The English, 1909-1922 : a gossip 1923

Front matter

eres

Chast

Fitts

Chapter II A “‘ Season’ In London

London’s Ghosts—The Savour of London — Mr. Winston Churchill—A Night at Oxford—aAll Souls —A Governor with Ideas—English Orators— “ Jacky ’”’ Fisher—Noble “‘ Bobs ”—Gum Trees at Kington— The English Climate — London’s Humaneness—English Luxury :

Chapter III England At Work

Mandarin Methods—Muddling Agriculture—Free Trade and the Land—The “‘ People’s Budget ’’—Hnglish Public Services—Sound, Solid Work—Wool and the Empire—Mass Production—A Praying Sausage Machine— Labour lLeaders— Bolshevism and Socialism—A Tramp’s Notes—A Sound Fellow

CHAPTER IV ENGLAND OUT OF WORK—ON THE ROADS The Vagabond Life—A Brave Soul—A Good Average Man—A Gentleman of the Road—The Life of a “ Casual ’’—The Smoke Scandal—Making Tramps

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER V ENGLAND OUT OF WORK—IN LONDON The London Doss-Houses—On the Embankment— Foolish Palliatives—Relief Works—The Dole System .

CHAPTER VI THE ENGLISH CHARACTER Ideals of Life—The English as Colonists—Men and ‘* Hands ’—London’s Street Names—What “ isn’t Cricket ’°—The Miracle of 1914—A Mood of Remorse—Lions and Lambs—A Yorkshire Type— A Happy Accident—* The Easiest Way ”

CHAPTER VII ENGLISH JOURNALISM

The Classic English Journal—The New Type of Newspaper — American Journalism — Reticence of

English Press—Lord Northcliffe—A Tale of Robins —

—The Press Revolution—Newspaper Insurance .

CHAPTER VIII ENGLISH POLITICS

Buying off an Enemy—Defence Apathy—The Party System—The Ostrich Policy—Cricket on a Precipice—Places at Table—Fate’s Reckoning

CHAPTER IX

THE ‘‘ ENGLISH SCHOOLBOY SENSE OF FAIR PLAY ”’

Edward Grey—Northumberland Men—Working for Peace—After Bismarck—When Honour Called— August, 1914—A Dutiful Man

CHAPTER X

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“THE ENGLISH COUNTRY GENTLEMAN” AS ADMINISTRATOR

Walter Long—Secret of Good Government—Old Ireland—Lessons in Imperialism

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER XI A PROBLEM IN ENGLISH POLITICS Robert Cecil—Training for Public Life—The Blockade —Placating America—The Modern Cecil

CHAPTER XII ENGLAND AND THE GREAT WAR The Agadir Crisis—The Balkan Crisis—Prussian Napoleonism—The Gallant French—The Antwerp Folly—King Albert—Nearly Hanged—FPas de bons papiers—The, Provost Marshal—A Happy Release

CHAPTER XIII ENGLAND IN THE GREAT WAR The New Armies—Trials of Military Life—English Good Temper—Getting Well—At ‘‘ Huskards ”’

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THE ENGLISH, 1909-1922

Chapter I A Voyage Of Discovery (1909)

Ir is the peoples of the new lands of the world in these days that have the explorer’s joy. For the men of the older civilisations there exist no longer pathless forests nor uncharted seas. One may book at Cook’s to go overland from Cairo to the Cape, and the Andes are being crossed by railways. But the lands of history—the thickets of their cities populous with ghosts—offer to the citizens of the young nations such enchantments ag an old-time adventurer had when his prow cut an unknown sea, or his helmet lightened first the gloom of an African forest.

When I started from Australia to explore the old home of our race, chance rather than a settled plan led me to take the path across the Pacific and to approach England by way of America. The chance was a happy one, for a glimpse at America is a good preparation for a study of English institutions. The contrast between the United States and England is sharp, sharper than that between Australia and England, sharper even than that between some European countries and England. London, Paris, Sydney are more of the one type than are London and New York.

