n                             WILLIAM ARCHER\n\n\n\n\n                             AUTHOR\u2019S NOTE\n\n\nThis volume is but a garnering of non-creative writings; mostly pleas of\nsome sort or other\u2014wild oats of a novelist, which he has been asked to\nbind up. He cannot say that he had any wanton pleasure in sowing any of\nthem; and lest there be others of the same opinion as the anonymous\ngentleman who thus joyously addressed him last July: \u201cBut there\u2014I\nsuppose you are getting a bit out of it. Men of your calibre will do\nanything for filthy lucre\u2014you old and cunning reptile!\u201d\u2014he mentions\nthat he has not, personally, profited a penny by anything in this\nvolume, and that the future proceeds therefrom will be given to St.\nDunstan\u2019s, and the National Institute for the Blind, London.\n\nIn these days of manifold human misery, many will be impatient reading\nsome of the pleas written before the war; but the war will not last for\never, and in the peace that follows life will be rougher, the need for\nthose pleas even more insistent than it was.\n\nThe writings have been pruned a little, and a few have not yet met the\npublic eye.\n\nTo the many Editors of Journals and Reviews wherein the others have\nappeared\u2014cordial thanks.\n\n                                                                 J. G.\n\n_August, 1916._\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n                                                          PAGE\n                          MUCH CRY\u2014LITTLE WOOL\n\n          ON THE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS                        3\n          CONCERNING LAWS                                   77\n          ON PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT                         95\n          ON THE POSITION OF WOMEN                         130\n          ON SOCIAL UNREST                                 148\n          ON PEACE                                         160\n\n\n                                THE WAR\n\n          VALLEY OF THE SHADOW                             169\n          CREDO                                            169\n          FRANCE                                           171\n          REVEILLE                                         173\n          FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR                       175\n          THE HOPE OF LASTING PEACE                        188\n          DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN                      194\n          OUR LITERATURE AND THE WAR                       204\n          ART AND THE WAR                                  210\n          TRE CIME DI LAVAREDO                             219\n          SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR                      223\n          TOTALLY DISABLED                                 243\n          CARTOON                                          247\n          HARVEST                                          249\n\n                               AND\u2014AFTER?\n\n          PRELUDE                                          255\n          FREEDOM AND PRIVILEGE                            260\n          THE NATION AND TRAINING                          266\n          HEALTH, HUMANITY, AND PROCEDURE                  276\n          A LAST WORD                                      283\n          THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED                       289\n\n\n\n\n                          MUCH CRY\u2014LITTLE WOOL\n\n\n\n\n\n                      ON THE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS\n\n\n                                   I\n\n                           FOR LOVE OF BEASTS\n              (A Paper in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, 1912.)\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 1.\n\nWe had left my rooms, and were walking briskly down the street towards\nthe river, when my friend stopped before the window of a small shop and\nsaid:\n\n\u201cGold-fish!\u201d\n\nI[1] looked at him very doubtfully; one had known him so long that one\nnever looked at him in any other way.\n\n\u201cCan you imagine,\u201d he went on, \u201chow any sane person can find pleasure in\nthe sight of those swift things swimming for ever and ever in a bowl\nabout twice the length of their own tails?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d I said, \u201cI cannot\u2014though, of course, they\u2019re very pretty.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is, no doubt, the reason why they are kept in misery.\u201d\n\nAgain I looked at him; there is nothing in the world I distrust so much\nas irony.\n\n\u201cPeople don\u2019t think about these things,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cYou are right,\u201d he answered, \u201cthey do not. Let me give you some\nevidence of that. . . . I was travelling last spring in a far country,\nand made an expedition to a certain woodland spot. Outside the little\nforest inn I noticed a ring of people and dogs gathered round a gray\nanimal rather larger than a cat. It had a sharp-nosed head too small for\nits body, and bright black eyes, and was moving restlessly round and\nround a pole to which it was tethered by a chain. If a dog came near, it\nhunched its bushy back and made a rush at him. Except for that it seemed\na shy-souled, timid little thing. In fact, by its eyes, and the way it\nshrank into itself, you could tell it was scared of everything around.\nNow, there was a small, thin-faced man in a white jacket holding up a\ntub on end and explaining to the people that this was the little\ncreature\u2019s habitat, and that it wanted to get back underneath; and, sure\nenough, when he held the tub within its reach, the little animal stood\nup at once on its hind legs and pawed, evidently trying to get the tub\nto fall down and cover it. The people all laughed at this; the man\nlaughed too, and the little creature went on pawing. At last the man\nsaid: \u2018Mind your back-legs, Patsy!\u2019 and let the tub fall. The show was\nover. But presently another lot came up; the white-coated man lifted the\ntub, and it began all over again.\n\n\u201c\u2018What is that animal?\u2019 I asked him.\n\n\u201c\u2018A \u2019coon.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018How old?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Three years\u2014too old to tame.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Where did you catch it?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018In the forest\u2014lots of \u2019coons in the forest.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Do they live in the open, or in holes?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Up in the trees, sure; they only gits in the hollows when it rains.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Oh! they live in the open? Then isn\u2019t it queer she should be so fond\nof her tub?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Oh,\u2019 he said, \u2018she do that to git away from people!\u2019 and he laughed\u2014a\ngenial little man. \u2018She not like people and dogs. She too old to tame.\nShe know _me_, though.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018I see,\u2019 I said. \u2018You take the tub off her, and show her to the people,\nand put it back again. Yes, she _would_ know you!\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Yes,\u2019 he repeated, rather proudly, \u2018she know me\u2014Patsy, Patsy!\nPresently, you bet, we catch lot more, and make a cage, and put them\nin.\u2019\n\n\u201cHe was gazing very kindly at the little creature, who on her gray hind\nlegs was anxiously begging for the tub to come down and hide her, and I\nsaid: \u2018But isn\u2019t it rather a miserable life for this poor little devil?\u2019\n\n\u201cHe gave me a very queer look. \u2018There\u2019s lots of people,\u2019 he said\u2014and\nhis voice sounded as if I\u2019d hurt him\u2014\u2018never gits a chance to see a\n\u2019coon\u2019\u2014and he dropped the tub over the racoon. . . .\n\n\u201cWell! Can you conceive anything more pitiful than that poor little wild\ncreature of the open, begging and begging for a tub to fall over it and\nshut out all the _light and air_? Doesn\u2019t it show what misery caged\nthings have to go through?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, surely,\u201d I said, \u201cthose other people would feel the same as you.\nThe little white-coated man was only a servant.\u201d\n\nHe seemed to run them over in his memory. \u201cNot one!\u201d he answered slowly.\n\u201cNot a single one! I am sure it never even occurred to them\u2014why should\nit? They were there to enjoy themselves.\u201d\n\nWe walked in silence till I said:\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t help feeling that your little white-coated man was acting\ngood-heartedly according to his lights.\u201d\n\n\u201cQuite! And after all what are the sufferings of a racoon compared with\nthe enlargement of the human mind?\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t be extravagant! You know he didn\u2019t mean to be cruel.\u201d\n\n\u201cDoes a man ever mean to be cruel? He merely makes or keeps his living;\nbut to make or keep his living he will do anything that does not\nabsolutely prick to his heart through the skin of his indolence or his\nobtuseness.\u201d\n\n\u201cI think,\u201d I said, \u201cthat you might have expressed that less cynically,\neven if it\u2019s true.\u201d\n\n\u201cNothing that\u2019s true is cynical, and nothing that is cynical is true.\nIndifference to the suffering of beasts always comes from\nover-absorption in our own comfort.\u201d\n\n\u201cAbsorption, not over-absorption, perhaps.\u201d\n\n\u201cHa! Let us see that! Very soon after seeing the racoon I was staying at\nthe most celebrated health resort of that country, and, walking in its\ngrounds, I came on an aviary. In the upper cages were canaries, and in\nthe lower cage a splendid hawk. It was as large as our buzzard hawk,\nbrown-backed and winged, light underneath, and with the finest\ndark-brown eyes of any bird I ever saw. The cage was quite ten feet each\nway\u2014a noble allowance for the very soul of freedom! The bird had every\nluxury. There was water, and a large piece of raw meat that hadn\u2019t been\ntouched. Yet it was never still for a moment, flying from perch to\nperch, and dropping to the ground again and again so lightly, to run,\nliterally run, up to the bars to see if perhaps\u2014they were not there.\nIts face was as intelligent as any dog\u2019s\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\nMy friend muttered something I couldn\u2019t catch, and then went on:\n\n\u201cThat afternoon I took the drive for which one visits that hotel, and it\noccurred to me to ask my chauffeur what kind of hawk it was. \u2018Well,\u2019 he\nsaid, \u2018I ain\u2019t just too sure what it is they\u2019ve got caged up now; they\nchanges \u2019em so often.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Do you mean,\u2019 I said, \u2018that they die in captivity?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Yes,\u2019 he answered, \u2018them big birds soon gits moulty and go off.\u2019 Well,\nwhen I paid my bill I went up to the semblance of proprietor\u2014it was one\nof those establishments where the only creature responsible is\n\u2018Co.\u2019\u2014and I said:\n\n\u201c\u2018I see you keep a hawk out there?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Yes. Fine bird. Quite an attraction!\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018People like to look at it?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Just so. They\u2019re uncommon\u2014that sort.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Well,\u2019 I said, \u2018I call it cruel to keep a hawk shut up like that.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Cruel? Why? What\u2019s a hawk, anyway\u2014cruel devils enough!\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018My dear sir,\u2019 I said, \u2018they earn their living just like men, without\ncaring for other creatures\u2019 sufferings. You are not shut up, apparently,\nfor doing that. Good-bye.\u2019\u201d\n\nAs he said this, my friend looked at me, and added:\n\n\u201cYou think that was a lapse of taste. What would _you_ have said to a\nman who cloaked the cruelty of his commercial instincts by blaming a\nhawk for being what Nature had made him?\u201d\n\nThere was such feeling in his voice that I hesitated long before\nanswering.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d I said, at last, \u201cin England, anyway, we only keep such\ncreatures in captivity for scientific purposes. I doubt if you could\nfind a single instance nowadays of its being done just as a commercial\nattraction.\u201d\n\nHe stared at me.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d he said, \u201cwe do it publicly and scientifically, to enlarge the\nmind. But let me put to you this question. Which do you consider has the\nlarger mind\u2014the man who has satisfied his idle curiosity by staring at\nall the caged animals of the earth, or the man who has been brought up\nto feel that to keep such indomitable creatures as hawks and eagles,\nwolves and panthers, shut up, to gratify mere curiosity, is a dreadful\nthing?\u201d\n\nTo that singular question I knew not what to answer. At last I said:\n\n\u201cI think you underrate the pleasure they give. We English are so awfully\nfond of animals!\u201d\n\n-----\n\n[1] For \u201cI\u201d read \u201calmost anyone.\u201d\u2014J. G.\n\n                                  \u00a7 2.\n\nWe had entered Battersea Park by now, and since my remark about our love\nof beasts we had not spoken. A wood-pigeon which had been strutting\nbefore us just then flew up into a tree and began puffing out its\nbreast. Seeking to break the silence, I said:\n\n\u201cPigeons are so complacent.\u201d\n\nMy friend smiled in his dubious way, and answered:\n\n\u201cDo you know the \u2018blue rock\u2019?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! there you have a pigeon who has less complacency than any living\nthing. You see, it depends on circumstances. Suppose, for instance, that\nwe happened to keep Our Selves\u2014perhaps the most complacent class of\nhuman beings\u2014in a large space enclosed by iron railings, feeding them\nup carefully, until their natural instincts caused them to run up and\ndown at a considerable speed from side to side of the enclosure. And\nsuppose when we noticed that they had attained the full speed and\nstrength of their legs we took them out, holding them gingerly in order\nthat they might not become exhausted by struggling, and placed them in\nlittle tin compartments so dark and stuffy that they would not care of\ntheir own accord to stay there, and then stood back about thirty paces\nwith a shot gun and pressed a spring which let the tin compartment\ncollapse. And then, as each one of Our Selves ran out, we let fly with\nthe right barrel and peppered him in the tail, whereon, if he fell, we\nsent a dog out to fetch him in by the slack of his breeches, and after\nholding him idly for a minute by the neck we gave it a wring round; or,\nif he did not fall, we prayed Heaven at once and let fly with the left\nbarrel. Do you think in these circumstances Our Selves would be\ncomplacent?\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t be absurd!\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cVery well,\u201d he replied, \u201cI will come to \u2018blue rocks\u2019\u2014do you still\nmaintain that they are so complacent as to deserve their fate?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know\u2014I know nothing about their fate.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat the eyes do not swallow, the heart does not throw up! There are\nother places, but\u2014have you been to Monte Carlo?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, and I should never think of going there.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, well,\u201d he answered, \u201cit\u2019s a great place; but there\u2019s just one\nlittle thing about it, and that\u2019s in the matter of those \u2018blue rocks.\u2019\nYou\u2019ll agree, I suppose, that one can\u2019t complain of people amusing\nthemselves in any way they like so long as they hurt no one but\nthemselves\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\nI caught him up: \u201cI don\u2019t agree at all.\u201d\n\nHe smiled: \u201cYours is perhaps the English point of view. Still\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s more important that they shouldn\u2019t hurt themselves than that they\nshouldn\u2019t hurt pigeons, if that\u2019s what you\u2019re driving at,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cThere wouldn\u2019t appear to you, I suppose, to be any connection in the\nmatter?\u201d\n\n\u201cI tell you,\u201d I repeated, \u201cI know nothing about pigeon-shooting!\u201d\n\nHe stared very straight before him.\n\n\u201cImagine,\u201d he said, \u201ca blue sea, and a half-circle of grass, with a low\nwall. Imagine on that grass five traps, from which lead paths\u2014like the\nrays of a star\u2014to the central point on the base of that half-circle.\nAnd imagine on that central point a gentleman with a double-barrelled\ngun, another man, and a retriever dog. And imagine one of those traps\nopening, and a little dazed gray bird (not a bit like that fellow you\nsaw just now) emerge and fly perhaps six yards. And imagine the sound of\nthe gun and the little bird dipping in its flight, but struggling on.\nAnd imagine the sound of the gun again and the little bird falling to\nthe ground and wriggling on along it. And imagine the retriever dog run\nforward and pick it up and walk slowly back with it, still quivering, in\nhis mouth. Or imagine, once in a way, the little bird drop dead as a\nstone at the first sound. Or imagine again that it winces at the shots,\nyet carries on over the boundary, to fall into the sea. Or\u2014but this\nvery seldom\u2014imagine it wing up and out, unhurt, to the first freedom it\nhas ever known. My friend, the joke is this: To the man who lets no\nlittle bird away to freedom comes much honour, and a nice round sum of\nmoney! Do you still think there is no connection?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d I said, \u201cit doesn\u2019t sound too sportsman-like. And yet, I\nsuppose, looking at it quite broadly, it does minister in a sort of way\nto the law of the survival of the fittest.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn which species\u2014man or pigeon?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe sportsman is necessary to the expansion of Empire. Besides, you\nmust remember that one does not expect high standards at Monte Carlo.\u201d\n\nHe looked at me. \u201cDo you never read any sporting paper?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you ever hunt the carted stag?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I never did.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, you\u2019ve been coursing, anyway.\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly; but there\u2019s no comparing that with pigeon-shooting.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn coursing I admit,\u201d he said, \u201cthere\u2019s pleasure to the dogs, and some\nchance for the hare, who, besides, is not in captivity. Also that where\nthere is no coursing there are few hares, in these days. And yet\u2014\u2014\u201d;\nhe seemed to fall into a reverie.\n\nThen, looking at me in a queer, mournful sort of way, he said suddenly:\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t wish to attack that sport, when there are so many much worse,\nbut by way of showing you how liable all these things are to contribute\nto the improvement of our species I will tell you a little experience of\nmy own. When I was at college I was in a rather sporting set; we hunted,\nand played at racing, and loved to be \u2018_au courant_\u2019 with all that sort\nof thing. One year it so happened that the uncle of one of us won the\nWaterloo Cup with a greyhound whose name was\u2014never mind. We became at\nonce ardent lovers of the sport of coursing, consumed by the desire to\nhold a Waterloo Cup Meeting in miniature, with rabbits for hares and our\nown terriers for greyhounds. Well, we held it; sixteen of us nominating\nour dogs. Now kindly note that of those sixteen eight at least were\nmembers of the aristocracy, and all had been at public schools of\nstanding and repute. For the purposes of our meeting, of course, we\nrequired fifteen rabbits caught and kept in bags. These we ordered of a\nlocal blackguard, with a due margin over to provide against such of the\nrabbits as might die of fright before they were let out, or be too\nterrified to run after being loosed. We made the fellow whose uncle had\nwon the Waterloo Cup judge, apportioned among ourselves the other\nofficers, and assembled\u2014the judge on horseback, in case a rabbit might\nhappen to run, say, fifty yards. Assembled with us were many local cads,\ntwo fourth-rate bookies, our excited, yapping terriers, and twenty-four\nbagged rabbits. The course was cleared. Two of us advanced, holding our\nterriers by the loins; the judge signed that he was ready; the first\nrabbit was turned down. It crept out of the bag, and squatted, close to\nthe ground, with its ears laid back. The local blackguard stirred it\nwith his foot. It crept two yards, and squatted closer. All the terriers\nbegan shrieking their little souls out, all the cads began to yell, but\nthe rabbit did not move\u2014its heart, you see, was broken. At last the\nlocal blackguard took it up and wrung its neck. After that some rabbits\nran, and some did not, till all were killed! The terrier of one of us\nwas judged victor by him whose uncle had won the Waterloo Cup; and we\nwent back to our colleges to drink everybody\u2019s health. Now, my friend,\nmark! We were sixteen decent youths, converted by infection into sixteen\nrabbit-catching cads. Two of us are dead; but the rest of us\u2014what do we\nthink of it now? I tell you this little incident, to confirm you in your\nfeeling that pigeon-shooting, coursing, and the like, tend to improve\nour species, even here in England.\u201d\n\n                                  \u00a7 3.\n\nBefore I could comment on my friend\u2019s narrative we were spattered with\nmud by passing riders, and stopped to repair the damage to our coats.\n\n\u201cJolly for my new coat!\u201d I said. \u201cDo you notice, by the way, that they\nare cutting men\u2019s tails longer this spring? More becoming to a fellow, I\nthink.\u201d\n\nHe raised those quizzical eyebrows of his and murmured:\n\n\u201cAnd horses\u2019 tails shorter. Did you see those that passed just now?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere were none!\u201d\n\n\u201cNonsense!\u201d I said. \u201cMy dear fellow, you really are obsessed about\nbeasts! They were just ordinary.\u201d\n\n\u201cQuite\u2014a few scrubby hairs, and a wriggle.\u201d\n\n\u201cNow, please,\u201d I said, \u201cdon\u2019t begin to talk of the cruelty of docking\nhorses\u2019 tails, and tell me a story of an old horse in a pond.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d he answered, \u201cfor I should have to invent that. What I was going\nto say was this: Which do you think the greater fools in the matter of\nfashion\u2014men or women?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! Women.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s always some sense at the bottom of men\u2019s fashions.\u201d\n\n\u201cEven of docking tails?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou can\u2019t compare it, anyway,\u201d I said, \u201cwith such a fashion as the\nwearing of \u2018aigrettes.\u2019 That\u2019s a cruel fashion if you like.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! But you see,\u201d he said, \u201cthe women who wear them are ignorant of its\ncruelty. If they were not, they would never wear them. No gentlewoman\nwears them, now that the facts have come out.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is that you say?\u201d I remarked.\n\nHe looked at me gravely.\n\n\u201cDo you mean to tell me,\u201d he asked, \u201cthat any woman of gentle instincts,\nwho _knows_ that the \u2018aigrette,\u2019 as they call it, is a nuptial plume\nsported by the white egret only during the nesting season\u2014and that, in\norder to obtain it, the mother-birds are shot, and that, after their\ndeath, practically all their young die from hunger and exposure\u2014do you\nmean to tell me that any gentlewoman, knowing that, wears them? Why!\nmost women are mothers themselves! What would they think of gods who\nshot women with babies in arms for the sake of obtaining their white\nskins or their crop of hair to wear on their heads, eh?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, my dear fellow,\u201d I said, \u201cyou see these plumes about all over the\nplace!\u201d\n\n\u201cOnly on people who don\u2019t mind wearing imitation stuff.\u201d\n\nI gaped at him.\n\n\u201cYou need not look at me like that,\u201d he said. \u201cA woman goes into a shop.\nShe knows that real \u2018aigrettes\u2019 mean killing mother-birds and starving\nall their nestlings. Therefore, if she\u2019s a real gentlewoman she doesn\u2019t\nask for a real \u2018aigrette.\u2019 But still less does she ask to be supplied\nwith an imitation article so good that people will take her for the\nwearer of the real thing. I put it to you, would she want to be known as\nan encourager of such a practice? You can never have seen a _lady_\nwearing an \u2018aigrette.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat!\u201d I said. \u201cWhat?\u201d\n\n\u201cSo much for the woman who knows about \u2018aigrettes,\u2019\u201d he went on. \u201cNow\nfor the woman who doesn\u2019t. Either, when she is told these facts about,\n\u2018aigrettes\u2019 she sets them down as \u2018hysterical stuff,\u2019 or she is simply\ntoo \u2018out of it\u2019 to know anything. Well, she goes in and asks for an\n\u2018aigrette.\u2019 Do you think they sell her the real thing\u2014I mean, of\ncourse, in England\u2014knowing that it involves the shooting of\nmother-birds at breeding time? I put it to you: Would they?\u201d\n\nHis inability to grasp the real issues astonished me, and I said:\n\n\u201cYou and I happen to have read the evidence about \u2018aigrettes\u2019 and the\nopinion of the House of Lords\u2019 Committee that the feathers of egrets\nimported into Great Britain are obtained by killing the birds during the\nbreeding season; but you don\u2019t suppose, do you, that people whose\ncommercial interests are bound up with the selling of \u2018aigrettes\u2019 are\ngoing to read it, or believe it if they do read it?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat,\u201d he answered, \u201cis cynical, if you like. I feel sure that, in\nEngland, people do not sell suspected articles about which there has\nbeen so much talk and inquiry as there has been about \u2018aigrettes\u2019\nwithout examining in good faith into the facts of their origin. No,\nbelieve me, none of the \u2018aigrettes\u2019 sold in England can have grown on\nbirds.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis is fantastic,\u201d I said. \u201cWhy! if what you\u2019re saying is true,\nthen\u2014then real \u2018aigrettes\u2019 are all artificial; but that\u2014that would be\ncheating!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, no!\u201d he said. \u201cYou see, \u2018aigrettes\u2019 are in fashion. The word \u2018real\u2019\nhas therefore become parliamentary. People don\u2019t want to be cruel, but\nthey must have \u2018real aigrettes.\u2019 So, all these \u2018aigrettes\u2019 are \u2018real,\u2019\nunless the customer has a qualm, and then they are \u2018real imitation\naigrettes.\u2019 We are a highly-civilized people!\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is very clever,\u201d I said, \u201cbut how about the statistics of real\negret plumes imported into this country?\u201d\n\nHe answered like a flash: \u201cOh, those, of course, are only brought here\nto be exported again at once to countries where they do not mind\nconfessing to cruelty; yes, all exported, except\u2014well, _those that\naren\u2019t_!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh!\u201d I said: \u201cI see! You have been speaking ironically all this time.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you grasped that?\u201d he answered. \u201cCapital!\u201d\n\nAfter that we walked in silence.\n\n\u201cThe fact is,\u201d I said, presently, \u201cordinary people, shopmen and\ncustomers alike, never bother their heads about such things at all.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d he replied sadly, \u201cthey take the line of least resistance. It is\njust that which gives Fashion its chance to make such fools of them.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have yet to prove that it does make fools of them.\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought I had; but no matter. Take horses\u2019 tails\u2014what\u2019s left of\nthem\u2014do you defend that fashion?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWould you if you were a horse?\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you mean that I am a donkey\u2014\u2014?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, no! Not at all!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s going too far,\u201d I said, \u201cto call docking cruel.\u201d\n\n\u201cPersonally,\u201d he answered, \u201cI don\u2019t think it is going too far. It\u2019s\npainful in itself, and Heaven alone knows what irritation horses have to\nsuffer from flies through being tailless. I admit that it saves a little\nbrushing, and that some people are under the delusion that it averts\ncarriage accidents. But put cruelty and utility aside, and look at it\nfrom the point of view of fashion. Can anybody say it doesn\u2019t spoil a\nhorse\u2019s looks?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou know perfectly well,\u201d I said, \u201cthat many people think it smartens\nhim up tremendously. They regard a certain kind of horse as nothing with\na tail; just as some men are nothing with beards.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe parallel with man does not hold, my friend. We are not shaved\u2014with\nor against our wills\u2014by demi-gods!\u201d\n\n\u201cExactly! And isn\u2019t that in itself an admission that we are superior to\nbeasts, and have a right to some say in their appearance?\u201d\n\n\u201cI will not,\u201d he answered, \u201cfor one moment allow that men are superior\nto horses in point of looks. Take yourself, or any other personable man,\nand stand him up against a thoroughbred and ask your friends to come and\nlook. How much of their admiration do you think you will get?\u201d\n\nIt was not the sort of question I could answer.\n\n\u201cI am not speaking at random,\u201d he went on; \u201cI have seen the average lord\nwalking beside the average winner of the Derby.\u201d He cackled\ndisagreeably.\n\n\u201cBut it\u2019s just on this point of looks that people defend docking,\u201d I\nsaid. \u201cThey breed the horses, and have a right to their own taste. Many\npeople dislike long swishy appendages.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd bull-terriers, or Yorkshires, or Great Danes, with natural ears;\nand fox-terriers and spaniels with uncut tails; and women with merely\nthe middles so small as Nature gave them?\u201d\n\n\u201cIf you\u2019re simply going to joke\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cI never was more serious. The whole thing is of a piece, and summed up\nin the word \u2018smart,\u2019 which you used just now. That word, sir, is the\nguardian angel of all fashions, and if you don\u2019t mind my saying so,\nfashions are the guardian angels of vulgarity. Now, a horse is not a\nvulgar animal, and I can never get away from the thought that to dock\nhis tail must hurt his feelings of refinement.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, if that\u2019s all, I dare say he\u2019ll get over it.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut will the man who does it?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou must come with me to the Horse Show,\u201d I said, \u201cand look at the men\nwho have to do with horses; then you\u2019ll know if such a thing as docking\nthe tails of these creatures can do them harm or not. And, by the way,\nyou talk of refinement and vulgarity. What is your test? Where is the\nstandard? It\u2019s all a matter of taste.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou want me to define these things?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery well! Do you believe in what we call the instincts of a\ngentleman?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course.\u201d\n\n\u201cSuch as\u2014the instinct to be self-controlled; not to be rude or\nintolerant; not to \u2018slop-over\u2019; not to fuss, nor to cry out; to hold\nyour head up, so that people refrain from taking liberties; to be ready\nto do things for others, to be chary of asking others to do things for\nyou, and grateful when they do them?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d I said, \u201call these I believe in.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat central truth do you imagine that these instincts come from?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, they\u2019re all such a matter of course\u2014I don\u2019t think I ever\nconsidered.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf by any chance,\u201d he replied, \u201cyou ever do, you will find they come\nfrom an innate worship of balance, of the just mean; an inborn reverence\nfor due proportion, a natural sense of harmony and rhythm, and a\nconsequent mistrust of extravagance. What is a bounder? Just a man\nwithout sufficient sense of proportion to know that he is not so\nimportant in the scheme of things as he thinks he is!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou are right there!\u201d\n\n\u201cVery well. Refinement is a quality of the individual who has\u2014and\nconforms to\u2014a true (not a conventional) sense of proportion; and\nvulgarity is either the natural conduct of people without that sense of\nproportion, or of people who imitate and reproduce the tricks of\nrefinement wholesale, without any real feeling for proportion; or again,\nit is mere conscious departure from the sense of proportion for the sake\nof cutting a dash.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d I said; \u201cand to which of these kinds of vulgarity is the fashion\nof docking horses\u2019 tails a guardian angel?\u201d\n\n\u201cImagine,\u201d he answered gravely, \u201cthat you dock your horse\u2019s tail. You\nare either horribly deficient in feeling for a perfectly proportioned\nhorse, or you imitate what you believe\u2014goodness knows why\u2014to be the\nrefined custom of docking horses\u2019 tails, without considering the\nquestion of proportion at all.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d I said; \u201cbut what makes so many people do it, if there isn\u2019t\nsomething in it, either useful or ornamental?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause people as a rule do not love proportion; they love the\ngrotesque. You have only to look at their faces, which are very good\nindications of their souls.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have begged the question,\u201d I said. \u201cWho are you to say that the\nperfect horse is not the horse\u2014\u2014?\u201d\n\n\u201cWith the imperfect tail?\u201d\n\n\u201cImperfect? Again, you\u2019re begging.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs Nature made it, then. Oh!\u201d he went on with vehemence, \u201cthink of the\nluxury of having your own tail. Think of the cool swish of it. Think of\nthe real beauty of it! Think of the sheer hideousness of all that great\nfront balanced behind by a few scrub hairs and a wriggle! It became\n\u2018smart\u2019 to dock horses\u2019 tails; and smart to wear \u2018aigrettes.\u2019\n\u2018Smart\u2019\u2014\u2018neat\u2019\u2014\u2018efficient\u2019\u2014for all except the horse and the poor\negrets.\u201d\n\n\u201cYour argument,\u201d I said, \u201cis practically nothing but \u00e6sthetics.\u201d\n\nHe fixed his eyes upon my hat.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d he said slowly, \u201cI admit that neither on horse nor on man would\nlong tails go at all well with that bowler hat of yours. Odd how all of\na piece taste is! From a man\u2019s hat, or a horse\u2019s tail, we can\nreconstruct the age we live in, like that scientist, you remember, who\nreconstructed a mastodon from its funny-bone.\u201d\n\nThe thought went sharply through my head: Is his next tirade to be on\nmastodons? Till I remembered with relief that the animal was extinct, at\nall events in England.\n\n                                  \u00a7 4.\n\nWith but little further talk we had nearly reached my rooms, when he\nsaid abruptly:\n\n\u201cA lark! Can\u2019t you hear it? Over there, in that wretched little\ngold-fish shop again.\u201d\n\nBut I could only hear the sounds of traffic.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s your imagination,\u201d I said. \u201cIt really is too lively on the subject\nof birds and beasts.\u201d\n\n\u201cI tell you,\u201d he persisted, \u201cthere\u2019s a caged lark there. Very likely,\nhalf-a-dozen.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy dear fellow,\u201d I said, \u201csuppose there are! We could go and buy them\nand set them free, but it would only encourage the demand. Or we could\nassault the shopmen. Do you recommend that?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t joke on this subject,\u201d he answered shortly.\n\n\u201cBut surely,\u201d I said, \u201cif we can\u2019t do anything to help the poor things\nwe had better keep our ears from hearing.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd our eyes shut? Suppose we all did that, what sort of world should\nwe be living in?\u201d\n\n\u201cVery much the same as now, I expect.\u201d\n\n\u201cBlasphemy! Rank, hopeless blasphemy!\u201d\n\n\u201cPlease don\u2019t exaggerate!\u201d\n\n\u201cI am not. There is only one possible defence of that attitude, and it\u2019s\nthis: The world is\u2014and was deliberately meant to be\u2014divided into two\nhalves: the half that suffers and the half that benefits by that\nsuffering.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell?\u201d\n\n\u201cIs it so?\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou acquiesce in that definition of the world\u2019s nature? Very well, if\nyou belong to the first half you are a poor-spirited creature,\nconsciously acquiescing in your own misery. If to the second, you are a\nbrute, consciously acquiescing in your own happiness, at the expense of\nothers. Well, which are you?\u201d\n\n\u201cI have not said that I belong to either.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere are only two halves to a whole. No, my friend, disabuse yourself\nonce for all of that cheap and comfortable philosophy of shutting your\neyes to what you think you can\u2019t remedy, unless you are willing to be\nlabelled \u2018brute.\u2019 \u2018He who is not with me is against me,\u2019 you know.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d I said, \u201cafter that, perhaps you\u2019ll be good enough to tell me\nwhat I can do by making myself miserable over things I can\u2019t help?\u201d\n\n\u201cI will,\u201d he answered. \u201cIn the first place, kindly consider that you are\nnot living in a private world of your own. Everything you say and do and\nthink has its effect on everybody around you. For example, if you feel,\nand say loudly enough, that it is an infernal shame to keep larks and\nother wild song-birds in cages, you will infallibly infect a number of\nother people with that sentiment, and in course of time those people who\nfeel as you do will become so numerous that larks, thrushes, blackbirds,\nand linnets will no longer be caught and kept in cages. Whereas, if you\nmerely think: \u2018Oh! this is dreadful, quite too dreadful, but, you see, I\ncan do nothing; therefore consideration for myself and others demands\nthat I shall stop my ears and hold my tongue,\u2019 then, indeed, nothing\nwill ever be done, and larks, blackbirds, etc., will continue to be\ncaught and prisoned. How do you imagine it ever came about that bears\nand bulls and badgers are no longer baited; cocks no longer openly\nencouraged to tear each other in pieces; donkeys no longer beaten to a\npulp? Only by people going about and shouting out that these things made\nthem uncomfortable. How did it come about that more than half the\npopulation of this country are not still classed as \u2018serfs\u2019 under the\nlaw? Simply because a few of our ancestors were made unhappy by seeing\ntheir fellow-creatures owned and treated like dogs, and roundly said\nso\u2014in fact, were not ashamed to be sentimental humanitarians like me.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is all obvious. But my point is that there is moderation in all\nthings, and a time for everything.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy your leave,\u201d he said, \u201cthere is little moderation desirable when we\nare face to face with real suffering, and, as a general rule, no time\nlike the present.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut there is, as you were saying just now, such a thing as a sense of\nproportion. I cannot see that it\u2019s my business to excite myself about\nthe caging of larks when there are so many much greater evils.\u201d\n\n\u201cForgive my saying so,\u201d he answered, \u201cbut if, when a caged lark comes\nunder your nose, excitement does not take hold of you, with or against\nyour will, there is mighty little chance of your getting excited about\nanything. For, consider what it means to be a caged lark\u2014what pining\nand misery for that little creature, which only lives for its life up in\nthe blue. Consider what blasphemy against Nature, and what an insult to\nall that is high and poetic in man, it is to cage such an exquisite\nthing of freedom!\u201d\n\n\u201cYou forget that it is done out of love for the song\u2014to bring it into\ntowns where people can\u2019t otherwise hear it.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is done for a living\u2014and that people without imagination may\nsqueeze out of unhappy creatures a little gratification!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is not a crime to have no imagination.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, sir; but neither is the lack of it a thing to pride oneself on, or\npass by in silence, when it inflicts suffering.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am not defending the custom of caging larks.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo; but you are responsible for its continuance.\u201d\n\n\u201cI?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou! and all those other people who believe in minding their own\nbusiness.\u201d\n\n\u201cReally,\u201d I said; \u201cyou must not attack people on that ground. We cannot\nall be busybodies!\u201d\n\n\u201cThe saints forbid!\u201d he answered. \u201cBut when a thing exists which you\nreally abhor\u2014as you do this\u2014I do wish you would consider a little\nwhether, in letting it strictly alone, you are minding your own business\non principle, or because it is so jolly comfortable to do so.\u201d\n\n\u201cSpeaking for myself\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d he broke in; \u201cquite! But let me ask you one thing: Have you, as a\nmember of the human race, any feeling that you share in the advancement\nof its gentleness, of its sense of beauty and justice\u2014that, in\nproportion as the human race becomes more lovable and lovely, you too\nbecome more lovable and lovely?\u201d\n\n\u201cNaturally.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen is it not your business to support all that you feel makes for\nthat advancing perfection?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t say that it isn\u2019t.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn that case it is _not_ your business to stop your ears, and shut your\neyes, and hold your tongue, when you come across wild song-birds caged.\u201d\n\nBut we had reached my rooms.\n\n\u201cBefore I go in,\u201d I said, \u201cthere is just one little thing I\u2019ve got to\nsay to you: Don\u2019t you think that, for a man with your \u2018sense of\nproportion,\u2019 you exaggerate the importance of beasts and their\nhappiness?\u201d\n\nHe looked at me for a long time without speaking, and when he did speak\nit was in a queer, abstracted voice:\n\n\u201cI have often thought over that,\u201d he said, \u201cand honestly I don\u2019t believe\nI do. For I have observed that before men can be gentle and broad-minded\nwith each other, they are always gentle and broad-minded about beasts.\nThese dumb things, so beautiful\u2014even the plain ones\u2014in their different\nways, and so touching in their dumbness, do draw us to magnanimity, and\nhelp the wings of our hearts to grow. No; I don\u2019t think I exaggerate, my\nfriend. Most surely I don\u2019t want to; for there is no disservice one can\ndo to all these helpless things so great as to ride past the hounds, to\nfly so far in front of public feeling as to cause nausea and reaction.\nBut I feel that most of us, deep down, really love these furred and\nfeathered creatures that cannot save themselves from us\u2014that are like\nour own children, because they are helpless; that are in a way sacred,\nbecause in them we watch, and through them we understand, those greatest\nblessings of the earth\u2014Beauty and Freedom. They give us so much, they\nask nothing from us. What can we do in return but spare them all the\nsuffering we can? No, my friend; I do not think\u2014whether for their sakes\nor our own\u2014that I exaggerate.\u201d\n\nWhen he had said those words he turned away, and left me standing there.\n\n\n                                   II\n\n                         REVERIE OF A SPORTSMAN\n                 (From the _Fortnightly Review_, 1915.)\n\n\nI set out one morning in late August, with some potted grouse sandwiches\nin one pocket and a magazine in the other, for a tramp toward Causdon. I\nhad not been in that particular part of the moor since I used to go\nsnipe-shooting there as a boy\u2014my first introduction, by the way, to\nsport. It was a very lovely day, almost too hot; and I never saw the\ncarpet of the moor more exquisite\u2014heather, fern, the silvery white\ncotton grass, dark peat turves, and green bog-moss, all more than\ncustomarily clear in hue under a very blue sky. I walked till two\no\u2019clock, then sat down in a little scoop of valley by a thread of\nstream, which took its rise from an awkward-looking bog at the top. It\nwas wonderfully quiet. A heron rose below me and flapped away; and while\nI was eating my potted grouse I heard the harsh cheep of a snipe, and\ncaught sight of the twisting bird vanishing against the line of sky\nabove the bog. \u201cThat must have been one of the bogs we used to shoot,\u201d I\nthought; and having finished my snack of lunch, I rolled myself a\ncigarette, opened the magazine, and idly turned its pages. I had no\nserious intention of reading\u2014the calm and silence were too seductive,\nbut my attention became riveted by an exciting story of some man-eating\nlions, and I read on till I had followed the adventure to the death of\nthe two ferocious brutes, and found my cigarette actually burning my\nfingers. Crushing it out against the dampish roots of the heather, I lay\nback with my eyes fixed on the sky, thinking of nothing.\n\nSuddenly I became conscious that between me and that sky a leash of\nsnipe high up were flighting and twisting and gradually coming lower; I\nappeared, indeed, to have a sort of attraction for them. They would dash\ntoward each other, seem to exchange ideas, and rush away again, like\nflies that waltz together for hours in the centre of a room. As they\ncame lower and lower over me I could almost swear I heard them whisper\nto each other with their long bills, and presently I absolutely caught\nwhat they were saying: \u201cLook at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at\nhim!\u201d\n\nAmazed at such an extraordinary violation of all the laws of Nature, I\nbegan to rub my ears, when I distinctly heard the \u201cGo-back, go-back\u201d of\nan old cock grouse, and, turning my head cautiously, saw him perched on\na heathery knob within twenty yards of where I lay. Now, I knew very\nwell that all efforts to introduce grouse on Dartmoor have been quite\nunsuccessful, since for some reason connected with the quality of the\nheather, the nature of the soil, or the over-mild dampness of the air,\nthis king of game birds most unfortunately refuses to become domiciled\nthere; so that I could hardly credit my senses. But suddenly I heard him\nalso: \u201cLook at him! Go back! The ferocious brute! Go back!\u201d He seemed to\nbe speaking to something just below; and there, sure enough, was the\nfirst hare I had ever seen out on the full of the moor. I have always\nthought a hare a jolly beast, and not infrequently felt sorry when I\nrolled one over; it has a way of crying like a child if not killed\noutright. I confess then that in hearing it, too, whisper: \u201cLook at him!\nThe ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!\u201d I experienced the sensation that\ncomes over one when one has not been quite fairly treated. Just at that\nmoment, with a warm stirring of the air, there pitched within six yards\nof me a magnificent old black-cock\u2014the very spit of that splendid\nfellow I shot last season at Balnagie, whose tail my wife now wears in\nher hat. He was accompanied by four gray-hens, who, settling in a\nsemi-circle, began at once: \u201cLook at him! Look at him! The ferocious\nbrute! Oh, look at him!\u201d At that moment I say with candour that I\nregretted the many times I have spared gray-hens with the sportsmanlike\ndesire to encourage their breed.\n\nFor several bewildered minutes after that I could not turn my eyes\nwithout seeing some bird or other alight close by me: more and more\ngrouse, and black game, pheasants, partridges\u2014not only the excellent\nEnglish bird, but the very sporting Hungarian variety\u2014and that\nunsatisfactory red-legged Frenchman which runs any distance rather than\nget up and give you a decent shot at him. There were woodcock too, those\ntwisting delights of the sportsman\u2019s heart, whose tiny wing-feather\ntrophies have always given me a distinct sensation of achievement when\npinned in the side of my shooting-cap; wood-pigeons too, very shy and\ndifficult, owing to the thickness of their breast-feathers\u2014and, after\nall, only coming under the heading \u201csundry\u201d; wild duck, with their snaky\ndark heads, that I have shot chiefly in Canada, lurking among rushes in\ntwilight at flighting time\u2014a delightful sport, exciting, as the\ndarkness grows; excellent eating too, with red pepper and sliced oranges\nin oil! Certain other sundries kept coming also; landrails, a plump,\ndelicious little bird; green and golden plover; even one of those queer\nlittle creatures, moorhens, that always amuse one by their quick, quiet\nmovements, plaintive note, and quaint curiosity, though not really, of\ncourse, fit to shoot, with their niggling flight and fishy flavour!\nPtarmigan, too, a bird I admire very much, but have only once or twice\nsucceeded in bringing down, shy and scarce as it is in Scotland. And,\nside by side, the alpha and omega of the birds to be shot in these\nislands, a capercailzie and a quail. I well remember shooting the latter\nin a turnip-field in Lincolnshire\u2014a scrap of a bird, the only one I\never saw in England. Apart from the pleasurable sensation at its rarity,\nI recollect feeling that it was almost a mercy to put the little thing\nout of its loneliness. It ate very well. There, too, was that loon or\nnorthern diver that I shot with a rifle off Denman Island as it swam\nabout fifty yards from the shore. Handsome plumage; I still have the hat\nit made. One bird only seemed to refuse to alight, remaining up there in\nthe sky, and uttering continually that trilling cry which makes it\nperhaps the most spiritual of all birds that can be eaten\u2014I mean, of\ncourse, the curlew. I certainly never shot one. They fly, as a rule,\nvery high and seem to have a more than natural distrust of the human\nbeing. This curlew\u2014ah! and a blue rock (I have always despised\npigeon-shooting)\u2014were the only two winged creatures that one can shoot\nfor sport in this country that did not come and sit round me.\n\nThere must have been, I should say, as many hundred altogether as I have\nkilled in my time\u2014a tremendous number. They sat in a sort of ring,\nmoving their beaks from side to side, just as I have seen penguins doing\non the films that explorers bring back from the Antarctic; and all the\ntime repeating to each other those amazing words: \u201cLook at him! The\nferocious brute! Oh, look at him!\u201d\n\nThen, to my increased astonishment, I saw behind the circles of the\nbirds a number of other animals besides the hare. At least five kinds of\ndeer\u2014the red, the fallow, the roe, the common deer, whose name I\u2019ve\nforgotten, which one finds in Vancouver Island, and the South African\nspringbok, that swarm in from the Karoo at certain seasons, among which\nI had that happy week once in Namaqualand, shooting them from horseback\nafter a gallop to cut them off\u2014very good eating as camp fare goes, and\nmaking nice rugs if you sew their skins together. There, too, was the\nhyena I missed, probably not altogether; but he got off, to my\nchagrin\u2014queer-looking brute! Rabbits of course had come\u2014hundreds and\nhundreds of them. If\u2014like everybody else\u2014I\u2019ve done such a lot of it, I\ncan\u2019t honestly say I\u2019ve ever cared much for shooting rabbits, though the\neffect is neat enough when you get them just right and they turn head\nover heels\u2014and anyway, the prolific little brutes have to be kept down.\nThere, too, actually was my wild ostrich\u2014the one I galloped so hard\nafter, letting off my Winchester at half a mile, only to see him vanish\nover the horizon. Next him was the bear whose lair I came across at the\nNanaimo Lakes. How I did lurk about to get that fellow! And, by Jove!\nclose to him, two cougars. I never got a shot at them, never even saw\none of the brutes all the time I was camping in Vancouver Island, where\nthey lie flat along the branches over your head, waiting to get a chance\nat deer, sheep, dog, pig, or anything handy. But they had come now sure\nenough, glaring at me with their greenish cats\u2019 eyes\u2014powerful-looking\ncreatures! And next them sat a little meerkat\u2014not much larger than a\nweasel\u2014without its head! Ah yes!\u2014that trial shot, as we trekked out\nfrom Rous\u2019 farm, and I wanted to try the little new rifle I had\nborrowed. It was sitting over its hole fully seventy yards from the\nwagon, quite unconscious of danger. I just took aim and pulled; and\nthere it was, without its head, fallen across its hole. I remember well\nhow pleased our \u201cboys\u201d were. And I too! Not a bad little rifle, that!\n\nOutside the ring of beasts I could see foxes moving, not mixing with the\nstationary creatures, as if afraid of suggesting that I had shot them,\ninstead of being present at their deaths in the proper fashion. One,\nquite a cub, kept limping round on three legs\u2014the one, no doubt, whose\npad was given me, out cubbing, as a boy. I put that wretched pad in my\nhat-box, and forgot it, so that I was compelled to throw the whole\nstinking show away. There were quite a lot of grown foxes; it certainly\nshowed delicacy on their part, not sitting down with the others. There\nwas really a tremendous crowd of creatures altogether by this time! I\nshould think every beast and bird I ever shot, or even had a chance of\nkilling, must have been there, and all whispering: \u201cLook at him! The\nferocious brute! Oh, look at him!\u201d\n\nAnimal lover, as every true sportsman is, those words hurt me. If there\nis one thing on which we sportsmen pride ourselves, and legitimately, it\nis a humane feeling toward all furred and feathered creatures\u2014and, as\nevery one knows, we are foremost in all efforts to diminish their\nunnecessary sufferings.\n\nThe corroboree about me which they were obviously holding became, as I\ngrew used to their manner of talking, increasingly audible. But it was\nthe quail\u2019s words that I first distinguished.\n\n\u201cHe certainly ate me,\u201d he said; \u201csaid I was good, too!\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not believe\u201d\u2014this was the first hare speaking\u2014\u201cthat he shot me\nfor that reason; he did shoot me, and I was jugged, but he wouldn\u2019t\ntouch me. And the same day he shot eleven brace of partridges, didn\u2019t\nhe?\u201d Twenty-two partridges assented. \u201cAnd he only ate two of you all\ntold\u2014that proves he didn\u2019t want us for food.\u201d\n\nThe hare\u2019s words had given me relief, for I somehow disliked intensely\nthe gluttonous notion conveyed by the quail that I shot merely in order\nto devour the result. Any one with the faintest instincts of a sportsman\nwill bear me out in this.\n\nWhen the hare had spoken there was a murmur all round. I could not at\nfirst make out its significance, till I heard one of the cougars say:\n\u201cWe kill only when we want to eat\u201d; and the bear, who, I noticed, was a\nlady, added: \u201cNo bear kills anything she cannot devour\u201d; and, quite\nclear, I caught the quacking words of a wild duck. \u201cWe eat every worm we\ncatch, and we\u2019d eat more if we could get them.\u201d\n\nThen again from the whole throng came that shivering whisper: \u201cLook at\nhim! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!\u201d\n\nIn spite of their numbers, they seemed afraid of me, seemed actually to\nhold me in a kind of horror\u2014me, an animal lover, and without a gun! I\nfelt it bitterly. \u201cHow is it,\u201d I thought, \u201cthat not one of them seems to\nhave an inkling of what it means to be a sportsman, not one of them\nseems to comprehend the instinct which makes one love sport just for\nthe\u2014er\u2014danger of it?\u201d The hare spoke again.\n\n\u201cFoxes,\u201d it murmured, \u201ckill for the love of killing. Man is a kind of\nfox.\u201d A violent dissent at once rose from the foxes, till one of them,\nwho seemed the eldest, said: \u201cWe certainly kill as much as we can, but\nwe should always carry it all off and eat it if man gave us time\u2014the\nferocious brutes!\u201d You cannot expect much of foxes, but it struck me as\nespecially foxy that he should put the wanton character of his\ndestructiveness off on man, especially when he must have known how\ncarefully we preserve the fox, in the best interests of sport. A\npheasant ejaculated shrilly: \u201cHe killed sixty of us one day to his own\ngun, and went off that same evening without eating even a wing!\u201d And\nagain came that shivering whisper: \u201cLook at him! The ferocious brute!\nOh, look at him!\u201d It was too absurd! As if they could not realize that a\nsportsman shoots almost entirely for the mouths of others! But I checked\nmyself, remembering that altruism is a purely human attribute. \u201cThey get\na big price for us!\u201d said a woodcock, \u201cespecially if they shoot us\nearly. _I_ fetched several shillings.\u201d Really, the ignorance of these\nbirds! As if modern sportsmen knew anything of what happens after a\nday\u2019s shooting! All that is left to the butler and the keeper. Beaters,\nof course, and cartridges must be paid for, to say nothing of the sin of\nwaste. \u201cI would not think them so much worse than foxes,\u201d said a rabbit,\n\u201cif they didn\u2019t often hurt you, so that you take hours dying. I was\nseven hours dying in great agony, and one of my brothers was twelve.\nWeren\u2019t you, brother?\u201d A second rabbit nodded. \u201cBut perhaps that\u2019s\nbetter than trapping,\u201d he said. \u201cRemember mother!\u201d \u201cAh!\u201d a partridge\nmuttered, \u201cfoxes at all events do bite your head off clean. But men\noften break your wing, or your leg, and leave you!\u201d And again that\nshivering whisper rose: \u201cLook at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at\nhim!\u201d\n\nBy this time the whole thing was so getting on my nerves that if I could\nhave risen I should have rushed at them, but a weight as of lead seemed\nto bind me to the ground, and all I could do was to thank God that they\ndid not seem to know of my condition, for, though there were no\nman-eaters among them, I could not tell what they might do if they\nrealized that I was helpless\u2014the sentiments of chivalry and generosity\nbeing confined to man, as we all know.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said the capercailzie slowly, \u201cI am a shy bird, and was often\nshot at before this one got me; and though I\u2019m strong, my size is so\nagainst me that I always took a pellet or two away with me; and what can\nyou do then? Those ferocious brutes take the shot out of their faces and\nhands when they shoot each other by mistake\u2014I\u2019ve seen \u2019em; but we have\nno chance to do that.\u201d A snipe said shrilly: \u201cWhat I object to is that\nhe doesn\u2019t eat us till he\u2019s had too much already. I come in on toast at\nthe fifth course; it hurts one\u2019s feelings.\u201d\n\n\u201cFerocious brute, killing everything he sees.\u201d\n\nI felt my blood fairly boil, and longed to cry out: \u201cYou beasts! You\nknow that we don\u2019t kill everything we see! We leave that to cockneys,\nand foreigners.\u201d But just as I had no power of movement, so I seemed to\nhave no power of speech. And suddenly a little voice, high up over me,\npiped down: \u201cThey never shoot us larks.\u201d I have always loved the lark;\nhow grateful I felt to that little creature\u2014till it added: \u201cThey do\nworse; they take and shut us up in little traps of wire till we pine\naway! Ferocious brutes!\u201d In all my life I think I never was more\ndisappointed! The second cougar spoke: \u201cHe once passed within spring of\nme. What do you say, friends; shall we go for him?