Chesterton's Pamphlets

In addition to eight books, Cecil Chesterton authored a number of pamphlets. I am aware of four of these pamphlets:

Co-operative production an outline of the principles sought to be applied to the granite industry – 1900

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38483390&referer=brief_results

The Basis of Socialism – ca 1905/10

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/54912216&referer=brief_results

The People’s Drink: a Consumers View of the Drink Problem – 1909

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/69921704&referer=brief_results

An Englishman’s Experience with Temperance Reform – 1915

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/39393234&referer=brief_results

Also, a transcript of a debate between Chesterton and George Sylvester Viereck (publisher of the Fatherland newspaper and author of some interesting books such as The House of the Vampire) on “Whether the Cause of Germany or that of the Allied Powers is Just” was published in pamphlet form by Viereck in 1915.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80273771&referer=brief_results

Cecil Chesterton's Grave Site

Since Cecil Chesterton died during military service, his grave site is recorded in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's "Debt of Honour Register." Chesterton's casualty details are available at:
http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=4024807

Gladstonian Ghosts - Our British Moslems

I have no wish to say anything disrespectful of the religion of Islam. In many respects it is a very good religion; without doubt it is a great one and one of the most vigorous in the world. It is said still to make more converts annually than any other. It reigns unchallenged from Morocco to Persia, it is dominant throughout a large part of India, and is spreading more and more every year amongst the wild tribes of Central Africa and the islanders of the Malay Peninsular. In this country the orthodox Mohammedan creed has made but little headway; nevertheless a number of more or less heretical Moslem sects, among which the Wesleyans, the Baptists, and the
Congregationalists are perhaps the most important, flourish there exceedingly and, if not on the increase, are at least fairly holding their ground.

One of the basic moral tenets of the Moslem faith is, as everyone knows, the prohibition of alcohol, and this tenet, despite doctrinal variations, is held with equal firmness by the English sects above mentioned. The analogy is not a fanciful one; I express it in this way because I wish to emphasize the fact that the objection of the Daily News and of those whose views it represents to beer and spirit drinking is an objection not to the social evils inseparable from alcoholic excess, nor to the many corruptions connected with the private drink trade, but simply and emphatically to the thing, itself. It is, in fact, a religious tapu. I can respect it as such, and I can respect the Samoan tapus described by Stevenson, but it is necessary to recognise its nature, if we wish to understand its relation to what plain men mean by the temperance problem.

It may reasonably be deduced that the demand so constantly made that temperance reformers of all schools should unite on a common programme is utterly impracticable. They cannot unite, because they do not want the same things. There is no point of contact possible between those who think beer so bad a thing that they are angry that anyone shold be supplied with it and those that think it so good a thing that they are angry that it should not be supplied in a pure state and under decent conditions; between those who object to the modern public house because they think it at once evil and seductive and those who object to it because they think it demoralisingly ugly and uncomfortable. In short there is no possible community of interest between those for whom the liquour problem is how to supply alcoholic liquors with the greatest social profit and the least social damage and those lor whom the problem is how to prevent such liquours from being supplied at all. "The average man" says Mr. Edward R. Pease "wants beer." This remarkable discovery is alone sufficient to place Mr. Pease at the head of all our temperance reformers, for he is the only one of them who seems to have realised its incontestable truth and importance. His admirable book "The Case for Municipal Drink"* which I strongly advise all my readers interested in the question to obtain and study, is the most perfect presentation I know of the position of those who wish to know how best to supply drink, not how best not to supply it. Contrast it with the views constantly set forth in the Daily News views which may be taken to represent those espoused by at least a large section of the Liberal Party and you have something like a clear issue.

Now if we could only get these two contradictory conceptions of temperance reform clearly defined and separated, the drink question would be a much easier thing to discuss than it is.. Un- fortunately they have got almost indissoiubly tangled by reason of the fact that so many who secretly hold the dogmatic teetotal view will not avow it frankly, while many others (practically the whole Liberal and Progressive parties for example) hastily adopt measures which have no raison d'etre save in this view without thinking seriously about their nature. If the teetotal enthusiasts would say frankly (as some but by no means all of them do) that they want absolute and unqualified. Prohibition and only support Local Veto and the much-vaunted Temperance Policy of the London County Council as steps towards Prohibition then at least we should know where we were. But when the Daily News itself was plainly and publicly challenged by the Rev. Stewart Headlam to say whether it meant that or not, it pointedly evaded the question. The fact is, of course that if this policy were frankly explained its supporters would be snowed under at the next election even more finally than the supporters of Local Veto were in 1895. So they do not avow it, but try to get essentially prohibitionist legislation through under cover of vague phrases like "temperance reform" to which we are all urged to rally.