I had a first prompting to notice something of the contrast between the American and the English types before I had touched the American continent, by observing the difference of conditions in our colony of Fiji and the American colony of Hawai in the Pacific Ocean. Suva, the capital of Fiji, is a quiet little place, getting something of an Indian atmosphere from the presence in the streets of the Hindu coolies imported to work in the sugar fields. Its architecture is like that of an English town and suggests a white population taking up residence in a place of exile, doing its duty sturdily there, perhaps for a whole life-time ; but with a backward-turning thought for the Home Country. The English govern the Fijians and the Hindus in Fiji with firmness, with patience and without undue fuss. The most serious trouble I heard of was the necessity to check the extreme devotion of the native Fijians to cricket, a devotion which threatened to turn to naught all efforts to coax them into the path of settled industry. The administration was unobtrusive, sympathetic, but alien, something superimposed upon the native life.

Honolulu, the American capital of Hawaii, showed in strong contrast. It is a city of bustling commercial life, with gigantic hotels, electric trams, scare-head newspapers, and other evidences of the vigorous, assertive, American nationalism. It also has evidences of the fluidity of the American type in its American adaptions of Hawaiian manners. The architecture of Honolulu, for example, is marked by an artistic mingling of modern American with ancient Hawaiian forms. There are a few buildings which are “‘ 100 per cent.

THE ENGLISH IN EXILE 3

American,” but even they make the concession to the climate of flat promenade roofs. The majority of the villas and hotels adapt the native Hawaiian to the modern American architecture, as, for example, the Moana hotel, its chief living-rooms built on piles raising it above a surf beach, its lines and scheme of decoration suggesting a glorified type of native house. The comfort of its dining- ‘room, with the sea murmuring below and sending its coolness up beneath a louvred floor; the esthetic harmony of the whole building with the tropical jungle surrounding it, were won by the willingness of the American to learn from the Hawaiian.

The dull, unsuitable English houses built for the white inhabitants in the towns of Fiji show that the colonist there wishes to learn nothing from the Fijian, is determined to be English, to be ignorant that there is any possible improvement on English modes. |

In the very hot “back country” and the tropical north of Australia, the same stiffness of national habit can be observed. The colonist builds an English house, wears—with a few reluc- - tant concessions—English types of clothing ; eats roast beef on Sundays; and on Christmas Day, with the glass at ninety-nine in the shade, there appears at his table a plum pudding made in the traditional manner, with not one burning spice spared, wreathed in flames of spirit, crowned with holly (sometimes artificial, but sometimes real holly which has been guarded from the summer - heat in an ice-house).

It is easy at first to conclude that much more sensible is the American adaptiveness than the

English stubbornness. After a longer reflection one is not so sure. Has not this very stubbornness, this certainty that the English thing is unchangeably right and that the foreigner can teach the Englishman nothing, something to do with the moral success of the English rule of inferior races? Would the “ Raj” have been established in India had the English conquerors there been of an adaptive type? Was it not founded, in part, on the Englishman’s stubborn belief that every habit he had was the best of all habits under all circumstances—this belief combined with a sense of good-humoured, contemptuous tolerance that forbade any attempt to interfere with the silly habits of less well-informed peoples ?

I believe that the English success in colonisation is due to the fixity of the English character, which is built on these two pillars—an arrogant selfcertainty and a wise tolerance. The English governor of the heathen abroad refuses to believe in the possibility of learning anything from the heathen ; and that helps the heathen to come to a conception of his master as god-like. The English governor is also too good-hearted and good-humoured, and too certain of the hopelessness of the task, to attempt to make the heathen like unto himself; and so he never fusses, and he interferes as little as possible. That helps the heathen to conclude that he is an amiable and not a capricious god.

The good faculty of silence that the Englishman possesses is another advantage. Savage races dislike and distrust talkers. To be able to keep one’s mouth shut in all the dead and all the living languages is a much more valuable

FIJI AND HAWAII | 5 attribute in an administrator than “the gift of tongues.”

In Fiji the slow and unadaptive Englishman seems to make the natives fairly happy. All the grumbling that I heard was from members of the British colony. In Hawaii, the natives were discontented, though they have been Americanised to the extent that they enjoy ice-cream soda, a political system modelled on that of an American State, and the ministrations of hot-gospellers, one of whom at the time of my visit was drawing crowds with his

PUNGENT PREACHMENTS FOR PRACTICAL PEOPLE

(I quote from the advertisement).