\u201d The shivering answer\ncame from all: \u201cGo for him! Ferocious brute! Oh, go for him!\u201d And I\nheard the sound of hundreds of soft wings and pads ruffling and\nshuffling. And, knowing that I had no power to move an inch, I shut my\neyes. Lying there motionless, as a beetle that shams dead, I felt them\ncreeping, creeping, till all round me and over me was the sound of\nnostrils sniffing; and every second I expected to feel the nip of teeth\nand beaks in the fleshy parts of me. But nothing came, and with an\neffort I reopened my eyes. There they were, hideously close, with an\nexpression on their faces that I could not read; a sort of wry look,\nevery nose and beak turned a little to one side. And suddenly I heard\nthe old fox saying: \u201cIt\u2019s impossible, with a smell like that; we could\nnever eat him!\u201d From every one of them came a sort of sniff or sneeze as\nof disgust, and as they began to back away I distinctly heard the hyena\nmutter: \u201cHe\u2019s not wholesome\u2014not wholesome\u2014the ferocious brute!\u201d\n\nThe relief of that moment was swamped by my natural indignation that\nthese impudent birds and beasts should presume to think that I, a\nBritish sportsman, would not be good to eat. Then that beastly hyena\nadded: \u201cIf we killed him, you know, and buried him for a few days, he\nmight be tolerable.\u201d\n\nAn old cock grouse called out at once: \u201cGo back! Let us hang him! _We_\nare always well hung. They like us a little decayed\u2014ferocious brutes!\nGo back!\u201d And once more I felt, from the stir and shuffle, that my fate\nhung in the balance; and I shut my eyes again, lest they might be\ntempted to begin on them. Then, to my infinite relief, I heard the\ncougar\u2014have we not always been told that they were the friends of\nman?\u2014mutter: \u201cPah! It\u2019s clear we could never eat him fresh, and what we\ndo not eat at once we do not touch!\u201d\n\nAll the birds cried out in chorus: \u201cNo! That would be crow\u2019s work.\u201d And\nagain I felt that I was saved. Then, to my horror, that infernal loon\nshrieked: \u201cKill him and have him stuffed\u2014specimen of Ferocious Brute!\nOr fix his skin on a tree, and look at it\u2014as he did with me!\u201d\n\nFor a full minute I could feel the currents of opinion swaying over me,\nat this infamous proposal; then the old black cock, the one whose tail\nis in my wife\u2019s hat, said sharply: \u201cSpecimen! He\u2019s not good enough!\u201d And\nonce more, for all my indignation at that gratuitous insult, I breathed\nfreely.\n\n\u201cCome!\u201d said the lady bear quietly: \u201cLet us dribble on him a little, and\ngo. The ferocious brute is not worth more!\u201d And, during what seemed to\nme an eternity, one by one they came up, deposited on me a little\nsaliva, looking into my eyes the while with a sort of horror and\ncontempt, then vanished on the moor. The last to come up was the little\nmeerkat without its head. It stood there; it could neither look at me\nnor drop saliva, but somehow it contrived to say: \u201cI forgive you,\nferocious brute; but I was very happy!\u201d Then it, too, withdrew. And from\nall around, out of invisible presences in the air and the heather, came\nonce more the shivering whisper: \u201cLook at him! The ferocious brute! Oh,\nlook at him!\u201d\n\nI sat up. There was a trilling sound in my ears. Above me in the blue a\ncurlew was passing, uttering its cry. Ah! Thank Heaven!\u2014I had been\nasleep! My day-dream had been caused by the potted grouse, and the\npressure of the _Review_, which had lain, face downwards, on my chest,\nopen at the page where I had been reading about the man-eating lions,\nand the death of those ferocious brutes. It shows what tricks of\ndisproportion little things will play with the mind when it is not under\nreasonable control.\n\nAnd, to get the unwholesome taste of it all out of my mouth, I at once\njumped up and started for home at a round pace.\n\n\n                                  III\n\n                   THE SLAUGHTER OF ANIMALS FOR FOOD\n                 (Papers in the _Daily Mail_, 1912.)[2]\n\n\nThe thing is horrible, but it is necessary. Why then drag it out into\nthe light? Why make our thoughts miserable with contemplation of horrors\nwhich must exist?\n\nIf it were true that the present methods of slaughtering animals for\nfood in this country were necessary, if all the suffering they involve\nwas inevitable, I should be the first to say: \u201cLet us shut our eyes!\u201d\nFor, needless suffering\u2014even to ourselves\u2014is stupid. It is just\nbecause this particular suffering is avoidable, and easily avoidable,\nthat one feels we must face the matter if we want to call ourselves a\ndecent people.\n\nI am a meat-eater\u2014we are nearly all meat-eaters. Well! We cannot sit\ndown at present to a single meal without complicity in methods that\nproduce a large amount of preventable suffering to creatures for whom\nthe least sensitive among us has at heart a certain friendly feeling.\nFor, to those who say that they do not care for animals, or that\nanimals, even domestic ones, have no rights except such as for our own\nadvantage we accord them, let me at once reply: I do not agree, but for\nthe sake of argument, granted; and then conceive, if you can, a world\nwithout cattle, sheep, and pigs, and tell me honestly whether you do not\nmiss something friendly. No! the fact is, we, who are the descendants of\ncountless generations to whom these animals have been literally the\nbreath of life, cannot\u2014even now that we have become such highly\ncivilized townsmen\u2014disclaim all sensibility in their regard.\n\nConsider the magnitude of this matter. The calculations of an expert\ngive the following approximate numbers of animals annually killed for\nfood in England and Wales: 1,850,000 beasts, 8,500,000 sheep, and\n3,200,000 pigs. These figures are hard to come at, and may be a million\nor so out, one way or the other, but even if they be, is there any\nfeature of the national life which can touch this for possibilities of\npreventable physical suffering? And is there any department so neglected\nby public opinion and the law?\n\nSave the eating of bread, have we any practice in our lives so\nconsistent as that of eating meat, or any from which we, perhaps\nwrongly, consider that we derive more benefit, or any about whose\nconditions, sanitary or humane, we are so careless?\n\nIf a donkey is beaten to death, a dog stoned, or a cat killed with a\nriding-whip, the chances are that a prosecution will ensue or a question\nbe asked in Parliament; for public opinion and the law lay it down that\nthe infliction of unnecessary suffering on animals is an offence\npunishable by fine or imprisonment. But if in slaughter-houses some\n8,000,000 sheep are killed yearly, _without first being stunned_, by a\nmethod which, even in the hands of an expert, produces some seconds of\nacute suffering (Report of the Admiralty Committee on Humane\nSlaughtering of Animals, 1904); if thousands of cattle require two or\nmore blows of that primitive instrument, the pole-axe (if even only one\nin a hundred cattle requires a second blow it means 18,000 in a year);\nif pigs are driven in gangs into a small space and there killed, one by\none, with the others squealing in terror round their dead bodies; if all\nthis preventable suffering is inflicted daily in our slaughterhouses,\nwhat does public opinion know of it, and what does the law care?\n\nThere was a time in this country when men beat their donkeys, set cocks\nfighting, baited bears and badgers, tied tin pots to dogs\u2019 tails, with\nthe lightest of light hearts and no consciousness at all that they were\noutside the pale of decency in doing so. We, their descendants, now look\non the unnecessary suffering involved in such doings with aversion; but\nwe still allow our sheep and pigs to be killed without stunning, our\npigs to be driven in gangs into the slaughtering chamber, and the\nuncertain pole-axe to be used for cattle\u2014all without a qualm.\n\nWhy should this enormous field, wherein does occur such an amount of\neasily preventable suffering, be left so unpatrolled by the law, which\nhas interested itself in warding off all needless suffering from cats\nand dogs and horses? Well! The law stands idle partly because the\nanimals we kill for food are not so near and dear to us as those others.\nWe should never stand the horses and dogs and cats we make such pets of\nbeing killed when their time comes in the manner in which we kill our\nsheep and pigs. And partly the law stands idle because in the case of\nhorses and dogs and cats there is no large leagued interest, such as\nthat of the meat trades, unconvinced of the need for improvement.\n\nI am told that the meat trades constitute the strongest body in the\nkingdom. And well they may, considering the vast proportions of their\nbusiness. The meat trades are controlled by men like ourselves\u2014as\nhumane, and undesirous of inflicting unnecessary suffering. Surely they\nwill reconsider their convictions and accept such simple, elementary\nsafeguards against unnecessary suffering as were outlined by the\nAdmiralty Committee on Humane Slaughtering, of 1904. There is nothing\nreally prejudicial to their interest in these suggestions. Nothing\nextravagant, or experimental. The case has been proved up to the hilt.\nWhat is the good of appointing a governmental committee of first-rate\nmen[3] to examine into facts if their Report is to be paid about as much\nattention to as one would pay to the suggestions of seven lunatics? Why\nset going a laborious inquiry, for negligible or puny results? It can no\nlonger be pretended that humane-killers are not effective, in the face\nof so much evidence from abroad; in the face of numerous testimonials\nfrom butchers in this country; in the face of the fact that Mr.\nChristopher Cash (for whose consistent advocacy of humane slaughtering\nthe thanks of us all are due) in the year 1910 had 4,000 animals, the\nproperty of thirty butchers, killed by \u201chumane\u201d methods, and though he\nwas in every case willing to pay full compensation for any injury he\nmight do to a carcase, had not one single claim made on him. (From a\npamphlet entitled \u201cThe Humane Slaughtering of Animals for Food,\u201d by\nChristopher Cash. Issued by the R.S.P.C.A.).\n\nButchers and slaughtermen perform a necessary task from which most of us\nwould shrink, and it is both unbecoming and nonsensical to suggest\nintentional cruelty on their part. _I do not for a moment._ But I do say\nthat it is the business of the law so to control the methods of\nslaughter as to obviate to the utmost all needless suffering, however\nunintentionally it may be inflicted.\n\nIn the following brief summary of our want of system I am not dealing at\nall with the Jewish method of killing, for not being a Jew, I cannot\npretend to be qualified to discuss a custom which appears to have been\nnecessary hitherto to the peace of the Jewish mind. I only urge a people\nin some respects more humane than ourselves to search their consciences,\nand see if they can still endure this method. Neither am I speaking as\nto Scotland, which is ahead of us, having provided by the Burgh Police\nAct, of 1892, that where there are public there shall be no private\nslaughter-houses; and where\u2014at all events in Edinburgh\u2014they have\nabattoirs that compare, I am told, with the best on the Continent.\n\nThe following is a rough outline of what at present seems good to a\nnation which prides itself on being at once the most practical and the\nmost humane in the whole world:\u2014\n\n    A mixed system of private and public slaughter-houses\u2014thousands\n    of private slaughter-houses (some of them highly insanitary)\n    alongside of a few municipally controlled abattoirs.\n\n    No regulation that where there are public abattoirs there shall\n    be no private ones; _hence_ great difficulty in making these\n    public slaughterhouses pay their way.\n\n    Inspection of private slaughter-houses, in spite of all the good\n    intentions of local authorities and medical officers, admitted\n    to be very inefficient in so far as condition of meat and method\n    of slaughter are concerned.\n\n    Supervision of public slaughter-houses much hampered by the\n    present widespread custom of allowing butchers to send in their\n    beasts with their own slaughtermen.\n\n    No general statutory regulations as to method of slaughter.\n    Model by-laws have been drawn up by the Local Government Board\n    and recommended to local authorities\u2014but they are not\n    compulsory and have been as yet but sparsely adopted.\n\n    Slaughtermen not licensed; nor\u2014except in slaughterhouses\n    directly controlled by a Government Department (such as the\n    Admiralty)\u2014required by law to be proficient before they\n    commence slaughtering.\n\nThese are the methods of slaughter we adopt at present:\u2014\n\nCATTLE are almost universally stunned before their throats are cut. So\nfar\u2014good! But they are still, for the most part, stunned with the\npole-axe. This weapon produces complete unconsciousness at the first\nblow, _if well wielded_. _If not well wielded_\u2014\u2014! I have been assured\nthat the cases of misfire amount to a very small percentage. But I can\nonly say, on the first two beasts slaughtered before my eyes the first\nblow of the pole-axe\u2014wielded in each case by an experienced\nslaughterman\u2014descended without effect. The animals moaned, and waited\nfor the second and successful blow. Thanks to the efforts of the Royal\nSociety for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Council of Justice to\nAnimals, the Humanitarian League, of Mr. Christopher Cash, and others,\nthere are now a considerable number of improved instruments for stunning\ncattle in use\u2014the Greener and Behr pistols; the Royal Society for\nPrevention of Cruelty to Animals humane-killer and large captive-bolt\npistol; the Swedish Cattle-killer (used throughout Scandinavia), and\nothers. But the number of these improved instruments in use at present\nis only a fringe to the mass of time-hallowed and uncertain pole-axes.\n\nCALVES.\u2014\u201cThe usual practice in this country appears to be to run the\nanimal up first (by a tackle fastened to its hind legs) and then to stun\nit, previous to bleeding.\u201d (Report of the Admiralty Committee.) On this\nmethod the Committee thus commented: \u201cThis order of procedure is not so\nhumane, and appears to be unnecessary.\u201d . . . \u201cCalves should first be\nstunned by a blow on the head with a club\u201d\u2014_i.e._, before being run up.\n_When this Committee conducted its investigation in 1904, the best\nhumane-killers had not been invented, or were not known here._\n\nSHEEP, with few exceptions, are not stunned before they are bled. The\nmethod of killing them and the amount of suffering they undergo are thus\nsummed up in the Report of the Admiralty Committee:\n\n    \u201cThe usual method in this country is to lay the sheep on a\n    wooden \u2018crutch\u2019 and then to thrust a knife through the neck\n    below the ears, and with a second motion to insert the point\n    from within between the joints of the vertebrae, thus severing\n    the spinal cord. In the hands of an expert this method is fairly\n    rapid but somewhat uncertain, the time which _elapses between\n    the first thrust of the knife and complete loss of sensibility\n    varying, according to Professor Starling\u2019s observations, from\n    five to thirty seconds. In the hands of an inexpert operator it\n    may be some time before death supervenes, and there can be\n    little doubt that this method must be very painful to the sheep\n    as long as consciousness remains_.\n\n    \u201cAt the best it is a somewhat difficult operation and yet in\n    practice is often entrusted to the younger and less experienced\n    hands in the slaughter-house, the probable reason being that\n    sheep are easy to handle, and do not struggle or give trouble\n    when stuck. . . .\u201d\n\nIn other words, the more helpless the creature the less need for\nhumanity!\n\n    \u201cIn Denmark and many parts of Germany and Switzerland the law\n    requires that sheep shall always be stunned previous to being\n    stuck, and the Committee have satisfied themselves, by practical\n    experiments and observation, that this can be done expeditiously\n    and without difficulty. A small club with a heavy head should be\n    used, and the sheep should be struck on the top of the head\n    between the ears. This point is important, as it is almost\n    impossible to stun a sheep by striking it on the forehead. . . .\n    It was also clearly demonstrated that the stunning caused no\n    injury to the sheep\u2019s head or to the \u2018scrag of mutton\u2019 which\n    could in any way depreciate their market value.\u201d\n\nNotwithstanding this recommendation, the Local Government Board had (up\nto 1915) omitted from their model by-laws (which, as before said, are\nnot obligatory) a regulation requiring the stunning of sheep. In 1915,\nhowever, they added the following alternative clause:\n\n    \u201c9 (_b_). A person shall not in a slaughter-house proceed to\n    slaughter _any animal_ until the same shall have been\n    effectually stunned with a mechanically operated instrument\n    suitable and sufficient for the purpose.\u201d\n\nAnd in their memorandum they say:\n\n    \u201cAt the present time the Board understand that a \u2018humane-killer\u2019\n    can be got which is adapted for stunning _any kind of animal_,\n    reasonable in cost, and effective and simple in operation. It\n    appears, too, that the use of the improved instruments can\n    readily be learnt, so that no prolonged training is needed for\n    their proper manipulation.\u201d\n\nOne can only hope that every Local Authority will now adopt this clause,\nand insist on the stunning of sheep as well as of all other animals.\n\n    PIGS.\u2014\u201cThe Committee ascertained that it is the usual practice\n    in _large establishments_ in England to stun pigs by a blow on\n    the forehead previous to sticking them, and there is no\n    difficulty in carrying this out, as the pig\u2019s head is soft as\n    compared with that of the sheep. The Committee are of opinion\n    that the preliminary stunning should be enforced in all cases,\n    the evidence tending to show that this operation is often\n    limited to pigs which are so large or strong as to give trouble,\n    or to cases where, owing to the location of the slaughter-house,\n    the squeals of the stuck pigs cause annoyance to the\n    neighbourhood. _The Committee feel that considerations of\n    humanity are at least as important as those above mentioned._\u201d\n\nA sentiment with which most of us will presumably agree. Note, however,\nthat the Admiralty Committee refer above only to _large_ establishments.\nPigs still appear to be killed in ways that the following quotation\ndescribes:\n\n    \u201cI, with another witness, saw five pigs killed\u2014three small ones\n    and two large ones. The pigs were \u2018knifed\u2019 one at a time and\n    allowed to wander round the slaughter-house bleeding and in a\n    drunken, reeling, rolling state, and at the same time uttering\n    most plaintive cries.\u201d (From a letter to a daily journal.)\n\nAnd Mr. R. O. P. Paddison (one of the foremost workers in the cause of\nhumane slaughtering) thus describes the method adopted in most of our\nbacon factories:\n\n    \u201cFirst the animals are hung up alive head downwards by a chain\n    fastened to a hind foot, and then they are stuck and bleed to\n    death. The work is done quickly in a collective sense\u2014at the\n    rate possibly of 100 to 200 pigs an hour, but each individual\n    pig suffers from forty seconds to two or three minutes, and\n    several pigs struggle and shriek at the same time.\u201d\n\nI have not personally witnessed either of the methods so described.\n\nI understand that some bacon-curers consider, or did consider, stunning\ncruel, on the ground that several blows were often required. The use of\nhumane-killers disposes of this objection.\n\nThe late eminent physiologist, Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, in a paper\nread before the Medical Society of London some years ago, says:\n\n    \u201cPigs, I have said, _suffer a mental terror of death_, and to\n    them commonly is also given a severe degree of physical\n    pain. . . . When they are killed by the knife alone they die by\n    a h\u00e6morrhage that may extend with persistent consciousness over\n    three or four minutes of time.\u201d\n\nIn relation to the pig\u2019s mental horror of death, I myself saw the\nfollowing sight:\u2014Fifteen or so pigs in a slaughtering chamber just\nlarge enough to hold them and the slaughterer. Of these pigs three or\nfour had already been stunned and knifed and lay dead and bleeding among\ntheir living brethren, who with manifest terror were squealing and\nstraining here and there against the walls, while the slaughterer moved\nabout among them selecting the next victim. A blow, a cut, and there was\nanother dead pig, and this would go on, no doubt, till the whole fifteen\nwere despatched and their bodies shot down the slide. Terror of death!\nYes! At all this, by the way, a boy of about thirteen was looking\non\u2014and this in a public slaughter-house with a good superintendent and\nunder municipal control.\n\n    SEGREGATION OF ANIMALS _about to be slaughtered from\n    slaughtering operations_.\u2014\u201cIt appears to be the common\n    practice, even in modern and well-regulated slaughter-houses, to\n    keep the animals, which are immediately awaiting slaughter, in\n    pens which are mere annexes to the slaughter chamber itself, and\n    in many cases in full view of all that goes on inside . . .\n    There is no point which the Committee have more carefully\n    investigated than the question as to whether animals do or do\n    not suffer from fear from this contact, and the evidence of\n    those best qualified to judge is so conflicting that no absolute\n    verdict can be given . . . The animal should be given the full\n    benefit of the doubt.\u201d (Report of the Admiralty Committee.)\n\nBut the animal is _not_ given the benefit of the doubt. Whatever the\ndegree of consciousness of animals awaiting slaughter (sometimes for a\nwhole hour) just divided by a door which, all regulations to the\ncontrary, is far from always shut, whether they know or not that it is\ndeath which awaits them, any spectator accustomed to animals in their\nnormal state has only to look at their eyes, as they stand waiting, to\nfeel sure that they are in fear of something.\n\nSuch then, in brief and in rough, are the conditions and methods of\nslaughter which still seem good to us. When the Admiralty Committee\nissued their report in 1904 they made the following recommendations:\u2014\n\n    (_a_) All animals (cattle, calves, sheep, lambs, and pigs)\n    without exception must be stunned or otherwise rendered\n    unconscious before blood is drawn.\n\n    (_b_) Animals awaiting slaughter must be so placed that they\n    cannot see into the slaughter-house, and the doors of the latter\n    must be kept closed while slaughtering is going on.\n\n    (_c_) The drainage of the slaughter-house must be so arranged\n    that no blood or other refuse can flow out within the sight or\n    smell[4] of animals awaiting slaughter, and no such refuse shall\n    be deposited in proximity to the waiting pens.\n\n    (_d_) If more animals than one are being slaughtered in one\n    slaughter-house at one time they must not be in view of each\n    other.\n\n    (_e_) None but licensed men shall be employed in or about\n    slaughter-houses.\n\nWhat has been done to carry out these recommendations, the fruit of most\nthorough and laborious investigations carried out at a considerable\nexpenditure of public money and presumably with some object, by men well\nqualified for their task?\n\nJust this much has been done. The recommendations have been adopted and\nare worked successfully by the Admiralty themselves, and they form the\nbasis of certain clauses in the Local Government Board\u2019s Voluntary Model\nBye-laws, to which attention is only just beginning to be paid.\n\nSeeing that the condition of affairs is such as I have detailed; seeing\nthat the Admiralty Committee made the following wise remarks: \u201cHowever\nhumane and scientific in theory may be the methods of slaughter, it is\ninevitable that abuses and cruelty may result in practice, unless there\nis a proper system of official inspection\u201d; and: \u201cIn the interests not\nonly of humanity, but of sanitation, order, and ultimate economy, it is\nhighly desirable that, where circumstances permit, private\nslaughter-houses should be replaced by public abattoirs, and that no\nkilling should be permitted except in the latter under official\nsupervision\u201d; seeing the enormous dimensions of this matter, and that\nour methods are behind those of nearly every Continental country, and\nvery much behind those of Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany, it would\noccur to the simple mind that here was eminently a case for broad and\nsweeping action on the part of the Legislature.\n\nI have not even thought it worth while to dwell on the _insanitary_\naspect of the present system, because the Royal Commission on Food from\nTuberculous Animals (again at a considerable expenditure of public\nmoney) reported thus\u2014\u201cThe actual amount of tuberculous disease among\ncertain classes of food animals is so large as to afford to man frequent\noccasions for contracting tuberculous disease through his food. We think\nit probable that an appreciable part of the tuberculosis that affects\nman is obtained through his food\u201d\u2014practically without effect! If the\npublic likes to spend its money on ascertaining a risk to itself and\nlikes to disregard that risk to itself when ascertained, far be it from\nme to gainsay the public. But if any one be interested in the sanitary\nside of our want of system, let him go to the superintendent of some\nlarge public slaughter-house and ask what percentage of meat is\ncondemned daily; then let him ask some medical officer of health how far\nit is possible to inspect the condition of carcases in _private_\nslaughter-houses; and then let him go home and think! There I leave the\nmatter. For, frankly, it is not this, but the disregard by the public of\nneedless suffering inflicted on helpless creatures, bred and killed for\nits own advantage, that moves me. Surely no one can call the following\nsuggestions unreasonable:\n\n    _No animal to be bled before being stunned (or otherwise\n    rendered instantaneously insensible)._\n\n    _No animal to be slaughtered in sight of another animal._\n\n    _No slaughter-refuse and blood to be allowed within sight or\n    smell of an animal awaiting slaughter._\n\n    _No stunning or slaughtering implement to be used that has not\n    been approved by the Local Government Board._\n\n    _The licence of no slaughter-house to be renewed unless it\n    possesses these approved stunning and slaughtering implements, a\n    copy of official instructions how to use them, and can prove\n    that it does use them and them alone._\n\n    _All offenders against these regulations to be liable to\n    penalties on summary conviction._\n\nWhy has not this simple harmless minimum of decent humanity been\u2014as in\nother countries\u2014long ago adopted? For the usual reasons: Dislike of\nchange; dislike of a little extra trouble and a little extra expense;\nliberty of the subject. To take the last point first. Dictate to a man\nhow he shall slaughter his own animals\u2014what next! Well! I am all for\nliberty of the subject. I am for letting him hurt _himself_ as much as\never he likes. I even go so far as to say that prosecutions for\nattempted suicide are wrong and ridiculous; but where the subject claims\nto hurt the helpless with impunity, then it seems to me time to hurt the\nsubject.\n\nI fancy that in most men\u2019s minds there lurks the feeling: \u201cOh! a little\nextra suffering to animals who are going to die anyway in a minute or\ntwo\u2014what does it matter? Now, if you were to put it on the ground that\nit hurts the slaughterer, there\u2019d be something in it!\u201d Yes! It certainly\nmay hurt the _morale_ of the slaughterer\u2014but not much, for he inflicts\nthe needless suffering _without consciousness of cruelty_; and ill\nactions of which one is not conscious only negatively deteriorate\n_morale_, in so far as they are a waste of time in which good actions\nmight have been performed. But to say that it does not matter whether we\nneedlessly hurt the sheep or pig because they are going to die anyway is\nreally to say that no suffering matters, however unnecessary, since we\nmust all die and it will be all the same a hundred years hence. It is at\nall events not a saying that I can imagine coming out of the mouth of a\nhuman being in perfect health and the possession of all his faculties,\nwith a knife going in just behind his right ear and wiggling about in\nhis neck and head till it finds his spinal cord between the joints of\nhis vertebr\u00e6. And though you may think that the infliction of some\nseconds of excruciating torture on an animal does not really hurt the\nanimal because she cannot tell you that it does\u2014it conceivably might\nhurt _you_ a little to feel it was needlessly inflicted.\n\nThe meat-trades and butchers generally deny the need for change, and\nclaim that the humanity of existing methods cannot be improved on. I\nreally cannot understand this. Take for example two conversations I had\nwith quite humane butchers.\n\nI: \u201cSo you never stun your sheep before bleeding them?\u201d\n\nFirst Butcher: \u201cOh! no.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy not?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t necessary.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot to avoid pain?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! no; there\u2019s no pain.\u201d\n\nTen minutes later:\u2014\n\nI: \u201cYou always stun your cattle before bleeding them?\u201d\n\nSame Butcher: \u201cOh! yes, always.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! it avoids a lot of pain.\u201d\n\nTo the second butcher:\u2014\n\nI: \u201cThen you never stun your sheep before bleeding them.\u201d\n\nSecond Butcher: \u201cNo, never.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy not? Is there any objection?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I don\u2019t see any objection; only it\u2019s never done. I\u2019ve never seen a\nsheep stunned.\u201d\n\n\u201cJust custom?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, just that.\u201d\n\nThe old, ignorant prejudice that animals do not bleed freely if stunned\nfirst is now, I think, never advanced.\n\nSo much for custom and dislike of change.\n\nBut now we come to what is perhaps the real gravamen of the\nresistance\u2014a little extra trouble, a suspicion of extra expense. This\ntouches all the points in the irreducible minimum of reform. For\ninstance, the various R.S.P.C.A. humane-killers cost about thirty-five\nshillings; the Swedish cattle-killer ten shillings and sixpence, with\ncartridges four shillings per hundred. You must spend perhaps an hour in\nlearning how to use them, and five minutes or so per day in cleaning\nthem. They are still new things\u2014\u201cfads\u201d\u2014although they have passed all\ntests, been proved by dozens of testimonials from butchers in this\ncountry to be perfectly efficient; _and the Swedish cattle-killer is\nused throughout several countries_.\n\nAgain, it is convenient not to have to be careful to shut doors between\nslaughtering chambers and animals awaiting slaughter, or to have to pave\nyour floors so that blood runs well away from the waiting pens. It is\nhandy (especially in ill-constructed slaughter-houses) to kill animals\nin sight of each other. It is always, in fact, a nuisance to make any\nchange that involves readjustment. And unfortunately animals have no\nforce behind them, are not represented on the public bodies of the\ncountry; cannot lobby in the House of Commons, withdraw votes or commit\noutrages; cannot instruct counsel; have no rights save those which mere\nchivalry shall give them. \u201cBesides,\u201d says Defence, \u201ceverything is\nalready done as well as it can be done. Switzerland, Denmark\u2014who knows\nwhether they are really better? The ways of our own country are good\nenough for us\u2014the good old-fashioned methods\u2014if there were any real\nneed for reform we should be the first to undertake it!\u201d Waste-paper,\nthen, the Admiralty Report! Waste-paper!\n\nI have reckoned that in the case of sheep alone the amount of needless\nsuffering inflicted must amount to some 33,000 hours of solid,\nuninterrupted death agony each year (number of sheep slaughtered without\nstunning, 8,000,000; period of suffering, five to thirty\nseconds\u2014Admiralty Committee\u2019s report)\u2014all preventable by a few strokes\nof the legislative pen.\n\nBut the truth is we don\u2019t reflect; or if by any chance we do, we pass on\nwith the thought: \u201cNothing can be done till the butchers themselves are\nconvinced!\u201d Is that true?\n\nJust this far true: As in every other case of new law, there would be\nrequired at first a little special activity. It is only a question of\nstarting a new standard. In two years\u2019 time, if these simple, harmless\nregulations concerning the slaughter of animals for food were\nenforced\u2014not merely recommended, as now\u2014there would hardly be an\nanimal in this country bled without first being stunned by humane\nmethods, or any beasts watching their fellows being killed.\n\nI attack no one in this matter; I blame no one, for I am not in a\nposition to\u2014the charge of callousness falls heavily on my own\nshoulders, who have eaten meat all these years without ever troubling as\nto what went before it. Nor can I hope that these words will do more\nthan ruffle the nerves of the public; but I do trust that such of our\nlegislators as may chance to read them may be moved to feel that it is\ntheir part to save patient creatures, who cannot plead in their own\nbehalf, from all suffering that the proper satisfaction of our wants\n_does not compel_ us to inflict on them.\n\nIf what I have written has seemed extravagant, he who reads has only to\ngo and see for himself. And let those who would attack this plea train\ntheir guns on the Report of the Admiralty Committee, 1904. For I have\nbut conveniently summarized the unanimous verdict of able and\ndisinterested men, who, officially appointed to examine the whole\nmatter, held many sittings, heard many witnesses, saw with their own\neyes, and made their own experimental investigations. I have, in fact,\ndone nothing but give an added publicity to the deliberate conclusions\nof an impartial tribunal, which had an unique opportunity of forming and\ndelivering a comprehensive, dispassionate judgment, and delivered it\u2014to\nwhat end?\n\n-----\n\n[2] Things have moved a little, I believe, but not nearly enough.\u2014J. G.\n\n[3] The Admiralty Committee on Humane Slaughtering, 1904 Chairman, Mr.\nArthur Lee, M.P.\n\n[4] I believe it is the smell of blood, rather than the sight, which\naffects animals.\u2014J. G.\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n                         ON PERFORMING ANIMALS\n\n\n                                  (1)\n\n                (A Letter to the _Daily Express_, 1913.)\n\nWriting from the standpoint of one whose love of animals at one time\ncaused him to enjoy the spectacle of them performing tricks and capers,\ninto the educational history of which he never thought of going, I\nbelieve I well understand the attraction of \u201cthe animal show\u201d in\nmusic-halls or circuses. Nor do I doubt that there are animal trainers\nwith such a natural gift and love of beasts that the process of training\nbecomes almost pleasurable to creatures who are not by nature intended\nto ape mankind.\n\nI even believe that there may be animals, especially among dogs, who\ngrow to appreciate the glamour of the footlights, and the sense of their\nown importance. But when all this is said, I have come to abominate the\nthought of the whole thing, and I fancy that any one who takes the\ntrouble to think the matter out, any one who does not allow his natural\ndelight in animals to run away with his sense of proportion and the\nfitness of things, must come to the same conclusion.\n\nTo simply bring a horse, a dog, a cat, or even an elephant or camel on\nthe stage as part of the atmosphere or machinery of a play, treating it\nwith the kindness that is invariable I believe in such cases, is one\nthing, and I by no means object to it. But the deliberate training and\nuse, for the purpose of making a living out of them, of numbers of\nanimals, taking them from place to place, hall to hall, suitable or\nunsuitable, is a very different \u201cproposition,\u201d as Americans would say.\n\nThe very nature of it invites suffering. And I do not well see how any\namount of inspection and the granting of licences is going to do away\nwith the greater part of a wretchedness that comes from forcing\ncreatures away from more or less natural to highly unnatural conditions\nof life; nor can I see how, for the purpose of granting licences,\nsatisfactory evidence is ever going to be obtained that training (which\nis and must be quite a private affair between trainer and animal) is not\naccompanied by cruelty.\n\nIn a word, I would like to see the \u201canimal show\u201d abolished in this\ncountry. It is too ironical altogether that our love of beasts should\nmake us tolerate and even enjoy what our common sense, when we let it\nloose, tells us must, in the main, spell misery for the creatures we\nprofess to be so fond of.\n\n                                  (2)\n\n             (A Speech made at Kensington Town Hall, 1913.)\n\nI am here to say a very few words on the whole question of the treatment\nof animals by our civilized selves. For I have no special knowledge,\nlike some who will speak to you, of the training of performing animals;\nI have only a certain knowledge of human and animal natures, and a\ncommon sense which tells me that wild animals are more happy in freedom\nthan in captivity\u2014domestic animals more happy as companions than as\nclowns. And, quite apart from the definite question of inhumanity, it is\nperfectly clear to me that these animal shows are among the many\nsurviving evidences, the lingering symptoms, of a creed that\u2014thank\nHeaven!\u2014is beginning to pass, and must pass, from us. That creed said:\nWe human beings have the right, for our pleasure, convenience, and\ndistraction, to disregard, in the matter of dumb creatures, those\nprinciples which our religion, morality, and education fix as the\nguiding stars of our conduct towards human beings. (Please note that I\ndo not touch on the question of our rights over dumb creatures in so far\nas our actual self-preservation is concerned; I limit my words to\npleasure, convenience, profit, and distraction.)\n\nNow, \u201cDo unto others as you would they should do unto you!\u201d is not only\nthe first principle of Christianity, but the first principle of all\nsocial conduct\u2014the essence of that true gentility which is the only\nsaving grace of men and women in all ranks of life. And I am certain\nthat the word \u201cothers\u201d cannot any longer be limited to the human\ncreature. Whether or no animals have what are called \u201crights\u201d is an\nacademic question of no value whatever in the consideration of this\nmatter. But, lest there be any one who wishes to take up this point of\nabstruse philosophy, I admit at once that animals have no more rights\nthan have babies under the age when they may be said to have duties (on\nwhich rights, we are told, depend), that animals have no more rights\nthan imbeciles, or those who are deaf, dumb, and blind. Rights or no\nrights, I care not; the fact remains that by so much as we inflict on\nsentient creatures _unnecessary_ suffering, by so much have we outraged\nour own consciences, by so much fallen short of that secret standard of\ngentleness and generosity, that, believe me, is the one firm guard of\nour social existence, the one bulwark we have against relapse into\nsavagery. Once admit that we have the right to inflict unnecessary\nsuffering, and you have destroyed the very basis of human society, as we\nknow it in this age. You have committed blasphemy, the only blasphemy\nthat really matters\u2014against your conscience. For the true conscience of\nthis country is proved by the wording of the law, with its ruling that\nthe infliction of unnecessary suffering is an offence; and in a country\nlike this, the law does not precede, but follows, conscience. Let me\nquote the law, and the latest judicial _dictum_ upon it.\n\nSection 1 (1) of the Protection of Animals Act, 1911:\n\n    \u201cIf any person (_a_) shall cruelly ill-treat any animal . . . or\n    being the owner shall by . . . unreasonably doing or omitting to\n    do any act . . . cause any unnecessary suffering,\u201d he shall be\n    guilty of an offence.\n\nAnd Mr. Justice Darling, on November 19th, 1913, said:\n\n    \u201cWhere unnecessary suffering is caused by some act of an owner,\n    it cannot be justified on the ground of old custom, and of\n    benefit to commercial persons.\u201d\n\nNothing so endangers the fineness of the human heart as the possession\nof power over others; nothing so corrodes it as the callous or cruel\nexercise of that power; and the more helpless the creature over whom\npower is cruelly or callously exercised, the more the human heart is\ncorroded. It is recognition of this truth which has brought the\nconscience of our age and with it the law, to say that we cannot any\nlonger with impunity regard ourselves as licensed torturers of the rest\nof creation; that we cannot, for our own sakes, afford it.\n\nIn all this matter, then, of the treatment of animals it comes to the\ndefinition of the words \u201cunnecessary suffering.\u201d And I say this: All\nsuffering that is inflicted merely for our pleasure, distraction, and\neven for our convenience, and profit, as distinct from our preservation,\nis unnecessary and an abomination. And the fact that it is inflicted on\ncreatures unable to raise hand to help themselves, or voice to tell us\nwhat they suffer, makes it ever the more abominable. Whether it be the\ndestruction of mother-birds (with their whole families of nestlings) for\nthe sake of the nuptial plumes to be worn in the hats and hair of human\nmothers, or the painful docking of the tails of horses, their sole\nweapon against the torment of stinging flies, for the sake of an ugly\nfashion; whether it be the treacherous sale of horses worn out in our\nservice, the snaring of rabbits in needlessly cruel traps, the turning\nadrift of friendly but unwanted dogs and cats; whether it be the\nunnecessarily slow and painful slaughtering of animals for food, the\nwretched keeping in captivity of wild song-birds, the prisoning of\neagles, hawks, and many another creature that cannot bear confinement,\nin zoos and other places; whether it be any of these, or this sometimes\ndistressing and always unnatural training of performing animals, in all\nsuffering is inflicted for our pleasure, distraction, convenience or\nprofit, and all of it is unnecessary, all against the conscience of the\nage.\n\nTo those who, tempted by the devil of irreflection, say \u201cBut this is the\ncreed of sentiment and softness,\u201d I return the answer, \u201cSirs, no man\never became a stoic, and acquired the virtues of fortitude and courage,\nby inflicting pain on others.\u201d There is nothing in this new creed that\nprevents any one from inflicting on himself as much hardship, risk, and\nprivation as he considers needful to inspire him with fortitude.\n\nLet me draw your attention to an anomaly, which accounts for most of our\ncallousness towards the sufferings of animals. Nearly every one who\nwitnesses with his own eyes the infliction of needless pain on an animal\nfeels revolted, and even hastens to the creature\u2019s aid; yet these same\nmen and women, or the vast majority of them, merely hearing or reading\nof such things, pass by on the other side, with the feeling that to pay\nattention would be either credulous or sentimental. Now, in regard to\ncredulousness, note that it is hardly ever to the interest of any one to\ndraw attention to cruelty\u2014certainly not to fabricate such a charge;\nvery much the contrary. And in regard to sentiment, there seems to be a\nslight confusion as to the meaning of that word. A man only moved by\ncruelty seen with his own eyes is no whit less sentimental than the man\nwho takes fire at the mere recital of it; he is only more deficient in\nunderstanding, more cautious in judgment, or more sluggish in blood.\nJust as sentimental, but less sensitive. The longer I live the more I\nbecome convinced that people only use that favourite\nreproach\u2014sentimental\u2014to stigmatize sympathy with sufferings that they\nthemselves have been unwilling or unable to realize. The moment they do\nrealize, they become just as \u201csentimental,\u201d just as moved by pity and\nanger\u2014for that is what sentimental means\u2014as those at whom they sneer.\n\nAh! but\u2014says the public\u2014even if there be suffering for animals, the\npleasure that their freaks or their fur or their feathers give us is\ngreater than this suffering; we are entitled to weigh the one against\nthe other. Yet few of that same public would dream of saying this if\nwith their own eyes they saw the tortures; for then the pleasure they\ntalk of would have vanished in the memory of those quivering visions.\nOut of sheer sluggishness of imagination, out of mere laziness of mind,\nthen, is made that rather pitiable plea\u2014our pleasure is greater than\ntheir suffering.\n\nYes! Nearly all the suffering we inflict, whether on human beings or on\nanimals, comes from our not thinking. Many people gravely distrust that\npractice. For all that, I venture to suggest that a little more thought\nwill do no harm to any of us.\n\nWe pass this way but once, but once tread this world, and live in\ncommunion with these furred and feathered things, many of them\nbeautiful, in a thousand ways so like ourselves, often friendly if we\nwould let them be, and yet who, one and all, are so simple and helpless\nin the face of our force and ingenuity. Shall we, as we vanish, say: \u201cI\nhave lived my life as a true lord of creation, taking toll from the\ncaptivities and sufferings of every creature that had not my strength\nand cunning!\u201d Or shall we pass out with the thought: \u201cI wish I had not\ngiven needless pain to any living thing!\u201d\n\n\n                                   V\n\n                          VIVISECTION OF DOGS\n                    (Letters to _The Times_, 1913.)\n\n\n                                  (1)\n\nWhatever one\u2019s beliefs concerning the whole question of experiments on\nthe living body, the vivisection of dogs is a strange anomaly. Even if\nit be granted that the dog, by reason of its intelligence and nervous\norganisation, is more fitted than other animals for certain\nvivisectional experiments (though I believe this is disputed), there are\nyet basic considerations which make such treatment of the dog a\nscandalous betrayal. Man, no doubt, first bound or bred the dog to his\nservice and companionship for purely utilitarian reasons; but we of\nto-day, by immemorial tradition and a sentiment that has become almost\nas inherent in us as the sentiment towards children, give him a place in\nour lives utterly different from that which we accord to any other\nanimal (not even excepting cats); a place that he has won for himself\nthroughout the ages, and that he ever increasingly deserves. He is by\nfar the nearest thing to man on the face of the earth; the one link that\nwe have spiritually with the animal creation; the one dumb creature into\nwhose eyes we can look and tell pretty well for certain what emotion,\neven what thought is at work within; the one dumb creature which\u2014not as\na rare exception, but almost always\u2014steadily feels the sentiments of\nlove and trust. This special nature of the dog is our own handiwork, a\nthing instilled into him through thousands of years of intimacy, care,\nand mutual service, deliberately and ever more carefully fostered;\nextraordinarily precious even to those of us who profess to be without\nsentiment. It is one of the prime factors of our daily lives in all\nclasses of society\u2014this mute partnership with dogs; and\u2014we are still\nvivisecting them!\n\nI am told that pro-vivisectionists are fighting tooth and nail against\nthe Bill (now in committee stage in the House of Commons) which has for\nobject the exemption of dogs from all vivisectional and inoculative\nexperiments. If it indeed be so, I ask them: \u201cWould you, any one of you,\ngive your own dog up to the vivisector\u2019s knife, or respect a man who\ngave or sold you his dog for your experiments?\u201d I take it they would\nreply: \u201cWe would not give our own dogs. We should think poorly of the\nman who sold or gave us his dog. The dogs we use are homeless,\nmasterless, dogs.\u201d And in turn I would answer: \u201cThere are no dogs born\nin this country without home or master. The dogs you use are those who\nhave already fallen on cruelty or misfortune, whom as kindly men you\npity or should pity; these are the dogs, the lost dogs that you take for\nyour experiments, to make their ends more wretched than their lives have\nbeen!\u201d\n\nIf this be sentiment, it is not mere cultured sentiment, but based on a\nvery real and simple sense of what is decent. Miners, farmers,\nshepherds, little shopmen, gamekeepers, and humble men of all sorts, who\nown dogs, have precisely the same feeling\u2014that the dog is essentially\nthe friend of man, deserving loyal treatment. We all have this feeling;\nyet, when for our alleged benefit we want to violate it, we can still\nsay: \u201cOh! it does not matter; this dog is already down!\u201d In a word, what\nwe would not do with our own dogs we have no right to do with dogs that\nhave not had the luck to be ours. It is not so much a question of love\nof dogs as of good faith in men.\n\nI do not wish to enter here into the general question of vivisection,\nbut I do plead that, whether we believe in vivisection or not, we are\nbound, in common honour, to make a clean and whole-hearted exception of\nthe one creature whom we have trained to really trust and love us. By\nnot doing so we injure the human spirit.\n\n                                  (2)\n\nI answer the rejoinders to my plea for the exemption of dogs from\nvivisection in no spirit of hostility to science, with all respect for\ninvestigators who are inspired by the desire to lessen the sum of\nsuffering in the world, and not at all assuming that those who support\nthe vivisection of dogs must needs be without fondness for their\ncompanionship.\n\nI suggest that there is a distinction between being \u201cvivisected\u201d (and in\nthat word I include inoculations) to save your own life or lessen your\nown suffering and being vivisected by your neighbours to save their\nlives or lessen their sufferings. The distinction indeed might almost be\ncalled profound. And if my contention that the dog has earned for\nhimself a consideration from man, I do not say equal, but analogous, to\nthat which man has for his own species, be admitted, it would follow\nthat if we approve of cutting up and inoculating the dog, not for his\nindividual benefit, but for our benefit and for that of his fellow-dogs,\nwe must also approve of cutting up and inoculating our children and\nourselves, not for our individual benefit, but for the benefit of the\nrace, having regard to the immeasurably more direct results which\nscience would secure from vivisections and inoculations on the human\nbody. It is possible, indeed, that some vivisectors are prepared, in the\ninterests of the scientific treatment of disease, to say: \u201cI am so\nentirely, so definitely, convinced of the benefits to the human race of\nthese experiments that I am ready to give not only my dog but my child,\nmy wife, myself if necessary, for the good of mankind.\u201d But I\npersonally\u2014and I venture to think there may be others of the same\nopinion\u2014am not prepared to go so far. And I plead simply that if we are\nnot ready to make martyrs of our children and heroes of ourselves, the\ntime has come when we are no longer entitled to make martyrs of dogs.\nThe issue raised, in fact, is whether or no the dog has reached a\nposition where it becomes unethical to treat him as if he had not\nreached that position.\n\nThere are innumerable people in all ranks of our civilized world who\nwould echo the words I heard last night: \u201cIf I were condemned to spend\ntwenty-four hours alone with a single creature, I would choose to spend\nthem with my dog.\u201d Granting that most people would make two or three\nhuman exceptions, the saying expresses a true feeling. There is a quiet\ncomfort in the companionship of a dog, with its ever-ready touching\nhumility, which human companionship, save of the nearest, does not\nbring; and I assert that this boon, to mankind\u2014of dog\u2019s\ncompanionship\u2014does raise the dog on to the peculiar plane of ethical\nconsideration which we apply to ourselves. There is no need to adduce\nstories of how \u201cDash\u201d or \u201cDon\u201d saved the gardener\u2019s baby from setting\nherself on fire, or swam to the rescue of little Thomas who was\ndrowning; we have only to watch dogs in house or street. I noted three\nyesterday afternoon, the only three in the street at the moment. The\nfirst, a fox-terrier, was trotting along quite by himself with an air of\nmastery of London that could not have been excelled by the best \u201cman of\nthe world\u201d amongst us. No other sort of animal could have even begun to\nwalk the streets of man with that quiet busy confidence. The second, a\nspaniel, was looking up at his mistress\u2014it is not often that children\nand their mothers have the confidence in each other that those two\ncertainly had. The third, a retriever, was towing an infirm old\ngentleman.\n\nYes, the position of the dog is unique. We have made him intelligent;\nand it is sinister ethics to choose him for vivisections or inoculations\nbecause of the very intelligence we have implanted. We have taught him\nfaith and love, and I feel are ourselves bound by what we have taught\nhim. Into other animals we have not instilled these qualities, we are\ntherefore not bound to the same special faith with them that we owe to\nthe dog.\n\nMy plea being simply that men cannot make friends of dogs and then treat\nthem as if that relationship did not exist, I am not concerned to\ndiscuss the disputed question of whether or not special benefit does\narise from experiments on dogs; but, in regard to suffering in such\nexperiments, take the Home Office Returns for 1911: \u201cDogs and cats\nexperimented upon _without an\u00e6sthetics_, 452. Dogs and cats allowed to\nrecover after serious operations, 393\u201d; and the words of the Report of\nthe Royal Commission on Vivisection: \u201cIt is clear that even if the\ninitial procedure may be regarded as trivial, the subsequent results of\nthis procedure must in some cases, at any rate, be productive of great\npain and much suffering.\u201d\n\nAfter all, we have not only bodies but spirits, and when our minds have\nonce become alive to ethical doubt on a question such as this (there are\n870,000 signatures to a petition for the total exemption of dogs from\nvivisection), when we are no longer sure that we have the right so to\ntreat our dog comrades, there has fallen a shadow on the human\nconscience that will surely grow, until, by adjustment of our actions to\nour ethical sense, it has been remedied.\n\n\n                                   VI\n\n                            HORSES IN MINES\n\n\n                                  (1)\n\n                    (A Letter to _The Times_, 1910.)\n\nThe experience which has just befallen the 300 horses and ponies\nimprisoned underground during the strike riots at Clydach Vale spurs me\nto an appeal to all owners of collieries and mines to abandon, _as far\nas possible_ the use of horses and ponies below ground.\n\nThe question of the treatment of pit ponies has of late attracted much\nattention, and is under examination by the Royal Commission on Mines.\nInto discussion of the truth of particular stories of cruelty I do not\nintend to enter. I have no first-hand knowledge, and, short of becoming\na pit-pony driver, or mine inspector, no real chance of obtaining any. I\nwish simply to draw the attention of owners and managers of collieries\nand mines to certain considerations that need not in the least hurt a\njust belief in their own humanity or that of their employees.\n\nApart from the aberrations of human brutes, who flourish as well above\nground as below, cruelty in these days is not deliberate, but requires\nfor its existence three primary fostering conditions: the first, an\noverdriven or irritated state of nerves; the second, secrecy; the third,\na helpless object.\n\nThe first of these conditions is always more or less present in mine\nwork, not only because of the atmosphere and unnatural environment, but\nalso because a certain amount of work has to be got through under\ndifficulties in a certain amount of time. The second of these conditions\nis always present to a greater extent than almost anywhere above ground.\nThe third of these conditions is obviously present. In mines and\ncollieries, therefore, we have human nature, neither better nor worse\nunderground than it is above, working continually under circumstances in\nwhich the three primary fostering conditions of cruelty are present. We,\nthus have a _prim\u00e2 facie_ case for supposing\u2014all other things being\nequal\u2014that there must be more cruelty in the treatment of animals\nunderground than on the surface. If there were not, it would mean that\nminers were not only as humane as the rest of mankind, which is freely\nadmitted, but much more humane, which is not likely. The existence of\nthese three primary fostering conditions in perpetual combination, in\nfact, renders the conclusion, apart from all actual evidence, as\ninevitable as a chemical equation.\n\nBut far beyond all this we have the fact that herbivorous animals,\naccustomed to daylight and fresh air, are kept from the age of four to\nthe age at which they are about to die in a place where no green thing\nof any sort can grow, where the air is strange and dark, and there is\nneither rain nor sunshine. And, further, we have those occasional\ncatastrophes, such as that which so nearly did to death the unfortunate\n300 horses in Clydach Vale.\n\nOne assumes as a matter of course that mine owners are as personally\nhumane in their treatment of animals as the rest of us; that they do not\nlack desire to see that their ponies and horses underground are treated\nwell; that they would recoil from the sight of neglectful treatment of\nfour-legged creatures that came under their own eyes. I merely appeal to\nthem to consider, apart from the breezes and contradictions of a vexed\nquestion, the plain common sense of the matter. There are, no doubt,\nthousands of well-fed, well-treated, well-kept ponies employed in pits;\nbut with human nature and animal nature fixed quantities, and the\nconditions what they are, must there not inevitably be far more\nsuffering, on the whole, in their lives underground than in the lives of\nanimals employed on the surface? The heart of the matter lies in the\nunnatural conditions.\n\nSmall engines are used with success both here and abroad for some kinds\nof mine traction. For other kinds of mine traction animals may always\nhave to be employed\u2014though that is a hard saying, seeing what human\ningenuity can accomplish. But surely a great deal more of the traction\nin English collieries and mines could be done by engines with safety and\neconomy. Is it too much to beg kindly men that they should do their\nutmost to substitute, so far as possible, this mechanical traction for\nthe labour of those four-legged creatures whose lives underground must,\neven in the best circumstances, be unnatural and sad.\n\nIt is no more desirable for human beings than for animals to have to\nspend their lives underground; and what men can put up with animals\ncertainly can. But men have at all events some choice in the matter, and\nthey do spend half the week at least on the surface.\n\nThe unnatural conditions of our own lives do not justify us in employing\nanimals under unnatural conditions where we can avoid it. I take it we\nall wish to see suffering reduced to its irreducible minimum.\n\n                                  (2)\n\n                    (A Letter to _The Times_, 1913.)\n\nThe inspectors appointed to carry out the provisions of the Coal Mines\n(Regulation) Act in regard to pit ponies are to be six in number: one\nfor each division in the United Kingdom, which contains 3,325 coal\nmines.\n\nI understand that this provision is based on the grounds that the\nordinary mine inspectors, of whom there are many, will not be thereby\nabsolved from that part of their duties; and that the multiplication of\nofficials is an expensive and undesirable thing.\n\nI wish to point out that the ordinary inspectors will, almost to a man,\nfeel that the appointment of special inspectors, in regard to a\nparticular branch of their duties, relieves them from what is a very\nthankless job. It is only human nature not to want to spy on one\u2019s own\nkind if one is not absolutely obliged.\n\nUnder the ordinary system of inspection, the figures for the year 1907\ngive only twenty-two prosecutions for cruelty to animals, underground,\nin the United Kingdom. Taking the boys and men employed in mines as\naverage kindly folk, neither more nor less given to cruelty than the\nrest of us, this number of prosecutions would work out, relatively to\nopportunity, at extraordinarily below the number of prosecutions above\nground. And we can only deduce from this the fact that the conditions in\nmines are such that acts which above ground would lead to prosecution\npass unnoticed underground.