Take Local Veto for example. What was the main proposal involved in Sir William Harcourt's famous measure. It proposed that every ward (the smallest area known to English local government) should have the right by a two-thirds majority to veto all licenses within its area or by a bare majority to reduce them by one fourth. Now was this measure intended to lead to Prohibition or was it not? If it was, then the English people who did not want Prohibition did well to reject it ; but if it was not, and its supporters generally insist that it was not, whither was it intended to lead. Its obvious effect in practice, as Mr. Pease has justly pointed out, would be that the rich districts, where public houses are few and cannot in any sense be regarded as a social evil, would probably expel them as derogatory to the interests of property and the "character of the neighbourhood," while all the drinking would be concentrated in the worst slum areas, where public houses, not of the best type, are already dangerously numerous and crowded, and where prohibition would have no chance whatever. This is clearly not a temperance reform in any sense of the word. It could have been framed only in the interests of men who regard alcohol as so positively a devilish thing that they rejoice at the destruction of any place defiled by its presence regardless of the ulterior consequences to temperance itself.

The Temperance Policy of the London County Council is at least as strong a case in point. What is this much-trumpetted policy? It is this; that when the County Council has to acquire the license of a public house in the course of making some street improvement, it first pays huge compensation to the publican and then abandon the the license, thus practically throwing the ratepayer's money into the sea. That is all. In the course of its distinguished career the L.C.C. has spent more than 300,000 in this wise and beneficent manner.

Now what does the County Council suppose that it is doing? For a systematic reduction of drink licenses in certain districts there is doubtless much to be said, though I am inclined to think that the importance of this as a factor in the temperance problem is grossly exaggerated. But, if that is to be effected, the whole licensing system must be brought under review and houses suppressed according to a well-considered plan. Care would for example be taken that the worse kind of houses were suppressed and the better retained. The Council suppresses them on no plan whatever simply where it happens to be making a street improvement. The result is, of course, that the gain to temperance is absolutely nil. A street is to be widened; the public houses on one side of the street are pulled down, their licenses purchased and abandoned; those on the other side remain. The people who used to drink on the one side go over and drink on the other. The suppressed publican (or the brewer he represents) gets ample compensation; the unsuppressed publican gets his neighbour's trade in addition to his own without paying one farthing for it And the public ? What does the public get? The satisfaction of knowing that the workman may have to cross the road in order to refresh himself.

The fact is that the Progressive party, dangerously subject to intimidation by the Nonconformist chapels, has adopted a policy entirely meaningless from the standpoint of enlightened temperance, in obedience to the irrational demands of those who think that the destruction of any public house must be a righteous act.

Now the same spirit which revealed in the Local Veto Bill and still shows itself in the County Council policy has been to a great extent responsible for the opposition encountered by the government's Licensing Act. I do not say that this Act could not be fairly criticised upon other grounds. The terms accorded to the Trade are certainly high in my view too high and of the compensation granted too much seems likely (in the case of a tied house) to go to the brewer and too little to the publican. But that is not the ground chosen by the most vehement enemies of the measure. The ground explicitly chosen by them is that the publican is an enemy, a wicked man, whom we ought to punish for his misdeeds. If it were the case of any other trade, would anybody venture to deny that a man whose livelihood is taken away by the arbitrary act of the governing powers through no fault of his own is entitled, whatever be his strict legal position, to some measure of relief. To which the only answer vouchsafed by the teetotal faction consists in windy abuse of the publican as a "vampire." I think that private monopoly in the Drink Trade is a great evil; so is private monopoly everywhere else. But to abuse the man who merely sells what the public demands and the community, instructs him to supply is fanaticism and not statesmanship

Now if, leaving this foolish cult, whose voting power is by no means in proportion to the noise it makes, we ask ourselves what kind of temperance reform sensible reformers really want, we shall not find it difficult to answer.

First and foremost then we want good liquour and especially good beer. Every- one who frequents public houses knows how hard this often is to obtain. Yet beer is our national drink, of which we ought to be proud. Properly manufactured it does no one any harm, though when made of chemical " substitutes " instead of sound malt and hops it is as noxious as any other adulterated concoction. Beer-drinking, within reasonable limits, and provided the beer be sound liquour, is a national habit which no wise ruler would attempt to suppress. For it is the best prophylactic against the inordinate consumption of cheap and bad spirits which really is a national curse in Scotland and elsewhere.