Almost every Hawaiian I talked with in Honolulu was a seditious fellow, full of eloquent arguments that the American was a tyrant and an oppressor. There is no actual danger in this sedition, for the Hawaiian begins from early manhood to grow inordinately fat, and fat men do not make revolutions. But it was interesting to note that the very actions which one would have expected to have been conciliatory and ingratiating on the part of the American conquerors were given as reasons for discontent. Where the American had approved and adapted a Hawaiian custom or art, it was proof that the American was an inferior being who had to learn from the Hawaiian.

But I am on a voyage to discover England, and it is a far cry from Westminster to the South

Seas. I can plead in excuse for the digression that England is to be found, and studied, wherever the Union Jack flies ; and that there was deep interest in the first opportunity that offered of comparing the English method of government with a foreign method. That English method I had had already good chances of studying in other parts of Oceania, but I had not before had the benefit of a means of comparison. I can recall committing myself some years ago to a somewhat bad-tempered (but I still think just) appreciation of that English method :—

“The Englishman—the superbly arrogant Englishman ... desires jnone of the accidental and external signs of greatness. It for him suffices if he has the real power. And he worships the work rather than the glory of the work. In ruling the blind heathen, more fussy people fail because they wish to ‘ set him right,’ to induce the barbarian to become as they are. The Englishman does not wish to set people right. He is right; that suffices. It is not possible for inferior races ever to be like him ; it is better to let them wallow. . . .

_ “The imperturbable Englishman is thus willing to let you have your own way on all nonessentials. His attitude—towards your follies and ideals alike—is one of tolerant contempt. So long as you are doing satisfactorily the one thing that he wants of you, the rest of your life Is your own, and you may fill it with caste divisions, religious rows, national aspirations, societies for being very proud of the fact that you are not English, or Ogre-worship. He will

STATE SORCERERS 7 not worry. Indeed, he will, if that seems suitable to his purpose, subsidise your Chief Priest of Ogre-worship.”’

The subsidy to the Chief Priest of Ogre-worship was an effort in fun. But I joked better than I knew. In one part of the South Seas, where sorcery is a great evil—some cunning and lazy member of the tribe pretending to have the gift of the “ Evil Eye” and thus establishing a lucrative reign of terror over his fellows—I found that an English administrator had solved the problem by organising rival sorcerers and making them exercise a counter-witchcraft in the interests of public order and progress, this at salaries of about two shillings a week.

A comparative study of the English method of dealing with inferior races and other methods, forces the conclusion that what appear to be its absurdities are in actual fact means to efficiency. As an Australian I own that I have been helped to this conclusion by the fact that it is no longer the custom in England to treat Australians and other colonists too palpably as “‘ inferior races.”

Canada I found unexpectedly different from Australia and—so far as could be judged from her politicians—looking at Imperial affairs from a different angle. Sir Wilfred Laurier was then in power (1909), and I still remember his gently paternal snub when in talking with him I raised the question of organisation for Imperial defence. _He was emphatic that Canada’s share of the task of Imperial defence was to cultivate her wheat

B lands and build her railways. Armies and navies were rather vulgar expressions of patriotism.

It was later to be made clear that Sir Wilfred Laurier did not represent the true national spirit of Canada. But I left Canada with the thought that when the then-gathering war storm burst, there was not much to expect from her.

It was, on the whole, with an unquiet mind that I faced the Atlantic voyage to the Mother-country. Let me explain the reason for that, though it may give some impression of presumption.

I believed—and a very great number of Australians believed then—that the Empire was growing old at its English heart. The course of the South African war and the disclosure during its development of a world-wide jealousy and even hatred of the British Empire had suggested to Australians who studied Imperial affairs (and despite his Antipodean position, the average Australian is a very keen student of Imperial and foreign affairs) that a grave crisis was coming, and that there was a clear necessity to “ come together’’ to meet it. The Australian has by nature a good conceit of himself and, judging the rest of the Empire by his own standards, he was quite confident that a united Empire could face any event unafraid. But he saw no signs of an attempt to organise for effective unity.