\n\nI do beg the Home Secretary to reconsider this aspect of the\nquestion\u2014that is to say, the certainty that the appointment of special\ninspectors of animals will in practice bring a feeling of absolution to\nthe ordinary inspector from the duty of reporting on animals.\n\nFor, if this is admitted, the number of six special inspectors is shown\nto be ludicrous. It means about two mines a day all the year round for\neach inspector. Those of us who have been down coal mines know how\nperfunctory such inspection must be.\n\nIt is certainly undesirable to multiply officials without due cause; but\nthere really is a point of common sense and compromise which will hardly\nbe reached even if twelve instead of six special inspectors are\nappointed.\n\nThe new regulations are admirably wide and directed to bettering the\nlives of these unfortunate little beasts; for, putting everything at the\nbest, they remain unfortunate compared with their brethren above ground.\nBut these regulations will want a lot of looking after, especially at\nfirst, if they are not to be a dead letter.\n\nThe great bulk of our material comfort comes out of our coal mines;\nsurely we can spare a little more of it than this to guarantee so far as\nwe can the welfare of the ponies.\n\n\n                                  VII\n\n                      THE DOCKING OF HORSES\u2019 TAILS\n                    (Foreword to a Pamphlet, 1913.)\n\n\nIn the year A.D. 785 the Council of Celchyth\u2014it seems\u2014thus addressed\nour ancestors:\n\n    \u201cFrom the influence of a vile and unbecoming custom you deform\n    and mutilate your horses. . . . You cut off their tails; and\n    when you enjoy them uninjured and perfect, you choose rather to\n    maim and blemish them, so as to make them odious and disgustful\n    objects to all who see them. . . . This you are admonished to\n    renounce.\u201d\n\nThus the Council of Celchyth in A.D. 785. The Council of Westminster in\nA.D. 1913 has not yet been moved to admonish us, in the only way it\ncan\u2014by law\u2014to renounce this \u201cvile and unbecoming custom\u201d of docking\nthe tails of horses.\n\n\u201cVile and unbecoming!\u201d If it be not, still, vile to mutilate a\ndefenceless beast (sometimes at cost of acute suffering) for the sake of\na fashion, and of a market value dictated by that fashion; if it be not,\nstill, vile to deprive a very sensitive animal of its natural protection\nagainst stinging insects, and against the exposure of what ought to be\nprotected\u2014by what word shall we describe this practice? And if it be\nnot, still, unbecoming to destroy the untouched sweep and grace of one\nof the most beautiful of creatures, and turn what is natural and decent\ninto the indecently grotesque\u2014what significance has all our talk of\nbeauty, and all our so-called taste? The idea that a natural tail causes\ncarriage accidents is an exploded myth. The plea that a docked tail\nsaves trouble in cleaning is readily met, if need be, by shortening the\nhair of the tail as far as the end of the \u201cdock\u201d or bone of the tail,\nwithout touching the bone itself. The tail will then be as short as even\na stable hand can reasonably desire, the horse not mutilated, and the\nhair ready to grow again.\n\nIn certain exceptional circumstances it may be necessary to dock a\nhorse. But, to make a fashion of it. . . .!\n\nYe gods! What a sense of beauty and of decency we must have, to approve\nthe miserable stumps left on our horses by this \u201cdisgustful\u201d practice!\nIf we must indulge in mutilation for the sake of \u201cbeauty\u201d let us perform\non ourselves; tattoo our faces, perforate our lips, flatten our\ncraniums, with other devices suitable to savages. But let us leave the\nhorse alone, who in his unmutilated state is far less in need of\n\u201cdecoration\u201d than we.\n\nThere are some customs that seem to spell despair. How far, indeed, are\nwe removed from savages, when we can blindly follow a custom so\nthoughtless and tormenting, so stupid and ugly?\n\n\n                                  VIII\n\n                               AIGRETTES\n                (A note in _Pearson\u2019s Magazine_, 1913.)\n\n\nAm I in favour of legislation prohibiting the importation of plumage\ninto Great Britain?\n\nI cannot conceive of any one, man or woman, with imagination, and\nknowledge of the facts, who would not be in favour of such legislation.\nThat English women\u2014English _ladies_\u2014after years of revelation\nconcerning this dismal matter, should continue to support by their\ndemands the killing of myriads of beautiful birds _at breeding season_\nis the most discouraging instance I know of the blindness of the human\ncreature whose vanity is threatened.\n\nAmerican law has banned the aigrette; why does English law lag behind?\n\nNot one of our legislators would torture a bird, yet because a few\nthousand miles separate them from the scenes of this butchery, they seem\neither unable to imagine what it means or to find time to put a stop to\nit. I commend to one and all the Report of the House of Lords Committee\nwho examined the whole question some years ago, and said:\n\n    \u201cThe evidence has been such as to show conclusively, in the\n    opinion of the Committee, that not only are birds of many\n    species slaughtered recklessly, but also that the methods\n    employed for slaughter are such as in many cases, and especially\n    in that of egrets, to involve the destruction of the young birds\n    and eggs.\n\n    \u201cBirds are, as a rule, in their finest plumage at the time of\n    nesting, and have been shown to be especially the prey of\n    hunters at that season.\u201d\n\nSuch Committees should not be appointed if their conclusions are not to\nbe paid attention to.\n\n\n\n\n                            CONCERNING LAWS\n\n\n                                   I\n\n                       ON PROCEDURE IN PARLIAMENT\n                (A Letter to _The Times_, March, 1914.)\n\n\nI am moved to speak out what, I am sure, many are feeling. We are a\nso-called civilized country; we have a so-called Christian religion; we\nprofess humanity. We have an elected Parliament, to each member of which\nwe pay \u00a3400 a year; so that we have at least some right to say: \u201cPlease\ndo our business, and that quickly!\u201d\n\nAnd yet we sit and suffer such barbarities and mean cruelties to go on\namongst us as must dry the heart of God. I cite at random a few only of\nthe abhorrent things done daily, daily left undone\u2014done and left\nundone, without a shadow of a doubt, against the conscience and general\nwill of the community:\u2014\n\n    (1) Sweating of women workers.\n\n    (2) Insufficient feeding of children.\n\n    (3) Employment of boys on work that to all intents ruins their\n    chances in after-life.\n\n    (4) Foul housing of those who have as much right as you and I to\n    the first decencies of life.\n\n    (5) Consignment of paupers (that is, those without money or\n    friends) to lunatic asylums on the certificate of one\n    doctor\u2014the certificate of two doctors being essential in the\n    case of a person who has money or friends.\n\n    (6) Export of horses worn out in work. Export that, for a few\n    pieces of blood-money, delivers up old and faithful servants to\n    wretchedness.\n\n    (7) Mutilation of horses by docking, so that they suffer, offend\n    the eye, and are defenceless against the attacks of flies.\n\n    (8) Caging of wild things, especially wild song-birds, by those\n    who themselves think liberty the breath of life.\n\n    (9) Slaughter for food of millions of creatures every year by\n    methods that can easily be improved.\n\n    (10) Importation of the plumes of ruthlessly slain wild birds,\n    mothers with young in the nest, to decorate our women.\n\nSuch as these\u2014shameful barbarities done to helpless creatures\u2014we\nsuffer amongst us year after year. They are admitted to be anathema; in\nfavour of their abolition there would be found at any moment a round\nmajority of unfettered parliamentary and general opinion. One and all\nthey are removable, and many of them by small expenditure of\nparliamentary time, public money, and expert care. It is pitiable that,\nfor mere want of parliamentary time, we cannot get manifest sores such\nas these treated and banished once for all from the nation\u2019s body;\npitiable that due machinery cannot be devised to deal with these and\nother barbarities to man and beast, concerning which, in the main, no\nreal controversy exists; scandalous that their removal should be left to\nthe mercy of the ballot, to private members\u2019 Bills\u2014for ever liable to\nbe obstructed; or to the hampered and inadequate efforts of societies\nunsupported by legislation.\n\nRome, I know, was not built in a day. Parliament works hard, has worked\nharder during these last years than ever perhaps before; all honour to\nit for that! It is an august assembly of which I wish to speak with all\nrespect. But it works without sense of proportion, or sense of humour.\nOver and over again it turns things already talked into their graves;\nover and over again listens to the same partizan bickerings, to\narguments which everybody knows by heart. And all the time the fires of\nlive misery that could, most of them, so easily be put out are raging,\nand the reek thereof is going up.\n\nIt is I, of course, who will be mocked at for lack of the senses of\nproportion and humour. But if the tale of hours spent on certain party\nmeasures be set against the tale of hours not yet spent on measures of\nhealth and humanity, the mockers will yet be mocked.\n\nI am not one of those who believe we can do without party; but I do see\nand I do say that party business absorbs far too much of the time that\nour common sense and common humanity demands for the redress of crying\nshames. And if laymen see this with grief and anger, how much more\npoignant must be the feeling of members of Parliament themselves, to\nwhom alone remedy has been entrusted!\n\n\n                                   II\n\n                           THE NATURE OF LAWS\n                           (Written in 1914.)\n\n\nAmong comments on the foregoing letter there occurred again and again\ncriticisms conveniently summed up in a sentence from an American\njournal: \u201cIt is not the part of Government to make men moral.\u201d\n\nOne who is generally blamed for offering no practical remedies for the\nhard cases he provides is not quite so foolish as to think men are to be\nmade into angels by law. Cut-and-dried formul\u00e6 are hardly his little\ngods; and he knows well that far more important than change and reform\nof laws and systems is improvement in the spirit of the men who\nadminister them. For all that, it is fatal to think that public feeling\ncan be divorced from law in the social organism. In effect these critics\nsay:\n\n\u201cIt is impossible to diminish cruelty and injustice by law; any attempt\nto do so will only divert the cruelty or injustice banned to another\nform of expression.\u201d Very well! It is therefore demonstrably needless\nand even ridiculous to prohibit, by law, murder, rape, and the\ndeliberate torture of children. The murderer, the ravisher, and the\ntorturer should be allowed to vent their cruelty in these forms, for\nfear that if they are not so allowed they will vent it in other forms!\nThat is the _reductio ad absurdum_ implicit in all such anarchistic\ndoctrine; and how far it is really held by those who talk of the\nfutility of passing laws against inhumanity one must leave to their own\nconsciences. In any case, the doctrine takes no account of the real\nnature of laws. In a democratic society, such as ours, only public\nopinion, or, I would rather say, the true secret consensus of general\nthought, makes laws possible\u2014I am speaking of laws against inhumanity.\nAnd laws so made are but constant reminders to every one that public\nopinion is against such and such a thing. Laws were made against murder\nand rape because public feeling against such acts became so strong that,\nuntil the laws were made, normal individuals did not rest till they had\ntorn to pieces persons who acted in such abnormal ways. It was therefore\nconsidered more convenient that certain recognized professional persons\nshould undertake the work of punishment. And so on through all the gamut\nof laws down to those against quite minor cruelties, which would not\nperhaps provoke individual retaliation, but which nevertheless would\nevoke pity and anger from a majority of those who with their own eyes\nsaw them inflicted. Admitting that the state of public feeling toward a\nparticular form of cruelty must always be more or less a matter of\ndiscretionary judgment for legislators, it is yet quite wrong to suppose\nthat laws must wait until the majority of individuals in a community\nhave openly declared a feeling of which perhaps, never having been\ntested personally, they are not conscious. When one urges the passing of\nlaws to prohibit certain cruelties, one is only urging that the\nLegislature should give concrete expression to what it believes would be\nthe general opinion of the country, if every man and woman therein could\nbe taken apart\u2014isolated, as juries are\u2014and then actually put face to\nface with instances of these cruelties, so that they might judge them\nwith the fresh and genuine feelings of unfettered men and women. One is,\nin fact, only urging the recording of a judgment which he believes to\nhave been secretly delivered; asking that this secret judgment should be\npublished in the form of law as a daily and forcible reminder that some\nthings are \u201cnot done.\u201d\n\n\u201cStill!\u201d would say these critics who want to see no more laws made\nbecause men cannot be made humane by law, and who certainly should\nlogically wish all our present laws removed by law (for this criticism\nis radical and not one of degree!). \u201cStill!\u201d they would say, \u201call you\nhave done is to make A. and B. mechanically avoid, for example, caging\nwild song-birds, or docking horses\u2019 tails; but the devil of natural man\nis so strong in A. and B. that they will instantly set to work to invent\nsome other form of torture.\u201d This is too cynical. Many of the cruelties\nthat _can_ be prohibited by law\u2014that is to say, those for whose\nprohibition the true and secret public feeling is ripe\u2014are cruelties\nthat come rather from lack of thought than from a natural savagery. And\nit is a very large order to say that, because you stop A. and B. from\n\u201cnot thinking\u201d in a certain direction, their lack of thought must result\nin other cruelties. True, the reason for their \u201clack of thought\u201d is\noften that they profit by it; but, even so, it does not follow that if\none channel of thoughtless and pain-provoking profit be cut off, they\nmust necessarily seek another. As a fact, many social cruelties (such as\nthe sweating of women, foul housing, and the harmful kind of child\nlabour) are but dubious sources of profit in the long run; and some\ncruelties practised on animals (such as the wearing of certain feathers,\nor the docking of horses\u2019 tails) are but the outcome of \u201cfashion.\u201d\n\nTo put it another way. We feel there are certain things _our neighbours_\nmust not do\u2014we even feel that we ourselves must not do them; and we\npass laws to put it out of our own reach to yield to the temptation of\nprofit or temper!\n\nTake a person who is guiltless of thought or temptation in the matter,\nand show him first a number of wild song-birds in freedom, and then a\nbird fancier\u2019s shop, with the same kinds of birds in their tiny cages,\nand ask him whether or no he thinks they ought to be kept like that. In\nnine cases out of ten he will say: \u201cPoor little beggars! No.\u201d\n\nIf then, the Legislature passes a law to penalize such caging, this law\nwill be effective and will in time stop wild birds from being caged,\nbecause the secret feeling of the majority is really against such a\npractice.\n\nBut pass a law to penalize the moderate smacking of small naughty\nchildren, it will simply be disregarded, because nine out of ten people\ndo not see any harm in either their neighbours or themselves moderately\nsmacking their imps.\n\nSpirit and body (that is, public feeling and the law) in the social\norganism are as inextricably conjoint as the spirit and body of a\nman\u2014public feeling needing its proper clothing of laws, as our souls\nneed due clothing by our bodies. And if men cannot be made kind by law,\nthey can and are by law reminded that they must not, under temptation,\ndo what, in cool and disinterested blood, they disapprove of their\nneighbours doing.\n\nBut there is another and perhaps more convincing answer to these\ncritics. \u201cYou say it\u2019s no good passing laws. If men are prevented from\nill-treating one object, they\u2019ll only ill-treat another.\u201d So be it! Is\nthat any reason for not trying to save the victims of such cruelty as we\ncan actually see. Are we in fact to disregard the sufferer because his\ntorturer may break out in a fresh direction. That would be as much as to\nsay that a man watching another making his beasts go faster to market by\njabbing them with a pitch-fork must pass by on the other side and do\nnothing to help the creatures, because if the prodder be prevented he\nmay to-morrow cut off the tail of his horse to improve the poor brute\u2019s\nvalue. No! Where you see cruelty, stop it! On that principle the\nindividual and the State know where they are; the opposite is but that:\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the good of anyfink\u2014why! noffink!\u201d philosophy which, purged\nfrom all need for effort, in a world of facts, is so truly ethereal and\npleasant to hold!\n\nSome of these critics, no doubt, would carry the matter further. \u201cWe\ndon\u2019t think of the object,\u201d they would say, \u201cbecause the weak must go to\nthe wall, cruelty being inherent in the struggle for existence.\u201d Well!\nThe sort of cruelties we have any chance of legislating against are\ncertainly not necessary to the preservation of our existence; they are\nluxuries, excrescences, or that kind of short-cut which often takes one\nround the longer way. The struggle for sheer existence we cannot, of\ncourse, annul; it goes on, and always will. But in this age the human\nbeing is surely bound to say: \u201cI am not only thankful that I am alive,\nbut that all these other creatures are alive; I am not only thankful\nthat I am without pain, but that none of these others are in pain\neither. I wish the world to be a decent place for them as well as for\nmyself!\u201d\n\nAnd if these critics, returning to their mutton, say: \u201cQuite so, sir, we\ndesire that as much as you, perhaps more; we only tell you that you\ncan\u2019t make men feel like that by law!\u201d the answer once more is: \u201cFreely\nadmitted! But if you do not concrete and record in laws such humane\nfeelings as you secretly and truly have, if you do not keep the body of\nthe social organism in time and tune with its soul, you are handicapping\nthe growth of your humane feeling for want of signboards against\ntemptation to profit at the expense of others; and you are passing by on\nthe other side instead of going to the help of those you see being\nill-treated.\u201d\n\n\n                                  III\n\n                                PASSING\n                (From the _Westminster Gazette_, 1914.)\n\n\nI was standing on the Bridge before dawn of the summer morning;\nheat-mist down on the water, and the bright face of Big Ben up there,\ndisjoint, set as it were in sky\u2014so dark it was.\n\nI had been there some time, seeking what air there might be in the town,\nstaring vaguely down the broadway of blackness between the misted lights\nof the river banks, thinking idle thoughts, dreaming perhaps a little,\nwhen suddenly I became conscious of something on the parapet. It seemed\nto be perching there, a thin, gray shape, without face or limbs; and,\npeering at it, I sidled along, till I found that I was getting no\nnearer! Startled, I said:\n\n\u201cWhat is that? Who is it?\u201d\n\nOnly a faint sigh answered.\n\nI called again: \u201cWho are you?\u201d\n\nA soft voice replied: \u201cDon\u2019t be alarmed, sir, I am the Plumage Bill.\u201d\n\nIts shape had grown no clearer; but in sheer amazement I went on\nspeaking as though it were a being.\n\n\u201cWhat are you doing out here? Why aren\u2019t you in there?\u201d And I pointed to\nBig Ben.\n\nThe voice answered again: \u201cThey have no time for me, sir. I am resting a\nmoment before I pass.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut,\u201d I said, \u201cyou \u2018pass\u2019 in there, not out here!\u201d\n\nI could have sworn I heard it laugh, much as a dying child will laugh if\nyou show it a jumping toy: \u201cOh! no, sir! It is here we pass into nothing\nand the summer night.\u201d\n\nAnd, as it spoke, around me came the most extraordinary beating and\nvibration in the air, a kind of white-gray wonder of invisible wings\nwheeling and hovering. The whole of dark space seemed full of millions\nof these invisible wings, so that I stood utterly bewildered. Then from\nout of that noiseless swirl rose suddenly hundreds of thousands of tiny\nvoices as of birds too young to fly, calling, crying, calling. And,\nflinging up my hands, I pressed them against the drums of my ears till I\nthought I should break them in; but still I heard the hundreds of\nthousands of shrill little voices crying, and crying. \u201cHush!\u201d I called\nout: \u201cFor heaven\u2019s sake, hush!\u201d But on they went, feeble and shrill amid\nthat invisible swirl of winged mothers trying to reach and feed them;\nthen, just when I thought I could bear it no longer, the mist on the\nwater curled over and broke like a wave, something sighed out\n\u201cFarewell!\u201d and the thin gray shape was no longer there.\n\nAll was still once more. The Bridge stretched empty. Big Ben glowed in\nthe sky. I drew a long breath and turned to look down at the water.\nThere, on the parapet, was that thin gray shape again!\n\n\u201cNot gone?\u201d I cried.\n\nA voice answered: \u201cSir, I have only just come. I am the Bill of the\nWorn-out Horses.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat!\u201d I cried; \u201chad they no time even for you?\u201d\n\nAnd, as I spoke, I heard the sound of thousands of hoofs, and saw,\npassing me slowly on the dark air, the gaunt shapes of horses. From side\nto side, up, down\u2014horses dragging worn feet, halting, passing\u2014their\nheads lower than their hoofs.\n\nAnd I cried out: \u201cFor Christ\u2019s sake, pass!\u201d\n\nThe voice answered: \u201cWe pass, sir. Farewell!\u201d\n\nWith a sound of plunging the water rose black through the mist to the\nlevel of the Bridge, fell again, and all was once more still.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m haunted!\u201d I thought; and crossed to the other side. There, again,\nbefore me on the parapet was a gray shape that said: \u201cI am the Bill of\nthe Slaughtered Beasts.\u201d\n\nAnd, on the instant, there came at me in the air, as though I were the\ncentre of a wheel, a million spokes of beasts, great beasts and little,\nsnorting, writhing, quivering, with a sound of the gurgling of blood.\nAnd in terror I cried: \u201cPass!\u201d\n\nThe voice answered: \u201cWe pass, sir. Farewell.\u201d\n\nAnd the river ran by below, swollen to the height of a hill\u2014all red.\n\nI began to run, crying out: \u201cEnough!\u201d\n\nBut still there on the parapet before me was the thin gray shape, and\nits voice said: \u201cI am the Bill of the Caged Wild Songbirds.\u201d\n\nAnd from the darkness above came the flutter of myriads of tiny hearts\nmaddened with terror, and a sound such as no other man can have\nheard\u2014of thousands on thousands of little wings struggling, beating,\nstruggling against cage wires. That sound came slanting down to the\nwater like a swallow dipping, and passed\u2014invisible as wind.\n\nOn either parapet, before me, behind, were many, many thin gray shapes,\nlike rows of penguins. They sighed and waved, moving this way and that,\nas though saying farewell, then one by one dived and passed into the\ndark water below. And the whole air was alive with the sobbing of men\nand women, of children, and the cries of pain and terror from beasts and\nbirds. And just as I thought that I, too, would leap down into the water\nand escape, the dawn broke . . .\n\nI rubbed my eyes. Nothing there, save the river running quiet and full,\nwith a gray sheen on it; that bright clock joined once more to earth by\nits tower; and the sky flecked from pole to pole with tiny white clouds.\nA breeze fanned my face. Beside me on the Bridge a gentleman in top hat\nand black coat was stretching himself, and breathing deeply. I turned to\nhim.\n\n\u201cDid you see them, sir?\u201d\n\n\u201cSee what?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Bills.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat Bills?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Bills of Suffering! There, on the parapet; thin gray things,\npassing into nothing and the summer night?\u201d\n\nHe looked at me, and I saw he thought I was demented. Then, with a smile\non his pleasant red face, he pointed to the Clock Tower, and said:\n\n\u201cBills! I get enough of them in there!\u201d\n\n\u201cDidn\u2019t you even hear them?\u201d\n\nHe answered coldly:\n\n\u201cMy dear Sir, I am a matter-of-fact and hard-worked man, with no time to\n\u2018see\u2019 things; I have seen and heard nothing. I came out here for a\nbreath of air after sitting there all night!\u201d And pounding with his\nclenched fist at the air, he added:\n\n\u201cWe have just had a glorious scrap!\u201d\n\nUnderstanding then that I must have dreamed, I begged his pardon and\nmoved towards home, passing the Clock Tower.\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n               THE MODERN STOIC: AN ILL-NATURED DUOLOGUE.\n                      (From the _Outlook_, 1913.)\n\n\n\u201cWell, I can only say that to my mind it\u2019s just another appeal to false\nemotion; pandering to the softness of our times. This mawkish\nhumanitarianism is undermining our virility. I protest against all this\nagitation and rot about suffering.\u201d\n\n\u201cSuffering of _others_ is what you mean, I believe?\u201d\n\n\u201cHow do you know they suffer?\u201d\n\n\u201cForgive me, but where there is all the _prim\u00e2 facie_ evidence of\nsuffering, it is surely \u2018up\u2019 to you to prove its non-existence. Now, if\nyou yourself were to try these various experiences of animals which you\ntell us it is mawkish to concern ourselves about, then when you say they\nare nothing, we shall perhaps believe you.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! Will you be good enough to suggest how I can do that?\u201d\n\n\u201cGet yourself chained to your study chair\u2014as a watchdog is to its\nkennel\u2014for a year or so. You could then write convincingly on our\nmorbidity for desiring to do away with your chain by law. \u2018It is\nnothing,\u2019 you would say; \u2018no virile person\u2014\u2014\u2019 Or, better, cause\nyourself to be taken down a mine and kept there all your life working\ngoodness knows how many hours a day, like one of those pit ponies, to\ngush about whose sufferings you told me was effeminate. The papers would\nbe delighted to get a letter from your death-bed saying that it was all\ngreatly exaggerated.\u201d\n\n\u201cYour suggestions don\u2019t excite me, so far.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery well. Why not, in the interests of science, submit your body to\nsome of the less exacting vivisections, in order that you may reinforce\nfrom personal experience your remarks about the squeamishness of cranks,\nand the efficacy of curare. For, think how much more valuable to us all\nexperiments on the human _you_ would be! I won\u2019t go so far as to suggest\nthat you should be killed for food; for even under the comparatively\nslow present methods, which, in contempt of morbid sensibility I suppose\nyou would uphold, you would not be in a condition (though you might\npossibly have time) to write a letter to the paper saying that your\nsuffering was really nothing. No! I should rather advise you to have\nlittle bits cut off your ears\u2014a pity you have not a tail!\u2014but the\neffect can well be got by having your hands tied behind you on a hot day\nin a fly-infested field. We should then get from you a definite\npronouncement that the sufferings of being nicked and docked are\nnothing, instead of the mere contemptuous silence with which you at\npresent regard our mawkish attempts to stop these processes. Oh! there\nare lots of things you could experience, so that your letters to the\nPress might acquire that convincing quality which at present seems to me\nrather lacking.\u201d\n\n\u201cQuite finished? You forget a little, don\u2019t you, that a human being is\nnot an animal; so that if I followed your charming suggestions I should\nstill be no nearer knowing whether or no animals suffer, as you say they\ndo.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! there\u2019s no necessity for you to restrict your experiences to those\nwhich you advocate for animals. I\u2019ve noticed that you are always\ncomplaining of the morbid twaddle talked about the sufferings of\ncriminals, the unhappily married, and the poor. It would very much\nincrease our respect for your pronouncements if you would cause yourself\nto be confined in a space eight feet by twelve, in your own company, for\ntwenty-three hours out of twenty-four, for those nine months, whose\nreduction not long ago, in the case of convicts, I remember you\ndisapproved of. Or again, if you would marry a hopeless inebriate, or\nmerely grow to hate your wife\u2014a letter from you to some well-known\njournal to say that it was all really of no consequence would then be of\nincalculably greater value than it is at present. Or dare I hope that\nyou might be induced to embrace the career of making match-boxes, or\ncarding buttons, or sewing shirts or trousers for, say, twelve or\nfifteen hours a day, on a wage of seven shillings or so a week, in order\nthat we might have the benefit of knowing that your strenuous remarks\nabout the mawkishness of believing that the poor really suffer were\ninspired by a thorough and personal knowledge of the subject.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re unfortunate in your choice of sufferings. Those you mention are\nall necessary\u2014society being what it is.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! then you admit that they are sufferings?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo an extent\u2014much exaggerated.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery well! You have not yet, I perceive, grasped my points: First, what\ngives _you_ the right to say these sufferings are necessary to society,\nand to interfere with our attempts to reduce them so far as we can?\nSecondly, what makes _you_ an authority at all on the nature and degree\nof suffering?\u201d\n\n\u201cI refuse to answer your first question, which I consider insolent. As\nto the second, which is also insolent, of what use is one\u2019s imagination,\nif not to gauge the experiences of others without experiencing them\noneself?\u201d\n\n\u201cMy dear sir, imagination is not, believe me, a mere capacity for\nfailing to grasp what you have not yourself experienced. It is an active\nquality, and even when stretched to the utmost is a little liable to\nfall short of the poignancy of experience. Let me remind you of Poe\u2019s\ntale about the man on whom the walls of a room gradually closed in. That\ntale, I am sure, made even you feel that his sufferings might not be\n_nil_\u2014though I honestly believe it only roused you because it was so\nobviously romance. But do you think your imagination when you read the\nstory really provided you with the intensity of the sensations of that\nman, especially at the moment when the walls were grinding his bones?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat was, as you say, romance. But you humanitarians are always\nmagnifying and distorting into the dreadful what is very ordinary\nexperience; your imaginations are your masters, not your servants. What\nyou want is to be familiarized with the ordinary sights of Nature, and\nthe look of blood; we shouldn\u2019t then have all this namby-pambyism to put\nup with.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou recommend that we should be familiarized with the sight of blood?\nMight I suggest that no blood could be so educative as that of one who\npropounds the doctrine: Suffering is _nil_! Let your own blood flow for\nour enlightenment. Believe me, we shall pay a much more rapt attention\nto it than we should to that of any other creature.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat, as you well know, is an absurd suggestion.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes! Quite. But what I want you to appreciate is, how tiny the\ndifference between us is. _We_ think, that a man should make light of\nhis own suffering, but make light the suffering of others. Now,\ntransposing that first \u2018of\u2019 would make our philosophy identical with\nyours.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd how do you know that I have not sufferings, made light of\u2014hidden\nfrom every one?\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you? We have, you see, no means of knowing; and you must prove it\nif you wish for the luxury of having attention paid to you when you make\nlight of suffering for others. But if indeed you have, are you not a\nmost unhappy person in that you do not let a fellow-feeling make you\nwondrous kind?\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! I thought that was coming. Shall I tell you my opinion of you, sir?\nYou are a sickly sentimentalist.\u201d\n\n\u201cMy feeling about you, is not so hackneyed. With your philosophy of:\n\u2018_I_ am all right. Let _them_ suffer!\u2019\u2014you are\u2014the Modern Stoic.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                       ON PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT\n\n\n                                   I\n\n                          SOLITARY CONFINEMENT\n\n\n                                  (1)\n\n    (An Open Letter to the Home Secretary\u2014at that time, May, 1909,\n    the Right Hon. Herbert John Gladstone, M.P.\u2014printed in _The\n    Nation_.)\n\nSIR,\u2014In addressing you, I desire to say that I do so with a gratitude\nand respect that must be shared by those who know how much you have\nalready done for the improvement of our prison system.\n\nI head this letter \u201cSolitary Confinement\u201d because, though the expression\nhas long been officially abandoned in favour of the term \u201cSeparate\nConfinement,\u201d it more adequately defines the seclusion undergone by\nprisoners in closed cells, and distinguishes that system from a practice\nobtaining in local prisons of setting prisoners to work separately in\ntheir cells with open doors (when it is impossible to find them work in\nassociation).\n\nSolitary, or closed-cell, confinement\u2014that is to say, complete\nseclusion every day for nearly twenty-three hours out of twenty-four\u2014is\nnow, sir, as you, but not all men, know, endured by every convict\n(persons sentenced to penal servitude for three years and over) during\nthe first three, six, or nine months of his sentence, according to\nclass\u2014star, intermediate, or recidivist, and for the first month of\ntheir sentence by all prisoners (except juveniles) sentenced to hard\nlabour. Closed-cell confinement for women convicts lasts four months.\n\nIt is the object of this letter to urge on you the complete abandonment\nof this _closed-cell_ confinement, save where it is rendered necessary\nby the conduct of the convict or prisoner after his arrival in prison.\n\nIn order to demonstrate the weakness of the case for its retention, I\nshall first quote certain paragraphs from the Report of the Departmental\nCommittee, 1895, over which you, sir, presided. (The italics are my\nown.)\n\n    52. \u201cWe do not agree with the view that separate confinement is\n    desirable, on the ground that it enables the prisoner to\n    meditate on his misdeeds. We are, however, disposed to agree\n    that the separate system as a general principle is the right\n    policy. The separate system rests on two considerations only. It\n    is a deterrent, and it is a necessary safeguard against\n    contamination. But we are not of the opinion that association\n    for industrial labour under proper conditions is productive of\n    harm. On the contrary, we believe that _the advantages largely\n    outweigh the disadvantages_. . . . Subject to this condition\u201d\n    (careful supervision) \u201cand to a proper system of classification,\n    Colonel Garsia, a prison official of great experience, stated in\n    his evidence that there was _no danger whatever_ in associated\n    work. . . .\u201d\n\n    53. \u201c. . . We think that this limited form of association is\n    desirable for several reasons. (1) It is a welcome relief to\n    most prisoners from the dull and wearying monotony of the\n    constant isolation which forces men back on themselves, and _in\n    many cases leads to moral and physical deterioration_. (2) It\n    can be made in the nature of a privilege liable to suspension,\n    and would be, therefore, a satisfactory addition to the best\n    kind of available punishment. (3) It materially lessens the\n    difficulty of providing and organising industrial labour in\n    prisons. Prisoners can be taught trades in classes, and they can\n    then work in association under proper and economical supervision\n    in regular workshops or halls provided for the purpose. (4) It\n    is more healthy. _It is desirable that cells should be\n    untenanted for some hours in the day_, and in any case it is\n    better that work which produces dust should not be carried on in\n    the cells.\u201d\n\n    55. \u201cIn recommending a wider adoption of associated work, we\n    must admit that several competent witnesses expressed\n    disapproval of the principle. . . . But upon cross-examination,\n    it _did not appear that they could sustain their objection to\n    associated labour properly supervised, and they seemed to us to\n    have formed their opinion rather because separation has been the\n    accepted rule of the prison system than on any experience of\n    failure of the associated system_. . . .\u201d\n\n    76. \u201cIn the consideration of several matters contained in the\n    reference we had to touch upon the practice of confining\n    convicts for nine months\u2019\u201d (now, 1909, three, six or nine)\n    \u201csolitary imprisonment either in local or convict prisons. . . .\n    The history of it is interesting and suggestive. It was\n    originated in 1842 by Sir James Graham, then Home\n    Secretary. . . . We shall show how complete a change in the\n    apparent object of the practice has since occurred.\u201d\n\n    77. \u201c. . . The convict was to undergo eighteen months\u2019 solitary\n    imprisonment, but he was to be _freely visited_ by chaplain and\n    prison officials . . . he was to be kept in a state of\n    cheerfulness; hope, energy, resolution, and virtue were to be\n    imparted to him, and he was to be trained to be fully competent\n    to make his own way and become a respectable member in the penal\n    settlements. . . .\u201d\n\n    78. \u201cIn 1848 it was determined that, eighteen months being too\n    long a period for isolated confinement, a system should be\n    introduced based on a period of separate confinement, followed\n    by a term of associated labour, with a maximum of twelve months.\n    This was reduced by Lord Palmerston in 1853 to nine months. The\n    original intention of Sir J. Graham, which was that this period\n    should be _primarily of a reformatory character, appears fifteen\n    years later to have been lost sight of_. . . .\u201d\n\n    79. \u201cIt would appear from Sir J. Jebb\u2019s evidence in 1853 that\n    the main object of the separate (solitary) confinement had come\n    to be _deterrence_. . . .\u201d\n\n    80. \u201c_In effect, this is the purpose which it must be regarded\n    as now designed to serve_. . . . It is certainly a practical\n    convenience in the sense that the expense of sending convicts\n    immediately after sentence to convict prisons, either singly or\n    in small detachments, is curtailed by the system of gathering\n    prisons. _This consideration alone is not sufficient to justify\n    the practice._ The argument that it is a necessary discipline\n    for penal servitude, _if true_, is no argument for sending the\n    convicts to local prisons. We do not regard the system with\n    favour. We see no objection to short periods of detention in\n    local prisons for the purpose of collecting parties for transfer\n    to the convict prisons; _but if the system is a good one at\n    all_, we think it ought, as far as possible, to be worked out in\n    the convict prisons from first to last. _We think it cannot be\n    denied that cases occur in which a nervous condition, agitated\n    by remorse and by a long continuance of the separate system, may\n    be injuriously affected by it._ From the evidence before us, we\n    have no reason to believe that such cases are of other than\n    exceptional occurrence. We think it is worth considering whether\n    the severity of the system _might not be mitigated by a\n    substantial reduction in the period of separation_. . . .\u201d\n\nThese, sir, were the conclusions of your Committee as far back as 1895.\nI submit that, as a whole, they point to the existence of very grave\ndoubts in the minds of its members as to the wisdom of retaining this\nsystem of closed-cell confinement at all. Since then great strides have\nbeen made in the direction of the classification of prisoners, and of\nassociated labour, and the whole slow trend of thought and effort in\nregard to prisons has been in the direction of reformation of the\nprisoner.\n\nThe late Sir Edmund Du Cane, though one of its chief supporters, has\ncalled solitary confinement \u201c. . . _an artificial state of existence\nabsolutely opposed to that which Nature points out as the condition of\nmental, moral, and physical health_ . . .\u201d (\u201cThe Punishment and\nPrevention of Crime,\u201d p. 138.) Its effect on a highly-strung temperament\nis thus described by a young woman who had served a long term of penal\nservitude.\n\n    \u201c. . . It is like nothing else in the world\u2014it is impossible to\n    describe it; no words can paint its miseries, nothing that I can\n    say would give any idea of the horrors of solitary\n    confinement\u2014it maddens one even to think of it. No one who has\n    not been through it can conceive the awful anguish one endures\n    when shut up in a living tomb, thrown back upon yourself . . .\n    The overpowering sensation is one of suffocation. You feel you\n    must and can smash the walls, burst open the doors, kill\n    yourself! . . .\u201d\n\nAdd to this Sir Robert Anderson\u2019s description of his sensations\n(_Nineteenth Century_, March, 1902), after he had caused himself to be\nlocked up for only a few hours with a political prisoner. \u201cI seemed to\nbe in a pit. There was no want of air, and yet I felt smothered. My\nnerves would not have long stood the strain of it.\u201d\n\nThis is the conclusion, from personal experience, of H. B. Montgomery:\n\n    \u201cThe whole of this procedure\u201d (solitary confinement) \u201cis cruel\n    and barbarous, unworthy of a humane or civilized nation. To my\n    knowledge it drives many men mad, and even when it does not\n    induce lunacy, mentally affects a large proportion of those\n    subjected to it . . .\u201d And: \u201cThe less a prisoner is thrown in on\n    himself and the more he is encouraged to foster his home ties,\n    the less likely is he to descend into that condition of despair\n    and demoralization which are such potent factors in driving men\n    to perdition.\u201d\n\nThese are the words of Colonel Baker, of the Salvation Army, before your\nDepartmental Committee of 1895:\n\n    \u201cAs to convicts on discharge, I should like to say that we find\n    a great number of them incapable of pursuing any ordinary\n    occupation. They are _mentally weak and wasted_, requiring\n    careful treatment for months after they have been received by\n    us. In several cases they are men who are only fit to be sent\n    off home or to a hospital.\u201d\n\nThese, after personal experience, are the comments of W. B. N. in his\nmoderate, and stoical, book \u201cPenal Servitude\u201d:\n\n    \u201c. . . but, at the best, the system of \u2018separate confinement\u2019 is\n    a very bad one. It is only solitary confinement slightly\n    improved, and it has some of the worst effects of that terrible\n    punishment. The intention of it, doubtless, is to impress the\n    prisoner with the gravity of his offence against society, and to\n    bring him to a better state of mind. But in some cases, I am\n    convinced, it has quite the opposite result. The solitude and\n    the hopeless monotony, with nothing to think of but the long\n    years of suffering and disgrace ahead, produces nervous\n    irritation approaching, in some cases, to frenzy, and instead of\n    softening the man brings out all the evil there is in him. Under\n    such conditions, the worst companions he could have are his own\n    thoughts. In men of a different temperament, again, it deadens\n    all sensibility, so that they do not care a straw what happens\n    afterwards, but would just as soon become habitual criminals as\n    not. It is this sullen hatred of themselves and of everybody\n    else engendered and fostered during the long dismal months of\n    separate confinement that makes the most dangerous and\n    troublesome prisoners at a later stage. There are a third class,\n    who, having no criminal instincts, nor any strong instincts at\n    all, merely give way mentally, without any acute distress, and\n    become little better than half-witted by the time their separate\n    confinement is at an end. . . .\u201d\n\nThese are the remarks of Professor Prins, Inspector-General of Belgian\nprisons:\n\n    \u201cSolitude produces in him (the vacuous-minded, erratic, and\n    animal person who is usually the criminal) no intellectual\n    activity and no searching of conscience; it serves to deepen his\n    mental vacuity and to deliver him over to unnatural indulgence\n    in the one animal appetite of which he cannot be deprived.\u201d\n    (\u201cThe Criminal,\u201d Havelock Ellis, p. 328.)\n\nBeltrani-Scalia, formerly Inspector-General of Prisons in Italy, is of\nthe same opinion, and remarks that \u201cthe cellular system looks upon man\nas a brother of La Trappe.\u201d (\u201cThe Criminal,\u201d p. 329.)\n\nThe following passage, taken from Prince Kropotkin\u2019s \u201cMemoirs of a\nRevolutionist,\u201d refers to a peasant confined solitarily in a cell\nbeneath him in the Fortress of Peter and Paul, and with whom he and his\nneighbour could communicate by knocking.\n\n    \u201cSoon I began to notice, to my terror, that from time to time\n    his mind wandered. Gradually his thoughts became more and more\n    confused and we two perceived, step by step, day by day,\n    evidences that his reason was failing, until his talk became at\n    last that of a lunatic. Frightful noises and wild cries came\n    next from the lower storey; our neighbour was mad. . . . To\n    witness the destruction of a man\u2019s mind under such conditions\n    was terrible.\u201d\n\nFinally, this is the judgment of the rector of St. Marylebone, Dr. W. D.\nMorrison (after more than ten years\u2019 experience as Prison Chaplain): \u201cIt\ntends to have a demoralising effect upon many classes of prisoners.\u201d\n\nSuch evidence might be multiplied indefinitely.\n\nNow, sir, in regard to the object of solitary confinement we have surely\nno need to go behind the finding of your committee:\n\n\u201cIt would appear that the main object of the separate\u201d (closed-cell)\n\u201cconfinement had come to be deterrence . . . In effect this is the\npurpose which it must be regarded as now designed to serve.\u201d\n\nIn regard to its nature, we have, as surely, no need of other\ndescription than its supporter\u2019s, the late Sir Edmund Du Cane\u2019s \u201cAn\nartificial state of existence absolutely opposed to that which Nature\npoints out as the condition of mental, moral, and physical health.\u201d\n\nThe questions arising, then, are two:\u2014\n\n    (_a_) Is this practice of solitary confinement, in fact,\n    deterrent?\n\n    (_b_) Has a civilized nation the right to retain offenders for\n    months in a state of existence absolutely opposed to mental,\n    moral, and physical health, even for the purpose of deterrence?\n\nAs to question (_a_). No support can be gathered for the plea of\ndeterrence from the statistics of penal servitude; mere severity of\npunishment has never been proved to be a factor of deterrence. When men\nwere hung for horse or sheep stealing those offences were far more\nprevalent than they are now. Moreover, the nature of their coming\npunishment is too vaguely known to those who have never been in prison\nfor the thought of solitary confinement to have any deterrent effect on\nninety-nine out of a hundred first offenders. Indeed, that it is not\nsufficiently present to any man\u2019s mind is shown by the fact that so\nhumane a public as ours knows and thinks so little about the suffering\nof solitary confinement as to have allowed it to remain part of their\nprison system.\n\nThe effect of a period of solitary confinement which comes _at the\nbeginning_ of long years of imprisonment is inevitably wiped out by the\nmonotony of the prison life which follows. Mechanical adjustment to\nenvironment is always going on in the human being. Solitary confinement\nis a smothering process to which the mind must adapt itself, or perish.\nThe mental demoralization remains after the confinement comes to an end,\nbut the consciousness of that mental ruin, the consciousness of the\nsuffering, has become dulled; from his closed cell the convict passes on\nto the ordinary prison life, actually unable to appreciate the extent of\nthe misery he has undergone. Obviously, moreover, deterrence (if there\nbe deterrence) paid for by mental and moral weakening is not true\ndeterrence; _for the acquired power of resistance to crime, if any, is\nnullified through deterioration of the prisoner\u2019s fibre_.\n\nThe true deterrence of imprisonment lies in the general fear of loss of\nliberty; in that nightmare of a thought all details of impending\npunishment (even if known) mechanically merge.\n\nThis solitary confinement, however, is sometimes justified on the ground\nthat it is necessary to buoy the convict up with hope. It is thought\nthat by placing him at the outset in the seventh hell of pain we lessen\nhis sufferings in the minor hells which await him at the expiration of\nthose first dire months. That, sir, is humanity with a vengeance.\nImagine this principle logically applied to social life. The husband\nwould beat the wife that she might not so greatly feel the inevitable\nwear and tear of matrimony; the mother would starve the child that it\nmight experience with more equanimity the ordinary pangs of hunger; the\nmaster would withhold wages that the servant might more duly appreciate\nthe receipt of what was due to him. It appears, indeed, to be almost\nwhat is called a vicious principle.\n\nTo question (_b_)\u2014Whether a civilized country has the right to retain\nits offenders in a state of existence absolutely opposed to mental,\nmoral, and physical health, even for the sake of a supposed\ndeterrence\u2014I conceive, sir, but this one answer: Only so long as we do\nnot realize what this solitary confinement means.\n\nSix months (to take the mean sentence) is a short time to a free man; it\nis an eternity to a prisoner confined in solitude. One hundred and\neighty days\u2014four thousand hours, of utter solitude and silence in a\ncell, which\u2014in the words of Sir Robert Anderson (_Nineteenth Century_,\nMarch, 1902)\u2014\u201cdiffers from every other sort of apartment designed for\nhuman habitation in that all view of external nature, such as might\nsoothe, and possibly alleviate, the mind, is, with elaborate care,\nexcluded\u201d\u2014solitude broken only by one hour a day, of chapel, and\nwalking up and down a yard, by the sight of a warder, three times or so\na day, bringing in food; by a ten minutes\u2019 visit perhaps from chaplain\nor governor.\n\nFour thousand hours of utter solitude in a closed space thirteen feet by\nseven\u2014with the prospect of anything from two to twenty years of\nmonotonous routine and loss of liberty to follow! Can a Public Opinion,\nwhich succeeds in bringing these facts home to its imagination, justly\nsay that two and a half to twenty years of loss of liberty, with all\nthat this means in prison, is not sufficient punishment for any crime\nthat man can commit, without the preliminary agony of four thousand\nhours of solitude in a closed space thirteen feet by seven?\n\nSir, Public Opinion has never yet succeeded in realizing what this\nso-called separate confinement means. In the year ending March, 1907, we\nset 1,035 persons, of whom 691 had never been sentenced to penal\nservitude before, to endure these hours of agony and demoralization. In\nthe year ending March, 1908, we set another 1,179 to endure the same,\n749 of them for the first time. At the present moment another thousand,\nmore or less, are undergoing it.\n\nIn thus subjecting year by year a thousand persons to nine, six, or\nthree months of an \u201cartificial state of existence absolutely opposed to\nthat which Nature points out as the condition of mental, moral, and\nphysical health,\u201d we are annually committing an offence against our\nreason, of which we reap the full reward in the mental, moral, and\nphysical deterioration of persons already demoralized enough; and an\noffence against our humanity in reality as great as if we had placed\nthem on the rack.\n\nI by no means lose sight of the fact that this closed-cell confinement\nfalls with different effect on different temperaments; it falls, no\ndoubt, far less heavily on the sluggish and the brutalized than on the\nnervous types, of which, however, we are now breeding great numbers.\nBut, sir, even the habitual criminal\u2014popularly supposed to dread\nflogging more than anything\u2014has been known while enduring solitary\nconfinement to beg for the lash in place of it. Sir J. Jebb, giving\nevidence before the Penal Servitude Acts Commission in 1863, uses these\nwords: \u201cWith burglars and reckless characters I think that separate\nconfinement is dreaded more than any other kind of discipline.\u201d And in\nregard to other effects on the habitual criminal, the words of Professor\nPrins, above quoted, are significant. The sluggish brutality of many\nrecidivists is produced in the first place by this very process of\nclosed-cell confinement. Man, even the lowest type of man, is a social\nand gregarious animal\u2014all that is best in him depends on, and is\nbrought out by, contact with his fellow-creatures; if that be not so,\nour religion and whole social scheme are falsely conceived. Deprive man\nof all contact with his fellow-man, shut him in upon himself,\nhopelessly, utterly, month by month, and he will come out of that\nartificial existence lower and more brutal than when he entered it.\nProlonged starvation and agony of the mind is worse than starvation and\nagony of the body, carrying, as it does, the wreck of the body with it.\n\nWe have the right to restrain offenders and to safeguard society; in\ndoing this we unavoidably punish with that already terrible punishment\n\u201closs of liberty.\u201d But, sir, we have\u2014surely\u2014not the right to inflict\n_unnecessary and harmful suffering_. I recognise to the full that there\nis no lack of humanity among those who work our prison system; recognise\nto the full that they would not willingly inflict any suffering that\nthey acknowledged to be unnecessary; but in every department of life\nthose who administer a system are, in the nature of things, with rare\nexceptions, too habituated to that system, too close to it, to be able\nto see it in due perspective.\n\nI ask you, sir, and I ask the common sense of the public, whether\nharmful and unnecessary suffering must not inevitably be endured by the\nmind, and through the mind by the body, of a human being during these\nthousands of hours of closed-cell confinement. To answer that question\nfairly each member of the public has but to ask what would be the effect\non himself or herself of nine or six or even three months\u2019 utter\nseclusion (except for one hour each day) from all sight and sound not\nonly of human beings, but of animals, trees, flowers, and from the sight\neven of the sky, all but a patch no bigger than a tea-tray. We are on\nthe whole a humane people; and it is not so much a question of our\nhumanity as of our imaginations. The position is plainly this: Those who\nhave to work our prison system perhaps could not do so at all if they\nallowed their imaginations fair play. The community are too aloof to\nrealize what that prison system means. And so the unnecessary\ndemoralization and suffering caused by this closed-cell confinement goes\non at the rate of (for convicts alone) more than four million hours a\nyear!\n\nI do not base the appeal of this letter so much on humanity as on common\nsense. Why, when we are faced with appalling statistics of criminality,\nwith appalling difficulties in dealing with and reforming criminals, do\nwe deliberately continue a practice which both evidence and reason tell\nus contributes to the more complete demoralization of such as are\nalready demoralized?\n\nIn the Report of your Departmental Committee of 1895 occur these words:\n\n    \u201cIt should be the object of the prison authorities, through the\n    prison staff and any suitable auxiliary effort that can be\n    employed, to humanize the prisoners, to prevent them from\n    feeling that the State merely chains them for a certain period\n    and cares nothing about them beyond keeping them in safe custody\n    and under iron discipline.\u201d\n\n    And again: \u201c. . . it strengthens our belief that the main fault\n    of our prison system is that it treats prisoners too much as\n    irreclaimable criminals instead of reclaimable men and women.\u201d\n\nI submit that no unprejudiced man can regard this closed-cell\nconfinement as a humanizing influence, except in the rarest cases, or\nmaintain that it helps to reclaim men and women.\n\nI refer again to this paragraph in the Report of your Committee:\n\n    \u201cIt\u201d (the detention of convicts in closed-cell confinement at\n    local prisons) \u201cis certainly a practical convenience in the\n    sense that the expense of sending convicts immediately after\n    sentence to convict prisons, either singly or in detachments, is\n    curtailed by the system of gathering prisons. _This\n    consideration alone is not sufficient to justify the practice._\u201d\n\nI am credibly informed that the whole matter is one of administration,\nand can be modified without Act of Parliament. I appeal, then, to you,\nsir, who have already done so much towards reforming our prison system,\nto work for the abandonment of this custom of confining convicts in\nclosed cells for nine, six or three months, _or any less period_, either\nin local or in convict prisons; to substitute therefore work in\nassociation from the commencement of sentence; or, where such is not\nimmediately possible, work in separate cells _with open doors_. And I\nwould further appeal to you to advocate the reduction of the\ntwenty-eight days, closed-cell confinement endured by prisoners serving\nsentences of hard labour.\n\nThan this great and necessary reform I can conceive none that will, at a\nsingle stroke, remove so much harmful and unnecessary suffering, or do\nmore to reconcile our Penal Laws with Justice and Common Sense.\n\n                                  (2)\n\n    (From a Letter to Sir Evelyn Ruggles Brise, K.C.B., Prison\n    Commission, Whitehall, July, 1909.)\n\n\u201c. . . I was at X. Prison on Tuesday, at Y. Prison yesterday. Saw all\nthe officials, and talked with twelve convicts. . . .\n\n\u201cIt was suggested to me at X. that I ought to stay some days there and\nsee every convict. I would be willing, if you will allow me, to stay\nsome days at X. Prison, see every convict, and keep record of the\nanswers obtained from each one as to the effect on him of separate\nconfinement. I think they would speak to me freely. From all I hear, and\ncertainly from its situation and general airiness and lightness, X.\nPrison is the best of the four collecting prisons, and there would be no\ndanger of getting an impression more unfavourable to separate\nconfinement than I should get from seeing each convict in all four\nprisons.\n\n\u201cAn expression used during our conversation the other day leads me for a\nmoment into the deeper and wider significance of this question. It was\nthe expression \u2018a downright enemy of society\u2019 used of a certain class of\nprisoner. I have been thinking over that phrase \u2018a downright enemy of\nsociety\u2019 to see if one more meditation on it would correct the\nconclusions of a hundred previous meditations, but I do not feel that it\nhas. I think of it like this: Every now and then, seldom enough but\nstill too frequently, we come across children, in all classes, who, from\nthe age when they begin to act at all, show that there is something in\nthem warped, distorted, inherently inimical to goodness. It is in them,\nof them, a taint in their blood, a lesion of their brain. They grow up.