Secondly we want decent surroundings. It is a most unfortunate thing that few temperance reformers have any personal acquaintance with public houses or with alcoholic drinking. For if they had they would know that a man is much more likely to brutalise himself if he is compelled to drink "perpendicularly" in a dirty, ugly, and gloomy bar than if he can sit down comfortably, talk to his friends, play cards and listen, perhaps, to a little music. That is why another phase of the L.C.C. "temperance" policy, the refusal of drink licenses to music halls, is so manifestly absurd. A man who drinks at a music hall, where he is being amused in other ways, is much less likely to get drunk than one who drinks in a public house bar (as such bars are now conducted) where there is nothing to do but to go on drinking. As Mr. Headlam has excellently expressed it, it would be a great deal better policy to turn every public house into a music hall than to turn every music hall into a teetotal institution. The second thing we want then is a humanised public house.

Thirdly we want to get rid of the private commercial monopoly which exploits the drink trade, whereby vast fortunes are made at the expense of the community. These immense profits are the direct result of the monopoly granted by the community to private traders in return for a nominal fee. To grant away what is practically public money in this way is monstrous. It is satisfactory to find that something like High License is foreshadowed in this year's Licensing Act. But High License is not enough.

The sensible remedy is the municipalization of the liquour traffic which would fulfil all the above conditions. The municipal public house would refuse to sell any but the best liquors, and it would supply these with humanising instead of demoralising surroundings. The profits which the public are entitled to the public would receive. And let me say here that there is no reason whatever why we should wait for a municipal monopoly which means waiting till Doomsday. The idea that municipal houses must not compete with privately owned ones rests ultimately upon the mischievous notion already examined that the drinking of alcohol is in itself an evil thing upon which the state ought to frown if it cannot actually suppress it. The typical British workman (whatever "democratic" politicians may say) does not go into the public house in order to get drunk but in order to refresh himself. If the municipality gives him better drink under more pleasant conditions than the publican he will frequent its houses without demanding that drunkenness shall be either encouraged or connived at. And the competition of the municipal house will infallibly raise the standard of those houses that remain in private hands.

Why does not the London County Council abandon its "Settled Temperance Policy" and go as straight for municipal public houses as it has gone for municipal trams? The common answer is that the Council has no power to run public houses; but this is no answer at all. Till this year it had no power to run steamers on the Thames. But it wanted the power, it agitated for it, embodied it in its Bills and eventually forced a Tory House of Commons to concede it. Has it ever asked for power to run public houses? Not once. Moreover, even as things stand, it could if it pleased get to work on the right lines instead of on the wrong ones. Instead of abandoning licenses it could retain them and lease the new houses to publicans at pretty high ground rents and on stringent conditions such as would insure that the house should be of the best type possible under private management. Besides there is Earl Grey's Trust, an organisation founded expressly to anticipate most of the results of municipalism. They could easily have let the Trust take over the licenses, but they have persistently refused to do so. The fact is that the London Progressives do not want to municipalise the retail liquour trade. They do not want to do it, because they dread the power of the Nonconformist chapel and the forces which find their political rallying ground in the local P.S.A., forces of which the guiding principle is not temperance, but a hatred of alcohol per se. But surely it is possible to make a last appeal to the Progressive leaders. After all they have pricked that bubble once. To their eternal credit they have defied and bitterly offended the chapels over the education question, and no very dire consequences have followed. Will they not take their courage in their hands and defy them on the drink question also?

*"The Case for Municipal Drink" by E. R. Pease King & Son.

A History of the United States

It is good to note that Cecil Chesterton's A History of the United States in currently in print and being published by both Hamlin Press and Kessinger Publishing Company.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/A-History-Of-The-United-States/Cecil-Chesterton/e/9781408633724/?itm=3&bnit=H
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/A-History-Of-The-United-States/Cecil-Chesterton/e/9780548736791/?itm=4&bnit=H

Gladstonian Ghosts - Towards Anarchism

There is an entertaining story told (I know not with exactly how much accuracy) of a well-known Liberal trade unionist, who has recently become a Member of Parliament. He is a typical labour leader of the last generation, a Liberal in politics, a Nonconformist in religion, a deacon (I understand) of his native chapel, a veritable pillar of proletarian respectability, and an unflinching opponent of Socialism in every shape and form. Once it was his duty to attend an international congress of the representatives of his trade, where he found, I should suppose, the revolutionary trade unionism of the Continent little to his taste. However, that may have been, a resolution was proposed at the congress in question demanding a statutary eight hours day.

This reputable and independent Briton rose to oppose it, and in so doing made a characteristic Liberal speech, recommending the workmen to rely on themselves, not to appeal to governments, to win what they desired by their own efforts, and so on. Somewhat to his own surprise, the speech on being translated was greeted with no inconsiderable applause applause which at the conclusion of his fine peroration became thunderous, and was mingled with enthusiastic shouts of "Vive J --- et l’ Anarchie!" He had unfortunately succeeded in conveying the impression that by such phrases as "rely upon your own efforts" he meant to indicate the throwing of bombs!