After the South African war, he was more than dubious about the policy which sent Chinese labour to South Africa. Why not have migrated British miners who would have votes and who could carry rifles? And, seeing that clearly the

CHAMBERLAIN’S IMPERIALISM 9 rest of the world did not accept the British colonisation of the best parts of the globe as a wise and providential dispensation, why was not England giving a bold lead to all her children to get ready for the coming struggle ?

Subsequently Mr. Joseph Chamberlain’s call to seek closer Imperial unity by the path of closer trade organisation restored for a time faith in the commonsense of the Mother-country. This seemed to be a good, sensible move, and Australia was keen to back it up. Then, to her astonish. ment, she found that the Mother-country was not of that mind after all; that Mr. Joseph Chamberlain and those who thought with him were driven out of office, and that the real expression of British opinion was apparently that of Mr. Winston Churchill, who saw in that movement for a closer Imperial unity “a conspiracy against the food of the British poor,’ and boasted that he had ‘banged and bolted and barred the door ”’ in the face of the conspirators.

During the first years of the twentieth century the feeling grew in the minds of many Australians that the Mother-country “had had her day” and was lapsing into invalidism. They saw the sea-power of Germany growing, the strength of the rivals of British industry growing, and Great Britain feebly mumbling incantations at the shrines of old Manchester fetishes.

Then came simultaneously, the impudent challenge of the Germanic Powers when Austria- Hungary tore up the Berlin Treaty and threw its pieces in our face, and the disclosure of the German naval programme. And still no movement to prepare from Great Britain !

An Australian approaching Liverpool in the spring of 1909, I had serious thoughts that the dutiful course for a grateful child of a parent who had been a most generous and kindly guardian would be, like another Solomon Eagle, to pass through the streets of London crying “ Woe.” It was a comfort to think that Australia was building an Australian navy and setting up a system of universal training for military service. In Australia, when the world war came, we at any rate would be ready. Canada would not; but she could shelter under the skirts of the United States. England would not; but if she were destroyed, perhaps a remnant of her people would find the old flag still flying in the Antipodes and take shelter there to build up a new British Commonwealth. .

Yes, Australia was the Wee Free Church where alone the Imperial faith was held and practised in its true purity.

‘“ Presumptuous,” the reader may comment. And truly with better understanding I came to think more moderately. But I confess to my thoughts as they were then: they explain the mood in which I came to observe England and the English.

I was taken up at the outset in the gracious atmosphere of an English welcome; had enough time to make some direct observations and to correct some grave misconceptions, and fortunately did not “rush into print.” I found that England was not old and doddering but still in most respects young and vigorous. |

UNPREPARED 11

But in two respects I remained obstinately pessimistic until 1914. It seemed to me quite certain that England was woefully wrong in not making adequate preparations for the coming storm (I ventured to say this first in public on May 24, 1909, at Windsor and thereafter at every possible opportunity until August, 1914) ; and it seemed to me equally certain that a political system, which in the past had brought the Mother-country to such freedom at home and to such generous ideals of governaunce abroad, had failed to meet successfully the new conditions of modern democracy and was breaking down in decay.

Chapter II

On a Friday evening in the middle of May, 1909, I reached Liverpool and gained an insight at once into one of the secrets of how the Englishman of old learned his self-reliance, his ‘“‘ unbeatableness.”’ It was the luggage system. In America and in Australia there is a “check”? method of dealing with luggage. You get a token from the railway company or shipping office, and at the journey’s end your hotel, or the Express Delivery Company you employ, takes the token, collects the luggage and all is well. England, however, treats luggage as a school of national character. You must be sturdy, self-reliant, combative, tactful, diplomatic if you wish to carry luggage about in England. (You may, however, call it “luggage” or “ baggage”? at your discretion: in America you must say “ baggage’ or a negro porter will snort at you in derision as he ae “Yer mean baggage.’’)

At Liverpool our luggage was taken off the steamer and mixed in a confused heap. Then it was distributed over different parts of a huge shed. During this distribution some of it was burst open. When the various packages had been well distributed, we were allowed access and could go round and claim our possessions.