\nThey are not insane, but they have a blind spot, a place in their souls\nor internal economy\u2014or whatever you like to call it\u2014that some\nmysterious, rather awful, hand has darkened. They are doomed from their\nbirth by reason of that blind spot sooner or later to become criminals,\nthat is, to commit some action which is not consonant with the actions\nof those who are born without this blind spot; some are not found out,\nsome are. When found out they are known as \u2018the criminal type.\u2019 They\nform a portion, not perhaps a very large one, of our convicts. Can\nthose, who have had the good fortune to be born like their fellows,\npunish these unfortunates _for the sake of punishing them_, for the sake\nof avenging society? I cannot bring myself to think so.\n\n\u201cThese are not, however, the bulk of our convicts. The greater part of\nthem are those who are born more or less normal, but with what is called\na weak character.[5] I don\u2019t know if you have ever been much amongst\nthose classes which supply the vast proportion of our criminals; if you\nhave, you will recognize, as I do, what a wonderful thing it is that so\nsmall a proportion of them become criminals. You will have seen the very\ndreadful struggle they have against luck from the time when they begin\nto know anything. You will feel, as I do, that keeping their heads above\nwater is, and must be, touch and go with them from day to day; they\u2019ve\njust a plank between them and going down, and a very little extra sea\n(it runs high all the time) tips that plank over. Many of them are bred\nin slums and garrets where the only real God is Drink. When they go\nunder, they are suddenly up against the most inexorable thing in life,\nLaw and Order, to whose mercilessness every citizen subscribes in\nself-defence, whether he will or no. When they have paid their debt to\nLaw, they emerge into the same conditions against which they were too\nweak by nature to stand up before, with the one weapon they had,\ncharacter, either gone or gravely damaged. It is not remarkable that\nthey go down again, and then again, and so on, until they become\n\u2018enemies of society.\u2019\n\n\u201cIt seems to me that gentlemen (I speak in the spirit), holding as their\ncreed the duty of putting themselves in the place of others, cannot\nreconcile it with that creed to punish _for the mere sake of punishing_\nthose whose chances in life have been so vastly inferior to their own.\n\n\u201cThese general considerations must be platitudes to you, and I feel that\nyou do not, any more than I, believe in punishment as a means of\nrevenging society, but merely as a means of protecting society by\nrestraining and trying to reform the offender. Society (I speak in the\nwidest sense of heredity and environment) makes the offender; it can\nrestrain, but it cannot with justice exact vengeance from the victims of\nits own shortcomings.\n\n\u201cAll hope of real diminution in crime and criminals (in default of\nbetter social conditions) depends, in my belief, not on the infliction\nof \u2018deterrent suffering\u2019 in prisons, but, _first_, on the extension of\nprobation, and your splendid Borstal system; _secondly_, on abolition of\n\u2018tickets of leave,\u2019 and that vicious principle of not having done with\nthe offence when you have paid the penalty for it; _thirdly_, on a\nmoderate, humane, and reformatory use of the principle of detention of\nthe hopeless recidivist; _fourthly_, on the increase of humanizing\ninfluences brought to bear on prisoners in prison. I give full weight to\nthe necessity for not making prison life a treat, and to the\nconsideration that what would be hell to us may be comparative ease to\nthe habitual criminal; but I think that, with \u2018closed-cell\u2019 confinement\nabolished, society might still make its mind easy. The man who will come\nback to prison life from choice, so long as he can get his bread in\nfreedom, does not exist; the cumulative force of hard and regular work,\nof silence, of no tobacco, of no drink, of no knowledge of what is going\non outside, of being ordered about from morning to night, of being, a\nnumber, not a man, of losing all touch with his family and friends,\nabove all, of utter monotony, of the sense at the best of being in\nschool, at the worst of being in slavery, of the feeling of having whole\nyears sponged out of his life (for a man does not _live_ in prison), may\nnot be easy to grasp for those who live in liberty themselves, but it is\nnone the less tremendous.\n\n\u201cIt is perhaps superfluous to remind you, who for so many years have\nbeen fighting for and achieving reforms, of what a queer, hypnotizing\ninfluence \u2018things as they are\u2019\u2014in fact, the _existing system_ has on\nthe minds of those who are constantly confronted with it; and to beg you\nfor that reason to take due discount from the evidence of those who are\nnecessarily under that hypnotic influence; just as no doubt you will,\nwithout my begging you, take discount from my appeal on the ground that\nI am an outsider.\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t close this letter without saying that it\u2019s impossible to go\nover our prisons and not see that the country has in yourself a great\nreforming administrator; I shall consider it a rare piece of good\nfortune if any words of mine help to bring about in your mind the belief\nthat this particular feature of our prison system, closed-cell\nconfinement, requires immediate mitigation and _ultimate elimination_,\nexcept in individual cases. . . .\u201d\n\n-----\n\n[5] Criminality, I now think, is as often the result of too strong a\ncharacter, or rather of too much unbalanced self-will.\u2014J. G.\n\n                                  (3)\n\n                    A MINUTE ON SEPARATE CONFINEMENT\n\n\n    Forwarded to the Home Secretary and the Prison Commissioners,\n    September, 1909.\n\n    (Compiled from visits paid to sixty convicts undergoing separate\n    confinement in X. and Y. Prisons, July and September, 1909.)\n\nBy the courtesy of the Prison Commissioners, to whom my thanks are due,\nI visited these convicts in their cells, and conversed privately with\neach one of them for from ten minutes to a quarter of an hour. I put\ncertain definite questions to each in regard to the effect of separate\nconfinement on themselves, and, so far as they could tell me, on other\nprisoners, prefacing each conversation by the information that I was in\nno way connected with the prison authorities. My object in the course of\nthese conversations was to get behind the formal question and answer to\nthe man\u2019s real feelings. I met with no hostility, defiance, or conscious\nevasion in any single case. In some cases a word or two was sufficient\nto bring a rush of emotion. Several men were in tears throughout the\ninterview. In the majority of cases, however, I found it difficult to\nget the prisoners to express themselves; and in some cases formal\nanswers, stolidly given, were reversed by some sudden revelation of\nfeeling evoked, as it were, in spite of the prisoner\u2019s self. Generally\nspeaking, I judged that feelings were understated rather than\noverstated.\n\nThe summary of these interviews is as follows: (sixty convicts\ninterviewed):\u2014\n\nOf these:\n\n _Eight_ preferred separate confinement to working in    CATEGORY A.\n   association, and were not conscious of harmful\n\n _Fifteen_ would prefer work in association, but         CATEGORY B.\n   (1) Having suffered from their separate confinement,\n   had got more or less used to it (three cases).\n   (2) Were suffering, but thought it was good for them\n   (three cases).\n   (3) Were so incapable of expressing  their\n   experiences, that  no definite answer could be  got\n   from them (nine cases).\n\n _Thirty-seven_ preferred association; suffered severely CATEGORY C.\n   from separate  confinement; and asserted that they\n   had been harmed; that all  prisoners were harmed, and\n   some driven crazy.\n\nOf the eight convicts in Category A, who preferred separate:\n\n    _Four_ were educated men (three of whom asserted a natural\n    preference for their own society in or out of prison).\n\n    _One_ was an old recidivist with five sentences of penal\n    servitude.\n\n    _Two_ (of a callous type) preferred separate confinement because\n    they had no temptation to talk and get into trouble.\n\n    _One_ was the only prisoner I saw who said he had deliberately\n    committed his offence in order to get into prison.\n\nThe following phrases taken from notes made immediately after each\ninterview indicate the general nature of the suffering experienced by\nprisoners separately confined:\n\n    \u201cI used to look up at the window, and something seemed to pull\n    me back.\u201d\n\n    \u201cThe first month was awful, I didn\u2019t hardly know how to keep\n    myself together. I thought I should go mad.\u201d\n\n    \u201cIt\u2019s made me very nervous. The least thing upsets me; I was not\n    nervous before.\u201d\n\n    \u201cI\u2019ve got a daughter, and I grieve over her all the time;\n    there\u2019s nothing to take your mind off.\u201d\n\n    \u201cI\u2019ve never felt right since\u2014it\u2019s got all over me.\u201d (This man\n    cried all the time. He seemed utterly unnerved, and broken up. A\n    Star Class man.)\n\n    \u201cI feel it dreadfully. It gets worse as it goes on.\u201d\n\n    \u201cIt\u2019s no life at all. I\u2019d sooner be dead than here.\u201d (This man\n    was very tearful and quavery.)\n\n    \u201cMy first spell of \u2018separate\u2019 nearly drove me raving.\u201d (This was\n    a recidivist serving his third term.)\n\n    \u201cIt broke me down on my first sentence. It destroys a man.\u201d\n\n    \u201cI had a cold lonely feeling. . . . Nine months of it is killing\n    for most men.\u201d\n\n    \u201cIt\u2019s _punishment_ to shut up a man for nine months.\u201d (This is a\n    fair specimen of the very general under-statement of evidently\n    acute feelings.)\n\n    \u201cIt\u2019ll send men \u2018up the stick.\u2019\u201d (Off their heads.)\n\n    \u201cI\u2019m very miserable and down-\u2019earted. You feel it more and more\n    as you get older. I hardly know sometimes what I\u2019m doing.\u201d (This\n    was from an old man of sixty-one who had been twenty years in\n    prison, and said he did not expect to last through this\n    sentence. _He had still six months of separate to run_, and\n    struck me as very broken up, and suffering.)\n\n    \u201cI keep \u2018picturing\u2019 things, and walking about. It sends men \u2018up\n    the pole!\u2019\u201d (Another bad case of a young recidivist of\n    twenty-nine, with five months of his \u2018separate\u2019 still to run.)\n\n    \u201cWalls seem to close in. . . . I get blankness in the brain;\n    have to stop reading.\u201d\n\n    \u201cIt\u2019s hell upon earth.\u201d (An educated prisoner.)\n\n    \u201cAlmost unbearable depression.\u201d (An educated prisoner.)\n\n    \u201cSleep\u2019s the only comfort.\u201d\n\n    \u201cI sit there sometimes at work, not knowing what I\u2019m doing.\u201d\n\n    \u201cI\u2019ve good nerves. A man with bad nerves would soon snuff out in\n    \u2018separate\u2019.\u201d\n\n    \u201cIf a man had the spy-hole open even, so that he could see out,\n    it would make a vast deal of difference. . . . I\u2019ve seen numbers\n    of men come on the public works from their \u2018separate,\u2019 quite\n    silly.\u201d\n\n    \u201cI\u2019ve seen many a man driven queer.\u201d (This recidivist had served\n    four terms of penal servitude.)\n\n    \u201cI\u2019ve seen men driven off their nuts.\u201d\n\nI could not get an admission from any prisoner that the suffering they\nunderwent in separate confinement deterred them from coming back to\nprison. The two reasons they assigned for coming back to prison were:\n\n    (1) That they had so little chance outside. (2) Drink.\n\nIt is obvious, however, that the separate period is almost universally\nregarded as much the worst part of the sentence.\n\nMy reasons for believing that, in spite of this, separate confinement is\nnot, in fact, deterrent were given in my open letter to the Home\nSecretary (the _Nation_, May 1st and May 8th, 1909); this belief has\nbeen strengthened rather than weakened in the course of this\ninvestigation. As a final result of these visits I record my deliberate\nconviction that no competent observer with any knack of getting at men\u2019s\nfeelings, and the opportunity of conversing in private and _as a private\nperson_, with the prisoners could come to any other conclusion than that\nan immense amount of harmful and unnecessary suffering is inflicted by\nclosed-cell confinement extending over the periods (especially the\nlonger periods) now prevailing. It is my belief that if the authorities\nwere able to adopt this method of getting at the real state of the case\nthe system would not remain unaltered for a single day.\n\n                                  (4)\n\n    (From a Letter to the Home Secretary, the Right Hon. Herbert\n    John Gladstone, M.P., October, 1909.)\n\n\u201c. . . Every day that passes with this question undealt with means so\nmany thousand hours of solid, tangible, harmful, removable misery. There\nis a distinction between this particular kind of misery and any other\nexperienced by man in a state of society such as we now have in England.\nThere is no other form of acute, _prolonged misery enforced_ on people\nin such a way as that they can by no possibility avoid it. The old\nsaying, \u2018He deserves all he\u2019ll get and more,\u2019 stultifies itself the\nmoment it is looked into; the plea of deterrence does not hold water;\nand this misery stands out stark\u2014a survival from the philosophy (!) of\nthe dark ages. . . .\u201d\n\n    NOTE.\u2014Solitary (or separate) confinement for convicts has been\n    reduced from nine, six, and three months to three months for\n    \u201cold hands,\u201d and one month for the other two classes of\n    convicts. But the writer feels as strongly as ever that, except\n    in special cases, it should be done away with altogether.\u2014J. G.\n\n\n                                   II\n\n                        THE SPIRIT OF PUNISHMENT\n              (An Article in the _Daily Chronicle_, 1910.)\n\n\nIn the matter of our administration of justice there is a very simple\nquestion to be asked by every man of his own conscience: What do I\nbelieve is the object of punishment? Until this question has been asked\nand coherently answered by the community it is obviously as mad to apply\npunishment as for a man to set out to dine with a friend of whose\naddress he has no knowledge. But by how many people has this question\nbeen asked; by how many has it been coherently answered?\n\nThe whole administration of our justice at present treads the quicksands\nof ambiguity as to the object of punishment. The vast majority of us\nhave never put to ourselves the question at all, being quite satisfied\nthat the object of punishment is to \u201cserve people right\u201d; and out of the\nsmall minority who have asked the question the far greater number have\ngiven themselves no coherent answer. And yet it is only from a coherent\nand wise answer, graven in letters of stone on our law courts and\nprisons, in letters of feeling in our hearts, that hope of diminution in\ncrime, and in the damage which arises from it, both to the community and\nto the offender, can come.\n\nNow, whatever sentimental relation there be between punishment and our\ndeep instincts of equity, _the object of punishment is the protection of\nsociety and the reformation of the offender_. That is the only safe rule\n_in practice_; and everything in our administration of justice which\nconflicts with it is falsely conceived. But it is the commonest thing in\nthe world for people to accept that definition without considering in\nthe least what it means; for experts, after thoroughly agreeing with it,\nto suddenly remark that for such and such a crime they, personally,\nwould have no mercy; for sentences to be passed in which the judge has\nobviously fitted the punishment to his private views of the heinousness\nof the crime, without real regard for the protection of society, or for\nthe reformation of the person sentenced. All which is extremely natural,\nand very bad.\n\nThe confusion arises from not keeping the idea of the protection of\nsociety closely enough coupled with the idea of the reformation of the\noffender; from dwelling too much on the past, and not looking enough to\nthe future; from the continued existence of the old theory, \u201can eye for\nan eye\u201d condemned to death over nineteen hundred years ago, but still\ndying very hard in this Christian country.\n\nThe protection of Society includes the adjustment of punishment so as\nnot to leave on the mind of the injured person a crude sense of injury\nunhealed by retribution. It includes the removal from individuals of the\ndesire to take the law into their own hands. It is necessary to preserve\nin punishment a due element of deterrence. The State and those who\nadminister its functions have no business with anything but the\nscientific application of the best means to do all this, and reform the\noffender.\n\nYet in the glibbest way that golden rule \u201cprotection of society and\nreformation of the offender\u201d is cited to cover all the flaws in our\nadministration of justice.\n\nIn its name men are prosecuted, when with better comprehension they\nshould be warned or helped.\n\nIn its name first offenders are imprisoned, when with better\ncomprehension the _imprisonment of first offenders_, of whatever age,\nfor whatever offence, should be unknown; a much greater danger to\nsociety arises, and infinitely less chance of reforming the delinquent\nexists, when that delinquent has once been committed to prison. Place\nhim on probation, or send him to a reformatory institution such as\nBorstal, for whatever fixed period may seem necessary\u2014but to a prison,\nas prisons now are, never! To send him there is fatal, hopeless,\nuneconomic, unscientific.\n\nIn its name, the continuance of closed-cell confinement is defended; and\nwe endeavour to reform men by consigning them to the operation of what,\nin the words of its staunch supporter (the late Sir Edmund Du Cane), is,\n\u201can artificial state of existence, absolutely opposed to that which\nNature points out as the condition of mental, moral, and physical\nhealth.\u201d We try in fact to protect society by a method that does not\nreform. Many have raised their voices against this strange practice\nsince evidence, given before the Select Committee on Prison Discipline,\n1850, described closed-cell confinement as dangerous to health, and\nunjust to the prisoner \u201cbecause it throws him back into society with\ndiminished physical ability to encounter the variableness of climate,\nthe severity of labour, and the pinchings of want, to which as a\nlabourer in the market of competition he must ever be liable.\u201d . . .!\nYet in the name of the golden rule the practice lingers on, helping to\nrot men and women.\n\nIn the name of this golden rule, prisoners working in association are,\nin our prisons, forced into an unnatural silence, for ever furtively\nevaded. Some silence may be good, but perpetual silence is too unnatural\nnot to defeat itself. Classification is the true preventive of\ncontamination, not complete separation, nor perpetual silence.\n\nIn its name the handicap of the ticket-of-leave (now, thank heaven,\nmodified) is placed on those who are desperately handicapped already.\n\nThe idea behind these and other practices of the administration of our\njustice is that much deterrent suffering is needful for the protection\nof society and the reformation of the offender. But those who know human\nnature know that, except in rare cases, human beings cannot be\n_reformed_ by suffering inflicted on them against their will, and it is\nno use having a system of punishment beneficial to the few and harmful\nto the majority. The late Lord Coleridge once made these remarks:\u2014\n\n    \u201cThere are few things more frequently borne in on a judge\u2019s mind\n    than the little good he can do the criminal by the sentences he\n    imposes. These sentences often do nothing but unmixed harm,\n    though I am sure that throughout the country the greatest pains\n    are taken to make our prisons as useful as possible in the way\n    of being reformatories. But, _as a matter of fact, they are not\n    so_.\u201d\n\nGreater pains are now taken than when those words were spoken, but a man\ncannot go over prisons (I do not speak of the Borstal institutions)\nwithout seeing that they are not, _cannot be_, reformatory.\n\nReformation does not come from beating on the prisoner\u2019s fibre with the\ndull mallet of suffering. To reform one must inspire. There is a spark\nof good in every man\u2019s breast; the only chance lies in fanning that\nspark. But if we are not reforming men in our prisons, how can we be\nsaid to be protecting society, by sending them there? We are surely\nendangering society; and nurturing the spirit of crime.\n\nThe fact of the matter is this: Revenge is still at the back of our\nminds. Let a man argue on the subject with whomsoever he will, ten\nminutes will not have passed before he makes that discovery. The State\nstill feels that because a man has hurt it, it must hurt him. And this\nfeeling destroys all the economy and science of our laws. When a crime\nis committed, all we should be concerned with, in our own interests, is\nthe application of the best possible means to minimize the results of\nthat crime, to ensure that society shall run the least possible risk of\na repetition of the crime, and the offender the least possible risk of\nremaining a criminal.\n\nIn doing this we cannot, in very many cases, avoid the detention of our\ncriminals; but we can, and should, avoid inflicting suffering on those\nwhom we detain, beyond the already great suffering and deprivation\ninseparable from disciplinary detention, and all that disciplinary\ndetention implies; for by deliberately superadding such sufferings as\nsolitude, or perpetual unrelieved silence, we do not to any appreciable\ndegree deter others from committing offences, and we do foster in those\nwhom we imprison the disposition to commit fresh offences when they are\nreleased.\n\nThat diminution of crime, depends _not_ on deterrent punishment, but on\nwide and impalpable influences\u2014growth of social feeling, spread of\neducation, betterment of manners, decrease of intemperance, improvement\nin housing, a hundred other causes\u2014is plain from the official statement\nlately issued. \u201cThe members of the predatory classes are appreciably\nfewer than in 1857, in spite of the fact that in the interim population\nhas almost doubled.\u201d _And this in the face of admittedly milder penal\nmeasures!_ For further evidence that mere severity of treatment does not\ndeter we need only look at the comparative success of the Elmira\nReformatory in the United States, and the Borstal institutions here.\nUnder these systems, which allow the offender some kind of natural life,\nthe percentage of those who return to crime is most notably smaller.\n\nCrime is disease\u2014if not in the medical, in the moral sense of the word.\nIt is either the disease of weakness, or of unbalanced self-will, or the\ndisease of inherited taint. We have fought against this conclusion\nbecause we still harbour the spirit of revenge; but as knowledge\nadvances we shall, we must, accept it. And the sooner we do accept it\nthe less money we shall waste, the less harmful and unnecessary\nsuffering shall we inflict.\n\nThe difficulties of judicial and prison administration are enormous, the\nforce of prejudice encountered by reforming administrators terrific\u2014all\nthe more terrific because these prejudices, in the main conscientious,\nare wholly reinforced by the fact that change means trouble and expense,\nby fears of making things worse, by all the accumulated momentum of\n\u201cthings as they are.\u201d For a man with any understanding in his\ncomposition it is impossible not to sympathize with those who,\nadministering justice, earnestly desire to do their best, and are often,\none is sure, sick at heart from the feeling that what they are doing is\n_not_ the best.\n\nIt rests with public opinion in this country to re-animate our attitude\ntowards crime; to shake itself free of our muddled conceptions of the\nobject of punishment; to scotch once for all the spirit of revenge; to\nrise to a higher, more scientific and incidentally more economic,\nconception of our duty towards criminals. Let us get rid of the idea\nthat we are protecting society and reforming offenders by inflicting\nsuffering that we falsely call deterrent. Let us change our prisons into\nBorstal Institutions, and let us do it as soon as is humanly possible.\nLoss of liberty is, next to loss of life, the most dreaded of all fates;\nit has, in and by itself, almost all the deterrent force that is\nneedful. There may be here and there men who prefer to be detained under\nstrict discipline to being at liberty; but if there be, it can only be\nsaid that the conditions of their lives outside prison must constitute a\ndisgrace to our civilization, and that our penal system cannot safely or\njustly be allowed to rest on any acquiescence in that disgrace. In the\nlast annual report of the Borstal Association occur the following words:\n\n    \u201cIt is not a namby-pamby method. . . . The panic-monger who\n    prophesies that the ambitious youth of the working classes will\n    still clamour for admission through the gateway of crime to the\n    advantages of Borstal, would be regarded as a humorist by those\n    who have been there and \u2018have had enough and learnt sense.\u2019\u201d\n\nLet us, then, take discipline and loss of liberty as our sole\ndeterrents, and on those whom we deprive of liberty let us use all the\nresources of a common sense that shall refuse to apply to criminals\nmethods which would be scouted in the reform of human beings outside\nprisons.\n\nAll evidence shows that mere, so-called deterrent, severity is useless.\nLet us no longer fly in the face of evidence. Let us conform to facts.\nIf we seriously desire to reduce crime to its irreducible minimum we\nmust go to work like doctors.\n\n\n                                  III\n\n                         AN UNPUBLISHED PREFACE\n                           (Written in 1910.)\n\n\nIt is not my habit to write prefaces, but there are certain things I\nwant to say concerning the play \u201cJustice,\u201d as to its subject-matter, not\nits artistic qualities, bad, good, or indifferent.\n\nHolding perhaps a more intimate knowledge of its author\u2019s mind than can\nelsewhere be obtained, I would remark that the play is no indictment or\nattack, but a picture of the whole process of Justice as seen by this\npainter\u2019s eye. There are thickenings of line here, and thinnings there,\noccasioned by lack of technical knowledge, or demanded by the exigencies\nof dramatic craft, but the spiritual essence of the matter is set down\nhonestly, as best it could be perceived by him.\n\nJustice was known by the ancients to be blind; by ourselves is admitted\nblind; will be acclaimed blind by the tongues of our descendants. It is\nblind because it is depart- or rather compart-mental.\n\nThe prosecutor, be he ancient Roman or Englishman of to-day, cannot\ngauge or control the _whole_ effect on the offender and on society of\nthe process which he initiates. The Judge, be he Solon or Judge of the\nHigh Court, cannot know enough of the temperament and antecedents of a\nprisoner to adequately apportion a sentence which he cannot see being\ncarried out. The prison official is tied to the terms of the sentence\nand the conditions of the system, for some system there must be. The\nPublic, on the prisoner\u2019s release, acts mechanically in its own defence\nagainst a marked man. All see only their own bits of the game.\n\nFrom this general blindness, it follows that punishment is almost always\nout of proportion. This is why it seemed to me worth while to make a\npicture of Blind Justice, and to hang it on the wall. There are some who\nbelieve that this picture will rapidly become out of date. I am not so\nsanguine. Short of our all becoming not only eager, but able, to see\nthat which does not lie underneath our noses, I much fear that this\npicture will remain valid for some considerable time The conditions will\nchange, but the spirit will remain\u2014Justice is too naturally and\ninevitably blind. Is that any reason why we should not occasionally be\nreminded of the evil\u2014one of the enduring, but perhaps diminishable,\nevils of human life? Even the administrators of this Justice might like\nnow and then to glance at a picture of its blindness.\n\nOne word about the cell scene. It has been called false and\nexaggerated. . . . Two brothers went to see this play. At the end of the\ncell scene the younger, who stammers, turned to his elder and said:\n\u201cIt\u2019s n-not so\u2014j-j\u2014olly as all that!\u201d\n\nPrecisely! Prisoners do not commonly enjoy the relief of beating on\ntheir cell doors, though the incident is not unknown. But he who can\nproject himself into the minds of others knows that prisoners, in closed\ncells, moping and brooding week after week, month after month, shut off\nfrom all real distraction, from all touch with the outer world and\neverything they care for, with the knowledge of years of imprisonment\nbefore them and of broken lives when they come out\u2014knows that such\nprisoners, thousands of them, unseen by any eye, _reach a state of mind_\nwhich would make them constantly fling themselves for relief on their\ncell doors, if it were not for fear. No, it is not so jolly as all that!\n\nThe characteristics of all prison life, at all events in England, are\nsilence and solitude, physical or spiritual; and this cell scene was\nselected to convey as nearly as the limitations of the stage permitted,\nthese commonest characteristics of detention.\n\nFor the truth of this picture of Blind Justice as a whole I rely on the\ntestimonial of that theatre attendant, employed out of charity, who,\nhaving been prosecuted, sentenced, imprisoned, and released, knew, let\nus hope, more of the matter spiritually, than those who criticize. After\nthe play on the first night, to the question of his manager, \u201cWell, is\nit true?\u201d he looked up from his sweeping, and said: \u201cEvery word of it,\nsir.\u201d\n\nI have only this to add. If each scene is taken separately and looked on\nwith a departmentally professional eye, it must needs seem out of\ndrawing, for it was visualized by an eye looking on each department only\nin relation to the whole. When the professional reader or spectator of\nthe Court or Prison scene, says \u201cOh! this or that is not true!\u201d he is\ncriticizing from the departmental, and not from the bird\u2019s-eye point of\nview, which an author must needs assume. Even if the sentence be more\nthan typically severe, though I doubt that, or the judgment not\ntypically worded, they serve well enough as illustrations of that\nblindness which has accompanied the wisest judgments of one human being\non another since the world began.\n\nNo, the only legitimate criticism which the professional reader or\nspectator can pass is that the particular bird\u2019s-eye view is wrong. To\nthat criticism this bird can make no answer, except to say with\ndeference and courtesy that he must believe in his own eye\u2014for it is\nall he has to see with.\n\n\n\n\n                        ON THE POSITION OF WOMEN\n\n\n                                   I\n\n                        \u201cGENTLES, LET US REST!\u201d\n                    (A Paper in the _Nation_, 1910.)\n\n\nA man asked to define the essential characteristics of a\ngentleman\u2014using the term in its widest sense\u2014would presumably reply:\nThe will to put himself in the place of others; the horror of forcing\nothers into positions from which he himself would recoil; the power to\ndo what seems to him right without fear of what others may say or think.\n\nThere is need just now of aid from these principles of gentility in a\nquestion of some importance\u2014the future position of women.\n\nThe ground facts of difference between the sexes few are likely to deny:\n\nWomen are not, and in all probability never will be, physically, as\nstrong as men.\n\nMen are not, nor ever will be, mothers.\n\nWomen are not, and, perhaps, never should be, warriors.\n\nTo these ground facts of difference are commonly added, in argument,\nmany others of more debatable character. But it is beside the purpose of\nthis paper to inquire whether women have as much political sense or\naptitude as men, whether a woman has ever produced a masterpiece of\nmusic, whether the brain of a woman ever weighed as much as the brain of\nCuvier or Turgenev.\n\nThis paper designs to set forth one cardinal and overmastering\nconsideration, in comparison with which all the other considerations\naffecting the question seem to this writer but as the little stars to\nthe full moon.\n\nIn the lives of all nations there come moments when an idea, hitherto\nvaguely, almost unconsciously, held, assumes sculptured shape, and is\nmanifestly felt to be of vital significance to a large, important, and\nsteadily increasing section of the community. At such moments a spectre\nhas begun to haunt the national house\u2014a ghost which cannot be laid till\nit has received quietus.\n\nSuch a ghost now infests our home.\n\nThe full emancipation of women is an idea long vaguely held, but only in\nthe last half-century formulated and pressed forward with real force and\nconviction, not only by women, but by men. Of this full emancipation of\nwomen, the political vote is assuredly not, as is rather commonly\nsupposed in a land of party politics, the be-all and end-all; it is a\nsymbol, whose practical importance\u2014though considerable\u2014is as nothing\nbeside the fulfilment of the idea which it symbolizes.\n\nThe Will to Power and the Will to Love have been held up, in turn, as\nthe animating principles of the Universe; but these are, rather,\ncorrelative half-truths, whose rivalry is surely stilled and reconciled\nin a yet higher principle, the Will to Harmony, to Balance, to Equity\u2014a\nsupreme adjustment, or harmonising power, present wherever a man turns;\nby which, in fact, he is conditioned, for he can with his mental\napparatus no more conceive of a Universe without a Will to Equity\nholding it together than he can conceive the opposite of the axiom, \u201cEx\nnihilo nihil fit.\u201d There is assuredly no thought so staggering as that,\nif a blade of grass or the energy contained within a single emotion\nwere\u2014not transmuted\u2014but _withdrawn entirely_ from the Universe, the\nbalance would tip for ever and the Universe crumble in our imaginations\nto thin air.\n\nNow social and political Equity emanates slowly, with infinite labour,\nfrom our dim consciousness of this serene and overlording principle of\nEquity. There would seem, for example, no fundamental reason why limits\nshould ever have been put to autocracy, the open ballot destroyed,\nslavery abolished, save that these things came to be regarded as\ninequitable. In all such cases, before reaching the point of action the\nsociety of the day puts forward practical reasons, being, so to speak,\nunaware of its own sense of divinity. But, underneath all the seeming\nmatter-of-factness of political and social movements, the spirit of\nEquity is guiding those movements, subtly, unconsciously, a compelling\nhand quietly pushing humanity onward, ever unseen save in the rare\nminutes when the spirits of men glow and light up and things are beheld\nfor a moment as they are. The history of a nation\u2019s spiritual\ndevelopment is but the tale of its wistful groping towards the provision\nof a machinery of State, which shall, as nearly as may be, accord with\nthe demand of this spirit of Equity. Society, worthy of the name, is\never secretly shaping around it a temple, within which all the natural\nweaknesses and limitations of the dwellers shall be, not exploited and\nemphasized, but to the utmost levelled away and minimized. It is ever\nsecretly providing for itself a roof under which there shall be the\nfullest and fairest play for all human energies, however unequal.\n\nThe destinies of mankind are seen to be guided, very slowly, by\nsomething more coherent than political opportunity; shaped steadily in a\ngiven direction towards the completion of that temple of Justice. There\nis no other way of explaining the growth of man from the cave-dweller to\nhis present case. And this slow spiritual shaping towards Equity\nproceeds in spite of the workings of the twin bodily agents, force and\nexpediency. Social and political growth is, in fact, a process of\nevolution, controlled, directed, spiritualized by the supreme principle\nof Equity.\n\nThis is to state no crazy creed, that because equality is mathematically\nadmirable, equality should at all times and in all places forthwith\nobtain. Equality, balance, is a dream, the greatest of all visions, the\nbeloved star\u2014ever to be worshipped, never quite reached. And the long\nroad towards it travels the illimitable land of compromise. It would\nhave been futile, as it was in fact impossible, to liberate slaves, when\nthe consciousness of the injustice of slavery was present only in a few\nabnormal minds, and incommunicable by them to the mind of the\nsurrounding society of the time. The process is slow and steady. Equity\nwell knows that there is a time for her, as for all other things. She is\nlike the brain, saying to the limbs and senses: You are full of queer\nways. It is for me to think out gradually the best rule of life, under\nwhich you must get on as you can, the Devil taking the hindmost; and\nfrom trying to devise this scheme of perfection I may not, nor ever\nshall, rest.\n\nSocial and political justice, then, advances by fits and starts, through\nideas\u2014children of the one great idea of Harmony\u2014which are suggested\nnow by one, now by another, section or phase of national life. The\nprocess is like the construction and shaping of a work of art. For an\nartist is ever receiving vague impressions from people unconsciously\nobserved, from feelings unconsciously experienced, till in good time he\ndiscovers that he has an idea. This idea is but a generalization or\nharmonious conception derived subconsciously from these vague\nimpressions. Being moved to embody that idea, he at once begins groping\nback to, and gathering in, those very types and experiences from which\nhe derived this general notion in order adequately to shape the\nvehicle\u2014his picture, his poem, his novel\u2014which shall carry his idea\nforth to the world.\n\nSo in social and political progress. The exigencies and inequalities of\nexisting social life produce a crop of impressions on certain receptive\nminds, which suddenly burst into flower in the form of ideas. The minds\nin which these abstractions or ideas have flowered seek then to burgeon\nthem forth, and their method of doing so is to bring to public notice\nthose exigencies and inequalities which were the original fuel of their\nideas. In this way is the seed of an idea spread amongst a community.\nBut wherever the seed of an idea falls it has to struggle up through\nlayers of prejudice, to overcome the rule of force and expediency; and\nif this idea, this generalization from social exigencies or\ninequalities, be petty, retrograde, or distorted, it withers and dies\nduring the struggle. If, on the other hand, it be large, consonant with\nthe future, and of true promise, it holds fast and spreads.\n\nNow, one may very justly say that this is all a platitudinal explanation\nof the crude process of social and political development. In taking a\ngiven idea, such as the full emancipation of women, the fight only\nbegins to rage round the question whether that idea is in fact holding\nfast and spreading, and, if so, whether the community is, or is not, yet\nsufficiently permeated with the idea to be safely entrusted with its\nfulfilment. None the less must it be borne in mind that if this idea can\nbe proved to be surely spreading, it must be an idea emanating from the\nroot divinity in things, from the overmastering principle of Equity, and\nsure of ultimate fulfilment; and the only question will then be, exactly\nhow long the rule of expediency and force may advisably postpone its\nfulfilment.\n\nNow, in order to discover whether the idea of the full emanicipation of\nwomen is in accord with the great principle of Equity, it will be\nnecessary, first, to show the present inferiority of woman\u2019s political\nand social position; secondly, to consider the essential reason of that\ninferiority; and, thirdly, to see whether the facts and figures of the\nmovement towards the removal of that inferiority clearly prove that the\nidea has long been holding fast and spreading.\n\nTo show, however, that the present political and social position of\nwomen is not equal to that of men, it will certainly suffice to state\ntwo admitted facts. Women have not the political vote. Women, who can be\ndivorced for one offence, must, before they obtain divorce, prove two\nkinds of offence against their husbands.\n\nAnd to ascertain the essential reason of this present inferiority we\nneed hardly go beyond the ground facts of difference between men and\nwomen already mentioned:\n\nWomen are not physically as strong as men.\n\nMen are never mothers.\n\nWomen are not warriors.\n\nFrom these ground facts, readily admitted by all, the reason for the\npresent inferiority of women\u2019s position emerges clear and unmistakable.\nWomen are weaker than men. They are weaker because they are not in\ngeneral built so strongly; because they have to bear and to rear\nchildren; because they are unarmed. There is no getting away from it,\nthey are weaker; and one cannot doubt for a moment that their inferior\nposition is due to this weakness. But\u2014so runs an immemorial\nargument\u2014however equal their opportunities might be, women will never\nbe as strong as men! Why then, for sentimental reasons, disturb the\npresent order of things, why equalize those opportunities? This is the\nplea which was used before married women were allowed separate property,\nbefore the decision in \u201cRegina _versus_ Jackson,\u201d which forbade a\nhusband to hold his wife prisoner. The argument, in fact, of expediency\nand force.\n\nNow there are no finer statements of the case for the full emancipation\nof women than Mill\u2019s \u201cSubjection of Women,\u201d and Miss Jane Harrison\u2019s\nessay entitled \u201cHomo Sum.\u201d The reasonings in the former work are too\nwell-known, but to the main thesis of \u201cHomo Sum\u201d allusion must here be\nmade. The most common, perhaps most telling, plea against raising the\nsocial and political status of women to a level with that of men is\nthis: Men and women _are already equal_, but in separate spheres of\nactivity. The difference between their physical conformation and\nfunctions underlies everything in the lives of both. The province and\nsupremacy of women are in the home; the province and supremacy of men in\nthe State. Why seek to alter what Nature has ordained? A plea, in fact,\nwhich glorifies sex _qua_ sex.\n\nBut the writer of \u201cHomo Sum\u201d is at pains to show that \u201cthe splendid and\nvital instinct of sex,\u201d with all its \u201csingular power of interpenetrating\nand reinforcing other energies,\u201d is in essence egoistic, exclusive,\nanti-social; and that, besides and beyond being men and women, we are\nall human beings. \u201cThe whole women\u2019s movement,\u201d the writer says, \u201cis\njust the learning of that lesson. It is not an attempt to arrogate man\u2019s\nprerogative of manhood; it is not even an attempt to assert and\nemphasize woman\u2019s privilege of womanhood; it is simply the demand that\nin the life of woman, as in the life of man, space and liberty shall be\nfound for a thing bigger than either manhood or womanhood\u2014for\nhumanity.\u201d\n\nIn fact the splendid instinct of sex\u2014for all its universality, for all\nthat through and by it life is perpetuated, for all its power of\nbringing delight, and of revealing the heights and depths of human\nemotion\u2014is still essentially an agent of the rule of force. We cannot\nbut perceive that there is in both men and women something more exalted\nand impersonal, akin to the supreme principle of Equity, to the divinity\nin things; and that this something keeps men and women together, as\nstrongly, as inevitably, as sex keeps them apart. What is all the effort\nof civilization but the gradual fortifying of that higher part of\nus\u2014the exaltation of the principle of Justice, the chaining of the\nprinciple of Force? The full emancipation of women would be one more\nstep in the march of our civilization\u2014a sign that this nation was still\nserving humanity, still trying to be gentle and just. For if it has\nceased to serve humanity, we must surely pray that the waters may rise\nover this island, and that she may go down all standing!\n\nIf, then, women\u2019s position is inferior to men\u2019s, if the essential reason\nof this inferiority is her weakness, or, in other words, the still\nunchecked dominance of force, to what extent do the facts and figures of\nthe movement towards removing the inferiority of women\u2019s position prove\nthat the idea of the full emancipation of women is, not petty and false,\nwithering and dying, but large and true, holding fast and spreading?\n\nIn 1866, a petition for the vote, signed by 1,499 women, was presented\nto Parliament by John Stuart Mill.\n\nIn 1873, petitions for the suffrage from 11,000 women were presented to\nGladstone and Disraeli.\n\nIn 1896, an appeal was made to members of Parliament by 257,000 women of\nall classes and parties.\n\nIn 1897, 1,285 petitions in favour of a Women\u2019s Suffrage Bill were\npresented to Parliament, being 800 more petitions than those presented\nin favour of any other Bill.\n\nIn 1867, Mill\u2019s amendment to substitute \u201cperson\u201d for \u201cman\u201d in the\nRepresentation of the People Act was rejected by a majority of 121.\n\nIn 1908, Stanger\u2019s Bill to enable women to vote on the same terms as men\npassed its second reading by a majority of 179.\n\nIn 1893, 1894, and 1895, the franchise was granted to women in New\nZealand, Colorado, South Australia, and Utah.\n\nIn 1900, 1902, 1903, 1905, 1908, and 1910, the franchise was granted to\nwomen in Western Australia, New South Wales, Tasmania, Finland, Norway,\nVictoria, and the State of Washington.\n\nIn 1902, a petition was signed by 750 women graduates.\n\nIn 1906, a petition was signed by 1,530 women graduates.\n\nIn 1910, the membership of the various Women\u2019s Suffrage Societies, and\nof bodies of men and women who have declared in favour of the idea of\nwomen\u2019s suffrage, is estimated by some at over half a million\u2014a figure\nsubject, no doubt, to great deduction; but certainly also to very great\naddition for sympathisers who belong to no such societies or bodies.\n\nThese, briefly, are the main facts and figures. From them but one\nconclusion can be drawn. The idea of the full emancipation of women\nhaving fulfilled the requirements of steady growth over a long space of\nyears, and giving every promise of further steady growth, is in accord\nwith the principle of Equity; intrinsically just. How long will it\nremain possible in the service of expediency and force to refuse to this\nidea its complete fruition; how long will it be wise? For when the limit\nof wisdom is reached, expediency has obviously become inexpedient and\nforce unworthy.\n\nWhen out of 670 members of a House of Commons 400 have given pledges to\nsupport women\u2019s suffrage; when a measure for the enfranchisement of\nwomen on the same terms as men has passed its second reading by a\nmajority of 179, and in face of this declaration of sentiment Government\nhas refused to afford facilities for carrying it into law, there must\nobviously be some definite hostile factor in the political equation. In\na country governed as ours is, it is but natural that those who are, so\nto speak, trustees for its policy, should not look with favour on any\nmeasure which may in their opinion definitely set back that policy, or\naffect it in some way which they cannot with sufficient clearness\nforesee. The cause of women, in fact, is a lost dog owned by neither\nparty, distrusted by both. While there is yet danger of being bitten,\neach watches that dog carefully, holding out a more or less friendly\nhand. But when the door of the house is safely closed, she may howl her\nheart out in the cold. The Press, too, with few exceptions is committed\nto one or other of these parties. To the Press, also, then, the cause of\nwomen is a homeless wanderer to whom it is proper to give casual alms,\nbut who can hardly be brought in to the fire, lest she take up the room\nof the children of the house. And so out of the despair caused by this\nlost drifting in a vicious circle, out of a position created by party\nexpediency, the inevitable has come to pass. Militant suffragism has\narisen\u2014ironically, and, to my thinking, regrettably, since the real\nspiritual significance and true national benefit of the full\nemancipation of women will lie in the victory of justice over force; and\nto employ _what must needs be inferior force_ to achieve the victory of\njustice over force is not only futile, but so befogging to the whole\nmatter that the essential issue of Equity is more than ever hidden from\nthe mind of the public. Militancy may have served certain purposes, but\nit has added one more element of fixity to an _impasse_ already\nexisting, for the woman of action is saying, \u201cUntil you give me the vote\nI shall act like this,\u201d and the man of action is answering her, \u201cSo long\nas you act like that I shall not give you the vote. To yield to you\nwould be to admit the efficacy of threats and establish a bad\nprecedent.\u201d\n\nNone the less, human nature being what it is, militancy was inevitable,\nand the wise will look at the situation, not as it was, or might be, but\nas it is. We must consider what effect that situation is having on the\nnational character. Every little outrage committed on men by women is\nmet by a little outrage committed on women by men; and each time one of\nthese mutual outrages takes place, tens of thousands of minds in this\ncountry are blunted in that most sensitive quality, gentleness. It is\nidle to pretend that women have not stood, and do not still stand, to\nmen as the chief reason for being gentle; that men have not, and do not\nstill stand to women, in the same capacity. By every little mutual\noutrage, then, the beneficence of sex is being weakened, its maleficence\nawakened throughout the land. And the harm which is thus being done is\nso impalpable, so subtle, as to be beyond the power of most to notice at\nall, and surely beyond the power of statesmen to assess. That is the\nmischief. The scent is stealing away out of the flower of our urbanity.\nIt will be long before the gardeners discover how odourless and arid\nthat flower has become.\n\nFor it is not so much the action of the militant women themselves, nor\nthat of those who are suppressing them, which is doing this subtle harm.\nIt is the effect of this scrimmage on the spectators; the coarsening,\nand hardening, and general embitterment; the secret glorification of the\nworst side of the sex instinct; the constant exaltation of the rule of\nforce; the rapid growth of a rankling sense of injustice amongst tens of\nthousands of women. To say that hundreds of thousands of women are\nopposed, or indifferent, to the full emancipation of their sex is not,\nin truth, to say very much. No civilizing movement was ever brought to\nfruition save in the face of the indifference or opposition of the\nmajority. What proportion of agricultural labourers were actively\nconcerned to win for themselves the vote? How small a fraction of the\npeople actively demanded free education! But when these privileges were\nwon, what number of those for whom they were won would have been willing\nto resign them? If women were fully emancipated to-morrow, many would\ncertainly resent what they would deem a blow at the influence and power\nalready wielded by them in virtue of their sex. But in two years\u2019 time\nhow many would be willing to surrender their freedom? As certainly, not\nten in a hundred! To compare the disapproval of women raised against\ntheir wills to a state of emancipation in which they can remain inactive\nif they like with the bitter resentment spreading like slow poison in\nthe veins of those who fruitlessly demand emancipation is to compare the\nenergy of vanishing winter snow with that of the spring sun which melts\nit.\n\nIn an age when spirituality has ever a more desperate struggle to\nmaintain hold at all against the inroads of materialism, any increase of\nbitterness in the national life, any loss of gentleness, aspiration, and\nmutual trust between the sexes, however silent, secret, and\nunmeasurable, is, surely, a serious thing. Justice, neglected, works her\nown insidious revenge. Every month, every year, the germs of bitterness\nand brutality will be spreading. If any think that this people has\ngentleness to spare, and can afford to tamper with the health of its\nspirit, they are mistaken. If any think that repression can put an end\nto this aspiration\u2014again they are mistaken. The idea of the full\nemancipation of women is so rooted that nothing can now uproot it.\n\nBut, apart from the political _impasse_, there are those who, satisfied\nthat women have not the political aptitude of men, are chiefly opposed\nto the granting of the vote for fear that it will come to mean the\nreturn of women to Parliament. Now, if their conviction regarding the\ninferiority of women\u2019s political capacity be sound\u2014as I for one,\nspeaking generally, am inclined to believe\u2014there is no danger of women\nbeing returned to Parliament save in such small numbers as to make no\nmatter. If it be unsound\u2014if the political capacity of woman be equal to\nman\u2019s\u2014it is time Parliament were reinforced by women\u2019s presence. New\nwaters soon find their level. Nor are such as distrust the political\ncapacities of women qualified to prophesy a flood. To debar women for\nfear of their competition is a policy of little spirit, and not one that\nthe men of this country will consciously adopt, unless we have indeed\nlost the fire of our fathers. There are many, too, who believe that the\ngranting of the vote to women will increase the emotional element in an\nelectorate whose emotional side they already distrust, and thereby\nendanger our relations with foreign Powers. But it has yet to be proved\nthat women are, in a wide sense of the word, more emotional than men;\nand, even conceding that they are, why forget that they will bring to\nthe consideration of international matters the solid reinforcement of\ntwo qualities\u2014the first, a practical domestic sense lacking to men, and\nlikely to foster national reluctance to plunge into wild-cat wars, the\nsecond, a greater faculty for self-sacrifice, tending to fortify\nnational determination to persist in a war once undertaken. It is well\nknown that during the American Civil War the women of the Southern\nStates displayed a spirit of resistance even more heroic than that of\ntheir men folk. But, in any case, to retain women in their present state\nof social and political inferiority for reasons which are so debatable\nsavours, surely, somewhat of the sultanic. We have, in fact, yet to\nimbibe the spirit of Mill\u2019s wisest saying: \u201cAmongst all the lessons\nwhich men require for carrying on the struggle against the evident\nimperfections of their lot on earth, there is no lesson which they more\nneed than not to add to the evils which Nature inflicts, by their\njealous and prejudiced restrictions on one another.\u201d\n\nIn fine, out of the practical perplexities brooding over this whole\nmatter there is no way save by resort to the first principles of\ngentility. It has been uncontrovertibly established that there is in\nthis country a great and ever-increasing body of women suffering from a\nbitter sense of injustice. What course then, compatible with true\ngentility, is left open to us men? Our whole social life is in essence\nbut a long, slow, striving for the victory of justice over force; and\nthis demand of our women for full emancipation is but a sign of that\nstriving. Are we not bound in honour to admit this simple fact? Shall we\nnot at last give fulfilment to this idea\u2014with the due caution that\nshould mark all political experiment? Has not, in truth, the time come\nfor us to say: From this resistance to the claims of Equity; from this\nbitter and ungracious conflict with those weaker than ourselves; from\nthis slow poisoning of the well-springs of our national courtesy, and\nkindliness, and sense of fair play: \u201cGentles, let us rest!\u201d\n\n\n                                   II\n\n                          APPEAL TO THE PRESS\n                 (A Letter to the _Daily News_, 1911.)\n\n\nI write as a supporter of woman\u2019s suffrage, but not of militant\nsuffragism. Whenever I have remonstrated with a militant Suffragist I\nhave received this answer:\n\n    \u201cWe could not keep the movement before the eyes of the public\n    without militant tactics, because the papers, with two or three\n    exceptions, would not report peaceful work. For this reason we\n    adopted our methods, and the event has justified us. We have\n    advanced the cause\u2014simply by forcing it on people\u2019s attention\n    in the only way open to us\u2014more in the last three years than\n    those who pursued peaceful methods had done in the last forty.\u201d\n\nWhatever may now be the feelings and intentions of the militant\nSuffragists, this answer did undoubtedly set forth the true reason for\nthe inception of militant tactics.\n\nAll political and social movements in this country depend for vitality\non catching the eye and the thought of the community. And we may draw\none of two alternative morals from that prolonged silence of the Press\ntowards woman\u2019s suffrage which originally brought about the campaign of\nviolence: Either, that men having possession of the organs of public\nopinion, deliberately kept them closed to the discussion of the\npolitical rights of women\u2014a supposition, I should prefer not to\nentertain. Or, that reports of violence and sensationalism are more\nsought after than tales of reason and sobriety! Whichever the moral\ndrawn, it is very discreditable to public feeling in this country.\n\nIs it too late for those who are responsible for the Press to take the\nlead in removing that stigma? It is lugubrious that, in our England of\nfree speech and fair play, in this nation hitherto supposed to excel in\npolitical sense, women should have found it necessary to advocate and\nadvertise by mere sensationalism a political and social movement of more\nwide-reaching and universal nature than any now before the public; a\nmovement of such epoch-making character that few people have at present\ngrasped its real significance. Surely it is important that the people of\nthis country should be educated in the reason and the rights of a\nquestion such as this. But in order that they may be so educated it is\nnecessary that they should read, not the account of how \u201cSo-and-so\u2019s\nwindows were broken,\u201d or of how \u201cSuch an one was arrested,\u201d but\narguments presented in speech and writing for and against suffrage.\n\nThe extent to which the formation of public opinion on any political\nmeasure depends on the publication in the Press of reason, _pro_ and\n_con._, can be seen from the growth of the Tariff Reform Party, which a\nfew years ago was a negligible faction. The imminence and gravity of\nthis issue of woman\u2019s suffrage can no longer be denied. It has to be\nfaced. It will have to be decided. Does the Press of this country wish\nit to be decided by an electorate utterly unversed in its merits and\ndemerits? Would the Press of this country wish any big political or\nsocial measure to be so decided? Is it just, generous, or politic that,\nwhen women try by peaceful and constitutional means to promulgate their\ncause, there should be silence? If there had not been this silence,\nmilitant suffragism would never have been born. By the removal of this\nsilence militant suffragism may still be helped towards a natural death.\n\nI appeal to all editors (whether friends or enemies of the movement),\nwho have already shown themselves alive to what is rapidly becoming the\ndesperate importance of this issue, to combine and advocate an\nalteration of the general Press policy\u2014to advocate the throwing open of\nall journals to fair and full report, not of the sensational, but of the\nreasonable, sides, for and against, of woman\u2019s suffrage. For, whether\nconsciously or unconsciously, the general Press policy has hitherto been\nmost unfortunate, and is fast contributing to the growth of a bitter\nfeeling between the sexes, in the last degree noxious to the national\nlife.\n\n\n\n\n                            ON SOCIAL UNREST\n\n\n                  (A Paper in the _Daily Mail_, 1912.)\n\n\n\u201cThis is a psychological question, a matter of mental states\u201d (H. G.\nWells). It is. And in examining these mental states there are two, out\nof many factors, on which I do not think too much emphasis can be laid,\nnot only because they are in themselves vital to the evil, but because\nthey both arise from the same prime underlying deficiency in our\nnational life.\n\nThe first is the influence on society at large produced by the great and\nrapid growth of the fiduciary element in the conduct of commercial\nenterprise and landed estates. The agent, the director, the manager, the\ntrustee, have almost entirely displaced the old-time owner, merchant,\nand manufacturer, who did business by and for themselves.\n\nA class has been created who, already in a state of professional\naltruism, are impervious, and on the face of it rightly impervious, to\naltruism of any other kind.\n\nWhat large business nowadays is not conducted as a limited company by a\nboard of directors appointed and paid by the shareholders as trustees to\nproduce for them a maximum of profit? What large estate is not managed\nby a paid agent on the same principle? And, however generous our\naspirations, which of us does not know the deflecting power of\ntrusteeship, rigidified, as it is, by law and by the sense that we are\npaid for the performance of a job inimical to generosity? True\u2014the\nrates of wages and of rent come not under rules but under the broad\nheading of policy; and, in deep reality, I suspect it to be equally true\nthat the maximum of generosity ministers _in the long run_ to the\nmaximum of stability and profit; nevertheless there can be no doubt\nwhatever that the trustee system not only befogs and deadens the human\nrelationship between employer and employed, but affords an overwhelming\nsupport to our natural instinct to take the immediate view and line of\nleast resistance.\n\nBroadly speaking, where there is trusteeship, as trusteeship is now\nunderstood, there is no wide view of the relation of Capital to Labour\nin the light of the good of Society as a whole; there is only a\nfaithful, cold-blooded, purblind service for the benefit of a _cestui\nque trust_, who is himself freed from a sense of personal responsibility\nand from all apparent need for a wide and human outlook. The trustee\nsystem, if not already, will soon be universal, and I see no means of\ncounteracting its secret, dangerous, and irritating effect on the mind\nof Labour, save by such process of education as shall soak the spirit of\nthe prosperous classes with an altogether larger and saner feeling of\nthe fundamental unity and interdependence of Society, with a good-will\nso vastly increased that the shareholder and _cestui que trust_ shall no\nlonger require the director or trustee to consider them and them alone,\nbut bid him instead consider equally the interests of the employed. Such\na mood of altruism is now, roughly speaking, absent from the minds of\nthe prosperous classes; and to attain to it is a consummation that I\nfear will never come about under our present system of education.\n\nThe second influence on which I would lay great emphasis is the state of\nmind produced by our system of education in the young of the prosperous\nclasses at our private and public schools, and, to a less extent, at our\nuniversities. Before dwelling on this let me suggest two truths. In\nlife, where a fortunate person is brought into contact with one less\nfortunate, the first step towards cordial relationship must obviously\ncome from the fortunate. For human nature is happily so constituted that\nthe less fortunate feels ashamed to make advances which, liable to\nmisconstruction, are not compatible with self-respect. Every man of any\nworth can test, indeed is testing, this truth continually in his own\nlife; it cannot indeed be doubted. Again, where advances are made by the\nfortunate from sheer friendliness and without ulterior motive, they most\ncertainly evoke response in the same friendly spirit from all save\nexceptional churls.\n\nNow, since these primary truths concerning human nature underlie the\nwhole question of Labour Unrest, it becomes of the first importance to\nconsider how far the young of the prosperous classes are made actively\nfamiliar with them. How far are the legions at our private and public\nschools (those legions from whom the ranks of Capital are, in the main,\nrecruited) made to understand, and\u2014more than understand\u2014to _feel_ that\nthey are fortunate, that Labour is less fortunate, that they will have\nto live their lives in interdependence with Labour, and that if they do\nnot make\u2014out of a free and fine heart make\u2014the first advances to\ngood-fellowship with less fortunate Labour, those advances can\u2014by a\nlaw, and a good law, of human nature\u2014never be made? How far are they at\npresent brought up to see this? I would go so far as to say\u2014hardly at\nall. In my day at a public school\u2014and I have no reason at all to hope\nthat, whatever be the exceptions, the general rule has greatly\nchanged\u2014the Universe was divided into ourselves and \u201coutsiders,\u201d\n\u201cbounders,\u201d \u201cchaws,\u201d \u201ccads,\u201d or whatever more or less offensive name\nbest seemed to us to characterise those less fortunate than ourselves.\nIt is true that we applied the name mainly to the lower ranks of Capital\nrather than to actual Labour, but this was only because we lived so far\naway from industrial workers that we never even thought of them. Such\nworking folk as we actually came into personal contact with we never\ndreamed of associating with any such offensive thought in our minds or\nspeech on our tongues; but, generally, the working man did not exist for\nus except as a person outside, remote, and almost inimical. From our\nhomes, touched already by this class feeling, caught up from political\ntalk by chance overheard, we went to private schools, where the teaching\nof manners, mainly under clerical supervision, effectually barred us\nfrom any contaminating influence; so that if by chance we encountered\nthe \u201clower class\u201d boy we burned to go for him and correct his \u201ccheek.\u201d\nThence we were passed into the great \u201ccaste\u201d factory, a public school,\nwhere the feeling became, by mere process of being left to itself, as\nset and hard as iron. It is true that a levelling process went on among\nthe boys themselves, so that a duke\u2019s son was no more accounted of than\na stockbroker\u2019s, but nevertheless all learned to consider themselves\n\u201cthe elect.\u201d Of ten public schoolboys, seven have come from\n\u201ccaste-\u201dinfected homes and private schools, and have active prejudice\nalready. The remaining three may still be open-minded or indifferent; of\nthese, two will infallibly follow the sway of the herd instinct; one may\nperhaps develop a line of his own, or adhere to the influence of a home\ninimical to \u201ccaste,\u201d and become a \u201csmug\u201d or Radical. In result, failing\ndefinite sustained effort to break up a narrow \u201ccaste\u201d feeling, the\npublic school presents a practically solid phalanx of the fortunate,\ninsulated against real knowledge of, or sympathy with, the less\nfortunate. This phalanx marches out into the professions, into business,\ninto the universities, where, it is true, some awaken to a sense of\nwider values\u2014but not too many. From the point of view of any one who\ntries to see things as they are, and see them as a whole, there is\nsomething terrific about this automatic \u201ccaste\u201d moulding of the young.\nAnd in the present condition of our country it is folly, and dangerous\nfolly, to blink it.[6]\n\nFor all my love of my old school, for all my realization of the fact\nthat her training equips her children with certain qualities invaluable\nto public life and public service, I do feel that she and all her\nsisters are disserving the national welfare by refraining from really\nactive and resolute attempt to destroy the bad side of \u201ccaste\u201d feeling.\nThey let it grow of its own momentum through the herd instinct till it\nblinds the eyes and blunts the feelings of those who, being fortunate,\nmust by the laws of human nature make the first advances toward\nfriendship with the less fortunate, if those advances are to be made at\nall; and must make them not because to neglect them is dangerous, but\nout of brotherly feeling and a real hearty wish to give all the help\nthey can to such as are not so lucky as themselves. I do not mean that\nour public schools and universities are consciously refraining. They are\nnot, and their very unconsciousness in the matter is half the danger.\nAnd I do not say that there are no masters, or dons, conscious of the\ndanger and trying their best to remove it, but I do say there are not\nnearly enough. A few swallows do not make a summer.\n\nSince, in relation to the foregoing, four objections, at all events, are\nbound to be made, let me make them myself, and answer them too. First:\nIt is not the public school and \u2019varsity man who is lacking in sympathy\nand good-will towards Labour; it is the self-made capitalist, or the\ngrammar school man. The truth is that, with exceptions, they all are\nlacking. But the defect is more dangerous and insidious within \u201cthe\ncaste\u201d than without; for not only is \u201cthe caste\u201d homogeneous, and far\nmore influential in every way, but it veils its lack of sympathy in this\nvery pretension of having sympathy. Next it will be said: \u201cYou accuse us\nof lack of sympathy! But we would gladly be sympathetic, if they would\nonly let us!\u201d Now this in the main is a perfectly genuine belief in\nmembers of \u201cthe caste\u201d when they have once gone out into life and rubbed\noff the rawness of youthful hostility and prejudice. But it is the\ngenuine belief of people only passively inclined to friendship; in other\nwords, the belief of the fortunate not imbued with a spirit sufficiently\nhigh and generous to take, from the best motives, _active_ steps towards\nfriendship with the less fortunate.\n\nFurther it will be said: \u201cBut Labour is not really less fortunate than\nourselves\u2014it has freedom from cares, responsibilities, and expenses,\nsuch as we can never know; in fact, we are not sure that it is not\nreally the more fortunate class.\u201d Well! Apart from the fact that not one\nin ten thousand of \u201cthe caste\u201d would change places with an industrial\nworker, there is this answer: \u201cOn your hypothesis, evolution, which is\n\u2018caste\u2019s\u2019 main justification, is absurd and our system is standing on\nits head. If, indeed, you require Labour to consider itself at least as\nfortunate as yourselves, you must set to work at once and revalue\neverything, alter every present ideal in your social life, and annul the\nimportance of property. Are you prepared to do this?\u201d Finally it will be\nobjected: \u201cIt may be as you say, but the evil is implicit and\ninevitable, for everything possible is already done by our educational\nauthorities to counteract a narrow \u2018caste\u2019 spirit and imbue the children\nof the fortunate with a brotherly feeling towards the less fortunate.\u201d\nThe answer to this is simply: \u201cHas everything been done? Has anything\nlike everything been done? For example, is the danger of this narrow\n\u2018caste\u2019 spirit ever taken into account in the appointment of these same\neducational authorities?\u201d\n\nBesides being \u201csnobs\u201d in the best sense of that word, boys are\nhigh-spirited, generous, and malleable creatures. Let any fair-minded\nman of \u201cthe caste\u201d ask himself: \u201cWhat sustained and really \u2018felt\u2019 effort\ndid he encounter from his own teachers in school and college days to\nturn that high spirit, and generosity, and malleability of his into a\nstate of mind that regarded his good fortune as a thing to be held in\ntrust to share to the full with the less fortunate?\u201d A few will answer\ntruly: \u201cYes, I have met with such effort.\u201d But how few!\n\nAgain, then, I am brought to the point of saying: There is a general\nabsence of active and sustained effort to produce in the young of the\nprosperous classes this \u201cgood-will\u201d state of mind; to change such\ngeneral absence of effort into a general presence of effort is a\nconsummation that will never, I think, be reached under our present\nsystem of education.\n\nBoth these influences, then, contributing to Social Unrest\u2014the one\nproduced by the increasing presence of the fiduciary element, and the\nother by the unchecked growth of a narrow \u201ccaste\u201d spirit\u2014lead us to the\nsame prime underlying deficiency in our national life, the lack of right\npurpose in our education. They happen to be both incident to Capital,\nbut it is probable that influences incident to Labour, of which I\nhesitate to speak, since I cannot from personal experience and feeling,\nmay also in measure be traced to the same underlying deficiency in our\neducation.\n\nNo national improvement can come from outside. It must come from within,\nfrom gradually improved feeling in the body politic. To hope for growth\nwithout this improvement is to hope that a man shall raise himself from\nthe ground by the hair of his own head. But improved feeling has no\nchance of spreading throughout the body politic without that machinery\nof infection which we know by the name of education. Therefore education\nis the most sacred concern, indeed the only hope, of a nation.\n\nHow do we now treat our education\u2014this sacred thing, this only hope? In\nregard to the classes, its direction and control are left entirely to\nthe haphazard beck and call of each separate school or college, without\nconformity to or guidance from any professed national aim, principle, or\nideal. In regard to the masses, it is the concern of a Department of\nState, just as are Trade, the Post Office, or the Navy, and is treated,\nnot as a spiritual matter underlying all else, but as a material affair.\nThe spiritual side of education is supposed to be the concern of the\nreligious bodies; but if we are quite honest we have to confess that the\nreligious bodies have no longer sufficient hold on classes or masses to\ninspire in either such wide mutual good-will and sense of service as\nwill forward any real improvement in the relations between Capital and\nLabour, between the fortunate and less fortunate classes. The religious\nbodies, let us say, have tried their best, but, since our last state is\nworse than our first, they must be considered to have failed. Their\ninfluence, indeed, is too incoherent and dispersed, pervasive here and\nthere, but without either the centrality or force to promote in us a\ngreat national change towards that essence of Christianity\u2014mutual\ngood-will and sense of service. There is no longer, I am afraid, hope in\nthat direction.\n\nDeep down, we know all this, but we have not yet bestirred ourselves to\nfind out what it is that we are trying to do with our civilization, or\nindeed whether we are trying to do anything except just keep our heads\nabove water from hour to hour.\n\nAnd we have not yet bestirred ourselves, partly because we are still\nbreathless and uncertain after that long and tremendous struggle within\nus between Science and Orthodox Religion, which has torn the wings off\nboth, and partly because we are paralysed by the word Democracy. We dare\nnot move for fear of endowing education with too much authority. There\nmay, of course, be another and far more deadly reason why we have not\nbestirred ourselves. We may be too far gone to devise any improved\nstandard or machinery of education, too flaccid to impart, or even to\ndesire to impart, to our education that spiritual quality, that devotion\nto an ideal, which is our only hope. If so, we must resign ourselves to\na desperate Class struggle, as to some bitter, poisonous tonic, from\nwhich we may perhaps gain strength to deal with our disease, but of\nwhich we may take too much and die. Personally\u2014being, as they say, a\npessimist\u2014I prefer to think that all is not yet lost; that we are still\ncapable of expressing in the form of a faith the aspiration towards\nPerfection that does, that must, lie inarticulate within us; still\ncapable of finding machinery, and men to work it, that shall drive this\nfaith into the very heart of all classes.\n\nAt all events, I refuse to believe that we cannot do a good deal more\nwith education as a solvent of our troubles than we have done hitherto.\nThe main and obvious difficulty\u2014one might say the only real\ndifficulty\u2014in education, as in all the affairs of life, is to find the\nmen; and to find the men we can only make use of machinery which is\nacceptable to a democratic age. Yes, we cannot now go outside Democracy,\nand that is something to be profoundly grateful for. The only trouble\nwith Democracy is that it is slow and inarticulate. And I do not feel\nthat the democratic principle\u2014in which I believe as much as any\nman\u2014will ever do itself justice until it discovers some quicker way\nthan it yet has of shaping out of itself its spiritual essence, some\nswifter way of extracting from itself and utilizing for its own service\nthe highest aspiration and finest feeling within it. It has succeeded on\nthe whole fairly well in discovering and making use of its best business\nand administrative minds; but so far it has regarded spirituality as\ncompletely outside its province and deliberately left it to religious\nbodies that have no longer, nationally speaking, a real hold on us, and\nare professedly autocratic. In fact, Democracy at present\u2014and not only\nhere but in America\u2014offers the spectacle of a man running down a road\nfollowed at a more and more respectful distance by his own soul.\n\nCan our education any longer be safely treated in this casual way, be\nsafely left to Churches from whose hand it has too far slipped; be\nsafely left as to the Classes to chance and to vested interests; as to\nthe Masses to mere business management?\n\nShould we not rather trust it coherently and as a whole to the finest\nspirits and broadest minds in the country; to spirits that can be relied\non to hold, and to minds that can be relied on to apply, a really high\nideal; relied on, too, _to select and train the best men available for\nthe propagation of that Ideal_? If by some democratic process we could\nsift out these minds from among us, and endow them with wholesale powers\nof selection, appointment, and training of teachers, we should have\nestablished a sort of endless band on which might travel a perpetual\nvitalizing current of the best feeling within us. To find these finest\nspirits and broadest minds we might conceivably use the existing\nrepresentative machinery of Parliament, or some reformed representative\nsystem; or we might institute a special straining and sifting process,\nby means of plebiscite within plebiscite, till we were reasonably sure\nof arriving at the men best fitted to be entrusted with a high, coherent\nplan of education. We have, then, to found and place under their\nguidance a great training college, wherein the higher leaders of\neducation may be imbued with the new spirit, trained in the new\nstandards, and pass out, as posts fall vacant, to the headship of\nschools and colleges. And if it be objected, as it certainly will, that\nthis is to constitute a too rigid spiritual bureaucracy, the answer is\ntwo-fold: This is the plan on which you order all your political, your\nmaterial life, without regarding it as in the least dangerous or\nundemocratic. And, secondly, you have at present exactly the same\nbureaucratic methods of appointment in education, only they are\nexercised in a hole-and-corner manner, quite incoherently, and _without\nany democratic check at all_.\n\nThere is no revolution in this idea, and it will certainly prove no\nimmediate or quack remedy. It is, in few words, a suggestion that we\nshould adopt for spiritual things, for states of mind, the method that,\nroughly speaking, we have found works best in material matters.\nDemocracy will never really flourish till it has taken charge, and that\nright heartily, of its own spirituality.\n\nLife itself is the best education in spirituality a nation gets. But the\nplea here is only for better machinery to express and direct the\nexperience and latent good-will which is implicit within the nation, and\nis not now brought out into the light for the nation\u2019s service. We are\nliving in a parched field under which there is plenty of water, but we\nhave sunk no well, put up no pumping gear, with which to make our\npasture green. Is the notion that we can still do this a preposterous\ndream, a mere presumptuous counsel of perfection?\n\nWe have at present an air charged with trouble; if we are not to shut\nour eyes, fold our hands, and drift, all that we do must be in the\ndirection of improving our state of mind. But there is no way of\nimproving a state of mind save by fertilizing it with the faith and\ngood-will of a higher mind. Our machinery for doing this has failed us.\nIndeed, nationally speaking, we no longer have any such machinery. What\nmore useful efforts, then, can we make than efforts in the direction of\ndiscovering a new machinery? And the finer the spirits, the broader the\nminds, we place in charge thereof, the greater power we give them,\nalways subject to the safeguard of election, the more we may hope to\nemerge gradually from our sinister situation.\n\n-----\n\n[6] Many think the war will alter all this. I only wish I did.\u2014J. G.\n\n\n\n\n                                ON PEACE\n\n\n                                   I\n\n                           THE WILL TO PEACE\n                     (From the _Daily Mail_, 1909.)\n\n\nI was walking in the district known as Notting Dale looking for signs of\nthe Millennium, when I saw on a poster these words: \u201cWhy England and\nGermany must go to war.\u201d\n\nI stood gazing at them in the company of a woman the worse for drink, a\nbrutal-looking man, a consumptive boy, and a half-starved horse\nharnessed to a cart. With the exception of the horse, these persons were\nsoon replaced by a little labourer with a very sad face, and a\nsick-looking woman, in a ragged shawl. When they, in turn, passed on, I\nwas joined in front of the poster by three girls going home from\nwork\u2014the sound of whose laughter was like the snapping of dried\nsticks\u2014and by a whisky-perfumed man with that peculiar, brazen look in\nthe eye which is liable to sudden eclipse. These, too, stayed but a\nshort time, and their places before the poster were filled by two youths\nin ragged clothes, with dun-coloured faces, and the stumps of cigarettes\nbetween pale lips. Their foot-steps and obscenity having died away, I\nwas left alone with the poster and the horse. This horse\u2019s ribs were\nconspicuous, and from the size of eggcup-shaped hollows above eyes\ncovered with a bluish film, he had evidently laboured to the limit of\nhis capacity. He was resting one thin leg\u2014too hairless at the knee, too\nhairy at the heel. Two very young children came now, and, holding each\nother\u2019s hands, flattened their noses against the poster in the shop\nwindow. One of them moved her feet continually as if her boots hurt her,\nwhile on the feet of the other were the wrecks of boots.\n\nAnd I said to myself: In hundreds of towns all over the country, people\nlike this are standing before that poster, or passing by it. One third\nof the population are below the line of reasonable subsistence, another\nthird are able by the constant employment of every energy to keep their\nheads just on that line. We are the richest country in the world, so\nthat even in organised Germany conditions little better may very well be\nprevalent. This poster declares that England and Germany must go to war.\nAnd this poster is no joke, but the indication of a frame of mind.\nMoreover, I mused, credit for sincerity being due to all men until the\nopposite is proved against them, this frame of mind must be honest and\nfounded on genuine fear\u2014must be, in fact, the conviction of many, not\nonly in this country, but in Germany. They contemplate a war between two\nnations, two thirds of whose respective populations are as yet barely\nable to make a living; a war that means wasting many hundred million\npounds and the earning power of many hundred thousand lives; a war that\nwill in six months cast on to the dust heap twenty years of social\nprogress; a war that may well have no semblance of nobility, no great\nmotto, no inspiring cause, but be a mere sordid struggle between two\nbusiness communities, for so-called commercial ends; a war that may be\nunparalleled for cold-blooded horror and myopic puerility. And the\nposter speaks of this war as if it were inevitable!\n\nWhere, I asked myself, can the people who thus think and speak have\nlived? Where have they kept their hearts, and brains, and eyes, and\nnoses? Can they not see these millions of ghosts in their midst? Or do\nthey think to fatten them by war? Do they think by war to cheapen the\nprice of bread and coals, to spread education, to foster the growth of\nscience and of the arts? Will they by war preserve the strongest males\nfor the improvement of the human stock? Will they by war advance in any\nsingle way the slow process of humanizing a civilization which still\nproduces in millions the beings who have been standing with me here\nbefore that poster? No\u2014I thought\u2014they will certainly reply: \u201cWar is an\nevil, but it is necessary; for the human race is divided into breeds,\ndistinct from one another, and plunged into struggle from their births\nup. Only in each country\u2019s jealous preservation of itself can we look\nfor the welfare of the whole. There is no avail in dreams of peace; no\nuse in preparation for it; men have always killed each other for their\nown advantage and always will; if they did not so kill their neighbours\nthey could not themselves survive. Life is so conditioned; there is not\nenough for all. We know, therefore, that this war must come. We see it\ncoming. We have fastened our eyes on it. We cannot get out of its way.\nWe must offer ourselves up in holy sacrifice before this bloody,\npredestined monster.\u201d\n\nWell!\u2014I thought\u2014if it is sacrifice you want, look at that horse! Look\nat all the people who have stood before this poster! They will take all\nyour powers of sacrifice before you have done with them! And I, myself,\nlooked at the horse; with his bleared eyes and the curves at the corners\nof his mouth, I thought I had never seen such a cynical-looking\ncreature. \u201cWhat are you, after all,\u201d he seemed to be saying to me, \u201cbut\na set of sanguinary tailless animals?\u201d\n\nBut suddenly the eyes of my mind travelled beyond sight of that poster,\nand as in a vision I seemed to see all the great lives men have lived,\nall the high thoughts they have conceived, all their wonderful ingenuity\nand perseverance and strength of will; how they have always found a way\nto fulfil that on which they have set their hearts. And as background to\nthat vision there seemed disclosed to me the untold, unexploited wealth\nof the fields, woods, and waters under the sun. And I thought: \u201cWhat\nthat poster says is only true of such as _will_ it to be true. _Where\nthere is a will to peace there is a way._[7] War between two such\ncountries, two trustees of civilization need not be inevitable. To\nbelieve that is to blaspheme; to belittle human nature, to deny the\nEarth.\u201d\n\n-----\n\n[7] I recollect that the journal which this poster served to sell\ncontained an article proposing to prove that war between England and\nGermany was inevitable, because of the rivalry between their trades. I\nthought then, and think now, that such a reason was revolting. In spite\nof all the bitter cry for commercial war that has now arisen, we did not\nbegin, we never should have begun a war with Germany for such a reason\nalone. The war that\u2014alas!\u2014has come, has for us a better cause. None\nthe less, I freely admit not gauging rightly the state of mind of\nGermany\u2019s ruling classes. I always thought the question of war or no war\nwas a great \u201ctoss-up\u201d between the craze for armament and the growth of\ninternational feeling through social democracy. I thought the latter\nwould win if people would set their wills on peace, and we could tide\nover the next few years. I was wrong.\u2014J. G.\n\n\n                                   II\n\n                            PEACE OF THE AIR\n                    (A Letter to _The Times_, 1911.)\n\n\nBeyond all the varying symptoms of madness in the life of modern nations\nthe most dreadful is this prostitution of the conquest of the air to the\nends of warfare.\n\nIf ever men presented a spectacle of sheer inanity it is now\u2014when,\nhaving at last triumphed in their struggle to subordinate to their\nwelfare the unconquered element, they have straightway commenced to\ndefile that element, so heroically mastered, by filling it with engines\nof destruction. If ever the gods were justified of their ironic\nsmile\u2014by the gods, it is now! Is there any thinker alive watching this\nstill utterly preventable calamity without horror and despair? Horror of\nwhat must come of it if not promptly stopped; despair that men can be so\nblind, so hopelessly and childishly the slaves of their own marvellous\ninventive powers. Was there ever so patent a case for scotching at birth\na hideous development of the black arts of warfare; ever such an\noccasion for the Powers in conference to ban once and for all a new and\nghastly menace?\n\nA little reason, a grain of common sense, a gleam of sanity before it is\ntoo late; before vested interests and the chains of a new habit have\nenslaved us too hopelessly. If this fresh devilry be not quenched within\nthe next few years, it will be too late. Water and earth are wide enough\nfor men to kill each other on. For the love of the sun, and stars, and\nthe blue sky, that have given us all our aspirations since the beginning\nof time, let us leave the air to innocence! Will not those who have eyes\nto see, good-will, and the power to put that good-will into practice,\nbestir themselves while there is yet time, and save mankind from this\nlast and worst of all its follies?\n\n\n\n\n                                THE WAR\n\n\n\n\n\n                          VALLEY OF THE SHADOW\n\n\n                       (From the _Nation_, 1915.)\n\n\n    God, I am travelling out to death\u2019s sea,\n      I, who exulted in sunshine and laughter,\n    Thought not of dying\u2014death is such waste of me!\u2014\n      Grant me one comfort: Leave not the hereafter\n    Of mankind to war, as though I had died not\u2014\n      I, who in battle, my comrade\u2019s arm linking,\n    Shouted and sang\u2014life in my pulses hot\n      Throbbing and dancing! Let not my sinking\n    In dark be for naught, my death a vain thing!\n      God, let me know it the end of man\u2019s fever!\n    Make my last breath a bugle call, carrying\n      Peace o\u2019er the valleys and cold hills, for ever!\n\n\n\n\n                                 CREDO\n\n\n                   (From the _Neutral Press_, 1914.)\n\n\nTo love peace with all one\u2019s heart. To feel that war is a black stain on\nthe humanity and fame of man. To hate militarism. To go any length to\navoid war for material interests, war that involves no great principle,\ndistrusting profoundly the common meaning of the phrase \u201cnational\nhonour\u201d\u2014all this is my belief.\n\nBut there is a national honour charged with the future happiness of man;\nloyalty is due from those living to those that will come after;\ncivilization can only wax and flourish in a world where faith is kept;\nfor nations, as for individuals, there are laws of duty, whose violation\nharms the whole human race; in sum, stars of conduct shine for peoples,\nas for private men.\n\nAnd so I hold that without tarnishing true honour, endangering\ncivilization present and to come, and ruining all hope of future\ntranquillity, my Country could not have refused to take up arms for the\ndefence of her little neighbour Belgium\u2019s outraged neutrality, which she\nhad solemnly guaranteed.\n\nI claim from the trend of events, and of national character, during the\nlast century that in democracy alone lies any coherent hope of\nprogressive civilization or any chance of lasting peace in Europe, or\nthe world.\n\nI believe that this democratic principle, however imperfectly developed,\nhas so worked in France, in Britain, in the United States, that these\ncountries are already nearly safe from inclination to aggress, or to\nsubdue other nationalities that have reached approximately their stage\nof development.\n\nAnd I believe that while there remain autocratic Governments basing\nthemselves on militarism, hostile at heart to the democratic principle,\nEurope will never be free of the surcharge of swollen armaments, the\nnightmare menace of wars like this\u2014the paralysis that creeps on\ncivilizations which adore the god of force.\n\nAnd so I hold that without betrayal of trusteeship, without shirking the\nelementary defence of beliefs coiled within its fibre, or beliefs vital\nto the future welfare of all men, my Country could not stand by and see\nthe ruin of France, that very cradle of democracy.\n\nI believe that democratic culture spreads from West to East, that only\nby maintenance of consolidate democracy in Western Europe can democracy\never hope to push on and prevail till the Eastern Powers have also that\nideal under which alone humanity can flourish.\n\nAnd so I hold that my Country is justified at this juncture in its\nalliance with the autocratic power of Russia, whose people will never\nknow freedom till her borders are joined to the borders of a true\ndemocracy in Central Europe.\n\nI do not believe that jealous, frightened jingoism has been more than\nthe dirty fringe of Britain\u2019s peace-loving temper, and I profess my\nsacred faith that my Country has gone to war, against her will, because\nshe must\u2014for honour, for democracy, and for the future of mankind.\n\n\n\n\n                                 FRANCE\n\n\n                (From the _Westminster Gazette_, 1914.)\n\n\nFrance! Beautiful word! Beautiful land! What a proud soul lives in that\nFrance, now racked and tortured! What chimes will ring when the last\ninvader is pushed back over the edge of the lost provinces! Land for\nwhom, when you are hard driven, the heart most aches! Is it that you are\nWoman, with a caress in your eyes, and your floating robe; with mystery\nin your clear, woman\u2019s smile, and that promise of eternal constancy\nwhich Man never offers? Is it that in you we feel, as in no other Land,\na Presence, such as in some houses makes life assured, and lovely; a\nPresence inhabiting the air of every room, more precious than its\ngarniture? Take away the trappings, make desolate that place of all\nmaterial things, and there will yet be the loved one, there will yet be\nthe gracious ardent spirit.\n\nFrance! You, of all Countries, have the gift of Living Form, of a\ncoherent grace, like that of your own flower of light, or such as haunts\nLa Gioconda, listening to life.\n\nWhen I think of you there comes into my mind the image of a lime-tree,\nin her spring garb of buds delicate, breaking to little gay leaves\necstatic in each wind; in her summer dress so full, so perfumed with\nhoney-coloured blossoms; in her autumn robe of few golden leaves, flat\non the clear air, and trembling, trembling with each breath of the day;\nand in her pale winter nakedness\u2014ever the same essential goddess of a\ntree, perfect in form.\n\nFrance! It is your power to see that \u201csoul in things\u201d which we call\nIdeals, to bring to life the truth you have seen, and so to concrete and\nshape your vision that it becomes the rock spiritual on which nations\nstand. Because you are the living incarnation of your clear, unflinching\nspirit, we others love you.\n\nYou stand before the world, true embodiment of your three immortal\nwords; as your immortal tune is the true voice of a Land\u2019s ardour and\ndevotion.\n\nYou have sloughed off the gross and the vainglorious flesh of nations!\nYou are the flame in the night! In this hour we see, and know you!\n\nGreat and touching comrade! Clear, invincible France! To-day, in your\ngrave chivalry, you were never so high, so desirable, so true to\nyourself and to Humanity!\n\n\n\n\n                                REVEILLE\n\n\n                   (From _King Albert\u2019s Book_, 1914.)\n\n\nIn my dream I saw a fertile plain, rich with the hues of autumn.\nTranquil it was and warm. Men, women, children, and the beasts, worked\nand played and wandered there in peace. Under the blue sky and the white\nclouds low-hanging, great trees shaded the fields; and from all the land\nrose a murmur as from bees clustering on the rose-coloured blossoms of\ntall clover. In my dream I roamed, looking into faces\u2014prosperous and\nwell-favoured\u2014of people living in a land of plenty, drinking the joy of\nlife, caring nothing for the morrow. But I could not see their eyes,\nwhich seemed ever cast down, watching the progress of their feet over\nthe rich grass and the golden leaves already fallen from the trees. The\nlonger I walked among them the more I wondered that I could see the eyes\nof none, not even of the little children, not even of the beasts.\n\nAnd, while I mused on this, the sky began to darken. A mutter as of\ndistant waters came travelling. The children stopped their play, the\nbeasts raised their heads; men and women halted and cried to each other:\n\u201cThe River is rising! If it floods, we are lost! Our beasts will drown;\nwe, even we, shall drown! The River!\u201d And women stood like images of\nstone, listening; men shook their fists at the black sky; the beasts\nsniffed the darkening air.\n\nThen I heard a clear voice call: \u201cBrothers! The dyke is breaking! Link\narms; with the dyke of our bodies we will save our homes! Link arms\nbehind us, Sisters! Children close in! The River!\u201d And all that\nmultitude, whom I had seen treading quietly the grass, came hurrying,\ntheir eyes no longer fixed on the rich plain, but lifted in trouble and\ndefiance. And the Voice called: \u201cHasten! The dyke is broken.\u201d\n\nBy thousands and thousands they pressed, shoulder to shoulder\u2014men,\nwomen, children, and the beasts lying down behind, till the living dyke\nwas formed. And the black flood came travelling till its wave crests\nglinted like the whites of glaring eyes, and the harsh clamour of the\nwaters was as a roar from a million mouths. But the Voice called: \u201cHold,\nbrothers!\u201d And from the living dyke came answer: \u201cWe hold!\u201d\n\nThen the dark water broke; and from all the wall of bodies rose the cry\nof struggle.\n\nBut above it ever the Voice called: \u201cHold!\u201d\n\nAnd the answer still came from the mouths of drowning men and women, of\nthe very children: \u201cWe hold!\u201d\n\nBut the water rolled over and on. Down in its black tumult, beneath its\ncruel rush, I saw men still with arms linked; women on their knees,\nclinging to earth; little children drifting\u2014all dead. But the shades of\nthe dead with arms yet linked were fronting the edge of the savage\nwaters. None had turned away . . .\n\nOnce more I dreamed. The plain was free of darkness, free of waters. The\nRiver, shrunk and muddied, flowed again within its banks. And Dawn was\nbreaking.\n\nAt first it seemed to me that only trees stood on that plain; then, in\nthe ground mist fast clearing, I saw the forms of men and women,\nchildren, beasts; and I moved among them, looking at their faces\u2014not\nbroad and prosperous, but grave from suffering, carved and strong. And\ntheir eyes were shining.\n\nWhile I stood thus watching, the sun rose, and, above the plain clad in\nthe hues of spring, the heaven brightened to full morning. Amazed, I saw\nthat the stars had not gone in, but shone there in the blue.\n\nAnd clear I heard the same Voice call: \u201cBrothers! Behold! The Stars are\nlit for ever!\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                       FIRST THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR\n\n\n                  (From _Scribner\u2019s Magazine_, 1914.)\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 1.\n\nThree hundred thousand church spires raised to the glory of Christ!\nThree hundred million human creatures baptized into His service!\nAnd\u2014War to the death of them all! \u201cI trust the Almighty to give the\nvictory to my arms!\u201d \u201cLet your hearts beat to God, and your fists in the\nface of the enemy!\u201d \u201cIn prayer we call God\u2019s blessing on our valiant\ntroops!\u201d\n\nGod on the lips of each potentate, and under a hundred thousand spires\nprayer that twenty-two million servants of Christ may receive from God\nthe blessed strength to tear and blow each other to pieces, to ravage\nand burn, to wrench husbands from wives, fathers from their children, to\nstarve the poor, and everywhere destroy the works of the spirit! Prayer\nunder the hundred thousand spires for the blessed strength of God, to\nuse the noblest, most loyal instincts of the human race to the ends of\ncarnage! \u201cGod be with us to the death and dishonour of our foes\u201d\u2014whose\nGod He is no less than ours! The God who gave His only begotten Son to\nbring on earth peace and good-will toward men! No supernatural creed\u2014in\nthese days when two and two are put together\u2014can stand against such\nreeling subversion. After this monstrous mockery, beneath this grinning\nskull of irony, how shall there remain faith in this personal outside\nGod, whom we can thus divide, appropriate, and invoke; how remain faith\nin the articles, the formal structure of a religion preached and\npractised to such ends? When this war is over and reason resumes its\nsway, our dogmas will be found to have been scored through for ever.\nWhatever else be the outcome of this business, let us at least realize\nthe truth: It is the death of dogmatic Christianity! Let us will that it\nbe the birth of a God within us, and an ethic Christianity that men\nreally practise!\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 2.\n\nYes! Dogmatic Christianity was dying before this war began. When it is\nover, or as soon as men\u2019s reason comes back to them, it will be dead. In\nFrance, England, Germany, in Belgium, and the other small countries,\ndead; and only kept wonderingly alive in Russia and some parts of\nAustria through peasant simplicity. \u201cTell me, brother, what have the\nJapanese done to us that we should kill them?\u201d So said the Russian\npeasant in the Japanese war. So they may say in this war. And at the end\ngo back and resume praise of the tribal God who fought for Holy Russia\nagainst the tribal God who fought for valiant Austria and the mailed\nfists of Germany.\n\nThis superstitional Christianity will not die in the open and be buried\nwith pomp and ceremony; it will merely be dead\u2014a very different thing;\nlike the nerve in a tooth, that, to the outward eye, is just as it was.\nThat which will take its place has already been a long time preparing to\ncome forward. It will be too much in earnest to care for forms and\nceremonies. And one thing is certain\u2014it will be far more Christian than\nthe so-called Christianity which has brought us to these present ends.\nIts creed will be a noiseless and passionate conviction that man can be\nsaved, not by a far-away, despotic God who can be enlisted by each\ncombatant for the destruction of his foes, but by the Divine element in\nman, the God within the human soul. That, in proportion as man is high,\nso will the life of man be high, safe from shames like this, and devoid\nof his old misery. The creed will be a fervent, almost secret\napplication of the saying: \u201cLove thy neighbour as thyself!\u201d It will be\nashamed of appeal to God to put right that which man has bungled; of\nsupplications to the deity to fight against the deity. It will have the\npride of the artist and the artizan. And it will have its own mysticism,\nits own wonder, and reverence for the mystery of the all-embracing\nPrinciple which has produced such a creature as this man, with such\nmarvellous potentiality for the making of fine things, and the living of\nfine lives; such heroism, such savagery; such wisdom and such black\nstupidity; such a queer insuperable instinct for going on and on and\never on!\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 3.\n\nThe Western world has had its lesson now\u2014the lesson indelibly writ in\ndeath: There is no longer room in civilization for despotic Governments.\nIn Germany, in Austria, in the country where despotism most reigns\nsupreme\u2014our ally, Russia\u2014they are doomed in theory, if not as yet in\nfact.\n\nThe Slav is no more by nature the enemy of the Teuton than is the Briton\nof the Frank. That enmity is a fostered thing of imperial and\nbureaucratic dreams.\n\nWhat stands out from all this welter? The ambitious diplomacy of the\ndespotic Powers, in pursuit of so-called \u201cnational ideals,\u201d a diplomacy\nbegotten of vicious traditions and the misconceptions of egomania,\nremoved by a ring fence from the people of the nations for whom it\nprofesses to speak. An ambitious and cynical diplomacy, battening on the\nknowledge that it can at almost any time raise for its ends a whirlwind\nof feeling out of the love men ever have for the land wherein they are\nborn.\n\nIt is the divorce of executive power from popular sanction that has made\npossible this greatest of all the disasters in history. In democratic\ncountries the aggressive faculty is imperceptibly yet continually\nweakened by the obscure but real link between ministers elect and the\npeople. Only in those countries where, under a cloak perhaps of\ndemocratic forms, the administrative force is responsible to none save\nan imperial director, is a ruthless and unchecked pursuit of so-called\nnational dreams, an aggressive parade of so-called national honour,\npossible.\n\nIf only autocracies\u2014masquerading or naked\u2014go down in the wreckage of\nthis war!\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 4.\n\nThe superstition that unmilitarized nations suffer from fatty\ndegeneration of the heart has perished in the forty-fourth year of its\nage, at the siege of Li\u00e8ge, blown away by the heroism of a little\nunmilitary nation!\n\nDemocracy and citizen armies! If this war brings that in its train its\nhorror will not have been all hateful. But so surely as States remain\nautocratic at heart will the dire spirit that animates almighty\nbureaucracy rear its head again and demand revenge. So surely will this\nwar bring another, and yet another! In these last twenty years\ncivilization has not even marked time; it has gone backward under the\ncurb and pressure of professional armaments masquerading under the words\n\u201cSi vis pacem, para bellum.\u201d The principle of universal service by men\nnot professionally soldiers, the principle that no man shall be called\nto fight one step outside his native land\u2014save as part of an\ninternational Police to enforce the authority of a League for\nPeace\u2014these are the only principles that will in the future still the\ngnawings of anxiety and gradually guarantee the peace of the West. They\nare principles that, I fear, will never obtain while States are subject\nto military bureaucracy and dynastic ambitions. If they cannot be purged\nof these we are \u201cdoomed to something great\u201d every generation\u2014the\ngreatness of the shambles! It is enough to make heart stand still and\nbrain reel for ever if one must believe that man is never to find better\nmeans of keeping his spirit from rust, his body from decay, than these\nsporadic outbursts of \u201cgreatness.\u201d \u201cWar is the only cleanser!\u201d\nAh!\u2014because the word \u201cpatriotism\u201d has so limited a meaning. But\u2014to\nbelieve that this must always be . . . ! When men have ceased to look on\nwar as the proper vehicle for self-sacrifice, will they not turn to a\ngreatness that is not soaked with blood and black with the crows of\ndeath, to save their souls alive? Will there not, can there not, arise\nan emotion as strong as this present patriotism\u2014a sentiment as\npassionate and sweeping, bearing men on to the use of every faculty and\nthe forgetfulness of self, for the salvation, instead of the\ndestruction, of their fellow-man? Or is this a dream, and are we forever\ndoomed, each generation, to the greatness of tearing each other limb\nfrom limb?\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 5.\n\nThree weeks before this war began I was in one of those East End London\nparishes whose inhabitants exist from hand to mouth on casual employment\nand sweated labour; where the women, poor, thin, overworked souls, have\nneither time nor strength nor inclination for cleanliness and comeliness\nin person or house; where the men are undersized and underfed, with the\nfaces of those without a future; where pale and stunted children playing\nin the gutters have a monopoly of any mirthless gaiety there is.\n\nIn one household of two rooms they were \u201cfree of debt, thank Gawd!\u201d\nhaving just come back from fruit-picking, and were preparing to take up\nfamily existence again on the wife\u2019s making of matchboxes at a maximum\nof six shillings a week, the husband not having found a job as yet. In\nanother household, of one room swarming with flies and foul with a\nsickly acrid odour, a baby was half-asleep on the few rags of a bed\nbereft of bedclothes, its lips pressed to something rubbery, and flies\nabout its eyes; dirty bowls of messes stood about; an offal heap lay in\nthe empty grate; and at a table in the little window a pallid woman of\nforty with a running cold was desperately sewing the soles on to tiny\nbabies\u2019 shoes. Beside her was a small dirty boy, who had just been lost\nand brought home by a policeman, because he had remembered the name of\nthe street he lived in. The woman looked up at us wistfully, and said:\n\u201cI thought I\u2019d lost \u2019im too, I did; like the one that fell in the\ncanal.\u201d Though she still had seven, though her husband was out of work,\nthough she only made five to six shillings a week, she could not spare\nany of the children she had borne.\n\nPrices have gone up. What is happening to such as these? They exist in\nall countries. You military bureaucrats, who safeguard and pursue\n\u201cnational aspirations,\u201d who open the gates of the kennel and let loose\nthese mad dogs of war; who rive husbands from their wives, sons from\ntheir mothers, and send them out by the hundred thousand to become lumps\nof bloody clay\u2014spare a fraction of time to see the peoples for \u201cwhose\ngood\u201d you launch this glorious murder; come and sniff for one moment\nthat sickly, acrid smell in the homes of the poor! And then talk of\nnational aspirations and necessities!\n\nThere is only one national aspiration worth the name, only one national\nnecessity\u2014to have from roof to basement a clean, healthy, happy\nnational house. \u201cWar the cleanser! Without war\u2014no sacrifice, no\nnobility!\u201d I refer you to that mother, slaving without hope and without\nglory, starved and ill, and slaving in a war with death that lasts all\nher life, for the children she has borne.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 6.\n\nThe Russian people is not Russia, unless it should become so in this\nwar. There has hitherto been an almost absolute divorce between the\nessentially democratic nature of the Russian and the despotic methods by\nwhich Russia is governed. We English and French, fighting not only for\nour lives, but for democracy, for the decent preservation of treaty\nrights, and a humanity that we believe can only flourish under\ndemocratic rule, find it somewhat ironical that we have with us a\ndespotism. And there is a profound reason why it has been and will be\ndifficult for Russia to change its form of government. The emotional,\nuncalculating Russian has little sense of money, space, or time; he\nfalls an easy prey to those sterner, more matter-of-fact than himself.\nBureaucracy attracts the hard and practical elements of a population;\nthere are, or were, many of Teutonic origin manning Russian officialdom.\nAnd Russia is so huge; democratic rule will find it difficult to be\nswift enough; in decentralization there is danger of disruption.\nNevertheless, we welcome the help of Russia, for, if France and we were\nbeaten, it would not only be our own deaths, but the death of democracy\nand humanism in Europe\u2014perhaps in the world. The tide of democracy sets\nfrom the West. It must permeate Germany before it reaches Russia. Out of\nthis war many things may come. If Fate grant that military despotisms\nfall in any country, they may well fall in all, and our ally, Russia,\ngain at last a Constitution and some real measure of democratic freedom,\nsome real coherence between the Russian people and Russian policy.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 7.\n\nWhen the conscript souls disembodied by this war meet, if they meet at\nall, how will they talk of this last madness? Perhaps one in each\nhundred will be able to say from his heart: \u201cI was happy with a rifle or\nsword and some of you to be killed in front of me!\u201d The remaining\nninety-nine will say: \u201cLike you I loved the sun, and a woman, and the\ngood things of life; like you I meant well by others; I had no wish to\nkill any man; no wish to die. But I was told that it was necessary. I\nwas told that, unless I killed as many of you as I could, my country\nwould suffer. I don\u2019t know whether in my heart I believed what I was\ntold, but I did know that I should feel disgraced if I did not take\nrifle and sword and try to kill some of you; I knew, too, that unless I\ndid, they would shoot me for a deserter. So I went. Nearly all the time\nthat I was marching, or resting dead-tired, or lying in the trenches, I\nthought; \u2018Shall I ever see home again? Let me see home again!\u2019 But I\nknew that my first duty was to kill you, so that _you_ should never see\nhome again. I did not _want_ to kill you, but I knew I had to. When I\nwas under fire or tired or hungry, it is true I hated you so that I had\nonly a savage wish to kill you. But when it was over I had an ache in my\nheart. We used to sing while marching, make jokes, enjoy the feel of our\ncomrades\u2019 shoulders touching our own, say to ourselves: \u2018We\u2019re fine\nfellows, serving our country, doing our duty!\u2019 But still the ache went\non underneath, very deep, as if one were asleep and could not come to\nthe end of a bad dream. We seldom knew what our bullets were doing, but\nsometimes we came to fighting hand to hand. The first time, I remember,\nwe had advanced through a wood under shell-fire, and were lying down at\nthe edge. I had that ache all the time I was coming through the wood; it\nwas fine weather, and the larches smelled sweet. But when I saw you\ncharging down on us with the sun gleaming on your bayonets, it left me;\nI felt weak and queer down the backs of my legs, wondering which of you,\nyelling and running towards me, would plunge his steel into my stomach.\nThen my officer shouted; I fired once, twice, three times, and began to\nrun forward. If I had not, I should have turned and fled. I did not feel\nsavage, but I knew I must move every bit of me as quick as I could, and\ndefend myself and stab. Then our supports came through the wood, and you\nwere beaten. My bayonet was bloody. One or more of you I must have\nkilled; I had been brave, we had won; I felt excited and yet sick. In\nthe evening when I lay down my ache was worse than ever. All my life I\nhad been taught that to kill a fellow-man was the worst thing man can\ndo; it did not come natural to me to kill. It was having to risk my life\nso dear to me, _in order that I might kill_, that gave me that ache. If\nI had been risking it trying to save you, it would have been more\nnatural; I should not have ached then!\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 8.\n\n\u201cThe glories of war!\u201d\n\nCourage, devotion, endurance, contempt of death! These are glories that\nthe unmartial may not deride. Even the humblest of brave soldiers is a\nhero, for all that his heroism coins the misery of others; but what does\nthe soldier know, see, feel, of the real \u201cglories of war\u201d? That\nknowledge is confined to the readers of newspapers and books! The\nPressman, the romancer, the historian can with glowing pen call up in\nthe reader a feeling that war is glorious; that there is something in\nitself desirable and to be admired in that licensed murder, arson,\nrobbery that we call war. Glorious war! Every penny thrill of each\nreader of the newspaper, every spasm of each one who sees armed men\npassing, or hears the fifes and drums, is manufactured out of blood and\ngroans, wrung out of the torments of the human heart and the torture of\nhuman flesh.\n\nWhen I read in the paper of some glorious charge and the great slaughter\nof the enemy, I feel a thrill through every fibre. It is grand, it is\nsplendid! I take a deep breath of joy, almost of rapture. Grand,\nsplendid! That there should be lying, with their faces haggard to the\nstars, hundreds, thousands of men like myself, better men than myself!\nHundreds, thousands, who loved life as much as I; whose women loved them\nas much as mine love me! Grand, splendid! That the blood should be\noozing from them into grass that once smelled as sweet to them as it\ndoes to me! That their eyes which delighted in sunlight and beauty as\nmuch as mine, should be glazing fast with death; that their mouths,\nwhich mothers and wives and children are aching to kiss again, should be\ntwisted into gaps of horror! Grand, splendid! That other men, no more\nsavage than myself, should have strown them, there! Grand, splendid!\nThat in thousands of far-off houses women, children, and old men will\nsoon lie quivering with anguished memories of those lying there\ndead. . .\n\nPressmen, romancers, historians\u2014you have given me a noble thrill in\nrecounting these glories of war!\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 9.\n\nThis is the grand defeat of all Utopians, dreamers, poets, philosophers,\nidealists, humanitarians, lovers of peace and the arts; bag and baggage\nthey are thrown out of a world that has for a time no use for them. To\nthe despot, the bureaucrat, the militarist, the man of affairs, they\nhave always been hateful. They are soft, yet dangerous, because they\nventure to hold up another flag in the face of the big flag of force;\nventure to distract men\u2019s attention from dwelling on the beauty of its\nsize. I believe solemnly that we English have had to join this carnival\nof force to guard democracy, honour, and the sanctity of treaty rights.\nIt was a sacred necessity; let us keep it sacred, without the loathsome\nreek of a satisfaction that peace, humanism, and the arts are down, and\nthe country once more showing the stuff of which it is made, a tusky\nlover of a fight, as jealous and afraid of a rival as ever.\n\nThe idealist said in his heart: The god of force is dead, or dying. He\nhas been proven the fool that the man of affairs and the militarist\nalways said he was. But the fools of this world\u2014generally after they\nare gone\u2014have a way of moving men which the wise and practical\nbelievers in force have not. If they had not this power man would still\nbe, year in year out, the savage that the believers in force have for\nthe moment once more made him. The battle between the god of love and\nthe god of force endures for ever. Fools of the former camp, drummed out\nand beaten to their knees, in due time will get up again and plant their\npoor flag a little farther on. \u201cAll men shall be brothers,\u201d said the\nGerman fool, Schiller; so shall the fools say again when the time comes;\nand again, and again, after every beating!\n\n\n                                 \u00a7 10.\n\nLast night, when the half-moon was golden and the white stars very high,\nI saw the souls of the killed passing. They came riding through the\ndark\u2014some on grey horses, some on black; they came marching,\nwhite-faced\u2014hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands.\n\nThe night smelled sweet, the breeze rustled, the stream murmured; and\npast me on the air the souls of the killed came marching. They seemed of\none great company, no longer enemies. All had the same fixed stare,\nbraving something strange that they were trying terribly to push away.\nAll had their eyes narrowed yet fixed open in their grey-white,\nsmoke-grimed faces. They made no sound as they passed. Whence were they\ncoming, where going, trailing the ghosts of guns, riding the ghosts of\nhorses; into what river of oblivion\u2014far from horror, and the savagery\nof man!\n\nThey passed. The golden half-moon shone, and the high white stars. The\nfields smelled sweet; the wind gently stirred the trees. The moon and\nstars would be shining over the battlefields, the wind rustling the\ntrees there, the earth sleeping in dark beauty. So would it be all over\nthe Western world. The peace of God doth indeed pass our understanding!\n\n\n\n\n                       THE HOPE OF LASTING PEACE\n\n\n             (From a _Symposium on_ \u201c_Nationality_,\u201d 1915.)\n\n\nIn these times one dread lies heavy on heart and brain\u2014the thought that\nafter all the unimaginable suffering, waste, and sacrifice of this war\nnothing may come of it, no real relief, no permanent benefit to Europe,\nno improvement to the future of mankind.\n\nThe pronouncements of publicists: \u201cThis must never happen again,\u201d\n\u201cConditions for abiding peace must be secured,\u201d \u201cThe United States of\nEurope must be founded,\u201d \u201cMilitarism must cease\u201d\u2014all such are the\nnatural outcome of this dread. They are proclamations admirable in\nsentiment and intention. But, human nature being what it has been and is\nlikely to remain, we must face the possibility that nothing will come of\nthe war, save the restoration of Belgium (that, at least, is certain);\nsome alterations of boundaries; a long period of economic and social\ntrouble more bitter than before; a sweeping moral reaction after too\ngreat effort. Cosmically regarded, this war is a debauch rather than a\npurge, and debauches have always to be paid for.\n\nConfronting the situation in this spirit, we shall be the more rejoiced\nif any of our wider hopes should by good fortune be attained.