LONDON’S GHOSTS 13

After one hour and a quarter of wrestling with luggage each individual passenger, with the help of a heavily-laden and heavily-tipped porter, saw his own aboard the train and we slid through the darkness towards London, at sixty miles an hour, discovering that the British railway is, for smoothness and comfort, far better than the American. At Huston the luggage ordeal was repeated, the English inhabitants treating it with stoical patience that I, impatient at this waste of time and energy, could not but envy. Yes, it is a fine character for “getting there” quietly—the English; and one foundation of it is luggage.

The cabman whom [ secured at Euston was a hansom cabman out of Dickens, with a voice full of London fog, and a glowing, hospitable nose. Perhaps he really did not know his way, perhaps he had a spasm of dishonesty. Whatever the reason, in driving me to the Savage Club he took me for an extensive tour of London between Temple Bar and Westminster Bridge. The experience was delightful. It was in the small hours of the morning and, passing along hushed streets, the soul of London was awake while its busy material life was for a brief time stilled. The great, grey old city was peopled mainly with her ghosts. Mostly they were cheerful ghosts, of fine men and women who lived sturdily and died courageously even when a little unseasonably and violently.

_ Does the Londoner ever summon to a parade his city’s ghosts, as I did that early May morning, and note what a gallant array they make? How many of them, too, are world ghosts: known wherever European civilisation exists and men are concerned with freedom of religion and of thought, with tolerance and with political freedom? The buildings in their black and grey and brilliant white lent themselves to the fancy of a city of dreams. The towers seemed disembodied and afloat in the air.

In time we came to the front of the Houses of Parliament where the cabman stopped to ask for fresh instructions. For some moments I neglected to answer him for here was Westminster, the shrine of the race; here the seed-plot in which was nurtured the tiny plant of our own Australian freedom. Yonder, high in the pale early morning light, was the Nelson monument. It was the very heart of the English world. What a splendidly dishonest cabman !

* oe sf * *

The Savage Club, to which my Sydney Clubwas affiliated, took me in for the rest of the dark hours (against the rules [ found afterwards ; but in London rules seem to count for naught when it is a question of making a stranger, especially a colonial,” comfortable) and I climbed up a quaint, winding staircase to a quaint little room which overlooked the Thames ; Cleopatra’s Needle one side, Charing Cross railway station the other, across the river a great British Lion standing out in silhouette. A little later, when I found that the lion was the sign of a brewery, I refused to allow it to step down from its niche as a national symbol. Again later, I knew I was right. As a brewery sign it was a national symbol.

THE SAVOUR OF LONDON 15

Looking out on the Thames, a monument of the oldest civilisation on one side, of the newest on the other, the British Lion aggressively perched over both, to sleep would have been a sad waste of time. The centuries were passing in review up that river—the British coracles, the Roman galleys, the ships of the Danes, the Angles and the Normans. I watched for the dawn to come and it came with the herald of the morning in London—an odour mingled of coal smoke and grilled kippers. I became used to it in time, but for many weeks I asked myself why it was allowed to burn soft coal and partially burn kippers within the area of a civilised city.

The “coldness and reserve” of the Englishman’s character, his bleak inhospitality to the stranger, were two misconceptions which I had to abandon at once on English soil. It used to be, I think, a somewhat common impression in Australia that within the charmed circle of English hospitality one may be very happy, but that the difficulties of entry are enormous, the preparatory ceremonial rites protracted and burdensome, and that it is almost necessary to begin with one’s grandfather. The idea had its source probably in the usual behaviour of the Englishman travelling abroad. Abroad something—it may be shyness— keeps the Englishman aloof, reserved, cautious of making or accepting advances towards acquaintanceship.

You cannot travel with the average American for an hour without knowing his walk in life, the pace he thinks he is making in it, his marital and family circumstances and some of the cute things he has done. The Australian is much of the same character as a traveller, giving and accepting personal confidences, and eager to explain himself. The Englishman feels none of this need to explain himself. He is (as Emerson remarked) an island and you must have a valid passport before venturing to land on the shores of him.

But in his home the Englishman is more confident and does not surround himself with hedges of formality. I knew personally perhaps a dozen people in England. A few others knew me by name through association with public affairs. I found more than a score of letters begging me “‘to drop formality ’ and to come to lunch, or dinner or to a week-end. And the pleasant invitation was followed by a pleasant greeting. On his own hearth the Englishman (the term, of course, in this regard includes, indeed puts first, the Englishwoman) proved gracious and delightful. He is, as host, at once the servant and the friend of his guests but he does not make a fuss and a labour of making you feel “ at home.”