\n\nLeaving aside the restoration of Belgium\u2014for what do we continue to\nfight? We go on, as we began, because we all believe in our own\ncountries and what they stand for. And in considering how far the\nprinciple of nationality should be exalted, one must remember that it is\nin the main responsible for the present state of things. In truth, the\nprinciple of nationality of itself and by itself is a quite insufficient\nideal. It is a mere glorification of self in a world full of other\nselves; and only of value in so far as it forms part of that larger\nideal, an international ethic, which admits the claims and respects the\naspirations of all nations. Without that ethic little nations are (as at\nthe present moment) the prey\u2014and, according to the naked principle of\nnationality, the legitimate prey\u2014of bigger nations. Germany absorbed\nSchleswig, Alsace-Lorraine, and now Belgium, by virtue of nationalism,\nof an overweening belief in the perfection of its national self. Austria\nwould subdue Serbia from much the same feeling. France does not wish to\nabsorb or subdue any European people of another race, because France, as\never, a little in advance of her age, is already grounded in this\ninternational ethic of solid respect for the rights of all nations\n_which belong, broadly speaking, to the same stage of development_. The\nsame may now be said of the other Western democratic Powers, Britain and\nAmerica, \u201cTo live and let live,\u201d \u201cTo dwell together in unity,\u201d are the\nguiding maxims of the international ethic, by virtue of which alone have\nthe smaller communities of men\u2014the Belgiums, Bohemias, Polands,\nSerbias, Denmarks, Irelands, Switzerlands of Europe\u2014any chance of\nsecurity in the maintenance of their national existence. In short, the\nprinciple of nationality, unless it is prepared to serve this\ninternational ethic, is but a frank abettor of the devilish maxim:\n\u201cMight is right.\u201d All this is truism; but truisms are often the first\nthings we forget.\n\nThe whole question of nationality in Europe bristles with difficulties.\nIt cannot be solved by theory and rule of thumb. What is a nation? Shall\nit be determined by speech, by blood, by geographical boundary, by\nhistoric tradition? The freedom and independence of a country can and\never should be assured when with one voice it demands the same. It is\nseldom so simple as that. Belgium, no doubt, is as one man. Poland is\none man in so far as the Poles are concerned, but what of the Austrians,\nRussians, Germans settled among them? What of Ireland split into two\ncamps? What of the Germans in Bohemia; in Alsace; in Schleswig?\nCompromise alone is possible in many cases, going by favour of majority.\nAnd there will always remain the very poignant question of the rights\nand aspirations of the minorities. Let us by all means clear the air by\nrighting glaring wrongs, removing palpable anomalies, redressing obvious\ninjustices, securing so far as possible the independent national life of\nhomogeneous groups; but let us not, dazzled by the glamour of a word,\ndream that by restoring a few landmarks, altering a few boundaries, and\nraising a p\u00e6an to the word \u201cnationality\u201d we can banish all clouds from\nthe sky of Europe and muzzle the ambitions of the stronger nations.\n\nIn my belief the best hope for lasting peace, the chief promise of\nsecurity for the rights and freedom of little countries, the most\nreasonable guarantee of international justice and general humanity, lies\nin the gradual growth of democracy, of rule by consent of the governed.\nWhen Europe is all democratic, and its civilization on one\nplane\u2014instead of as now on two\u2014then and then only we shall begin to\ndraw the breath of real assurance. Then only will the little countries\nsleep quietly in their beds. It is conceivable, nay probable, that an\nideal autocracy could achieve more good for its country and for the\nworld at large in a given time than the rule of the most enlightened\ndemocracy. It is certain that ideal autocracies hold sway but once in a\nblue moon.\n\nIf proof be needed that the prevalence of democracy will end aggression\namong nations that belong to the same stage of development, secure the\nrights of small peoples, foster justice and humaneness in man, let the\nhistory of this last century and a half be well examined, and let the\nhuman probabilities be weighed. Which is the more likely to advocate\nwars of aggression? They who, by age, position, wealth, are secure\nagainst the daily pressure of life, they who have passed their time out\nof touch with the struggle for existence, in an atmosphere of dreams,\nambitions, and power over other men? Or they who every hour are reminded\nhow hard life is, even at its most prosperous moments, who have nothing\nto gain by war, and all, even life, to lose; who by virtue of their own\nstruggles have a deep knowledge of the struggles of their\nfellow-creatures; an instinctive repugnance to making those struggles\nharder; who have heard little and dreamed less of those so-called\n\u201cnational interests\u201d that are so often mere chimeras; who love, no\ndoubt, in their inarticulate way, the country where they were born and\nthe modes of life and thought to which they are accustomed, but know of\nno traditional and artificial reasons why the men of other countries\nshould not be allowed to love their own lands and modes of thought and\nlife in equal peace and security?\n\nAssuredly, the latter of these two kinds of men are the less likely to\nfavour ambitious projects and aggressive wars. According as \u201cthe\npeople,\u201d through their representatives, have or have not the final\ndecision in such matters, the future of Europe shall be made of war or\npeace, of respect or of disregard for the rights of little nations.\n\nIt is advanced against democracies that the workers of a country,\nignorant and provincial in outlook, have no grasp of international\npolitics. True\u2014in a Europe where national ambitions and dreams are\nstill for the most part hatched and nurtured in nests perched high above\nthe real needs and sentiments of the simple working folk who form\nnine-tenths of the population in each country. But once those nests of\naggressive nationalism have fallen from their high trees, so soon as all\nEurope conforms to the principle of rule by consent of the governed, it\nwill be found\u2014as it has already been found in France and in this\ncountry\u2014that the general sense of the community informed by growing\npublicity (through means of communication ever speeding-up) is quite\nsufficient trustee of national safety; quite able, even enthusiastically\nable, to defend its country from attack.\n\nIt is said that democracies are liable to be swept by gusts of passion,\nin danger of yielding to Press or mob sentiment. But are not the peoples\nof democratic countries as firmly counselled and held in check by their\nresponsible ministers and elected representatives as are the peoples of\nautocratically governed countries? What power of initiative have \u201cthe\npeople\u201d in either case? They act only through their leaders. But their\nleaders _are elected_\u2014that is the point.\n\nRepresentative Governments must answer for their actions to their\nfellow-men. Autocratic Governments need only answer to their gods. The\neyes of representative Governments are turned habitually inwards towards\nthe condition of the people whom they represent. The eyes of autocratic\nGovernments _may_ indeed be turned inwards, but what they usually see of\nthe people whom they do not represent is liable to make them turn\noutwards. In other words, they find in successful foreign adventure and\nimperialism a potent safeguard against internal troubles.\n\nThe problem before the world at the end of this war is how to eliminate\nthe virus of an aggressive nationalism that will lead to fresh outbursts\nof death. It is a problem that I, for one, fear will beat the powers and\ngood-will of all, unless there should come a radical change of\nGovernments in Central Europe; unless the real power in Germany and\nAustria-Hungary passes into the hands of the people of those countries,\nthrough their elected representatives, as already it has passed in\nFrance and Britain. This is in my belief the only chance for the defeat\nof militarism, of that raw nationalism, which, even if beaten down at\nfirst, will ever be lying in wait, preparing secret revenge and fresh\nattacks. How this democratization of Central Europe can be brought about\nI cannot tell. It is far off as yet. But if this be not at long last the\noutcome of the war, we may still, I fear, talk in vain of the rights of\nlittle nations, of peace, disarmament, of chivalry, justice, and\nhumanity. We may whistle for a changed Europe.\n\n\n\n\n                      DIAGNOSIS OF THE ENGLISHMAN\n\n\n                 (From the _Amsterdamer Revue_, 1915.)\n\n\nAfter many months of war, search for the cause thereof borders on the\nacademic. Comment on the physical facts of the situation does not come\nwithin the scope of one who by disposition and training is concerned\nwith states of mind.\n\nBut as to the result: The period of surprise is over; the forces known;\nthe issue fully joined. It is now a case of \u201cPull devil, pull baker!\u201d\nand a question of the fibre of the combatants. For this reason it may\nnot be amiss to try to present to any whom it may concern as detached a\npicture as one can of the real nature of that combatant who is called\nthe Englishman. Ignorance in Central Europe of his character tipped the\nbalance in favour of war, and speculation as to the future is useless\nwithout right comprehension of his nature.\n\nThe Englishman is taken advisedly, because he represents four-fifths of\nthe population of the British Isles.\n\nAnd first let it be said that there is no more unconsciously deceptive\nperson on the face of the globe. The Englishman does not know himself;\noutside England he is but guessed at.\n\nRacially the Englishman is so complex and so old a blend that no one can\nsay what he is. In character he is just as complex. Physically, there\nare two main types: one inclining to length of limb, narrowness of face\nand head (you will see nowhere such long and narrow heads as in our\nislands), and bony jaws; the other approximating more to the ordinary\n\u201cJohn Bull.\u201d The first type is gaining on the second. There is little or\nno difference in the main character behind.\n\nIn attempting to understand the real nature of the Englishman, certain\nsalient facts must be borne in mind.\n\nTHE SEA.\u2014To be surrounded generation after generation by the sea has\ndeveloped in him a suppressed idealism, a peculiar impermeability, a\nturn for adventure, a faculty for wandering, and for being sufficient\nunto himself in far and awkward surroundings.\n\nTHE CLIMATE.\u2014Whoso weathers for centuries a climate that, though\nhealthy and never extreme, is, perhaps, the least reliable and one of\nthe wettest in the world, must needs grow in himself a counter-balance\nof dry philosophy, a defiant humour, an enforced medium temperature of\nsoul. The Englishman is no more given to extremes than is his climate;\nagainst its damp and perpetual changes he has become coated with a sort\nof bluntness.\n\nTHE POLITICAL AGE OF HIS COUNTRY.\u2014This is by far the oldest settled\nWestern Power, politically speaking. For eight hundred and fifty years\nEngland has known no serious military disturbance from without; for\nnearly two hundred she has known no serious political turmoil within.\nThis is partly the outcome of her isolation, partly the happy accident\nof her political constitution, partly the result of the Englishman\u2019s\nhabit of looking before he leaps, which comes, no doubt, from the\nclimate and the mixture of his blood. This political stability has been\na tremendous factor in the formation of English character, has given the\nEnglishman of all ranks a certain deep slow sense of form and order, an\nengrained culture\u2014if one may pirate the word\u2014that makes no show, being\nin the bones of the man, as it were.\n\nThe Great Preponderance for Several Generations of Town over\nCountry Life.\u2014Taken in conjunction with centuries of political\nstability, this is the main cause of a growing inarticulate humaneness,\nof which\u2014speaking generally\u2014the Englishman appears to be rather\nashamed.\n\nTHE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.\u2014This potent element in the formation of the modern\nEnglishman, not only in the upper but of all classes, is something that\none rather despairs of making understood\u2014in countries which have no\nsimilar institution. But! Imagine one hundred thousand youths of the\nwealthiest, healthiest, and most influential classes, passed, during\neach generation, at the most impressionable age, into a sort of ethical\nmould, emerging therefrom stamped to the core with the impress of a\nuniform morality, uniform manners, uniform way of looking at life;\nremembering always that these youths fill seven-eighths of the important\npositions in the professional administration of their country and the\nconduct of its commercial enterprise; remembering too, that, through\nperpetual contact with every other class, their standard of morality and\nway of looking at life filters down into the very toes of the land. This\ngreat character-forming machine is remarkable for an\nunself-consciousness which gives it enormous strength and elasticity.\nNot inspired by the State, it inspires the State. The characteristics of\nthe philosophy it enjoins are mainly negative, and, for that, the\nstronger. \u201cNever show your feelings\u2014to do so is not manly, and bores\nyour fellows. Don\u2019t cry out when you\u2019re hurt, making yourself a nuisance\nto other people. Tell no tales about your companions and no lies about\nyourself. Avoid all \u2018swank,\u2019 \u2018side,\u2019 \u2018swagger,\u2019 braggadocio of speech or\nmanner, on pain of being laughed at.\u201d (This maxim is carried to such a\npitch that the Englishman, except in his Press, habitually understates\neverything.) \u201cThink little of money, and speak less of it. Play games\nhard, and keep the rules of them, even when your blood is hot and you\nare tempted to disregard them. In three words: PLAY THE GAME\u201d\u2014a little\nphrase which may be taken as the characteristic understatement of the\nmodern Englishman\u2019s creed of honour, in all classes. This great,\nunconscious machine has great defects. It tends to the formation of\n\u201ccaste\u201d; it is a poor teacher of sheer learning; and, \u00e6sthetically, with\nits universal suppression of all interesting and queer individual traits\nof personality\u2014it is almost horrid. Yet it imparts a remarkable\nincorruptibility to English life; it conserves vitality, by suppressing\nall extremes; and it implants everywhere a kind of unassuming stoicism\nand respect for the rules of the great game\u2014Life. Through its\nunconscious example, and through its cult of games, it has vastly\ninfluenced even the classes not directly under its control.\n\nThree more main facts must be borne in mind:\u2014\n\n    ESSENTIAL DEMOCRACY OF GOVERNMENT.\n    FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND THE PRESS.\n    ABSENCE HITHERTO OF COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE.\n\nThese, the outcome of the quiet and stable home life of an island\npeople, have done more than anything to make the Englishman a deceptive\npersonality to the outside eye. He has for centuries been licensed to\ngrumble. There is no such confirmed grumbler\u2014until he really has\nsomething to grumble at; and then, no one perhaps who grumbles less.\nThere is no such confirmed carper at the condition of his country, yet\nno one really so profoundly convinced that it is the best in the world.\nA stranger might well think from his utterances that he was spoiled by\nthe freedom of his life, unprepared to sacrifice anything for a land in\nsuch a condition. Threaten that country, and with it his liberty, and\nyou will find that his grumbles have meant less than nothing. You will\nfind, too, that behind the apparent slackness of every arrangement and\nevery individual are powers of adaptability to facts, elasticity,\npractical genius, a spirit of competition amounting almost to disease,\nand a determination, that are staggering. Before this war began, it was\nthe fashion amongst a number of English to lament the decadence of the\nrace. These very grumblers are now foremost in praising the spirit shown\nin every part of their country. Their lamentations, which plentifully\ndeceived the outside ear, were just English grumbles; for if, in truth,\nEngland had been decadent, there could have been no such universal\ndisplay for them to be praising now. All this democratic grumbling, and\nhabit of \u201cgoing as you please,\u201d serve a deep purpose. Autocracy,\nCensorship, Compulsion, destroy humour in a nation\u2019s blood and\nelasticity in its fibre; they cut at the very mainsprings of national\nvitality. Only if reasonably free from control can a man really arrive\nat what is or is not national necessity, and truly identify himself with\na national ideal by simple conviction from within.\n\nTwo words of caution to strangers trying to form an estimate of the\nEnglishman: He must not be judged from his Press, which, manned (with\ncertain exceptions) by those who are not typically English, is much\ntoo-highly-coloured to illustrate the true English spirit; nor can he be\njudged from his literature.\n\nThe Englishman is essentially inexpressive, unexpressed. Further, he\nmust not be judged by the evidence of his wealth. England may be the\nrichest country in the world per head of population, but not 5 per cent.\nof that population have any wealth to speak of, certainly not enough to\nhave affected their hardihood; and, with inconsiderable exceptions,\nthose who have enough are brought up to worship hardihood. For the vast\nproportion of Englishmen, active military service is merely a change\nfrom work as hard, and even more monotonous.\n\nFrom these main premises, then, we come to what the Englishman really\nis.\n\nWhen, after months of travel, one returns to England, he can taste,\nsmell, and feel the difference in the atmosphere, physical and\nmoral\u2014the curious damp, blunt, good-humoured, happy-go-lucky,\nold-established, slow-seeming formlessness of everything. You hail a\nporter; if you tell him you have plenty of time, he muddles your things\namiably with an air of, \u201cIt\u2019ll be all right,\u201d till you have only just\ntime. But if you tell him you have no time\u2014he will set himself to catch\nthat train for you, and catch it faster than a porter of any other\ncountry. Let no foreigner, however, experiment to prove the truth of\nthis, for a porter\u2014like any other Englishman\u2014is incapable of taking a\nforeigner seriously (after a year of war he is not even yet taking the\nGermans seriously); and, quite friendly, but a little pitying, will lose\nhim the train, assuring the unfortunate that he can\u2019t possibly know what\ntrain he wants to catch.\n\nThe Englishman must have a thing brought under his nose before he will\nact; bring it there and he will go on acting after everybody else has\nstopped. He lives very much in the moment because he is essentially a\nman of facts and not a man of imagination. Want of imagination makes\nhim, philosophically speaking, rather ludicrous; in practical affairs it\nhandicaps him at the start; but once he has \u201cgot going\u201d\u2014as we say\u2014it\nis of incalculable assistance to his stamina. The Englishman, partly\nthrough this lack of imagination and nervous sensibility, partly through\nhis inbred dislike of extremes and habit of minimising the expression of\neverything, is a perfect example of the conservation of energy. It is\nvery difficult to come to the end of him. Add to this his unimaginative\npracticality, and tenacious moderation, his inherent spirit of\ncompetition\u2014not to say pugnacity\u2014a spirit of competition so extreme\nthat it makes him, as it were, patronize Fate; add the sort of vulgarity\nthat grows like fungus on people who despise ideas and analysis, and\nmake a cult of unintellectuality; add a peculiar, ironic, \u201cdon\u2019t care\u201d\nsort of humour; an underground humaneness, and an ashamed idealism\u2014and\nyou get some notion of the pudding of English character. It has a kind\nof terrible coolness, a rather awful level-headedness\u2014by no means\nreflected in his Press. The Englishman makes constant small blunders;\nbut few, almost no, deep mistakes. He is a slow starter, but there is no\nstronger finisher, because he has by temperament and training the\nfaculty of getting through any job he gives his mind to with a minimum\nexpenditure of vital energy; nothing is wasted in expression, style,\nspread-eagleism; everything is instinctively kept as near to the\npractical heart of the matter as possible. He is\u2014to the eyes of an\nartist\u2014distressingly matter-of-fact; a tempting mark for satire. And\nyet he is at bottom an idealist, though it is his nature to snub,\ndisguise, and mock his own inherent optimism. To admit enthusiasm is\n\u201cbad form\u201d if he is a \u201cgentleman\u201d; and \u201cswank,\u201d or mere waste of good\nheat, if he is not a \u201cgentleman.\u201d England produces more than its proper\npercentage of cranks and poets; this is Nature\u2019s way of redressing the\nbalance in a country where feelings are not shown, sentiments not\nexpressed, and extremes laughed at. Not that the Englishman is cold, as\nis generally supposed in foreign countries\u2014on the contrary, he is\nwarm-hearted and feels strongly; but just as peasants, for lack of words\nto express their feelings, become stolid, so does the Englishman, from\nsheer lack of the habit of self-expression. The Englishman\u2019s proverbial\n\u201chypocrisy\u201d\u2014that which I myself have dubbed his \u201cisland\nPharisaism\u201d\u2014comes chiefly, I think, from his latent but fearfully\nstrong instinct for competition which will not let him admit himself\nbeaten, or in the wrong, even to himself; and from an ingrained sense of\nform that impels him always to \u201csave his face\u201d; but partly it comes from\nhis powerlessness to explain his feelings. He has not the clear and\nfluent cynicism of expansive natures, wherewith to confess exactly how\nhe stands. It is the habit of men of all nations to want to have things\nboth ways; the Englishman wants it both ways, I think, more strongly\nthan any; and he is unfortunately so unable to express himself, _even to\nhimself_, that he has never realized this truth, much less confessed\nit\u2014hence his \u201chypocrisy.\u201d\n\nHe is sometimes abused for being over-attached to money. His island\nposition, his early discoveries of coal, iron, and processes of\nmanufacture have made him, of course, a confirmed industrialist and\ntrader; but he is more of an adventurer in wealth than a heaper-up of\nit. He is far from sitting on his money-bags\u2014has no vein of proper\navarice (the humble Englishman is probably the least provident man in\nthe world)\u2014and for national ends he will spill out his money like\nwater, if convinced of the necessity.\n\nIn everything it comes to that with the Englishman\u2014he must be\nconvinced; and he takes a lot of convincing. He absorbs ideas slowly;\nwould rather not imagine anything decidedly till he is obliged; but in\nproportion to the slowness with which he can be moved, is the slowness\nwith which he can be removed! Hence the symbol of the bulldog. When he\ndoes see and seize a thing, he holds fast.\n\nFor the particular situation which the Englishman has now to face, he is\nterribly well adapted. Because he has so little imagination, so little\npower of expression, he is saving nerve all the time. Because he never\ngoes to extremes he is saving energy of body and spirit. That the men of\nall nations are about equally endowed with courage and self-sacrifice,\nhas been proved in these last six months; it is to other qualities that\none must look for final victory in a war of exhaustion. The Englishman\ndoes not look into himself; he does not brood; he sees no further\nforward than is necessary; and he must have his joke. These are fearful\nand wonderful advantages. Examine the letters and diaries of the various\ncombatants, and you will see how far less imaginative and reflecting\n(though often shrewd, practical, and humorous) the English are than any\nothers; you will gain, too, a deep, a deadly conviction that behind them\nis a fibre like rubber, that may be frayed and bent a little this way\nand that, but can neither be permeated nor broken.\n\nWhen this war began, the Englishman rubbed his eyes steeped in peace, he\nis still rubbing them just a little, but less and less every day. A\nprofound lover of peace by habit and tradition, he has actually realized\nby now that he is \u201cin for it\u201d up to the neck. To any one who really\nknows him\u2014that is a portent!\n\nLet it be freely confessed that from an \u00e6sthetic point of view the\nEnglishman, devoid of high lights and shadows, coated with drab, and\nsuperhumanly steady on his feet, is not too attractive. But for the\nwearing, tearing, slow, and dreadful business of this war, the\nEnglishman\u2014fighting of his own free will, unimaginative, humorous,\ncompetitive, practical, never in extremes, a dumb, inveterate optimist,\nand terribly tenacious\u2014is equipped with victory.\n\n\n\n\n                       OUR LITERATURE AND THE WAR\n\n\n             (From _The Times_ Literary Supplement, 1915.)\n\n\nFor the purpose of the following speculations the word Literature is\nused to describe the imaginative work of artists and thinkers\u2014that is,\nof writers who have had, and will have, something to say of more or less\nlasting value; it leaves out the work of those who, for various reasons,\nsuch as patriotic sentiment, or the supplying of the Public with what it\nmay be supposed to want, will, no doubt, dish up the war as a matter of\nnecessity, whether serving it wholesale in eight courses, or merely\nusing it as sauce to the customary meat and fish.\n\nHow will our literature, thus defined, be affected by the war? Will it\nbe affected at all?\n\nOne must first remember that to practically all imaginative writers of\nany quality war is an excrescence on human life, a monstrous calamity\nand evil. The fact that they recognize the gruesome inevitability of\n_this_ war, in so far as the intervention of our country is concerned,\ndoes not in any way lessen their temperamental horror of war in itself,\nof the waste and the misery, and the sheer stupid brutality thereof.\n\nThe nature of the imaginative artist is sensitive, impressionable;\nimpatient of anything superimposed; thinking and feeling for itself;\nrecoiling from conglomerate views and sentiment. It regards the whole\naffair as a dreadful though sacred necessity, to be got through somehow,\nlest there be lost that humane freedom which is the life-blood of any\nworld where the creative imagination and other even more precious things\ncan flourish. The point is that there is no glamour about the\nbusiness\u2014none whatever, for this particular sort of human being.\nWriters to whom war is glamorous (with the few exceptions that prove the\nrule) are not those who produce literature. We must therefore discount\nat once prophecies that the war will lift literature on to an epic\nplane, cause it to glow and blow with heroic deeds, and figures eight\nfeet high. They come from those who do not know the temperament of the\nimaginative artist, his fundamental independence, and habit of revolting\nagainst what is expected of him. But the whole thing is much deeper than\nthat.\n\nIt seems to be forgotten by some who write on this matter that the\nproducer of literature has been giving of his best in the past, and will\nbe able to do no more in the future. The first thing that has mattered\nto him has been (in the words of de Maupassant, but which might have\nbeen those of any other first-rate writer) \u201cto make something fine, in\nthe form that shall best suit him according to his temperament.\u201d No\namount of wars can vary for the artist that ideal\u2014as it was for him, so\nit will be. It seems also to be thought that the war has been a\nstartling revelation to the imaginative writer of the heroism in human\nnature. This is giving him credit for very little imagination. The\nconstant tragedies of peace\u2014miners entombed, sinking liners, volcanic\neruptions, outbreaks of pestilence, together with the long endurances of\ndaily life, are always bringing home to any sensitive mind the inherent\nheroism of men and women. The very glut of heroism in this war is\nlikely, as it were, to put an artist\u2019s nature off, to blunt the edge of\nperceptions that are always groping after fresh sensation, that _must_\nbe always groping, in order that expression may be of something really\nfelt\u2014for novelty is, of all, the greatest spur to sharp feeling.\n\nThe top notes of human life and conduct can be but sparingly sung, or\nthey grate on the nerves, and jar the hearing of the singer, no less\nthan of his listener. By some mysterious law frontal attacks to capture\nheroism and imprison it in art are almost always failures. Few of the\ngreat imagined figures of literature are heroic.\n\nAnother thing is forgotten. The real artist does not anticipate and\ncertainly cannot regulate the impulses that shall move his brain and\nheart and hand. What exactly starts him off, even he cannot tell. He\nwill never write heroics to the order of the Public.\n\nAh! but he will now be influenced unconsciously in the choice of\nsubjects by sympathy with the fine deeds of the day, a lift will come\ninto his work, his eyes will be raised to the stars! True, perhaps, for\nthe moment; but, then, such times as these are in many ways unfavourable\nto the creative instinct; moreover they will leave in restless,\nsensitive natures lassitude, recoil, a sense of surfeit. Quite probably\nthe war may produce a real masterpiece or two, formed out of its very\nstuff, by some eager mind innocent hitherto of creative powers, for whom\nactual experience of the sights and feelings of war may be a baptism\ninto art. Almost certainly there will come of it a masterpiece or two of\nsatire. But, generally speaking, this welter of sacrifice and suffering,\nthe sublimity and horror of these days, their courage and their cruelty,\nare enveloping the writer like the breath of a sirocco, whirling his\nbrain and heart around at the moment, but likely to leave him with an\nintense longing for a deep draught of peace, and quiet scented winds. On\none whose whole natural life is woven, not of deeds, but of thoughts and\nvisions, moods and dreams, all this intensely actual violence, product\nof utterly different natures from his own, offspring of men of action\nand affairs, cannot have the permanent, deepening, clarifying influence\nthat long personal experience or suffering have had on some of the\nworld\u2019s greatest writers\u2014on Milton in his blindness; on Dostoevsky,\nreprieved at the very moment of death, then long imprisoned; on de\nMaupassant in his fear of coming madness; on Tolstoi in the\nlife-struggle of his dual nature; on Beethoven in his deafness, and\nNietzsche in his deadly sickness. It is from the stuff of his own life\nthat the creative writer moulds out for the world something fine, in the\nform that best suits him, following his own temperament. His momentary\nand, perhaps, intense identification with the struggle of this war has\nin it something spasmodic, feverish, and almost false; a kind of deep\nand tragic inconsistency. It is too foreign to the real self within him.\nAt one time it was said of certain new troops: \u201cThey\u2019re first-rate,\nexcept for one thing\u2014they _will not_ bayonet the Germans.\u201d It is like\nthat in the artist writer\u2019s soul\u2014with the work of his hands, the words\nof his lips, his thoughts and the feelings of his heart, he identifies\nhimself with this war drama, yet in the very depths of him he recoils.\nWhat would you have? The artist-man has but one nature.\n\nFor all these reasons the war is likely to have little deep or lasting\ninfluence on literature. But one immediate effect it may surely have.\nLet who will snatch a moment in these days to be with Nature\u2014let him go\ninto a wood, or walk down the Flower Walk in Kensington Gardens, of a\nfine afternoon. On the still birch trees a pigeon will be sitting\nmotionless among the grey twig tracery; the cedar-branches are dark and\nflat on the air; the sun warms the cheek, and brightens the cream and\npink chestnut and maple buds just opening; the waxy hyacinths deepen in\nhue, and the little green shoots everywhere swell as he gazes. A\nsensation of delight begins to lift his heart, he takes a deep breath;\nand suddenly, from a bench he hears: \u201cOne of \u2019em\u2019s alive an\u2019 two\u2019s\ndead.\u201d Or: \u201cThe Germans are movin\u2019 \u2019em!\u201d Gone is the beginning of\ndelight. The heavy hand comes down again. No good! There is no Spring!\nThe sky is _not_ bright. The heart cannot rejoice. As with any man, so,\nand even more, with the artist-writer. When the war is over and the\nheavy hand lifted, his heart and brain will rush to that of which he has\nbeen deprived too long\u2014will rush to the beauty which, for sheer pity\nand horror, he cannot now enjoy, will rush as a starved and thirsting\ncreature. There may well be an instant outburst of joyful and sensuous\nimaginings; a painting of beauty, not faked but really felt, by brushes\nat once more searching and yet softer.\n\nAnd very likely, too, there will be a spurt of zest and frankness, as\nfrom men who have been too long constrained to a single emotion under\nthe spell of a powerful drug.\n\nOne more thought may be jotted down. Unless the national unity now\nprevailing lasts on into the years of peace that follow, the country\nwill certainly pass through great internal stress. That stress will most\nlikely have a more intimate and powerful influence upon literature than\nthe war itself. If there is to come any startling change, it should be\nfive or ten years after the war rather than at once.\n\n\n\n\n                            ART AND THE WAR\n\n\n     (From the _Atlantic Monthly_ and _Fortnightly Review_, 1915.)\n\n\nMonsieur Rodin\u2014perhaps the greatest living artist\u2014has lately defined\nart as the pursuit of beauty, and beauty as \u201cthe expression of what\nthere is best in man.\u201d \u201cMan,\u201d he says, \u201cneeds to express in a perfect\nform of art all his intuitive longings towards the Unknowable.\u201d His\nwords may serve as warning to those who imagine that the war will loosen\none root of the tree of art\u2014a tree which has been growing slowly since\nfirst soul came into men\u2019s eyes.\n\nThis world (as all will admit) is one of the innumerable expressions of\nan Unknowable Creative Purpose, which colloquially we call God; that\nwhich not every one will admit is that this Creative Purpose works in\nits fashioning not only of matter but of what we call spirit, through\nfriction, through the rubbing together of the noses, the thoughts, and\nthe hearts of men. While the material condition of our planet\u2014the heat\nor friction within it\u2014remains favourable to human life, there will,\nthere must needs be, a continual crescendo in the stature of Humanity,\nthrough the ever-increasing friction of human spirits one with the\nother; friction supplied by life itself, and, next after life, by those\ntranscripts of life, those expressions of human longing, which we know\nas art. Art for art\u2019s sake\u2014if it meant what it said, which is\ndoubtful\u2014was always a vain and silly cry. As well contend that an\nartist is not a man. Art was ever the servant as well as the mistress of\nmen, and ever will be. Civilization, which after all is but the gradual\nconversion of animal man into human man, has come about through art even\nmore than through religion, law, and science. For the achieved\n\u201cexpression of man\u2019s intuitive longing towards the Unknowable, in more\nor less perfect forms of art\u201d has ever\u2014after life itself\u2014been the\nchief influence in broadening men\u2019s hearts.\n\nThe aim of human life no doubt is happiness. But, after all, what is\nhappiness? Efficiency, wealth, material comfort? Many by their lives do\nso affirm; few are cynical enough to say so; and on their death-beds\nnone will feel that they are. Not even freedom in itself brings\nhappiness. Happiness lies in breadth of heart. And breadth of heart is\nthat inward freedom, which has the power to understand, feel with, and,\nif need be, help others. In breadth of heart are founded justice, love,\nsacrifice; without it there would seem no special meaning to any of our\nefforts, and the tale of all human life would still be no more than that\nof very gifted animals, many of whom, indeed, are highly efficient, and\nhave unity partly instinctive, partly founded on experiences of the\nutility thereof; but none of whom have that conscious altruism which is\nwithout perception of benefit to self, and works from sheer recognition\nof its own beauty. In sum, human civilization is the growth of conscious\naltruism; and the directive moral purpose in the world nothing but our\ndim perception, ever growing through spiritual friction, that we are all\nbound more and more towards the understanding of ourselves and each\nother, and all that this carries with it. To imagine, then, that a\nconflagration like this war, however vast and hellish, will do aught but\nmomentarily retard the crescendo of that understanding, is to miss\nperception of the whole slow process by which man has become less and\nless an animal throughout the ages; and to fear that the war will scorch\nand wither art, that chief agent of understanding, is either to identify\noneself with the petty and eclectic views which merely produce \u00e6sthetic\nexcrescences, or to be frankly ignorant of what art means.\n\nRecognition of the relativity of art is constantly neglected by those\nwho talk and write about it. For one school the audience does not exist;\nfor another nothing but the audience. Obviously neither view is right.\nArt may be very na\u00efve and still be art\u2014still be the expression of a\nchildish vision appealing to childish visions, making childish hearts\nbeat. Thus:\n\n        \u201cMary had a little lamb,\n           Its wool was white as snow,\n         And everywhere that Mary went\n           The lamb was sure to go,\u201d\n\nis art to the child of five, whose heart and fancy it affects. And:\n\n        \u201cTiger, tiger, burning bright\n         Through the forests of the night\u2014\n         What immortal hand and eye\n         Framed thy fearful symmetry?\u201d\n\nis art to the writer and the reader of these words.\n\nOn the other hand, Tolstoi, in limiting art to such of it as might be\nunderstanded of simple folk, served his purpose of attacking the\nextravagant dandyisms of \u00e6stheticism, but fell lugubriously short of the\nwide truth. The essence of art is the power of communication between\nheart and heart. Yes! But since no one shall say to human nature: \u201cBe of\nthis or that pattern,\u201d or to the waves of human understanding: \u201cThus far\nand no further,\u201d so no man shall say these things to art.\n\nAnybody can draw a tree, but few can draw a tree that others can see is\nlike a tree, and not one in a million can convey the essential spirit of\nTree. The power of getting over the footlights to some audience or other\nis clearly necessary before a man can be called an artist by any but\nhimself. But so soon as he has established genuine connection between\nhis creation and the gratified perception of others, he is making art,\nthough it may be, and usually is, very childish art. The point to grasp\nis this, and again this: Art is rooted in life for its inspiration, and\ndependent for its existence as art on affecting other human beings,\nsooner or later. The statue, the picture, or the book which, having been\ngiven a proper chance, has failed to move any but its creator, is\ncertainly not art. It does not follow that the artist should consider\nhis public, or try to please others than his own best self; but if, in\npleasing his best self, he does not succeed in pleasing others, in the\npast, the present, or the future, he will certainly not have produced\nart. Not, of course, that the size of his public is proof of an artist\u2019s\nmerit. The public of all time is generally but a small public at any\ngiven moment. Tolstoi seems to have forgotten that, and to have\nneglected the significance attaching to the quality of a public. For, if\nthe essence of art be its power of bridging between heart and heart (as\nhe admitted), its value may well be greater if at first it only reaches\nand fertilizes the hearts of other artists rather than those of the\npublic, for through these other artists it sweeps out again in further\ncircles and ripples of expression. Art is the universal traveller,\nessentially international in influence. Revealing the spirit of things\nlying behind parochial surfaces and circumstance, delving down into the\ncommon stuff of nature and human nature, and recreating therefrom, it\npasses ten thousand miles of space, ten thousand years of time, and yet\nappeals to the men it finds on those far shores. It is the one\npossession of a country which that country\u2019s enemies usually still\nrespect and take delight in. War\u2014destructive outcome of the side of\nman\u2019s nature which is hostile to all breadth of heart\u2014can for the\nmoment paralyse the outward activities of art, but can it ever chain its\nspirit, or arrest the inner ferment of the creative instinct? For\nthousands of generations war has been the normal state of man\u2019s\nexistence, yet alongside war has flourished art, reflecting man\u2019s myriad\naspirations and longings, and, by innumerable expressions of individual\nvision and sentiment, ever unifying human life, through the common\nfactor of impersonal emotion passing from heart to heart by ways more\ninvisible than the winds travel, carrying the seeds and pollen of herb\nlife. If one could only see those countless tenuous bridges spun by art,\na dewy web over the whole lawn of life! If for a moment we could see\nthem, discouragement would cease its uneasy buzzing. What can this war\ndo that a million wars have not? It is bigger, and more bloody\u2014the\nreaction from it will but be the greater. If every work of art existing\nin the Western world were obliterated, and every artist killed, would\nhuman nature return to the animalism from which art has in a measure\nraised it? Not so. Art makes good in the human soul all the positions\nthat it conquers.\n\nWhen the war is over, the world will find that the thing which has\nchanged least is art. There will be less money to spend on it; some\nartists will have been killed; certain withered leaves, warts, and dead\nbranches will have sloughed off from the tree; and that is all. The wind\nof war reeking with death will neither have warped nor poisoned it. The\nutility of art, which in these days of blood and agony is mocked at,\nwill be rising again into the view even of the mockers, almost before\nthe thunder of the last shell has died away. \u201cBeauty is useful,\u201d says\nMonsieur Rodin. Aye! it is useful!\n\nWho knows whether, even in the full whirlwind of this most gigantic\nstruggle, art work may not be produced which, in sum of its ultimate\neffect on mankind, will outlive and outweigh the total net result of\nthat struggle, just as the work of Euripides, Shakespeare, Leonardo,\nBeethoven, and Tolstoi outweighed the net result of the Peloponnesian,\nsixteenth century, Napoleonic, and Crimean wars? War is so unutterably\ntragic, because\u2014without it\u2014Nature, given time, would have attained the\nsame ends in other ways. A war is the spasmodic uprising of old savage\ninstincts against the slow and gradual humanizing of the animal called\nman. It emanates from restless and so-called virile natures\nfundamentally intolerant of men\u2019s progress towards the understanding of\neach other\u2014natures that often profess a blasphemous belief in art, a\nblasphemous alliance with God. It still apparently suffices for a knot\nof such natures to get together, and play on mass fears and loyalties,\nto set a continent on fire. And at the end? Those of us who are able to\nlook back from thirty years hence on this tornado of death will conclude\nwith a dreadful laugh that if it had never come the state of the world\nwould be very much the same.\n\nIt is not the intention of these words to deny the desperate importance\nof this conflict _now that it has been joined_. Humanism and Democracy\nhave been forced into a sudden and spasmodic death-grapple with their\narch-enemies; and the end of that struggle must be brought into\nconformity with the slow, sure, general progress of mankind. But if, by\nbetter fortune, this fearful conflict had not been forced upon\ncivilization, the same victory would have made good, in course of time,\nby other processes. That is the irony. For, of a surety, wars or no\nwars\u2014the future is to Humanism.\n\nBut art has no cause to droop its head, nor artists to be discouraged.\nThey are the servants of the future every bit as much as, and more than,\nthey have been the servants of the past; they are even the faithful\nservants of the present, for they must keep their powers in training,\nand their vision keen against the time when they are once more accounted\nof. A true picture is a joy that will move hearts some day, though it\nmay not sell now, nor even for some years after the war; beauty none the\nless \u201cthe expression of what there is best in man\u201d because the earth is\nbeing soaked with blood.\n\nMonsieur Sologub, the Russian poet, speaking recently on the future of\nart, seems to have indicated his view that after the war art will move\naway from the paths of naturalism; and he defines the naturalists as\n\u201cpeople who describe life from the standpoint of material satisfaction.\u201d\nWith that definition I do not at all agree, but it is never good to\nargue about words. Confusion in regard to the meaning of terms\ndescribing art activity is so profound that it is well to sweep them out\nof our minds, and, in considering what forms art ought to take, go deep\ndown to the criterion of communication between heart and heart. The only\nessential is, that vision, fancy, feeling should be given the concrete\nclothing that shall best make them perceptible by the hearts of others;\nthe simpler, the more direct and clear and elemental the form, the\nbetter; and that is all you can say about it. To seek remote, intricate,\nand \u201cprecious\u201d clothings for the imagination is but to handicap vision\nand imperil communication and appeal; the artists who seek them are not\nusually of much account. The greatness of Blake is the greatness of his\nsimpler work. Though, in this connection, it is as much affectation to\npretend that men are more childish than they are, as to pretend that\nthey all have the subtlety of a Robert Browning. If the range of an\nartist\u2019s vision, the essential truth of his fancy, and the heat of his\nfeeling be great, then, obviously, the simpler, the more accessible the\nform he takes, the wider will be his reach, the deeper the emotion he\nstirs, the greater the value of his art.\n\n\u201cWhat is wanted,\u201d says Monsieur Sologub, \u201cis true art.\u201d Quite so! What\nis wanted in a work of art is an unforced natural and adequate\ncorrespondence between fancy and form, matter and spirit, so that one\nshall not be distracted by its naturalism, mysticism, cubism,\nwhatnotism, but shall simply be moved in a deep impersonal way by\nperception of another\u2019s vision. Two instances come into the mind: A\npicture of Spring, by Jean Fran\u00e7ois Millet, in the Louvre. Therein, by\nsimple selection, without any departure whatever from the normal\nrepresentation of life, the very essence of Spring, the brooding and the\nwhite flash of it, the suspense and stir, the sense of gathered\ntorrents, all the special emotion, which, every Spring of the year, is\nsooner or later felt by every heart, has been stored by the painter\u2019s\nvision and feeling, and projected from his eyes and heart to other eyes\nand hearts.\n\nAnd: Those chapters in a novel of Monsieur Sologub\u2019s compatriot,\nTurgenev\u2014\u201cFathers and Children\u201d\u2014which describe with the simplest\nnaturalism the death of Bazarov. There, too, is the heart-beat of\nemotion as universal as it well can be, rendered so vividly that one is\nnot conscious at all of how it is rendered.\n\nThese are two cases of that complete welding of form and spirit which is\nall one need or should demand of art; the rest is a mere question of the\nartist\u2019s emotional quality and stature. Art, in fact, will take all\npaths after the war just as before; and now and then the artist will\nfashion that true blend of form and fancy which is the achievement of\nbeauty.\n\nFor Monsieur Rodin, beauty is the adoration of all that man perceives\nwith his spiritual senses. Yes. And the task of artists is to kneel\nbefore life till they rive the heart from it and with that heart twine\ntheir own; out of such marriages come precious offspring, winged\nmessengers.\n\nThere is a picture of Francesca\u2019s in the Louvre, too much restored\u2014some\nsay it is not a Francesca, but if not, then neither are they Francescas\nin the English National Gallery, and those, so far as I know, are not\ndisputed\u2014a picture of the Virgin, with hands pressed together, before\nher naked Babe, in a landscape of hills and waters. Her kneeling figure\nhas in it I cannot tell what of devotion and beauty, which makes the\nheart turn over within one. With his spiritual senses the painter has\nperceived, and in adoration set down what he has seen, mingling with it\nthe longings of his own heart. And they who look on that picture know\nfor evermore what devotion and beauty are. And if they be artists, they\ngo away fortified again to the taking up of a long quest.\n\nThis is the utility of art. It plays between men like light, showing the\nheights and depths of nature, beckoning on, or warning of destruction,\nand ever through emotion revealing heart to heart. It is the priestess\nof Humanism, confirming to us our future, reassuring our faltering faith\nin our own approach to the Unknowable, till the tides of the Creative\nPurpose turn, and our world gets cold; and Man, having lived his day to\nthe uttermost, finds gradual sleep.\n\n\n\n\n                          TRE CIME DI LAVAREDO\n\n\n                   (From the _Book of Italy_, 1916.)\n\n\nMost of us who have lived a good long time have found some part of the\nworld to look on as the happy hunting-ground of our spirits, the place\nmost blessed by memory. And within that sacred circle there will be some\nspot, above all others, enchanted.\n\nTre Cime di Lavaredo! Drei Zinnen! You three rock mountains above\nMisurina of the Italian Tyrol\u2014how many times have we not climbed up, to\nlie on your high stony slopes, steeping our eyes in wild form and\ncolour, wherefrom even a dull spirit must take wings and soar a little!\nWidth of thought is surely born, in some sort, of majestic sights\u2014cloud\nforms, and a burning sky, rock pinnacles, and wandering, deep-down\nvalleys, the gray-violet shadows on the hills, the frozen serenity of\nfar snows. All the outspread miracle there lies fan-shaped to the south,\nsouth-east, south-west, having that warmth which so makes the heart\nrejoice the moment one passes over and looks southward from any\nmountain. What traveller does not feel strange loveliness steal up into\nhis soul from southern slopes? Domodossola below the Simplon; Val\nd\u2019Aosta beyond the Matterhorn; Bormio beneath the Stelvio; and many\nanother holy place. It is not merely charm and mellowness\u2014the South can\nbe savage as the North\u2014it is some added poignancy of form and colour,\nand a look of being blessed.\n\nTre Cime di Lavaredo! Music comes drifting up your slopes, from pasture\nfar down enough to give magic to cow-bells.\n\nBut now, where but three years ago we watched a little white cow licking\nits herd\u2019s sprained hand, men are fighting to the death. Batteries must\nbe adorning that steep forcella running from the refuge hut. A new kind\nof thunder reverberates, in whose roar the stones that were for ever\nfalling will have lost their voices. And the beasts, the gray, the dun,\nthe white, mild-eyed\u2014their pasture below must be a desert! Even the\ngoats surely have gone. Or do they and their young masters attend\nplacidly on these new mysteries, just pricking their ears now and again\nat some too raucous clap and clatter of guns?\n\nLet those who are killed up there be buried in their tracks! Out of\ntheir bodies on the lower slopes a few more flowers will\nspring\u2014gentian, mountain-dandelion, alpen-rose; and higher, nearer\nthose peaks, they will be grateful food for root of edelweiss. And may\ntheir spirits\u2014if men have such after death\u2014stay up on those wild\nheights! Nowhere else could they have such free flitting space!\nFriend-spirit, foe-spirit, they will fight no more, but on the winter\nnights in comradeship haunt the frozen hills, where no shred of man or\nbeast or bird or plant is left, till Spring comes again.\n\nTo fight up here, where Nature has designed one vast demonstration of\nher own fierce untameness, of all the stubborn face she opposes to the\ncrafts of man! What irony! Up in this wild stony citadel, among these\nrock minarets and red-and-gold-stained bastions, above ravines remote\nfrom man\u2014up here, where in winter all is ice, and even in summer no\ngreen thing grows; on these invincible outposts of an earth not yet\nsubdued by incalculable human toil throughout a million years; among\nthese sublime unconquered monuments, reminding us of labour and peril\ninfinite in our long death-grip with Nature\u2014up here man has fellow-man\nby the throat. Yea! Irony complete! Nor the less perfect in that each\nsoldier on these heights who in duty clubs his fellow-Christian\u2019s brains\nout, or sends forth the shell that shall mingle his body with the rock\nrubble and the edelweiss, and sets up a little cross, perhaps, to the\ndeparted soul, is a true hero, holding his life in his hand, throwing it\ndown grandly for his country\u2019s honour. Verily we are strange animals, we\nmen\u2014little walking magazines of too great vitality! Out of our sheer\nrampancy comes war; as though superfluity of vital fluid were for ever\naccumulating, to free ourselves of which we have found as yet no better\nway than this. Shall we never learn to spend the surplus of our vital\nforce in efforts of salvation rather than destruction? If the mountains\ncannot teach us, and the wide night skies above them, sparkling with\nother worlds, then nothing will. For on mountains and beneath such skies\nman feels at his greatest, flies far in fancy, dreams of nobility; yet\ndoes he perceive what a puny midget of a creature walks on his two feet,\nglad of any little help he can get or give, glad of good-will from any\nliving thing. In loneliness up here he would soon be frozen and starved,\nor slip to death. His tiny strength, his feeble cunning, would avail him\nbut short span. Unroped to other men, he is but a sigh in the night, a\ncross of bleaching lime in to-morrow\u2019s sunlight. . . .\n\nTre Cime di Lavaredo! Golden sounds of a golden speech! When, if ever,\nwe see your beloved rocks again, that may be your only name; no longer\nperhaps will the words Drei Zinnen compete for you . . . But will you\nknow the difference? As of old, gigantic, silent, or, clamorously, in\nthe loosening rains and heat, casting down your stones\u2014you will lift up\nyour black defiance in the clear mountain nights, your grandeur to the\nsun by day.\n\nOnce we saw you with the young moon flying toward, like a white swallow,\nlike an arrow aimed at your hearts, as it might be in duel between\nbright swiftness and dark strength. The moon was vanquished\u2014for she\nflew into you that stood unmoved.\n\nTre Cime di Lavaredo! You will outlast the race of men upon this earth.\nWhen we, quarrelsome midget heroes that we be, are all frozen from this\nplanet, you will be there, whitened for ever from head to foot. You will\nhave no name, then\u2014neither of North nor South!\n\n\n\n\n                      SECOND THOUGHTS ON THIS WAR\n\n\n                  (From _Scribner\u2019s Magazine_, 1915.)\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 1.\n\nI went out into the wind\u2014the first south-west wind after many days of\neasterly drought. All the morning it had rained, but now the gray sky\nwas torn; the sun shone, and long white clouds were driven over pools of\nblue, or piled up into heavenly mountains. The land of moor and valley,\nthe hills and fields and woods gleamed in the sunlight, or were shadowed\ndark by the drifting clouds. Moss on the top of the old gray walls was\nwet, but warm to the touch; the birds\u2014daws, pigeons, hawks\u2014flung\nthemselves at the wind. And the scent! Every frond of the bracken, each\nsprig of the gorse and the heather, all the soughing boughs of young\npine-tree and oak, and the grass, gray-powdered with rain, were exhaling\ntheir fragrance so that each breath drawn was a draught of wild perfume.\n\nAnd in one\u2019s heart rose an ecstasy of love for this wind-sweetened\nearth, for the sun, and the clouds, the rain, and the wind, the trees\nand the flowering plants, for the streams and the rocks\u2014for this earth\nwhich breeds us all, and into which we reabsorb, a passion as untutored,\nwild, and natural as the love of life in the merest dumb thing that\nknows nothing of ideals, of country, realms and policies, nothing of\nwar.\n\nGermany calls the war \u201cthis English war;\u201d we English as fervently\nbelieve it a Prussian war, having deep root in Prussian will, and\nhistory. One thing is certain: At the last moment the world, desperately\nbalancing, was thrust over the edge of the abyss by a sudden swoop of\nthe Prussian war party.\n\n    \u201cPourtales (German Ambassador to Russia) called Sazonoff\u2019s\n    attention in the most serious manner to the fact that nowadays\n    measures of mobilization would be a highly dangerous form of\n    diplomatic pressure; for in that event the purely military\n    consideration of the question by the General Staffs would find\n    expression, and that _if that button were once touched in\n    Germany_ the situation would get out of control.\u201d (Count\n    Szapary, Austrian Ambassador to Russia. Austrian Book, No.\n    28.)[8]\n\nIn a Europe teeming with mutual fears a few men, perhaps not a score in\nall, have had the power to strip from millions their meed of life on\nthis wind-sweetened earth! For myths conceived in a few ambitious\nbrains, and the \u201cstrike-first\u201d theory of a knot of strategists, the\nwhole world must pay with grief and agony! What can we do, when this war\nis over, to insure that we shall not again be stampeded by professional\nsoldiers, and those\u2014in whatever country\u2014who dream paper dreams of\nterritory, trade, and glory, caring nothing for the lives of the simple,\nknowing nothing of the beauty of the earth which is their heritage.\n\n-----\n\n[8] Since this was written Maximilian Harden in his paper _Zukunft_ has\nused these words: \u201cGermany is calumniated when it is said that she\nwanted war, not to defend herself, but in order to conquer. But it is\nequally false to suppose that England, France, or Russia, who were\neither not armed at all, or only half ready . . . deliberately planned\nan attack. The outbreak of the war could not be arrested; because at the\ndecisive moment _the Will of the Strategists was stronger than the Will\nof the Statesmen_.\u201d\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 2.\n\n\u201cNo corn planted, more men wanted!\u201d\u2014words of the Old Dalmatian song!\n\nIt is no use crying over spilt milk, and no good throwing down the\ninstruments in the middle of an operation. But there is every use in\nkeeping before oneself perpetually the thought that this war _is_ an\noperation to excise the trampling instinct; for there are many among us\nwilling to speak of an operation while it serves their purpose, who\nunconsciously believe in that which they profess to be cutting out.\nHuman nature is much the same all the world over. The Prussian Junker is\nbut a specially favoured variety of a well-marked type that grows in\nevery land. And the business of other men is to keep circumstances from\nbeing favourable to its development and ascendancy.\n\nWhen we talk of safeguarding democracy, liberty, and the rights of small\nnations, we really only mean the muzzling of the Junkerism in human\nnature\u2014the restraint of this trampling instinct. Who would give a rush\nfor the immunity of any nation from the resurgence within itself of that\ninstinct, unless it watches with lynx eyes? I cannot but think that,\nwhen peace comes and Prussian Junkerism is held harmless for a span,\nJunkerism in general will have a better chance of pushing up its hydra\nheads than it had before this war. Times will be very hard\u2014the \u201chave\nnots\u201d and \u201cthey who have\u201d will be very nakedly set over against each\nother. Circumstances will be favourable to civil strife; and civil\nstrife, whichever side wins, fosters despotic leaderships and the\ntrampling instinct. Those not merely hoping and meaning to try for a\nbetter world, after the war, but expecting one almost as a matter of\ncourse, forget that the devotion and unity, which men display under the\nshadow of a great fear and the stimulus of that most powerful and\nuniversal emotion, patriotism, will slip away from them when the fear\nand the emotion are removed. If before the war men were incapable of\nrising to great and united effort for their own betterment out of sheer\ndesire for perfection, are they even as likely to be able when, after\nthe war, economic stress puts a greater strain on each individual\u2019s\ngood-will?\n\nThe words of a certain prophet, \u201cLiterature, Art, Industry, Commerce,\nPolitics, Statesmanship will, when this fighting day is over, come into\na new and better era,\u201d are soothing syrup. Let us by all means hope for\nand intend the best, but let us set ourselves to face the worst.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 3.\n\nBecause pens lie unused, or are but feebly wielded over the war, they\nwould have us believe that modern literature has been found wanting.\n\u201cLook,\u201d they say, \u201chow nobly the Greek and the Elizabethan pens rhymed\nthe epic struggles of their ages. What a degenerate, nerveless creature\nis this modern pen! See how it fails when put to the touchstone of great\nevents and the thrilling realities of war!\u201d I think this is nonsense.\nThe greatest pens of the past were strangers to the glamour of war.\nEuripides made it the subject of a dirge; Shakespeare of casual\ntreatment; Cervantes of his irony. They were in advance of the feeling\nof their day about war; but now their feeling has become that of mankind\nat large; and the modern pen, good, bad, or indifferent, follows\u2014_longo\nintervallo_\u2014their prevision of war\u2019s downfalling glory. In the words of\na certain officer, war is now \u201cdamn dull, damn dirty, and damn\ndangerous.\u201d The people of Britain, and no doubt of the other\ncountries\u2014however bravely they may fight\u2014are fighting not because they\nlove it, not because it is natural to them, but because\u2014alas!\u2014they\nmust. This makes them the more heroic since the romance of war for them\nis past, belonging to cruder stages of the world\u2019s journey.\n\nIn our consciousness to-day there is a violent divorce between our\nadmiration for the fine deeds, the sacrifices, and heroisms of this war,\nand our feeling about war itself. A shadowy sense of awful waste hangs\nover it all in the mind of the simplest soldier as in that of the\nsubtlest penman. It may be real that we fight for our conceptions of\nliberty and justice; but we feel all the time that we ought not to have\nhad to fight, that these things should be respected of the nations; that\nwe have grown out of such savagery; that the whole business is a kind of\nmonstrous madness suddenly let loose on the world. Such feelings were\nnever in the souls of ordinary men, whether soldiers or civilians, in\nthe days of Elizabeth or Themistocles. They fought, then, as a matter of\ncourse. In those so-called heroic ages \u201cthe thrilling realities of war\u201d\nwere truly the realities of life and feeling. To-day they are but a long\nnightmare. We have discovered that man is a creature slowly, by means of\nthought and life and art, evolving from the animal he was into the human\nbeing he will be some day, and in that desperately slow progression\nsloughing off the craving for physical combat and the destruction of his\nfellow-man. This process does not apparently mean the loss of stoicism\nand courage, but rather the increase thereof, as millions in this war,\nafter the most peaceful century in the world\u2019s history, have proved. But\nwe are a few paces farther on toward the fully evolved human being than\nwere the compatriots of Themistocles or Elizabeth.\n\nThe true realities of to-day lie in peace. The great epic of our time is\nthe expression of man\u2019s slow emergence from the blood-loving animal he\nwas. To that great epic the modern pen has long been consecrate, and is\nnot likely to betray its trust.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 4.\n\nOne day we read in our journals how an enemy Socialist or Pacifist has\nraised his voice against the mob passions and war spite of his country,\nand we think: \u201cWhat an enlightened man!\u201d And the next day, in the same\njournals, we read that So-and-so has done the same thing in our own\ncountry, and we think: \u201cMy God! He ought to be hung!\u201d To-day we listen\nwith enthusiasm to orations of our statesmen about the last drop of our\nblood, and the last pennies in our purses, and we think: \u201cThat is\npatriotism!\u201d To-morrow we read utterance by enemy notables about arming\nthe cats and dogs, and exclaim: \u201cWhat truculent insanity!\u201d We learn on\nMonday that some disguised fellow-countryman has risked his life to\nsecure information from the heart of the enemy\u2019s country, and we think:\n\u201cThat was real courage!\u201d And on Tuesday our bile rises at discovering\nthat an enemy has been arrested in our midst for espionage, and we\nthink: \u201cThe dirty spy!\u201d Our blood boils on Wednesday at hearing of the\nscurvy treatment of one of ourselves resident in the enemy\u2019s country.\nAnd on Thursday we read of the wrecking by our mob of aliens\u2019 shops, and\nthink: \u201cWell, what could they expect, belonging to that nation!\u201d When\none of our regiments has defended itself with exceptional bravery, and\ninflicted great loss on the enemy, we justly call it _heroism_. When\nsome enemy regiment has done the same, we use the word _ferocity_. The\ncomic papers of the enemy guy us, and we think: \u201cHow childish!\u201d Ours guy\nthe enemy, and we cry: \u201cAh! that\u2019s good!\u201d Our enemies use a hymn of\nhate, and we despise them for it. We do our hate in silence, and feel\nourselves the better for the practice.\n\nShall we not rather fight our fight, and win it, without these little\nironies?\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 5.\n\nThe first thing he does when he comes down each morning is to read his\npaper, and the moment he has finished breakfast he sticks the necessary\nflags into his big map. He began to do that very soon after the war\nbroke out, and has never missed a day. It would seem to him almost as if\npeace had been declared, and the universe were suddenly unbottomed, if\nany morning he omitted to alter slightly three flags at least. What will\nhe do when the end at last is reached, and he can no longer tear the\npaper open with a kind of trembling avidity; no longer debate within\nhimself the questions of strategy, and the absorbing chances of the\nfield, when he has, in fact, to sweep his flags into a drawer and forget\nthey ever were? It would haunt him, if he thought of it. But sufficient\nunto his day is the good thereof. Yes! It has almost come to that with\nhim; though he will still talk to you of \u201cthis dreadful war,\u201d and never\nalludes to the days as \u201cgreat\u201d or to the times as \u201cstirring\u201d as some\nfolk do. No, he sincerely believes that he is distressed beyond measure\nby the continuance of \u201cthe abominable business,\u201d and would not confess\nfor worlds that he would miss it, that it has become for him a daily\n\u201ccocktail\u201d to his appetite for life. It is not he, after all, who is\nbeing skinned; to the skinning of other eels the individual eel is soon\naccustomed. By proxy to be \u201cmaking history,\u201d to be witnessing the\n\u201cgreatest drama\u201d known to man since the beginning of the world\u2014after\nall it is something! He will never have such a chance again. He still\nremembers with a shudder how he felt the first weeks after war was\ndeclared; and the mere fact that he shudders shows that his present\nfeelings are by no means what they were. After all, one cannot remain\nfor ever prepossessed with suffering that is not one\u2019s own, or with\nfears of invasion indefinitely postponed. True, he has lost a nephew, a\nsecond cousin, the sons of several friends. He has been duly sorry, duly\nsympathetic, but then, he was not dangerously fond of any of them. His\nown son is playing his part, and he is proud of it. If the boy should be\nkilled he will feel poignant grief, but even then there is revenge to be\nconsidered. His pocket is suffering, but it is for the Country; and that\nalmost makes it a pleasure. And he goes on sticking in his flags in\nspots where the earth is a mush of mangled flesh, and the air shrill\nwith the whir of shells, the moans of dying men, and the screams of\nhorses.\n\nIs this pure fantasy, or does it hold a grain of truth?\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 6.\n\nThe war brings up with ever greater insistence the two antagonistic\nfeelings of which one was always conscious: That men are radically\nalike. And that there are two kinds of men, subtly but hopelessly\ndivided from each other.\n\nMen are radically alike in the way they meet danger and death, in their\nsentiment and in their laughter, in their endurance, their passions,\ntheir self-sacrifice, their selfishness, their superstitions, and their\ngratitude. They are radically divided by possession, or not, of that\nextra sensitiveness to proportion, form, colour, sound, which we call\nthe sense of beauty. Would there still be war in a world the most of\nwhose dwellers had the sense of beauty? I think not. And they who have\nit, so few by comparison, are tragically compelled to live and bear\ntheir part in this hell, created by a world of which they are not.\n\nThese two kinds of men shade subtly the one into the other; but the\ndivision is real, for all that\u2014the bristles on the backs of each true\nspecimen on either side of the line rise at sight of the other sort.\n\nAnd the war with its toil and hardships, its common humanity, deaths and\ndangers and sacrifices shared, will not bring them one jot nearer one to\nthe other. Is there evidence for thinking that a sense of beauty is more\ncommon than it was? I am not sure. But there is certainly no chance that\nthe sense of beauty can increase within measurable time, so as to give\nits possessors a majority. No chance that wars will cease from that\nreason. The little world of beauty-lovers will for many ages yet,\nperhaps always, be pitifully in tow, half-drowned by the following surge\nof the big insensitive world when it loses for a time what little\nfeeling for harmony it has, and goes full speed ahead.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 7.\n\nSome argue earnestly that what really restrains and regulates the\nconduct of individuals is not force, but the general sense of decency,\nthe public opinion of the community; and that the same rule applies to\nnations. In other words, that there is no reason why inter-State\nmorality should be different from that prevailing amongst the\nindividuals within a State.\n\nThis argument neglects to perceive, first: That the public opinion of a\ncommunity is, in reality, latent force; that in a real community \u201cRight\nis Might,\u201d up to a certain point. And, secondly: That there is as yet no\ncommunity within which the nations dwell.\n\nAn individual cannot pursue rank egotism to the complete overriding of\nhis neighbours without knowing that those neighbours can and will give\nconcrete expression to their resentment and suppress him. This latent\nforce is at the back of all State-law, and of all public opinion, which\nis but State-law unwritten. The essence of its efficacy is the fact that\nindividuals do live in community, each one perceiving with the\nnon-rampant part of him that the rest are right in squashing his\nrampancy, since life in community would soon be impossible if they did\nnot. He consents, subconsciously, to being squashed when he is rampant,\nbecause he recognizes himself to be part of a whole.\n\nUntil nations have come to be parts of communities, or group-States,\nthere will be no really effective analogy between individual morality\nand State morality. There is, of course, a growing international\ndecency, a reaching out toward co-operation, a recognition that certain\nthings are \u201cnot done\u201d; but it is liable to be violated, as we have seen,\nat any moment by any State which is, or thinks itself, strong enough to\noverride laws which have no adequate latent force behind them. To create\nthis latent controlling force we have paramount need of a system of\ngroup-States, leading on by slow degrees, through the linking of one\ngroup with another, to a United States of the world. The necessary line\nof progression is sufficiently disclosed by the violation of Belgian\nneutrality and other matters in this war. Public opinion not backed by\nlatent force has been proved useless. There is no such thing, I fear, as\npublic opinion worth the name except within a definite community. The\ntask of statesmen when peace comes is the formation of a United States\nof Europe\u2014linked if possible with the countries of America\u2014the\ncreation of a real public opinion backed by a real, if latent, force.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 8.\n\nNietzsche was an individualist, a hater of the State and of the\nPrussians, a sick man, a great artist in words to be read with delight\nand\u2014your tongue in your cheek. By quaint irony his central idea, \u201cthe\nego-rampant,\u201d was temperamentally suited to those Prussians whom he\nhated. The Neo-German conception of the State, (if one may fairly judge\nit out of the mouths of certain Germans) as a law unto itself, demanding\nall from the individuals who compose it, and taking all it can get from\nthe world at large, may be inverted Nietzscheism, but it is the creature\nof Prussian history, and of very different men. It is based on what we\nothers, and I should imagine many Germans, think is a transient and\nfalse notion of what States should be. We say they should not roam the\nearth considering only their own strength. True that, in the absence as\nyet of the system of group-States, States still can seize here or seize\nthere, if they be strong enough, but we emphatically deny that they\nshould do so _on principle_, as the new German philosophy seems to\nteach, and set the robber\u2019s ideal, the robber\u2019s fashion of morality, for\nthe individuals who compose those States. The philosophy, not only of\nthe rest of Europe, but of Germany, before all, in the days of Kant and\nHegel, presumed that the hard-won morality of individuals amongst\nthemselves would ultimately become the morality of States.\n\n    \u201cThe fact that the sense of community among the peoples of the\n    earth has gone so far that the violation of right in one place\n    is felt everywhere, has made the idea of a Citizenship of the\n    world no fantastic dream, but a necessary extension of the\n    unwritten Code of States and Peoples.\u201d (Kant.)\n\n    \u201cThe binding cord is not force, but the deep-seated feeling of\n    order that is possessed by us all.\u201d (Hegel.)\n\nThe new German philosophy has anointed the present immorality of States\nand thereby fixed it as the morality for individuals. I think these\nphilosophers in their characteristic German exuberance, with its habit\nof over-statement, have been hard on Germany. For the German people at\nlarge have presumably been acquiring throughout the ages some such\ninstincts toward altruism as the peoples of other countries. The new\nGerman philosophy has succeeded to a dismal extent in its inoculation of\nthe German people, but it cannot in the long run impose its logical\nideal of the wild man in the forest, though never so gorgeously decked\nout, on the Germans, any more than the old German philosophy made the\nGermans replicas of Christ.\n\nMan never attains to his philosophical ideal; but it is just as well\nthat he should see clearly its apotheosis before he tries too hard to\nreach it.\n\n\n                                  \u00a7 9.\n\nOur enemy now proclaims that his objective is the crushing of Britain\u2019s\nworld-power in the interests of mankind.\n\nAre we justified in retaining if we can what, in a by no means unstained\npast, we have acquired, or should we hand over our position, well and\nill-gotten, to this new claimant, with his new culture, for the benefit\nof the world?\n\nMan has a somewhat incurable belief that he can manage his own affairs,\nand we Britons hold the faith that our character, ideals, and experience\nfit us to control our own lives and property for the general good of\nmankind, side by side with other nations of like mind. The fortunate\npossessors of the greater Empire and the greater trade are not perhaps\nthe most convincing advocates of the principle \u201cLive and let live.\u201d For\nall that, we find it impossible to admit the right of any nation to an\naggressive policy toward us. Germany, after being petrified with\nsurprise at our intervention, now accuses us of having planned the war\nand deliberately attacked her. It is divinely easy to claim things both\nways when you are at war. We all see just now rather as in a glass\ndarkly. And yet, with an immense Empire, an immense trade, and nothing\nthat we wanted anywhere, with a crop of serious social and political\ntroubles on hand, \u201ca contemptible little army,\u201d a tradition of\nabstention from European quarrels, a Free Trade policy, a democratic\nsystem of government, a Foreign Minister remarkable up to then for his\nservices to peace, and a \u201cdegenerate, wealth-rotted, huckstering\u201d\npopulation, it still seems to us (always excepting our handful of\npre-war Jingoes) as improbable as it once seemed to Germany that we\nhatched and set on foot such a wildcat enterprise.\n\n\n                                 \u00a7 10.\n\n\u201cA war of exhaustion.\u201d How often we use those words! They are current in\nall the belligerent countries, and in all they are unreally used, as\nyet. But they are, I fear, literally true. It is a war which\u2014save for\nsome happy chance\u2014can hardly end till one group or the other have no\nlonger the men to hold their lines. The sway of the fighting is of no\ngreat moment; it does not seem to matter where precisely the killing,\nmaiming, and capturing go on, so long as they do go on with a certain\nmathematical regularity. A year or so hence, when the total disablement\nis nearer twenty than ten millions, the meaning of the words will be a\nlittle clearer, and they will probably only then be used by the side\nwhose united population is still more than twice that of the other side.\nTwo years hence they will be seen to have meant exactly what they said.\nAll the swinging from optimism to pessimism and back again, the\ncock-a-hoop of the Press one day, the dirge of the Press the next; the\nalarms and excursions about the failure of this or that\u2014they are all\nstorms in teacups. The wills of the nations fighting are equally\nengaged, and will not break; the energies will not break; the food will\nprobably not quite fail; the money will be found somehow; but the human\nflesh will give out, in time\u2014that is all; on which side it will give\nout first may be left to the child who can count up to two. No glory\nabout this business\u2014just ding-dong shambles!\n\nIf one believed, with a certain Englishman, that there was no real\nstruggle of ideals involved, these words \u201ca war of exhaustion,\u201d meaning\nwhat they really do, would be too intolerable even to think of. He who\ndenies this to be a struggle of ideals may have a brilliant intellect,\nbut he can surely have none of that instinctive perception of the\nessence and atmosphere of things, which is a so much surer guide than\nreason. He has perceived doubtless that autocratists and\nforce-worshippers in England, in Russia, in Italy (there are but few in\nFrance) are fighting against the Central Empires as furiously as if they\nwere the most ardent lovers of liberty; and that the democrats and\nhumanists in Central Europe are fighting for their countries as\ndevotedly as their force-worshipping rulers, and he has thought: \u201cThis\nis a mere blind game of \u2018kill your neighbour,\u2019 with nothing real at\nstake save the aggrandizement of one group of countries or the other.\u201d\nBut behind all this is the psychological heart of the matter\u2014the states\nof mind in the belligerent countries before they began to fight. There\nare racial temperaments to which certain ideals are fatal. The Teuton of\nall men requires the Christian, or shall we say the humanistic, ethic,\nto modify something science-ridden, overbearing, and heady in his soul.\nThe Teuton, before the new philosophy of self-expansion at all costs\nlaid hold on him, was welcome, from his many great qualities, in a world\nof other men. But his was the last nature that could afford to succumb\nwholesale to the faith that his race was the only race that mattered. If\nhe could see himself he would realize that the very thoroughness and\nover-exaltation of his nature made it ruinous for him to tamper with\nthis particular ideal, for he was bound sooner or later to run it to\ndeath, to the danger and alarm of all other races. No one outside\nGermany, unless his mind was warped, could miss this latter-day Teutonic\nabsorption in self; the Teuton has dinned it into every ear, and\nforgotten, in so doing, that we should not take off discount for\ntemperamental extravagance of diction. The German imperialistic patriot\nhas done an incalculable, perhaps fatal, harm to the country he loves so\npassionately. But even discounting for rhodomontade, no observer who has\nfeelers, can fail to be aware of the spiritual change in Germany. I\nremember one tiny instance out of many\u2014a mere straw showing the\ndirection of the wind. The winter before the war there were in a certain\nhotel in Egypt four Teutons. A quiet, dignified old man, his tiny,\nquiet, dignified wife, and their two big sons. The difference between\nthe two generations was distressing. In the older, such an air of\nunassuming goodness, in the younger a demeanour so intolerant, and\ndomineering; those two sons were respectful and good to their father and\nmother; but toward the rest of the world\u2014to natives, English,\nAmericans, and other small fry\u2014they displayed an astounding contempt.\n\nThe Berlin Concordia has just issued maxims of conduct to the German\npeople, in a little book called \u201cLet Germany Learn.\u201d I cull two of them:\n\u201cThe soft corner in your heart for the foreigner will never give you his\naffection, but only his contempt!\u201d And: \u201cEverything depends on your own\nstrength.\u201d\n\nIt would be easy to make out some sort of case against any of the\nbelligerent nations. It would not be easy to show that any nation save\nGermany was in that peculiar state of full-blooded self-confidence which\nupholds the Will to Power, and denies the Will to Equity.\n\n\n                                 \u00a7 11.\n\nIt seems certain that the practice of doping soldiers with ether or\nother spirit before an attack has been largely resorted to by certain\nnations in this war. Nothing that is happening so illuminates the nature\nof modern warfare; illustrates more utterly the absorption of human\nbodies and souls into the Machines that are crashing into each other.\nMen have become mere lumps of coal to be converted into driving power.\nAnd in supreme moments, lest the bewildered spirit, brought up to peace,\nshould move hand or foot in protest or recoil, that spirit is first\nstolen away. The usage is not prompted by motives of mercy, yet has in\nit a kind of awful humanity. Granted the premises, who dare grudge this\nanodyne to the doomed?\n\nVerily on every man who in time of peace speaks or writes one word to\nfoster bad spirit between nations a curse should rest; he is part and\nparcel of that malevolence which at last sets these great Engines, fed\nby lumps of human coal, to crash along, and pile up against each other,\nin splintered wreckage. Only too well he plays the game of those grim\nschemers to whose account lie the death, the dehumanization, the despair\nof millions of their brother men.\n\n\n                                 \u00a7 12.\n\nA wonderful night to-night, so that the spirit goes forth a little,\nenters the harmony of things, drinks the magic of the world. How beauty\nmoves the heart! And war cannot destroy it, cannot take from us the\nfeeling that\u2014living or dead\u2014we belong to such perfection. It cannot\ntake the voice from the streams, remove the flight of small wings in the\ndarkness, the gleam of moonlight, the whisper of night about us, nor\nthat bright star. It cannot take from within us the soul that vibrates\nto loveliness, to the universal rhythm round us.\n\nIf in this war the figures of cruelty and death have surpassed\nthemselves in darkness, the figure of Humanity has never been so radiant\nand so lovely. Perhaps we do not know enough what man was really like in\npast ages to compare him with man to-day. But it does seem as if he had\ngrown in power for evil, and even more in power for good. Or perhaps it\nis only that, being more sensitive and highly strung, the story of his\ndoings is altogether more poignant.\n\nFrom the letters of a young French painter, who, after months in the\ntrenches, disappeared in an engagement on April 7th, 1915, I quote these\nsayings:\n\n\u201cYou know what I call religion\u2014that which binds together in man all his\nthoughts of the universal and of the eternal, those two forms of God!\n. . . Don\u2019t let\u2019s lose hope; the trials of hope are many, but all beauty\nlives for ever. . . . The dead won\u2019t hurt the Spring! . . . Did you see\nyesterday\u2019s sun? How noble the country is, and how good Nature! She\nseems to say to him who listens that nothing will be lost. . . . We know\nnot whether all this violence and disorder may not be leading us toward\na crowning good. . . . Out of this torment we shall be left with one\ngreat aspiration toward pity, fraternity, and goodness. . . . Never has\nlife brought me such abundance of noble feelings;\u2014never, perhaps, have\nI had such freshness of sensibility for their recording; such a\nsensation of safety in my spirit. . . . We spend the days like\nchildren. . . . And the good from this war will be the making young\nagain the hearts of those who have been through it.\u201d\n\nAnd his last written words: \u201cBeloved mother, I send you all my love.\nWhatever happens, life will have been beautiful.\u201d\n\nNot to many is given so clear a soul as this, so fine a spirit. Peace\nand loveliness be with him, and with all who die like him before their\ntime, following the light within them. And with all who live on in this\nworld of beauty, where the Dead harm not the Spring, may there be\u2014in\nhis words\u2014the longing for pity, fraternity, and goodness!\n\n\n\n\n                            TOTALLY DISABLED\n\n\n                      (From _The Observer_, 1916.)\n\n\nIf I were that! Not as one getting into the yellow leaf, but with all\nthe Spring-running in me. If I lay, just turning my eyes here and there!\nHow should I feel?\n\nHow do _they_ feel\u2014those helpless soldiers and sailors already lying in\nthe old ball-room of the \u201cStar and Garter\u201d?\n\nIn that hospital ward, a ghostly officer is ever crying:\n\n\u201cStick it, men! Stick it! Only for life! Stick it!\u201d\n\nOnly for life\u2014how many years! In the year only three hundred and\nsixty-five awakenings; only all those returns from merciful sleep!\n\n\u201cStick it, men! Stick it!\u201d\n\nTotally disabled\u2014incurably helpless! No! One can\u2019t realize what it\nfeels like to be caught young and strong in such a net; to be\ncaught\u2014not for your own folly and excesses, not through accident or\nheredity, but as reward for giving yourself body and soul to your\ncountry. Better so, more easily borne; and yet how much more ironically\ntragic!\n\nWho knows what the freedom of limbs means, till he has lost it? Who can\nmeasure the ecstasy of vigour, till every power of movement has been cut\noff? Who really grasps what it\u2019s like to lie like a log dependent for\neverything on others, save those who have to? Think of the trout in the\nstreams, of the birds of the air, the winged creatures innumerable,\nthink of each beast and creeping thing\u2014can one even imagine them\nwithout movement? Men, also, are meant to be free of their world,\nmasters of their limbs and senses.\n\nThey who lie helpless are no longer quite bodies, for the essence of\nbody is movement; already they are almost spirits. It is as if, in\npassing, one looked at minds, nearly all in the heyday of consciousness\nand will.\n\nSometimes I vaguely fancy that after violent death a man\u2019s spirit may go\non clinging above the earth just so long as his normal life would have\nrun; that a spirit rived before its time wanders till such date as\nconsciousness would have worn itself out in the body\u2019s natural death. If\nthat random fancy were true, we to-day would all be passing among unseen\ncrowds of these rived spirits, watching us, without envy perhaps, being\nfreer than ourselves. But those who lie hopelessly disabled, having just\nmissed that enfranchisement, are tied to what still exists, and yet in\ntruth has died already. Of all men they have the chance to prove the\nmettle of the human soul\u2014that mysterious consciousness capable of such\nheights and depths; no, not a greater chance than men tortured by long\nsolitary confinement, or even than those who through excess or through\nheredity lie for ever helpless\u2014but yet so great a chance that they are\nhaloed for all of us happier ones, who are free of our limbs and our\nlives. Some among those prisoned spirits must needs shrink and droop,\nand become atrophied in the long helplessness of a broken body. But many\nwill grow finer; according to their natures\u2014some pursuing the ideal of\nrecompense in another world; some, in the stoic belief that serenity and\nfortitude are the fine flowers of life, unconsciously following the\nartist\u2019s creed\u2014that to make a perfect thing, even if it be only of his\nown spirit, is in itself all the reward.\n\nWhichever it be, slow decay or slow perfecting, we others approach them\nwith heads bowed, in as great reverence as we give to the green graves\nof our brave dead. And if pity\u2014that pity which to some, it seems, is\nbut ignoble weakness\u2014be not driven from this earth, then with pity we\nshall nerve our resolve that never shall anything be lacking to support\nor comfort those who gave all for us and are so broken by their\nsacrifice.\n\nAs I write the sun is hot for the first time this year, and above the\nsnow spring is in the air. Under Richmond Hill the river will be very\nbright, winding among trees not yet green. And the helpless who are\nlying there already will be thinking \u201cI shall never walk under trees\nagain\u2014nor by a riverside.\u201d\n\nIf one dwells too much on the miseries this world contains, there must\ncome a moment when one will say: \u201cLife\u2019s not worth living; I will end\nit!\u201d But by some dispensation few of us reach that point\u2014too sanely\nselfish, or saved by the thought that we must work to reduce the sum of\nmisery.\n\nFor these greatest of all sufferers\u2014these helpless and incurable\u2014can\nwe do too much, ever reach the word: Enough?\n\nTo you, women of Great and Greater Britain, it has fallen to raise on\nRichmond Hill this refuge and home for our soldiers and sailors totally\ndisabled. Where thirty-two are now lying there will soon be two hundred\nmore. Nearly all my life I have known the spot on which this home will\nstand; and truly, no happier choice could have been made. If beauty\nconsoles\u2014and it can, a little\u2014it is there in all the seasons; a benign\nEnglish beauty of fields and trees and water spread below, under a wide\nsky.\n\nOne hundred thousand pounds you need to raise this monument of mercy in\ntribute to the brave. If it were five hundred thousand you would give\nit; for is not this monument to be the record and token of your\ngratitude, your love, and your pity? Each one of you, I think, however\npoor, must wish to lay one brick or stone of the house that is to prove\nyour ministering.\n\nIf the misery through this war could be balanced in scales, I do not\nthink men\u2019s suffering would pull down that of wives, and mothers,\nsisters, daughters; but this special suffering of incurable\ndisablement\u2014this has been spared you, who yet by nature are better at\nenduring than men. It has been spared you; and in return you have vowed\nthis home for the helpless; a more sacred place than any church, for\nwithin it every hour of day and night pain will be assuaged, despair be\novercome, actual living tenderness be lavished.\n\nWhen you have built this refuge for the prisoners of Fate\u2014when you have\nled them there to make out the rest of their lives as best they\ncan\u2014remember this: Men who are cut off in their youth from life and\nlove will prize beyond all things woman\u2019s sympathy, and the sight of\nwoman\u2019s beauty. Give\u2014your money to build, your hands to lead them home;\nand, when they are there, take them your sympathy, take them your\nbeauty!\n\n\n\n\n                                CARTOON\n\n\n                       (From _The Nation_, 1916.)\n\n\n. . . I cannot describe the street I turned into, then, like no street I\nhave ever been in; so long, so narrow, so regular, yet somehow so\nunsubstantial; one had continually a feeling that, walking at the gray\nhouses on either side, one would pass through them. I must have gone\nmiles down it without meeting even the shadow of a human being; till,\njust as it was growing dusk, I saw a young man come silently out, as I\nsuppose, from a door, though none was opened. I can depict neither his\ndress nor figure; like the street he looked unsubstantial, and the\nexpression on his shadowy face haunted me, it was so like that of a\nstarving man before whom one has set a meal, then snatched it away. And\nnow, in the deepening dusk, out of every house, young men like him were\nstarting forth in the same mysterious manner, all with that hungry look\non their almost invisible faces.\n\nPeering at one of them, I said:\n\n\u201cWhat is it\u2014whom do you want?\u201d\n\nBut he gave me no answer. It was too dark now to see any face; and I had\nonly the feeling of passing between presences as I went along, without\ngetting to any turning out of that endless street. Presently, in\ndesperation, I doubled in my tracks.\n\nA lamplighter must have been following me, for every lamp was lighted,\ngiving a faint flickering greenish glare, as might lumps of\nphosphorescent matter hung out in the dark. The hungry, phantom-like\nyoung men had all vanished, and I was wondering where they could have\ngone, when I saw\u2014some distance ahead\u2014a sort of grayish whirlpool\nstretching across the street, under one of those flickering marsh-light\nlooking lamps. A noise was coming from that swirl, which seemed to be\nraised above the ground\u2014a ghostly swishing, as of feet among dry\nleaves, broken by the gruntings of some deep sense gratified. I went on\ntill I could see that it was formed of human figures slowly whirling\nround the lamp. And suddenly I stood still in horror. Every other figure\nwas a skeleton, and between danced a young girl in white\u2014the whole\nswirling ring was formed alternately of skeletons and gray-white girls.\nCreeping a little nearer still, I could tell that these skeletons were\nthe young men I had seen starting out of the houses as I passed, having\nthe same look of awful hunger on their faces. And the girls who danced\nbetween them had a wan, wistful beauty, turning their eyes to their\npartners whose bony hands grasped theirs, as though begging them to\nreturn to the flesh. Not one noticed me, so deeply were they all\nabsorbed in their mystic revel. And then I saw what it was they were\ndancing round. Above their heads, below the greenish lamp, a dark thing\nwas dangling. It swung and turned there, never still, like a joint of\nmeat roasting before a fire\u2014the clothed body of an elderly man. The\ngreenish lamp-light glinted on his gray hair, and on his features, every\ntime the face came athwart the light. He swung slowly from right to\nleft, and the dancers whirled from left to right, always meeting that\nrevolving face, as though to enjoy the sight of it. What did it\nmean\u2014these sad shapes rustling round the obscene thing suspended there!\nWhat strange and awful rite was I watching by the lamp\u2019s ghostly\nphosphorescence? More haunting even than those hungry skeletons and wan\ngray girls, more haunting and gruesome, was that dead face up there with\nthe impress still on it of bloated life; how it gripped and horrified\nme, with its pale, fishy eyes, and its neck thick-rolled with flabby\nflesh, turning and turning on its invisible spit, to the sound of that\nweird swishing of dead leaves, and those grunting sighs! Who was it they\nhad caught and swung up there, like some dead crow, to sway in the\nwinds? This gibbeted figure, which yet had a look of cold and fattened\npower\u2014what awful crime towards these skeleton youths and bereaved\ngray-wan maidens could it be expiating?\n\nThen with a shudder I seemed to recognize that grisly thing\u2014suddenly I\nknew: I was watching the execution of the Past! There it swung! Gibbeted\nby the Future, whom, through its manifold lusts it had done to death!\nAnd seized with panic I ran forward through the fabric of my dream, that\nswayed and rustled to left and right of me. . . .\n\n\n\n\n                                HARVEST\n\n\n                (From the _Book of the Homeless_, 1916.)\n\n\nThe sky to-night looks as if a million bright angels were passing\u2014a\ngleaming cloud-mesh drawn across the heaven. One star, very clear,\nshines beside a full moon white as the globe-campion flower. The hills\nand valleys, the corn-stooks, casting each its shadow, the grey boles of\nthe beeches\u2014all have the remoteness of an ineffable peace. And the past\nday was so soft, so glamorous; such a hum, such brightness, and the\nharvest going on. . . .\n\nThese last years millions have died with energy but one third spent;\nmillions more unripe for death will yet herald us into the long shades\nbefore these shambles cease\u2014boys born just to be the meat of war,\nspitted on each other\u2019s reddened bayonets, without inkling of guilt or\nknowledge. To what shall we turn that we may keep sane, watching this\ngreen, unripe corn, field on field, being scythed by Death for none to\neat? There is no solace in the thought that death is nothing!\u2014save for\nthose who still believe they go straight to Paradise. To us who dare not\nknow the workings of the Unknowable, and in our heart of hearts cannot\ntell what, if anything, becomes of us\u2014to us, the great majority of the\nmodern world\u2014life is valuable, good, a thing worth living out for its\nnatural span. For, if it were not, long ere this we should have sat with\nfolded arms, lifting no hand till the last sighing breath of the human\nrace had whispered itself out into the wind, and a final darkness come;\nsat, like the Hindu Yogi, watching the sun and moon a little, and\nexpired. The moon would be as white, and the sun as golden, if we were\ngone, the hills and valleys as mysterious, the beech-trees just as they\nare, only the stooks of corn would vanish with those who garner them. If\nlife were not good we should make of ourselves dust indifferently\u2014we\nhuman beings; quietly, peacefully; not in murderous horror reaped by the\ncurving volleys, mown off by rains of shrapnel, and the long yellow\nscythe of the foul gases. But life _is_ good, and no living thing wishes\nto die; even they who kill themselves, despairing, resign out of sheer\nlove of life, out of craving for what they have found too mutilated and\nstarved, out of yearning for their meed of joy cruelly frustrated. And\nthey who die that others may live are but those in whom the life-flame\nburns so hot and bright that they can feel the life and the longing to\nlive in others as if it were their own\u2014more than their own. Yes, life\ncarries with it a very passion for existence.\n\nTo what, then, shall we turn that we may keep sane, watching this\nharvest of too young deaths, the harvest of the brave, whose stooks are\nraised before us, casting each its shadow in the ironic moonlight? Green\ncorn!\n\nIf, having watched those unripe blades reaped off and stacked so\npitifully, watched the great dark Wagoner clear those unmellowed fields,\nwe let their sacrifice be vain; if we sow not, hereafter, in a peaceful\nEarth that which shall become harvest more golden than the world has\nseen\u2014then Shame on us, unending, in whatever land we dwell. . . .\n\nThis harvest night is still. And yet, up there, the bright angels are\npassing. One Star!\n\n\n\n\n                               AND\u2014AFTER?\n\n\n\n\n\n                               AND\u2014AFTER?\n\n\n                      (From _The Observer_, 1916.)\n\n\n\n\n                               I\u2014PRELUDE\n\n\nPeace! The thought of it has become almost strange. Yet we must face\nthat thought, or we shall be as unprepared for it as we were for war.\nPractical men are fighting this war, practical men will make the peace\nthat comes some day. And this unpractical pen ventures no speculation on\nhow it will be brought about; it jots down merely some of the wider\nthoughts that throng, when for a moment the vision of Peace starts up\nbefore the mind!\n\nStatesmen have said that the sequel of this war must be a League for\nPeace\u2014a League for the enforcement by international action of\ninternational right. Whether that can be brought about at a Round Table\nConference of the belligerents, or whether the League must be formed by\nthe victorious Allies with the adherence of the neutral countries, and\nthe Central Empires invited to fall in with their conclusions, on pain\nof ostracism, I hazard here no opinion. But, by whichever means the\nLeague for Peace is formed, it will be valueless unless three elements\nof security are present. Due machinery to secure time for the\narbitration of dispute; due force to secure submission to such\narbitration; due intention on the part of individual nations to serve\nthe League loyally for the good of all. And the greatest of these three\nis the last.\n\nThe strength of a League for Peace will depend before all on the conduct\nof each separate nation. We in this country cannot control the faith,\nconduct, or stability of the other members of the League; we _can_\ncontrol our own.\n\nHowever it ends, this war must leave the bitterest feelings. League for\nPeace or none, there will remain for this country a menace from without.\n\nIf Germany were what is called \u201ccrushed\u201d\u2014a queer notion in connection\nwith sixty-five millions of people\u2014she would smoulder with such a fire\nof vengeance that a victorious British nation, slumbering in dreams of\nsecurity, waxing fat and swollen-headed, would in a few years time be in\nas great danger as ever. If Germany be merely shorn of her pretensions\nand forced back within her former boundaries, then, unless good fortune\nbring her a social revolution and the comparative blessings of\nDemocracy, Germany may be much the same as she has been, a\nsoldier-ridden State, quickly or slowly gathering force, to reforge the\niron machinery of the Prussian soul, and lead the armoured dance again.\nStung to the quick by memory of mistake, knowing that she misjudged our\nnature and our power, she will not make mistake a second time. However\nardently the successful may desire to forget\u2014it takes two to bury the\nhatchet. Let no one think that Germany will forget. Should we, if we\nwere beaten, or even badly thwarted?\n\nThe writer is as great a lover of Peace as any who will resent his\nsuggestion that enmity will not readily be changed. But it is well to\nremember that the menace from without is only increased by forgetting\nthat human nature is fundamentally the same all the world over; and\nstill more increased by not remembering that what we dream and desire is\nnot as a rule what we can obtain. Granted, that all must hope and strive\nfor the constitution of a League for Peace, and aim at making its\nconditions permanent, it will still be folly to blink the contingency of\nfurther war for years to come.\n\nThe validity of such a League will hang on the first years. Keep it\nintact, enforce respect for its decisions, _get men\u2019s minds used to it_,\nand after a short span nothing is more unlikely than that they will\nforego its blessings. But militarism will automatically and\nproportionately decrease only as men gain confidence in the League\u2019s\nauthority, recognizing at last that an impartial justice may apply to\nnations every bit as well as to individuals, when there is the force of\ngeneral consent behind it. Given a generation of its rule, and the\nnations will no longer carry daggers to stab each other in the back, or\nswords to avenge their \u201chonour.\u201d There is no need for premature\ndisarmament. Recognition of the menace from without will not harm a\nLeague for Peace during its first years, so long as we shy at all spirit\nof aggression, and are loyal to its first principle of \u201cAll for one, and\nOne for all.\u201d\n\nBut Peace will also bring to us in this country the menace from within\nwhich was with us before the war began, as it is with every nation at\nwhatever time of life\u2014the menace of its individual failings, of its\nrankness and its uncompleted justice, its riot after riches at the\nexpense of national health, its exaggerated party strife, its penny\nwisdom and pound folly, its lack of an ideal, and perpetual drifting it\nknows not whither. If when the war ends we remain a nation, masters of\nour own lives\u2014and there is no Briton who is not convinced that we\nshall\u2014the menace from within must again be faced; faced with a stouter\nheart and a quicker brain; faced at last with some sort of corporate\nwill to that victory over ourselves, so much more difficult to win than\nover hostile fleets and fortresses. To win the war, and thereafter lose\nto our own weakness, would cap the event with irony indeed!\n\nIt is the fashion with some to talk glibly of this war as if it were a\npurge that will drain from our State innumerable ills. The war\u2019s\nhonourable necessity none of us dispute, but for us it has in truth only\nthe one advantage\u2014of having revealed to ourselves our quality,\nre-established our faith. That quality, that faith, to be of any lasting\nuse, will have to stand not only the dreadful spasm of war, but the long\nexhaustion, the manifold increase of economic stress and social trouble\nthat will infallibly begin when the war ends. Unless we are resolved to\ncarry on our effort of sacrifice, good-will, and courage long into the\nfuture, the last state of this land will be worse than the first. The\npurge that we like to speak of will be proven nothing but a debauch,\npaid for, like all debauches, by lassitude and spleen.\n\nAll national energy at the moment is inevitably bent to the ending of a\nstate of things dreadful to every man and woman living; but, while doing\nthis with all our might, we need to keep alive in our minds the feeling\nthat the fight is not for mere gratification of the passion to down our\nfoes, not just a spurt of military heroism, to be drowned in the drink\nand applause of victory; but a fight for something abiding in ourselves\nand in the world\u2014for spiritual, not material, ends.\n\nIf, even while we are at war, we cannot keep the feeling that what we\nare fighting for is a permanent and steady advance in the just and\nreasonable life of nations, _beginning with ourselves_, we had better\nnever have fought, for at the end we shall but have added to our vanity,\nand taken from the stock of our patience, our humanity, and our sense of\njustice. And so the feelings of the present are linked with the feelings\nand necessities that will arrive with peace. If the fine phrases we have\nused, and are still using, about Liberty, Humanity, Democracy, and Peace\nare not genuinely felt, they will come home to us and roost most vilely.\nBy the outside world we shall be judged according to the measure of\nactuality we give hereafter to the claim we now make of being champion\nof Freedom and Humanity; and only according to our inward habit of\nthought during the war shall we be able to act when it is over. We can\n_do_ nothing now perhaps, save prosecute the fight to its appointed end;\nbut, if we are not to turn out fraudulent after the event, it is already\ntime to feel ahead\u2014to accustom our minds to the thought of the future\nefforts, Imperial and social, needful to meet future dangers, and to\nfulfil the trusts we shall have taken up.\n\nFrom facile imaginings and Utopian dreams of a purged social life and a\nfortified _morale_ to the real conditions that this war will leave is\nlikely to be the farthest cry any of us will ever hear. We cannot have\nit both ways. If war, as most of us believe, is a terrible calamity, it\nwill not leave an improved world. A sloppy optimism is not the slightest\ngood, no more than a deliberate pessimism. \u201cIt will be all right after\nthe war!\u201d is, no doubt, the attitude of many minds just now. It will\nonly be all right after the war if, with all the might of a sustained\nnational will, we take care that it is. A great and solemn opportunity,\nthe greatest our country has ever known, will be there, to be made or\nmarred. The records of history are not too cheering, and experience of\nhuman nature in the past brings no very happy augury\u2014for after too\ngreat effort comes reaction. But this age has higher aspirations, more\nself-consciousness than any that has gone before. To turn the possible\ncalamity of this war to blessing we shall have to set our foot on\nFatalism. There is no real antagonism between the doctrines of\nDeterminism and Free Will. When things have happened, we see that they\nmust have happened as they did; but how does this affect the freedom of\nour will _before_ they happen\u2014before we know which way they will turn\nout? Men and nations are what they make themselves.\n\nWhat are we going to make ourselves\u2014after?\n\n\n\n\n                        II\u2014FREEDOM AND PRIVILEGE\n\n\nWhat is this thing called the British Empire? A family of children,\nruled by a Mother, or a gathering of kinsfolk under the roof of one\nideal? Is it in reality an Empire or a Confederacy? It has been the\nfirst, it is fast becoming the second.\n\nImperialism is governed for good or ill by the principle that underlies\nit. At the time of the American War of Independence British government\nstood for the principle of Domination; even so late as the Boer War\nthere is much doubt whether, for the moment at least, it stood for\nanything very different. A great change has come. The British Empire\nstands now, as it never yet stood, for the principle \u201cLive and let\nlive\u201d; for coherence through common ideals and affections, rather than\nfor coherence through force. In this war we have not ceased to assert\nthat, besides the preservation of our own safety, we fight for the\nindependence of little countries, and the rights of nations to settle\ntheir own affairs. By this declared championship, unless we wish to\nbring down poetic justice on our heads, we have consecrated the\nprinciple of Freedom within the confederacy of the British Empire; we\nhave abrogated the right of coercion. Whether we realize it or no, we\nhave fixed our national attitude. When the war is over, the feeling of\nBritain towards her kindred will be warmer and more generous than it has\never been; they have stood side by side with us like men and brothers,\nin touching loyalty. And the feeling in the kindred countries will be\nwarmer and fuller of respect; they have seen the Old Country on her\ntrial, have seen that she did not fail of what the world expected from\nher; seen that she had stuff in her beyond their hopes\u2014for a new\ncountry is ever inclined to impatience, even to a certain contempt, for\nan old country. It was just as well for Britain\u2019s reputation with her\nkinsfolk that this war came.\n\nYes, we shall be a true Confederacy, a great Democratic Confederacy,\nbound in honour to observe towards the world the principles that it\nobserves towards itself; to keep its hands clean of narrow and\nprovincial patriotism, of that raw overriding of the rights and\ninterests of others, the ugliness of which we have just seen in the\nviolation of Belgium, the Nemesis of which we are about to see.\n\nAnd, looking first at home, we have got to get used now, at once, while\nwe are still fighting, before we have the leisure and the energy to\nrevive old animosities and party cries, to the idea that civil strife in\nIreland after this war is over would be criminal lunacy, making us the\nplayboy of the world, and destroying the prestige we shall have gained.\nIt seems that our statesmen now recognize this. But whatever seems to\nsettle the Irish question in time of war may not survive the strain of\nthe peace that follows. If the lamentable cleavage in Ireland\nreappears\u2014as it well may, for it is based on such real differences of\ntemperament\u2014let us in England be resolute not to be re-involved in\npartizanship. Let us resolve to force neither one party nor the other;\nconfine ourselves to insisting that those who object so strenuously to\ninclusion in an opposite camp shall be as loth to include their\nopponents as they are to be included. Only of its own free will can\nIreland ever be made one. If the halves be not forced, they will become\none the faster. Time is the healer; time and forbearance, given an\nelastic machinery to encourage and ripen reconciliation. Of a surety,\nrenewed trouble over Ireland would be the very worst augury for the\nfuture of an Empire that stands, and is to stand, for Freedom.\n\nTo be trustee for the principle \u201cLive and let live\u201d; watchdog against\naggression by herself or any other; cornerstone of a world so built that\nall peoples, however small and weak, may know that they can safely work\nout their own destinies\u2014that would be for Britain the grand ideal. But\nthe British Empire can only hope to stand for it by keeping the form of\na Free Confederacy, by the most rigid scrutiny of its own conduct, and\nby developing the feeling that it is beneath Imperial dignity to wrest\nmaterial benefit from the losses of others.\n\nWhen the war began we were in what is commonly called \u201ca tidy mess.\u201d If\nwe really want to extract from the furnace of this fearful conflagration\nsome gold of comfort, we shall see to it that we do not go back to the\ndeadlock of futile and bitter strife that was then paralyzing the\ncountry\u2019s soul. We shall see to it over Ireland; and over the woman\u2019s\nquestion. Strife is the very condition of life and human progress, but\nin the name of reason let us have it over real live issues, not over\nthose on which the national conscience has already in secret given\njudgment. Will not the first act of justice be the giving of the vote to\nwomen on the same terms as to men\u2014with, perhaps, some limitation of age\nto equalize numbers, since the preponderance of women is brought about\nmainly by the less dangerous nature of their lives? A more humiliating\nor poisonous relation than that which prevailed between the sexes in\nthis country before the war over the question of the vote can hardly be\nconceived. In the supreme appeal to our patriotism, that grievous\ntrouble, that mischievous irritation, has vanished. The war has\nexorcised mutual exasperation, refounded mutual faith, healed many\nwounds, laid the ghosts of many doubts and arguments. The old bogeys are\ngone\u2014that women are more bellicose than men; that they are less\nbellicose than men; that national safety would be imperilled one way or\nthe other. The old plea is gone\u2014that, since women do not fight and\nsuffer for the State, they are not worthy to vote for her\u2014gone,\ndispersed by service, sacrifice, and suffering. Every man has had to ask\nhis heart which he would rather do: Go, as a man goes, to the trenches,\nor sit at home, as a woman has had to do, waiting for news of his life\nor death. And every man knows the answer.\n\nThe women of Britain have put themselves and their claims aside, to work\nand suffer for the country of which they are not yet citizens. It will\nbe too black altogether if, after all they have gone through, they are\nagain refused admittance to that citizenship.\n\n_Women who do not want the vote need never exercise it_; women who think\nthe vote bad for their sex will still be free as air, when the vote has\nbeen given, to organise their sex against _use_ of the deadly thing. But\nto continue after this war to debar from being citizens, if they so\nwish, the hundreds of thousands of women who have served as loyally as\nmen, and suffered more; to hang up again in hopeless chancery a measure\nof common justice that has long commended itself to nearly all the best\nminds in the country, a measure that, but for political accidents, would\nhave already been granted, would be an unspeakable piece of national\nfolly and ingratitude. There is surely now a general will to give the\nvote. What our minds must be turned to is the need, at the conclusion of\nthe war, to have ready some means by which that general desire may be\ncarried into effect, and women welcomed into the body politic, before\nthe old deadlock difficulties and heart-burnings can begin again.\n\nIt is not my part to suggest to superior wisdom what those means should\nbe; but perhaps one may express the personal conviction that a measure\nof universal suffrage, granting one vote to every man above a certain\nage (not necessarily so young as twenty-one), and one vote to every\nwoman\u2014possibly over such higher age as would equalize the voting power\nof the sexes, though I myself do not fear that inequality\u2014that such a\nmeasure would not affect to any appreciable extent the balance between\nthe great parties in the State, and would ensure that those parties in\nfuture sprang from the main cleavages of human nature rather than from\nthe accidents of privilege. Is it too much to hope that, in heroic\ntimes, such a measure might be passed by consent? Too much to expect\nthat after this struggle, where all stand shoulder to shoulder, we shall\nfeel that a man, however poor, and a woman, however humble, has a stake\nin the country which has done so little for him or her, yet for which he\nor she is suffering perhaps more than the rest of us, and, extending the\nhand of fellowship, say: \u201cIt is time you stood shoulder to shoulder with\nus in peace as well as war.\u201d The voteless man! The woman! How many of\nthe first will have given their lives; how many of the second their\nhearts! Have heroism, death, sacrifice, gone by privilege of property or\nsex, in this war? Shall we really take the lives, the wounds, the\nsufferings of the many men debarred from citizenship by mere lack of\nproperty, the services and sacrifice of innumerable women, and just say:\n\u201cThank you, helots!\u201d For in a real democracy what is he or she who has\nno vote, save a helot, at the absolute disposal of the enfranchised\ncommunity? It is as the symbol of freedom that the vote is so precious!\nGranted! But if from the infancy of this country we had not been\nsticklers for symbols, should we now be the free people that we are\u2014as\npeoples go?\n\nIf there is not to emerge from this community of suffering some\ncommunity of fellowship and gladness, some sweeping out of old rancours\nfrom our hearts and of prejudices from our brains, and a resolve to\nfight the contests of the future with a greater generosity\u2014then Peace\nwill be a sorry festival.\n\nThere is so much work to be done, so great a fight for the nation\u2019s\nhealth, ahead. It is time the decks were cleared of lumber!\n\n\n\n\n                      III\u2014THE NATION AND TRAINING\n\n\nWe have adopted Compulsion, become a militarist Power! Melancholy\nconsummation; but for the period of the war it was always, I think, a\nforegone conclusion. What is to happen after? How is national security\nto be guaranteed without permanent surrender to militarism?\n\nAssuming that attention will be paid to retaining due command at sea and\nin the air, what further will be necessary to fit us for our part in a\nLeague for Peace if it comes, or, if it does not come, to make us safe?\n\nThere will here be put forward in roughest outline a notion\u2014long in the\nwriter\u2019s mind, but for which there has seemed hitherto little chance of\nserious consideration\u2014with the plea that there is really no alternative\nsolution commensurate with the need for being thoroughly prepared, no\nother adequate way, in fact, out of a dilemma, short of retaining a\nmeasure of Continental militarism, repugnant to our traditions, and\nruinously costly to a people in our position.\n\nPut with the utmost brevity it is this: That all boys between the ages\nof fourteen and eighteen, not then at school, shall pass four months\nyearly in camps, which shall give them continuation schooling so far as\npracticable, technical education in the craft, trade, or occupation for\nwhich the boy is most suited or intends to adopt, together with training\nin all the essentials of a soldier\u2019s life. At the close of their fourth\ntraining the boys should be affiliated to Territorial regiments, and\npass at once to one definite period of military service, from three to\nsix months, as may be necessary to convert them into potential soldiers;\nand that, from that point on, we should rely, as hitherto, on purely\nvoluntary service. From such a nucleus a really efficient Territorial\nforce of at least a million could probably be enrolled, and the skeleton\nof a much larger force kept in being.\n\nThe scheme is admittedly heroic, but it could be as gingerly introduced\nas seemed good to more practical men than is this writer.\n\nThere are in England, Scotland, and Wales some 1,500,000 boys between\nthe ages of fourteen and eighteen; there are eight months in the year\nwhen such education and training could be carried on. There will be an\ninfinity of camps in being before the war is over. And however unsuited\nthese camps may be at the moment for combining technical instruction\nwith military training, many of them could undoubtedly be adapted. The\nchance of so much suitable material at hand, so much organizing\ncapacity, and so much sense of awakened public spirit and necessity,\nwill never come again. Some plan more or less heroic has got to be\nadopted, and it is submitted that no other could possibly kill so many\nbirds with one stone. For, to the writer this proposal is even more\nimportant in relation to the menace from within than in relation to the\nmenace from without.\n\nThe worst feature of our social scheme at present\u2014the most dangerous\nflaw in the machine\u2014is the waste, the absolute throwing away of the\nyears between fourteen and eighteen, the most important period of the\nmale life (and, for that matter, of the female life), the years when\nphysique and character are forming when the instrument is malleable;\nyears for the most part now left to chance and to blind-alley\noccupations. If we want to be a strong and healthy nation, this is the\nweakness of all others to overcome. The following is taken from the\nintroduction to Mr. Arnold Freeman\u2019s intimate and careful book: \u201cBoy\nLife and Labour\u201d:\u2014\n\n    \u201cWhat we need to consider is not the sacrifice of a certain\n    number of youths through faulty industrial arrangements, _but\n    the lack of training and the manufacture of inefficiency in the\n    majority of boys between school and manhood._\n\n    \u201cAt the present time it would seem to be the consensus of\n    opinion of school teachers, employers, and all those who are\n    intimate with the problem that great masses of boys are growing\n    up to manhood inefficient for adult work, and incapable of\n    performing the elementary duties of home life and citizenship.