One of the invitations was to be the guest of All Souls at Oxford that week-end. It came from Mr. Amery (now at the head of the Admiralty) and then a Fellow of All Souls. I went up to Oxford with him and Mr. EK. W. Grigg (now Sir Kdward Grigg) and saw the Thames valley first in its gay robes of early spring. The journey (it was, 1 think, on the only really fine day of that spring) was one of many delights. I had never seen real grass before. I do not wish to disparage

MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL 17

Australian grass, which is the foundation for good mutton and beef and for the finest wool in the world; and every resident of Australia is quite familiar with Australian grass. There is a drought story of such a long spell of dry weather prevailing in Australia that when the rain did come and the grass grew, the sheep did not recognise it and refused to graze. But grass can always be seen growing—pace the drought stories, which are mostly humorous exaggerations at their source of origin, though often believed literally elsewhere—in most parts of Australia, and I had seen it flourishing two months before. But it is not like English grass; nor, indeed, is any grass in any other part of the world. I have heard many explanations of English lawns and their calm, content green. But they are not explained by any explanation, however fantastic. They are something from the fairy world.

* * x a x

On the journey I saw the gentleman who was then the favourite ogre of the Dominions—Mr. Winston Churchill, who boasted that he had “banged and bolted and barred the door ’”’ in the face of the Dominions statesman who had wanted to help Mr. Chamberlain’s mission of Imperial unity. Fittingly for an ogre, he was in a den-like end-carriage, and he was munching his tea as I peeped in on him. But I could recognise at once he was no ogre. His face was too chubby and good-humoured, for all that it was marked by power and recklessness. I was to see Mr. Winston Churchill often afterwards (though rarely to speak with) and was always interested in studying him ;

often enraged by his speeches; often compelled to admiration by a grandiose egoism and contempt for convention, which he might have learnt direct from Nietzsche. Seeing him at Antwerp (1914) when he was embarked on that wild folly of “saving” a city which had already fallen, and noting that his passion to do something noble and violent deprived him for the time of the most ordinary judgment, I classed him as a horse which gallops blind when excited, or as a torpedo without a gyroscope. He abounds in courage and vigour but does not direct them.

I wonder to how many people who have spent all their lives in a new country there comes the strange good fortune to have their first dinner in England with the Fellows of All Souls? It was for me an occasion of reverent delight. I sat between Mr. Amery and Sir John Simon, two typical young leaders of different schools of Kinglish thought. Both talked, it seemed, for the special benefit of the stranger and in an hour I seemed to know a very great deal of English public life. Sir John Simon was very engaging in conversation, a lambent play of humour and fun in all his talk. I think it was owing to Mr. Amery that somehow I contrived not to go wrong on any point of ritual and marched out in the proper manner to dessert. He was a most charming host and made it a business afterwards to introduce me to many aspects of English life. He was so pleasant that it was grateful to find afterwards that he was such a stalwart in public life—one of the few men on their way to the Front Bench

A NIGHT AT OXFORD 19 who was, for example, not afraid to pledge himself to National Service.

Of the stories I heard that evening one stands out in memory. When a certain runaway Queen appeared in London with a companion and they had resided a sufficient time in a London hotel to qualify for marriage in a Register Office, the Registrar refused, on their appearance before him, to marry them. He had never married a Queen before and he was not going to start the bad precedent of Queens marrying in Register Offices. The baffled couple went to their solicitors, and eminent counsel’s opinion was secured that there was no obstacle to the marriage. Still the Registrar was obdurate. Eminent counsel’s opinion notwithstanding, he was not marrying any Queens in his office. Then it was suggested that it was a case for “political influence”? and to Mr. John Burns, the Ministerial head of the Registrar’s department, the circumstances were explained, and he consented to write a note to the Registrar telling him gently that the law was the law and had to be observed. That was sufficient, and the torch of Hymen was lit for the runaway Queen by the intervention of Mr. John Burns.