\n    The truer mode of regarding the problem may be illustrated by\n    the following quotation:\n\n    \u201c\u2018According to the main statistical sources of information the\n    very serious fact emerges that between 70 and 80 per cent. of\n    the boys leaving elementary schools enter unskilled occupations.\n    Thus, even when the boy ultimately becomes apprenticed or enters\n    a skilled trade, those intervening years from the national point\n    of view are entirely wasted. Indeed the boy, naturally reacting\n    from the discipline to which school accustomed him, usually with\n    abundance of spare time not sufficiently utilized, and without\n    educative work, _is shaped during these years directly towards\n    evil_.\u2019 (Majority Report of the Poor Law Commission, Part VI.,\n    Chap. VII.)\u201d\n\nNow, if the richer classes of this country could be brought face to face\nwith a sight of their own boys from fourteen to eighteen planted in this\nmorass that boys of the poorer classes have as a matter of course to\nstruggle through, they would marvel that the poorer classes have not\nlong ago demanded that it be drained. Working-class parents have not\ndemanded this chiefly because the boy from fourteen to eighteen has\nmeant so many scanty shillings in the family pocket. When shillings are\nscarce one more or less seems vital. But, economically as well as\nnationally speaking, such rotting-down of the boys is grievously\nshort-sighted. By this scheme, I believe, the working classes would be\nthe first to benefit, and, after a few years, the last to wish it given\nup. Their ultimate gain would be incalculable, and, collectively\nspeaking, their immediate loss even would be small. One million five\nhundred thousand boys training four months in the year means a seeming\nwithdrawal of one boy in three, or half a million boys annually, from\nlabour. But the number of boys between fourteen and eighteen actually\nemployed before the war was only 1,264,000, so that there would be\navailable some unemployed towards filling the places of the half million\nwithdrawn. In the withdrawal too, of so large a number of boys from the\nlabour market lies some chance of solving a problem that will begin to\nloom as soon as Peace comes: How to find places for the women whom the\nwar has accustomed to work and wages? By this withdrawal, also, old and\nunemployed men would benefit; we shall want all the help we can get to\nminimize the unemployment that will sooner or later follow the war. So\nfar as the labour market is concerned, the problem, in fact, would be\nmainly one of adjustment, but boys could be paired for their four years\nof training, one taking the other\u2019s job\u2014boy A. working it eight months\nthe first and third years and four months the second and fourth year;\n_vice vers\u00e2_ with boy B. A nation which has achieved in these last few\nmonths such miracles of organization is surely equal to a task of\nadjustment no harder of accomplishment than that which has long\nconfronted every militarist country in time of peace, and which may at\nany moment confront this country, if it neglects adequate preparation\nfor home defence on some such lines.\n\nConsider the life of the working man at present. The State provides him\nas a boy with education up to the age of fourteen; provides him as a man\nwith labour exchanges, insurance, and old-age pensions. The one period,\nwhich in the more fortunate ranks of Society is regarded as above all\npreparatory for life, is the one period of which the State takes no\naccount. It is a fatal hole in the ballot. Why should not the workers\nhave the privilege for their sons that belongs by mere good fortune to\nthe wealthier classes\u2014the privilege of a training that will give them\ngreater health, greater knowledge and technical skill, better habits,\nmore self-respect, and the power as well as the inclination to defend\ntheir country if need be?\n\nAfter this war the national readjustments that take place to meet the\nmenace from without and the menace from within must surely have relation\nto fundamental necessities, and not merely be the top-dressing and\ntimorous expedients that accompany the piping times of a long-unshaken\npeace.\n\nIn the expenditure of large sums to achieve its ends the State need not\nlook for its money back this year or next, so long as there is a\ncertainty of the money back manifold ten and twenty years hence.\n\nThe expense of a national scheme for the training and technical\neducation of all boys from fourteen to eighteen would have been looked\non before the war as an insuperable objection. But the truly wonderful\nexample of faith shown by the Russian Government in cutting off their\nown colossal revenue from drink at the outbreak of the war, and the\nimmediate incalculable advantage to the strength of the Russian nation\nthat accrued thereby, has knocked penny-wisdom off its perch.\n\nThis is not the time or place, nor am I qualified to examine the cost in\ndetail. But, whatever that cost, can there be any doubt that the\nincreased physical and industrial efficiency, coupled with the national\nsecurity guaranteed by such training, would bring the outlay back\ntenfold within a generation? And can there be any question that it would\nconserve wealth, which adult training would but dissipate? When the war\nis over there will be great numbers of men whose lives have been\nhopelessly jolted, who have to find new occupations\u2014men qualified, and\nprobably only too willing, to take positions of technical instruction\nand military training under such a scheme. And the boys of the nation,\nalready infected with desire to stand for something in the national\nsecurity, would fall in with good spirit.\n\nApart from the question of expense, opposition would come, no doubt,\nfrom the employers of boy labour, and from the working-class parents of\nboys who are contributing to the family purse.\n\nBoth these objections can surely be met in the main by careful\norganization and dovetailing of employment. Only half the boys would be\ntraining at once; and for the winter months, of greatest stress for the\npoorer classes, none would be training; boy-labour is not highly-skilled\nlabour, it is rarely of a nature that cannot equally well be supplied by\nanother boy, and, failing that, by women, or men past the prime of work.\nWith good-will and co-operation it should not surpass the wit either of\nemployers or of the officials of special Boy-Labour Exchanges to cope\nwith the dislocation. A boy\u2019s earnings are not vast; when his own keep\nhas been paid there remain but few shillings for the family exchequer.\nThe value of these few shillings is in many cases, however, enormous;\nthe loss might be made good by some system of insurance. Nor is it\ninconceivable that camp work would produce a small wage that could go to\nthe assistance of the boys\u2019 families. Omelettes cannot be made without\nbreaking eggs; and, even if distress were caused at the start, can it be\nseriously weighed against the great ultimate benefit to the working\nclasses, and the overwhelming advantages of rejuvenation in the blood\nand brain of a whole nation? The war has shown what those who have had\nto do with camp life for boys knew well before\u2014the vast change that can\nbe made in the physique and bearing of young fellows by a few months of\nfresh air and training. If those months are repeated yearly for four\nyears, the training combined with civil instruction, and followed by a\nshort spell of full military service, the country will have not only\npotential soldiers, but real men and citizens, at the end.\n\nThis is interference with the liberty of the subject. Yes; but a boy is\nonly a boy. In the richer classes he is sent to school till he is\neighteen without any say whatever in his fate. And as to interference\nwith the liberty of the parents: Are they not now completely interfered\nwith, in reference to their children up to the age of fourteen; and is\nthere any sane reason why that interference should not be continued\npartially, for the good of the boys, and of us all, up to the age of\neighteen?\n\nThe scheme is nothing but a form of militarism! Yes, but facts must be\nfaced. After the lesson of this war, its appalling suddenness, its\ncomplete disregard of the law of nations, after the hatred it has evoked\nand the burning for revenge it will leave, are we prepared to trust our\ncountry and all that it stands for, to old-time methods and\u2014luck? If\nnot what form of training can we have that will be less militarist than\nthis? To relapse into our unpreparedness is but to court the chances of\nan attack, to shirk our share perhaps of duty under a League for Peace;\nand to risk being forced into rank militarism, in one of those panics\ncertain to come freely after such a war.\n\nIf I thought such a scheme of boy-training would bolster up privilege,\nfoster a dangerous docility, put power into the hands of our Junkers,\nand generally convert our country into a kind of Germany, I would shun\nit like the devil. To keep boys of that age at it all the time would be\ndangerous; to train them for civil and military life four months in the\nyear, with one short final period of military service\u2014harmless. After\nthe war\u2014perhaps not at once, but within a few years\u2014there will almost\ncertainly be serious civil troubles, and any such scheme of boy training\nwould need to be inaugurated under the most solemn engagements not to\nemploy the youth of the nation in the quelling of strikes, civil riot,\nor what-not. It would be for Labour to fix those guarantees before they\ngave adherence to the plan. Having secured themselves, I believe they\nmight look forward to nothing but benefit, after the first rubs and\njolts.\n\nConsider, too, that except under some such scheme there is practically\nno chance of putting into practice another national dream\u2014the\nresettlement of the land. By attaching farm lands to those camps, town\nboys could be instructed in the difficult work of modern agriculture.\nFarm workers do not grow on thorn-trees, or even spring full-fledged\nfrom the brains of ardent reformers. They are made, not born, and made\nin youth. It is time to begin making them, if indeed it is not already\ntoo late. No adequate land scheme will flourish without machinery on a\nlarge scale for educating boys in modern farm work.\n\nBut there is another aspect of this matter worth more than passing\nattention. If the war ends victoriously, Great Britain will bulk very\nlarge, dangerously large, in the eyes of the world. The German cry is:\n\u201cGreat Britain is the tyrant; the Fleet of England is the menace,\nthreatening every country!\u201d No effort will be left untried to din that\nwhisper into every ear, to implant that suspicion in every mind. To\nescape the world\u2019s jealousy will not be possible. And, if in addition to\na dominant Fleet, and possibly a dominant air service, we preserve\nmilitarism on the present Continental lines, we shall excite\u2014whatever\nthe peaceful nature of our conduct and intentions\u2014the most profound\nuneasiness and envy in quarters where we most wish to be regarded with\nperfect equanimity. On the one hand, then, we have the danger of\nrelapsing into a state of unpreparedness that may provoke another war;\non the other, the danger of rousing too great fear and envy by an\nostentatious strength, and of increasing a burden of armament already\ntoo heavy on our shoulders. Between these dangers lies a path of safety\nin the training of our boys. But there lies much more than that. There\nlies the grander social future of our country\u2014an incalculable physical,\nmoral and economic uplifting, a nation more self-reliant and more eager,\npurged of that don\u2019t-care look, of the town blight which was settling on\nit fast\u2014there is no nation suffering from town life to anything like\nthe extent to which we suffer from it. Just now the war has lifted that\nblight; but with peace it will come down again, unless we fight it.\n\nIs this lamely outlined plan a mere dream, or is it a possible, nay, a\nprobable, measure, in times big with chances\u2014in times such as we may\nnever have again, for tuning up our life, for equalizing fortune,\nremoving foul places, and essential weakness?\n\nWith the suggestion that it is worth thinking over, at any rate, the\nwriter leaves the answer to those less fatuous than himself.\n\n\n\n\n                   IV\u2014HEALTH, HUMANITY AND PROCEDURE\n\n\nWhat were already glaring national ills before the war will, afterwards,\nbe ills demanding the most immediate, sustained, and resolute attention.\n\nThere exists in America a vehicle called the \u201crubber-neck\u201d car, in which\nthe tourist is taken and shown the interesting features of the\nneighbourhood. Before the political machine settles down again to work,\nlegislators, editors, business men, writers\u2014we might all with profit\ntake a round trip and see again evils that our country has never really\nfaced in the past, but will have to face, and grievously swollen at\nthat, in the future. At the back of all lack of effort is lack of\nrealization. Statistics of national problems may foster an impersonal\nand scientific attitude, but they do nothing to supply the feeling from\nwhich alone comes driving force.\n\nTake our slums! The powers vested in the State or in local bodies for\ndealing with slum areas are obviously either not sufficient or not\nsufficiently put to use. Not, of course, that any quick or light-hearted\ntransformation can be expected; the roots of this evil are too\ntortuously coiled in economies and natural selfishness.\n\nStill, just as realization of our country\u2019s danger at the hands of\nGermany has produced a marvellous crop of effort and sacrifice, so\nrealization of the equally distressing menace to the country from within\nshould produce something similar, when patriotic attention is once more\nfree, and time and strength at liberty, for fighting dangers at home.\n\nThe housing problem desperately needs attention; but, though much can be\ndone, good gamblers cut their losses, and the adult generation of the\nslums has got more or less to be cut, that greater effort may be\nconcentrated on the children.\n\nThe war has focussed attention on the need for arresting infant\nmortality. Good! But there is little use in saving babies if you are not\ngoing to feed them decently when they are out of swaddling clothes. A\nbig step forward has been taken of late years towards the feeding of\nnecessitous children, both at school and in cr\u00eaches but many more steps\nneed to be taken. If this is not a State matter, then nothing is. To\nneglect the nourishment of its children is at once the paltriest\neconomy, the least sagacious policy, and the worst inhumanity of which a\nnation can be guilty. The old-fashioned idea that children must go\nhungry or be fed so as to grow up rickety because their parents (being\n\u201crotters\u201d already) must not be rotted further is a doctrine devoid both\nof common sense and compassion. A nation either has a will towards a\nfuture, or it has none. If it has none, for what are we fighting this\nmost bloody war? What does our honour matter, or our independence\neither? But the future of a nation is its children. As they grow up,\nhealthy, clean, hopeful, efficient, so will our future be. As they grow\nup\u2014half-fed, dirty, don\u2019t care, and ignorant\u2014so will Britain! If to\nlook after the children makes worse paupers of the parents, well\u2014let\nit! Have some courage. Do not be hypnotized by a word, and, grasping the\nshadow, lose the substance. Give the children blood in their little\nbodies, and hope in their little brains. Any decent parent will be the\nbetter for that; the indecent parent is a loss already, and must be cut.\nWorking-class mothers who neglect to feed their children better than\nthemselves are but exceptions, nor will a sounder system of State-help\nseriously alter the deepest instinct of human nature. The heroism of\nBritish soldiers in the trenches is no greater than the lifelong heroism\nof British mothers in the slums struggling against want. This is a\nmatter that should not be left to the discretion of local bodies. Once\nthe principle has been admitted\u2014and who can honestly deny that it\nhas?\u2014the rest should be simply a question of fact medically certified\nnot here and there, but all over the country. Either it is justice and\nwisdom to feed the children, or it is not, and the scruples, however\nphilosophical, of gentlemen prepared to watch other people\u2019s children go\nhungry should not any longer be indulged.\n\nThe estimated number of school children in England and Wales being fed\nby the State in 1911-1912 was 230,000 out of a school population of\n5,357,367. The estimated number of this school population showing signs\nof malnutrition is variously given at from 10 to 20 per cent. Taking it\nat 15 per cent., or 800,000 children, we have more than half a million\nschool children wanting meals and not getting them. This is appalling.\nThere is no other word for it. But when the children _under_ school age\nwho need food and are not getting it, are added to this number, the\nproportions of this national folly and inhumanity stagger the brain. It\ndoes not yet seem to be grasped that these children, who are fighting\nnot only against insufficiency of proper food, but against bad air and\nbad housing, grow up with so much per cent. knocked off their national\nvalue. A stitch in time is supposed to save nine. A pound spent on the\nage of growth brings back many pounds from the age of stability. To\nthose few who ride the doctrine of Liberty to the death of national\nhealth it may simply be said: So long as you have no hope of repealing\ncompulsory education, you have no right to let children receive it in an\nunfit condition. Education and decent nourishment are inseparable; and\ndecent nourishment is as necessary in the years that come before as in\nthe years of schooling. No! In reality the principle is now rooted, and,\nlike other things, it\u2019s all a question of money. But a country with a\ncapital of \u00a316,000,000,000 and an income of \u00a32,100,000,000 cannot really\nafford to allow this state of affairs to continue\u2014especially after the\ngold-letting of this war. The state our national finances will be in\nmakes it all the more imperative that we should have a well-nourished\nand efficient population, or we shall never get out of the slough.\n\nDuring this war our heroism has jibbed at Liquor. That jovial monster\nlooms nearly as large as ever. We shall have a National Debt after the\nwar of three or four thousand millions, perhaps more. And yet the\ncheapest thing that could possibly be done, in the long run, would be to\nincrease it and buy up the Liquor Trade; achieve that dream of Joseph\nChamberlain, \u201cthe total and absolute elimination of any idea of private\ngain in the retail sale of liquor\u201d; convert drink into food to the tune\nof some eighty millions a year; and vastly diminish the number of\nchildren that require State nourishment, and the number of underfed men\nand women. In 1911, \u00a3162,797,229 was the drink bill of the nation; of\nwhich it is estimated that about \u00a3110,000,000 was spent by the working\nclass. The working classes are no more inclined to liquor than the rest\nof the population, but they have obviously less to spare for the\nindulgence of their inclination. With proper control of the liquor\ntraffic they will perhaps spend half what they spend now, extracting\ntherefrom just as much enjoyment, and most of the other half will go\ninto the bodies of themselves and their children in the form of food.\n\nBefore the war one-tenth of our people were getting too little food;\ntwo-tenths more just balanced on a knife-edge of bare sufficiency. And\nthe great majority of this third of our population were too closely or\ntoo badly housed for health.\n\nWhat is it going to be\u2014_after_\u2014unless our measures in regard to food,\nto housing, and to drink, are heroic? For heroic measures we shall need\na keener sense of justice, a larger humanity, than we have ever had.\nThough the war may conceivably not diminish humane feeling in those who\nfight, it blunts the sensibilities of those who do not see its horrors\nat first-hand. Tales of others\u2019 sufferings have become the daily fodder\nof the brain; narratives of death and misery the companions of every\nhour. Alongside the brutalities and agonies of the war, the injustice\nand cruelties of normal civil live seem pale and tame. Man has only a\ncertain capacity for feeling; one expects callousness now towards civil\ninhumanities. But must that callousness last after peace has come? If\nso, we are in a bad way.\n\nWhat is it that our modern State is reaching after? Presumably health,\nand balance. And what are these qualities built on, if not on Justice?\nAt the back of all social inhumanities will be found a lack of\nreasonable freedom and opportunity for some people, and the possession\nin other people of too much freedom and opportunity. And for the swift\nredress of social cruelties, the thorough attainment of social justice,\nwe have at present not only to contend with human nature, but with an\nadmitted deficiency in our legislative machinery.\n\nWhen the chief obstacle to laws is not the callousness of public\nopinion, but a mere block on the lines of procedure, some drastic change\nis due, a new departure wanted. Before the war many measures of reform\nhung in the wind year after year, not because there was no public\nfeeling behind them, not even because there were the usual political\ncleavages concerning them, but simply because time could not be found in\nwhich to pass them. Of such were: Measures for the feeding and education\nof children; the control of drink; rural housing; improvement of slum\nareas; furtherance of the minimum wage; reform of the Poor Law; of the\nDivorce Law; of the disability that attends the needy in their access to\ncivil justice; of the imprisonment of poor persons for debt; of the\nprocedure in regard to pauper lunatics; of the prison system; of\nprovision for the blind; measures for the better treatment of animals.\nAll these and others hung in the wind; are they to go on hanging those\nwhen the war is over? Wanted before, they will be wanted still more\nbadly then, because the general conditions of life will for some years,\nperhaps many years, be harder; and economic pressure fosters rough and\nunjust treatment.\n\nIs it too early for a united effort, to think out, in readiness for\npeace, a scheme of parliamentary procedure which shall afford time for\nthe serious and uninterrupted consideration of non-party measures, and\nthe furtherance of needed reforms?\n\nParty no longer exists, but they who think it has gone for good dwell in\na fools\u2019 paradise. As sure as fate it will spring up again, because it\nis rooted in temperamental difference. But must it come back with all\nits old cat-and-dog propensities, and waste of national time? It will,\nunless some method be devised that will remove some of party\u2019s\nunhandsome opportunities and save it from itself. Politicians alone know\nthe difficulties, many and great, in the way of a better procedure.\nSurely, while faction is in abeyance, Parliament will set its wits to\novercoming those difficulties, so that when the war ends we may not\nwitness again the tedious and distressful blocking of so many needed\nmeasures that prevailed aforetime. Party was made for the Country, not\nthe Country for Party; and what was tolerated with Job-like patience\nbefore this vast upheaval is not by any means likely to be tolerated\nafter. Needs will be more insistent; the sense of reality much greater;\nthe aspiration towards National Health a live thing, because it will be\nso desperately necessary.\n\nReform of parliamentary procedure is obviously the prime precedent for\nnational reform. Shall not then the question be even now given all the\nattention that can be spared to it? What better moment\u2014when men of all\nparties are filled with the one great thought\u2014Our Country!\n\n\n\n\n                             V\u2014A LAST WORD\n\n\nOne more word before these vapourings cease. The national task in this\nwar is still mighty enough to absorb all action, but not quite all\nthought, for it is no spasmodic effort, meaning nothing to the future.\nTo carry the spirit of to-day into a long to-morrow, making of our\npatriotism not a mere torrent soon spent and leaving an arid plain, but\na life-giving, even-flowing river\u2014for that one must not lose the sense\nof continuity; one must think ahead. More! One must resolve\u2014resolve\nthat this new unity shall stand not only the strain of war, but the\ngreater strain of the coming Peace. After\u2014will come the test. Having\nguaranteed our country for the moment from destructive powers without,\nshall we at once redeliver it to the destructive powers within\u2014go back\nto strife over Ireland, the Suffrage, the Welsh Church, and the Second\nChamber? Or, preserving our new-found unity, settle generously and in a\nlarge spirit those distressful matters, and pass on to the real work\u2014to\na wider and freer view of Empire, to the right training of the nation,\nthe right feeding of the nation, to securing for each man, woman, and\nchild a solid foundation of health and hope; to the restoration of the\nland and of our food supply; to clearance of mutual suspicions, and the\nstablishing of a new trustfulness between Labour and Capital; to the\nbanishment of inhumanity; the freeing of the eyes of Justice; and\ninterment of the privileges of class?\n\nShall we go back to rolling in the troughs of a dirty sea or set new\nsail and steer out with a true faith in our destiny as the Ship of\nFreedom and Justice?\n\n        \u201cWhen the devil was sick, the devil a saint would be,\n         But when the devil got well, the devil a saint was he!\u201d\n\nIs that to be our case? Let us not underrate the danger. At this moment\nand until the war is over, we are full of patriotism and good-will. We\n_have_ to be. There\u2019s the trouble. Once Peace comes, and the unifying\nforce of our common peril is over, what then? Is the old raw party\nspirit to ramp among us again? If a man would discover what danger there\nis of a return to every kind of disunity, let him take a definite\nnational question and see how much of his private interest or conviction\nhe is prepared to abate for the sake of the public good. Mighty little!\nAre we to dissolve again into those \u201crascally Radicals\u201d and those\n\u201cinfernal Tories\u201d; into \u201cgrinders of the poor\u201d and \u201cdiscontented\ndevils\u201d; into \u201cbrutal men\u201d and \u201chysterical females\u201d with all the other\nwarring tribes of the Armageddon of Peace? Are we to lose utterly the\ninspiring vision of our Country, in the squabbles of domestic life? Some\nof that intense vision must go, alas! But surely not all. And yet all\n_will_ go unless we keep in mind the thought that this war is not an\nend, but the means to an end, which none of us will see, but all of us\ncan further in time of peace as well as in time of war\u2014an end for whose\nattainment the blood and treasure now spilled is but as a preliminary.\n\nIt will be heart-breaking if from this stupendous cataclysm no lasting\ngood to the world and to Britain can be brought forth. Its horror, even\nnow, few realize who are not at the front. One who was many months on\nambulance duty in the French lines wrote these words:\n\n    \u201cThey talk of the war! Let them come close in! Let them see\n    lying around emaciated heads with no bodies within a couple of\n    hundred yards; let them see the bloody confusion of heads and\n    entrails and limbs which is showered around when a trench is\n    mined; let them see the heads with ears and noses bitten off as\n    if by mad dogs; let them see the men driven insane by the sights\n    and sounds of the battlefield, who turn and rend their comrades\n    and have to be shot down by them; let them come where hundreds\n    of wounded men are lying on contested ground screaming the whole\n    night through (and not one in a million has ever heard a man\n    scream!) and then talk of the war!\u201d\n\nIf from this horror, fought through and endured, as we believe, for the\nfuture of our Land and the future of mankind, there is to come no\nblessing, no advance to freedom and health and justice. . . . What then?\nNothing will be easier than to take up again the peace life of Britain\nas it was, and worse than it was, because coarsened by the passions of\nwar, and embittered by the strain of a greater economic stress. Nothing\nwill be easier than to give rein to the instincts of greed, pugnacity,\nand rancour, now hard held in by sentiment and the common peril; to step\nback and walk blindly in a country where all is faction; where class\nshuns class, and men and women are bitterly opposed; where the youth of\nthe nation is all the time running to seed; where children go hungry and\nmillions throughout the land are miserably housed and fed; where the\naccess to justice is often still beyond the reach of the poor; where\nhelplessness is not yet a guarantee against ill-usage. Once the war\neffort is over, nothing will be easier than\u2014from a resolved and united\nnation\u2014to become a crowd pressing this way and that, without view and\nwithout vision, seeking purse and place, or, at the best, fulfilment of\nsmall factious policies.\n\nNo one can tell yet what will be the world-sequel of this war\u2014whether\nit will bring a long peace or other wars; the enlargement of democracy\nor the hardening of autocratic rule; the United States of Europe or a\ncongery of distrustful Powers working for another \u201cDay.\u201d Only one thing\nwe know, that in our charge will be our own national life, to make or to\nmar; to prepare against whatever fortune the outer world shall brew, to\nprepare against the subtle march of inward dissolution. Our future does\nnot lie on the knees of the gods; it lies in our own hands, and hearts,\nand brains, and the use that we shall make of them.\n\nSwift is the descent to hell, and no wings fly so fast thither as the\nwings of material success. Shall we go that way? Or shall we, having\nfixed our eyes on a goal far beyond the finish of this war, quietly,\nresolutely in our conduct to the outer world and in our national life,\nbegin at once transmuting into deeds those words: Freedom, Health,\nJustice for All?\n\nAs a man thinks and dreams, so does he act. It is time to think and\ndream a little of the future, while the spirit of unity is on us, the\nvision of our Country with us; so that, when we see again the face of\nPeace, we may continue to act in unity, having in our hearts the good of\nour Land, and in our eyes the vision of her, growing ever to truer\ngreatness and beauty.\n\n\n\n\n                       THE ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED\n\n\n    (Read at a Conference on the National Life of the Allied\n    Countries, Stratford-on-Avon, August, 1916.)\n\nI suppose there are Britons who have never seen the sea; thousands,\nperhaps\u2014unfortunate. But is there a Briton who has not in some sort the\nfeeling that he is a member of a great ship\u2019s crew? Is there one who\nnever rejoices that his Land sails in space, unboarded, untouched by\nother lands? It must be strange to be native of a country where,\nstrolling forth, one may pass into the fields or woods of another race.\nIn all that we are, have been, and shall be, the sea comes first\u2014the\nsea, sighing up quiet beaches, thundering off headlands, the sea blue\nand smiling under our white cliffs, or lashing the long sands, the sea\nout beyond foreshore and green fields, or rolling in on wind-blown rocks\nand wastes. The sea with its smile, and its frown, and its restless\nmusic; the grim, loyal, protecting sea\u2014our mother and our comrade, our\nmysterious friend!\n\nThe ancients dreamed of \u201cthe islands of the blessed\u201d; we of these green\nand misty isles almost, I think, believe that we inhabit them.\n\nA strange and abiding sense is love of Country! Though reason may\nrevolt, and life here be hard, ugly, thankless, though one may even say,\n\u201cI care no more for my own countrymen than for those of other lands; I\nam a citizen of the world!\u201d No use! A stealing love has us fast bound; a\nweb of who knows what memories of misty fields, and scents of clover and\nturned earth; of summer evenings, when sounds are far and clear; of long\nstreets half-lighted, and town sights, not beautiful but homely; of the\nskies we were born beneath, and the roads we have trodden all our lives.\nWhat memories, too, of names and tales, small visions all upside down\nperhaps, yet true and warm to us because we listened and saw when we\nwere no older than foals at their dams\u2019 heels. It is not our actual\nCountry, but its halo, that we love\u2014the halo each one of us has made\nfor it. There are evenings under the moon, dewy mornings, late\nafternoons, when over field and wood, over moor or park or town,\nunearthliness hovers; so, over our native land hovers a glamour that\nburns brighter when we are absent, and flames up in glory above her when\nwe see her driven or hard pressed. No man yet knows the depths of our\nlove for these islands of the blessed. May no man ever know it!\n\nAnd to each of us there will be some ingle-nook where the spirit of our\ncountry most inhabits, where the fire of hearth and home glows best, and\ndraws us with its warmth from wanderings bodily or spiritual. To know\nthat in these isles no native-born but has a quiet shrine, be it lovely,\nor devoid of earthly beauty, where he or she in fancy worships the whole\nland, gives reality to the word Patriotism.\n\nThis love of country is so deep and sacred that we cannot utter it; let\nus not forget that it is as deep and sacred to the natives of other\nlands!\n\nLooking back into the dark of history, how quaint is our\norigin\u2014offspring of invading robbers, wave after wave, for some two\nthousand years before the Norman Conquest! If these be not in truth the\nblessed islands that the ancients dreamed of, they seem to have been\nsufficiently attractive. Who our Neolithic forerunners were, whence they\ncame, or whether they were here before our isles cut loose from the\nmainland and set out on an endless voyage, we shall never, I suppose,\nknow. A strain of their blood, more than we think perhaps, must still be\nalive within us; the rest of it is freebooting fluid\u2014Celts and Romans,\nAnglo-Saxons, Danes, Normans, all robbers; blent at last\u2014and in Ireland\nnot yet quite blent\u2014to the observance of honour among thieves.\n\nEver since the sea brought us here\u2014all but the Neolithic few\u2014in the\nlong-ships of the past, what a slow, ceaseless fusing has gone to the\nmaking of the modern Briton\u2014that most singular among men! I hold the\ntheory\u2014how far scientifically tenable I know not\u2014that the continued\nvitality of a race depends on two main conditions: the presence of many\nstrains of blood not too violently differing one from the other, and the\nabsence of too much sun. I hold that nations may become too inbred; or\nmay have the sap dried out of them by heat. In Britain we cannot yet\nhave reached the point of perfect fusion\u2014are not in danger for a long\ntime of becoming too inbred. Nor can the sun be called a desperate\nperil. We are \u201cgame,\u201d as they say, for centuries yet; unless\u2014\u2014! For\nour besetting danger is another.\n\nHow many of us realize that far beyond all other nations we are town\ndwellers, subject to town blight? That is a new, an insidious, malady,\nwhose virulence we have hardly yet appreciated or had time to study. Can\nit be arrested by hom\u0153opathy\u2014or must sweeping allopathic remedies be\napplied? Will town blight be cured by better town conditions, and our\ngradual adaptation\u2014or by going back to the land? By both. But, if not\nby both within the next half-century, then\u2014I fear\u2014by neither. Town\nblight has had as yet but two full generations to lay its grip on us. We\nhave time for its defeat if we have courage and sense. But it is an\nenemy more deadly than the Germans; not so easy to see and to fight\nagainst!\n\nWhen children first discover gooseberries or other kindly fruits of the\nearth, they eat too quickly and too much. We were the first people to\ndiscover the means to \u201chappiness\u201d known as modern industrialism. With\nhuge appetite we set upon it, and are caught by surfeit. I have heard\nthis view of our case seriously countered\u2014the Cockney and the northern\ntownsman are thought to be our most vital types. Verily they have a\npretty courage; but to such as are light-hearted on this matter I would\nsay: \u201cGo, in summer, to some seaside place where humble townsfolk have\ncome to make holiday, as healthy and little pallid as they ever are,\nand\u2014watch. Then wing off to some remote fishing village, or countryside\nwhere such peasants as are left are not too badly off, and\u2014watch. Then\nsummon your candour, and tell in which of your two fields of observation\nyou have seen more vigour of limb, beauty of face, or at all events more\nfreedom from petty distortions and a look of dwindling.\u201d\n\nI cannot explain exactly what I mean by town blight. It is not mere\npallor or weakliness, but rather a loss of balance\u2014a tendency to jut\nhere and be squashed in there; an over-narrowness of head; an\nover-development of this feature at the expense of that; with a look of\nliving too fast, of giving out more than is taken in. The modifications\nof the Briton through town life are countless, and all the time subtly\ngoing on. I do not deny that there is much good, too, in the\ntransformation\u2014the quickening of a temperament by no means quick; a\nwidening of sympathies in a character not too sympathetic; the deepening\nof humaneness and the love of justice in a nature with an old Adam in it\nof brutality. A frank humanitarian and humanist, like myself, dwells\ncheerfully on that, for it does seem, while other changes in human life\nare always arguable\u2014such as the increase of efficiency purchased by\nloss of breadth and kindliness; economic gain by loss of health and\nbalance; greater will-power by loss of understanding and tolerance\u2014that\nthe increase of humane instinct, with which is bound up the love of\njustice, is alone sheer gain. Some, I know, think it bought at the\nexpense of what is called \u201cvirility.\u201d To those I recommend a steady\nglimpse at the modern British sailor. Of late years I have been reading\naccounts of Arctic and Antarctic exploration. There is no better study\nfor those who doubt whether men can be brave and hard and at the same\ntime chivalrous and gentle. One returns from mental travel with those\nheroes convinced that true humanity and gentleness and justice actually\ndepend on bravery and stoicism. Picked men, you say! Well, go to the\nBritish Fleet, or the British Army\u2014in a word, to the British male\npopulation of robust age\u2014and you will come back, I believe, with the\nsame general conviction\u2014that where the truest bravery is there also is\nhumaneness\u2014that these qualities grow naturally twined together. All\nevidence from the war proves that the Briton is as hard a fighter, and\nfar better behaved, than he ever was. Better behaviour under war\nconditions means nothing but increase in each individual fighter, of\njust and humane instinct, and that sense of personal responsibility\nwhich is the other main advantage coming to us from town life. In towns\na man finds his level, acquires the corporate sense, sees himself as\npart of the civic whole, learns that his own ills are shared by too\nmany, to bear thinking of save with a touch of humour and contempt. The\nBritish sailor whose shattered arm was being dressed in the battle of\nJutland well summed up what I mean: \u201cTo hell with my arm, doctor; I want\nto get up there again and _give the boys a hand_!\u201d That would seem very\nmuch the spirit of the modern town-bred British.\n\nNow, is there anything which in some sort differentiates this Britain of\nours from other lands?\n\nA country is such a huge conglomeration of types and qualities; such a\nseething mass of energies! It seems sometimes as impossible to thread\none\u2019s way to the heart of that maze as to fix the pattern of a thousand\ngnats dancing in a sunlit lane! One turns eyes here, there, follows this\nmovement and that, thinks one has the clue, falls back gaping. Is there\nany essence which sets the British soul apart, as an oak is set apart\nfrom beech or lime tree? Can there, indeed, be any single essence in a\nland where Iberian and Celt, Saxon and Norseman, still quarrel in the\nblood? I think there is, and will hazard an attempt to throw on the\nscreen some faint shadow of the elusive thing.\n\nTake certain salient British characteristics: Our peculiar national\nunder-emphasis and stolidity; our want of imagination; that desire to\nhave things both ways\u2014which is generally called our \u201chypocrisy\u201d; our\nturn of ironic humour; our bulldog grip; our lack of _joie de vivre_;\nour snobbishness\u2014dying, but dying very hard; our perpetual desire for\nthe moral in action or art; our regard for \u201cgood form\u201d; our slow dumb\nidealism, hand in hand with our profound distrust of ideas; our\npropensity for grumbling under prosperity, and our cheeriness under\nhardship; our passion for games, and our creed of \u201cplaying the game\u201d;\nour love of individual liberty\u2014even our perversity and\ncrankiness. . . . Take them all, and consider whether there is not some\nfundamental underlying instinct.\n\nI believe that the mainspring of the British soul, concealed by a layer\nof mental laziness from superficial scrutiny, is nothing but an\ninveterate instinct for competition. The Briton is the most competitive\ncreature on the face of the earth\u2014save possibly the American of British\ndescent. True\u2014we would, as they phrase it on the turf, make a race with\na donkey, for our climate has certainly sluggarded the circulation of\nour blood. None the less, we have a perpetual secret itch for\ncompetition, so bone deep that most of us do not even know of it. All\nthrough our lives we are playing a match. When the Briton is not\nsecretly pitting himself against somebody or something, he can hardly be\nsaid to be alive. I do not think, speaking racially, that he cares so\nmuch for what he gets by the game as for the game itself and victory in\nit. He sets little store by the perfection of his handiwork so long as\nit beats the handiwork of others; or\u2014and this is the saving grace\u2014so\nlong as in the accomplishment he has defeated the slackness or cowardice\nin his own nature\u2014won the match within himself.\n\nLet us turn them over one by one, those salient British characteristics:\n\nStolidity! Under-emphasis! It is surely nothing but contempt of fuss;\nand what is fuss but allowing too much importance to the task or person\nyou are up against? The instinct of competition forbids that in the\nBriton; he is so competitive that he does not deign to let people see\nthat he is stretching himself.\n\nWant of imagination! That is partly the mental laziness, no doubt,\nengendered by our thick climate; but much of it, I think, is only the\nsubconscious refusal by our competitive natures to see too quickly and\nclearly what we have before us, lest we be discouraged. A great help\u2014to\nhave muddled through most of the battle before you are aware of the size\nand length of it!\n\nOur rather grim turn of humour! Is it not generally a jest at the\nexpense of a fate which thought it could set us down?\n\nOur hypocrisy! One would not admit a physical defeat, but clench the\nteeth and have at it again; then, how admit moral defeat? Impossible!\nFace must be saved\u2014instinctively again, unconsciously\u2014for the last\nthing we plead guilty to is our \u201chypocrisy.\u201d\n\nThe bulldog grip\u2014speaks for itself.\n\nOur lack of _joie de vivre_! We are playing a match\u2014we have no chance\nor time to relax, to lie on our backs and let the sunlight warm our\nfaces. We have not time to give ourselves up to life; there is so much\nto beat\u2014we are playing a match.\n\nOur veneration for rank of every kind! Snobbishness! This is surely\nnothing but our recognition of the value of attainment; acknowledgment\nof victories won, if not in the present, in the past; tacit confession\nthat we, too, want to win such victories.\n\nOur craving for a moral! Well, what is a moral, if not the triumph of\nwhat we call \u201cgood\u201d over what we call \u201cevil\u201d? We crave that triumph\u2014not\nonly in action, but also, I fear, in art. Art must not merely excite\nwithin us impersonal emotion; it must be useful to us in our match with\nlife\u2014a pity!\n\nOur worship of \u201cgood form\u201d is partly dread of that ridicule which would\nbe a proof of our having fallen short, and partly recognition by a\npeople who have long lived an exceptionally stable social life, that\nthis competitive instinct of ours, unchecked by rules, becomes a\nnuisance to ourselves and others. In the same way, \u201cplaying the game\u201d is\nbut the necessary check on our passion for a match.\n\nOur inveterate dumb idealism is of course a primary constituent element\nin the fighting nature; and our distrust of ideas a natural lazy dread\nof being pushed on too fast by that idealism.\n\nOur grumbling habits, when there is little or nothing to grumble at,\nshow, I think, that in slackness and prosperity we are really out of our\nelement; while our ironic cheerfulness under hardship\u2014the cry \u201cAre we\ndown-hearted? No-o!\u201d proves that times of stress suit our competitive\ntemperament.\n\nOur love of individual liberty! A man, the joy of whose life is winning\nan event over himself or others, naturally desires the utmost latitude\nfor these perpetual contests. And so the Briton becomes \u201ca crank\u201d more\noften than members of any other race.\n\nOne should never drive theory too far, but I seriously believe that the\nfoundation of the Briton\u2019s soul is this dumb and utter refusal to admit\nthat he ever can be beaten, either by himself or any other. He is\nconcerned to win, rather than to understand or to enjoy. I do not know\nwhether this is admirable, but I am pretty sure that it is true. And\nbehind and beyond all the better reasons for pursuing this war to a\nvictorious end, there is always the inarticulate, intense, instinctive\nfeeling, that we must win the match, since to fail would mean not only\ndefeat by the Germans, but the defeat within us of our will and of our\nown nature.\n\nIf I am right as to this essence of the British soul, what does it\nsignify to the world of our friends and enemies? It means, of course, a\nrock on which our friends may build\u2014it assures the fulfilment of all\npledges, and endurance till the day of victory; but it carries with it a\ncertain element of danger. Vice treads on the heels of Virtue in the\ncompetitive soul. How far may our nature become a peril, not only to\nourselves, but to our Allies and the whole world?\n\nUnderneath all our resolution not to fall short of such measure of\nvictory as shall free the invaded lands, and prove to all that the\nover-riding of a little harmless neutral country has not paid;\nunderneath this absolute resolve, which of us does not long for a _real_\npeace, an end of a world that is like a powder magazine which malevolent\nor foolish hands can fire at any moment? The difficulties that lie\nbetween us and such a peace are very great; far be it from me to\nminimize them, or blink the seeming impasse of the situation ahead. When\nthe end draws near, in every warring land the great dumb\nmass-of-the-people\u2019s only thought will be: \u201cFor God\u2019s sake, have done\nwith it, and let us get back to life!\u201d But, jutting out of this mass, in\neach country, and especially in our own, there will be, on the one hand,\nidealists and dreamers, a little band, seeing a vision too visionary,\ntelling of it to the wind; on the other, a far larger, louder band of\nmen of affairs, judging of matters with the immediate eye, for immediate\nprofit, or, as they will rather phrase it, for permanent profit, under\nthe waving flags of patriotism; of men talking of a lasting peace and\ngenuinely wishing for it\u2014so long as it does not mean foregoing\nanything, so long as they may let go no advantage so dearly bought.\nAlready the cry on both sides is for a commercial war starting from the\nfinal battle. All that is stupendously natural! But in this medley of\ndemand, how will statesmen steer? Will they, who have to remake the\nworld, have a large vision, and see that, vital before all else, is the\nseizing of a chance\u2014that has never come before and may never come\nagain\u2014to establish and set going a Court of Nations, backed this time\nby real force? Will they grasp the wisdom implicit in the feeling of the\ngreat dumb multitudes: \u201cFor God\u2019s sake have done with it, and let us\n_live_!\u201d\n\nWe have not yet got to the moment on which the whole future will hang.\nWhen we do, I fancy that this competitive soul of ours may want too much\nto have things both ways. Whatever the terms of the peace that comes,\nthat peace will not last without a League of Nations to guarantee it;\nand such a League we cannot have unless impartiality be its backbone;\nunless we mean that it shall judge justly, and enforce judgment without\nfear or favour; unless we are willing to accept its judgments in all\nmatters, and not merely when it suits us. A man does not guarantee the\nhealth of his body just by holding his neighbour down; and the true path\nto security and a great future lies in the efforts we make to improve\nourselves, rather than in those we make to injure others. The freedom\nand fair opportunity which are vital to a lasting peace need not bar us\nfrom national preparedness, from intelligent effort to save ourselves\nand our Allies from unfair commercial competition, need not prevent us\nfrom assuring our safety and improving our corporate life. But they do\nmean that we must keep free of a militarist and tyrannical spirit. How\nfar will our competitive British soul, when peace comes, be proof\nagainst that virus? Are we, in the winning of military victory, going\nquietly to accept moral defeat, letting our ideals turn turtle and float\nwith their keels to the stars? I wonder.\n\nThis League for Peace we talk of\u2014that even statesmen talk of\u2014will not\nbe born of violent minds, but out of level and long-headedness, and the\ndesire to benefit not only our own country, but the world. It is an\nundertaking fraught with the most poignant difficulty. If you imagine it\nfledged from birth, with wings full grown\u2014if you imagine a world\ndisarmed, immediately responsive to law\u2014it is but an Utopian dream. The\nworld will assuredly remain armed; at a single stride one cannot step\nfrom hell to heaven. But armedness need not prevent the nations from\nestablishing procedure for the delay of warlike action\u2014a tribunal to\nwhich all disputes must be referred; need not prevent them from pledging\nthemselves to forcible support of its decisions, from declaring commerce\n_sacro-sanct_ between members of the League, and punishing by blockade\nand ostracism any nation that betrays its membership, or flouts a\ndecision, so that the sanctity of a nation\u2019s commerce may in future\ndepend on that nation\u2019s loyalty to other nations; nor need it prevent\nStates from taking the manufacture of war material out of private hands.\nOnly on the proved efficacy of such measures as these will the\ndisarmament of nations follow, slowly, surely, equally; for man will\nthen be acting, as he loves to act, not by rote and theory, but on the\nevidence of facts.\n\nIs all this a wild-cat notion, or a mere natural growth out of what went\nbefore the war, and out of the terrific tragedy of the war itself\u2014a\nplan tentative and experimental, that may gradually force its way to\nconfidence, till the Court of Nations reaches the unquestioned authority\nand permanence of each individual nation\u2019s courts of justice?\n\nWe of the Allied countries must surely long for such a plan; nor, I\nthink can any neutral nation which has watched and trembled at this war\nbe other than well-disposed towards it; and, whatever their rulers and\njournalists may desire, the _peoples_ of the Central Empires will not\nwish to be left out. Yet when the time comes for peace discussions one\nsees only too well the deadlock. The Allied nations, if victorious, will\nnot want a round table _s\u00e9ance_ with their enemies and a cosy\nsettlement. The Central Empires will not wish to accept forced\nmembership of a League for Peace founded by their enemies, in\nwhich\u2014however mistakenly\u2014they believe they will always be outvoted.\nThis vicious deadlock, however, is less real, I think, than it seems.\nThere are new forces at work; and if a League for Peace can make even a\nlame and partial start, it may by these new forces soon be fortified.\nAfter this war, deep-planted in the heart of every people, whether\nfighting or looking on, will be the loathing of national aggressiveness!\nSuch a feeling has never existed before because men have never before\nbeen so stirred, so injured, and so frightened. We soon forget, of\ncourse, all save that of which we are constantly reminded; but the\naftermath of this war will be full of startling revelations of the ruin\nit has caused; the world will reek with reminder that so-called national\naspirations cannot with impunity be aggressively pursued; that so-called\ndefensive wars cannot be light-heartedly incepted. During the march of a\nwar, however terrible, the fascination of strife colours and subdues its\nhorror; its heroisms hypnotize, its rancours drug all reason, blur all\nvision. But in the cold thinned blood of a maimed future, how different\nit will all seem, how terrifically disproportionate!\n\nLove of country has never before had such calls made on it; men have\nnever so suffered for their patriotism. That, too, must bring a sweeping\nreaction, which will gradually force the hands of reluctant Governments\ninto adhesion to any scheme which promises relief from a repetition of\nsuch agonies. And so, in spite of all the difficulties, I believe some\nsort of League for Peace will come, imperfect and experimental at first,\nbut which, once founded, will wax and grow strong, in the real\u2014not\nmerely pious\u2014horror of war which will follow this fearful carnival. Let\nit but hold together for a few years, survive one or two serious trials,\nand I think no sane nation will ever desire its dissolution.\n\nSuch a scheme will not come down to us from Heaven. From our own brains\nand wills it must spring; from our sense of\u2014shall we say\u2014the\ninconvenience of wars like this. If the killing and disablement of some\nten million men, the waste of some ten to twenty thousand million\npounds, persuades us to nothing but the leaving of the world exactly as\nit was, as liable to these irruptions of death and misery\u2014then, better\nsay with the Spanish poet, \u201cOf all the misfortunes of man, the greatest\nis to have been born.\u201d\n\nEven before the guns cease roaring, shall not our nine Allied peoples\nagree informally among themselves upon the structure of a League for\nPeace, and secure the sympathetic understanding of America, and the\nother neutral countries, on whose wisdom and good-will so much depends?\n\nI, for one, would wish my Country foremost in pursuing this great\nchance\u2014wish that she might place all her power in the favouring scale;\nI would wish to see her as ready to submit to the decisions of an\nInternational Tribunal, as each one of us is ready as a matter of course\nto submit to the decisions of our judges.\n\nWe in this green Britain of ours, still free of the invader\u2019s foot, can\nmeasure the value of freedom now, looking across to lands waiting for\ndeliverance. No country of Europe but has suffered, during long\ncenturies, outrage and trampling, siege and slaughter, that we have been\nspared\u2014saved by our sea. It is not irony that calls these the islands\nof the blessed.\n\nBut Fortune is a jealous goddess; and offerings are due to her who has\ngiven us an inviolate soil. I seem to see Fortune standing apart,\nwatching\u2014wondering. \u201cWhat have they made\u2014what are they going to make\nof their Land?\u201d I seem to see Fortune thinking: \u201cIf I grant them success\nonce more, these islanders, are they great enough to survive it? Under\nmy smile the empires of the past one by one went down\u2014Assyria, Egypt,\nPersia, Rome, others of long, long ago. Will this empire live, or will\nit too rot away, and sink?\u201d\n\nThose empires of the past fell through prosperity, through inordinate\npride, through luxury and slavery hand in hand. May Fortune hold up a\nmirror to us, that we see ourselves as we are! Freedom and Humanity are\nnot mere words; nor is a people\u2019s greatness measured in acres or in\npounds, in the number of its ships on the sea, or of the rifles it can\nmuster. A people\u2019s greatness is in the breadth and quality of its soul,\nin its fortitude, alertness, justice, gentleness, within itself and to\nthe world without; and in its faith that man has his fate in his own\nhands.\n\nAs the individual, so the State; the aggregate of individual virtue\ndecides and shapes the lot of nations. May there be no slaves among us\nand none who fatten upon slavery; no brutes among us and none who cower\nunder brutality! Let us not hold ourselves as the elect in a blind\npatriotism, but have some vision of the world beyond our shores, of its\nhopes and dreads and natural ambitions. A narrow national spirit never\nserved mankind!\n\nLet the sea be our inspiration and our reminder! For, if it is our\nfortification, the sea is also our link with all the world, and the\ngreatest force of untamed Nature. It seems to me that they who live\ndependent on the sea should never be puffed up. Its changing moods and\nsalt winds, its wildness, beauty, desolation, the sudden fates that lurk\nwithin it, that leap and clutch and draw away from us our best; the\ngreat spaces of it beneath sun and stars\u2014these are constant, and to our\nsouls should surely carry breadth, sweep out of us the littleness of\nImperial complacency. The sea is never chained, and the eyes of sailors\nhave in them a look that any man might covet\u2014a steady fronting of\nsomething inscrutable, shifting, dangerous. They know the little worth\nof human strength, the need of unity; they know that when a man slackens\nhis watch, Fate leaps upon him.\n\nThe ship of each nation sails a sea of incalculable currents and\nuncharted channels. Sailing that sea, may we have the eyes of sailors,\nlest our Fate leap upon us!\n\nWho would not desire, rushing through the thick dark of the future, to\nstand on the cliffs of vision\u2014two hundred years, say, hence\u2014and view\nthis world?\n\nWill there then be this League for War, this cauldron where, beneath the\nthin crust, a boiling lava bubbles, and at any minute may break through\nand leap up, as now, jet high? Will there still be reek and desolation,\nand man at the mercy of the machines he has made; still be narrow\nnational policies and rancours, and such mutual fear, that no country\ndare be generous? Or will there be over the whole world something of the\nglamour that each one of us now sees hovering above his own country; and\nmen and women\u2014all\u2014feel they are natives of one land? Who dare say?\n\nWhen the guns cease fire and all is still, from the woods and fields and\nseas, from the skeleton towns of ravaged countries, the wistful dead\nwill rise, and with their eyes accuse us. In that hour we shall have for\nanswer only this: We fought for a better Future for Mankind!\n\nDid we? Do we? That is the great question. Is our gaze really fixed on\nthe far horizon? Or do we only dream it; and have the slain no comfort\nin their untimely darkness; the maimed, the ruined, the bereaved, no\nshred of consolation? Is it all to be for nothing but the salving of\nnational prides? And shall the Ironic Spirit fill the whole world with\nhis laughter?\n\nOr shall the nations take the first step in that grand march of real\ndeliverance which will make the whole earth\u2014at last\u2014the islands of the\nblessed?\n\n\n           THE WHITEFRIARS PRESS, LTD., LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.\n\n\n\n\n                         _BY THE SAME AUTHOR._\n\n                     _Issued by William Heinemann._\n\n                         THE ISLAND PHARISEES.\n                          THE MAN OF PROPERTY.\n                           THE COUNTRY HOUSE.\n                              FRATERNITY.\n                             THE PATRICIAN.\n                            THE DARK FLOWER.\n                             THE FREELANDS.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\n                               A MOTLEY.\n                        THE INN OF TRANQUILLITY.\n                   THE LITTLE MAN AND OTHER SATIRES.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\n                      MOODS, SONGS, AND DOGGERELS.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\n                               MEMORIES.\n                        _Illustrated by_ MAUD EARL.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\n                     _Issued by other Publishers._\n\n                    VILLA RUBEIN AND OTHER STORIES.\n                             PLAYS: 3 vols.\n                             A COMMENTARY.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes:\n\n    The list of other works by the author has been moved from the\n    front of the book to the end. Spelling and hyphenation have been\n    left as in the original. A few obvious typesetting punctuation\n    errors have been corrected without note.\n\n[The end of _A Sheaf_ by John Galsworthy]","title":"A Sheaf","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":82424}