This story gains considerably in point by the events of the last two years. For, during that period, the kinship (always innate) between Liberalism and Anarchism has been made apparent to the whole world in a most startling manner; and we have seen the Nonconformist section of the Liberal party, a section which above all others has always claimed an almost hypochondriac tenderness of conscience, trying to affect the repeal of a measure to which it takes exception, by means of a campaign which involves nothing less than a cynical repudiation of the duties of citizenship and an anarchic war against human society.

Anyone who possesses a temperament sardonic enough to enable him to take pleasure in tracing the moral debacle of what was once a great party can hardly amuse himself better than by following the history of the campaign against the Education Acts both before and after they became law. No one burdened with much moral or social enthusiasm will be able to do so with sufficient calm, for I venture to assert that a more disgraceful debauch of cant, hypocrisy, flagrant misrepresentation amounting sometimes to flat lying, sectarian venom, the prostitution of religious excitement to base ends, all exploited with an utterly shameless disregard of the public interest, cannot be found in the records of English politics for the last century or more.

That is a strong statement; to support it let me recall the facts of the ease. First I would ask a fair-minded man to glance through some of the innumerable letters and articles which have flooded the Nonconformist and Radical press from the first introduction of the Education Bill down to the present time, and I would ask such a man to say what, taking his impressions from this source alone, he would have supposed the purport of that Bill to be.

I think I may say without the slightest exaggeration that he would imagine that its effect must be (i) to hand over all elementary schools to the Church of England to be disposed of at her pleasure, (2) to impose on all teachers in such schools a new and stringent religious test, whose effect would be to prevent any but Anglican (and perhaps Roman Catholic) teachers from obtaining employment. I do not think there is any exaggeration in the above plain summary. On every side one still hears phrases like "handing over the schools of the nation to the Church," "imposing a religious test on teachers," "giving the People's property to the Priest," "establishing clericalism in the public schools," etc., which can have no other rational meaning than that stated above. Now it is not a matter of argument but one of simple fact that the Education Act did nothing of the kind, that nothing of the kind has ever been proposed in the whole course of the controversy. What the Act did do was (i) to give effect in denominational schools (already mainly supported out of public funds) to an enormously increased measure of public control, where before clerical control had been unbridled (2) to mitigate largely the effect of such religious "tests" as can in any sense be said to have existed in such schools. No new "test" of any sort or kind was imposed, and the Provided or Board Schools remain of course entirely unaffected except as to their transference from one publicly elected and unsectarian body to another and far more efficient one.

Consider for one moment the state of affairs which prevailed before the passing of the Act. There were then two kinds of public elementary school recognised by the State the Board School and the Voluntary School Schools of the former type were under the control of School Boards, bodies of irregular distribution and greatly varying importance. It must always be remembered that throughout more than half of England there were no School Boards at all. In the big towns you had doubtless often enough large and efficient Boards administering elementary education over the areas of great cities like London, Glasgow and Birmingham. In the country districts when they existed at all, the Boards were often elected to govern ridiculously small areas (sometimes with only one school in a whole district) and were most commonly inefficient and reactionary.

Such was the situation of the Board Schools: that of the Voluntary Schools was still more impossible. These schools, founded originally on denominational lines, were controlled despotically by a private board of clerical or clerically-minded managers. No effective public control was insisted upon. Even where a voluntary school was situated within a school board area, the School Board had no shadow of authority over it. And, as I have already mentioned, rather less than half of England possessed School Boards at all. The only pretence of public supervision then existing in the case of voluntary schools was to be found in the infrequent visits of notoriously complacent inspectors from Whitehall. Indeed the inspectors had to be complacent, for few voluntary schools had the means to make themselves educationally efficient even though they might wish to do so. Though more than two thirds of the money spent on their upkeep came out of the public exchequer in the form of government grants, the remaining third had to be raised by private subscription, that is to say had to be begged vigorously from the most incongruous people, from Churchmen anxious to preserve definite theological teaching and from rich ratepayers and even Railway Companies anxious to avoid the incidence of a School Board rate. As a natural consequence the schools which, be it remembered, were reckoned as part of the national machinery for education, were counted in the statistics of school accommodation, and were indeed the only schools available for a considerable part of the child population, were in a state of chronic and hopeless beggary, and dragged on a miserable existence, starved, irresponsible, notoriously inefficient, yet practically safe from public intervention.

Meanwhile technical education, unnaturally divorced from elementary, was confided to the care of the County and Borough Councils. Secondary education was nobody's business. It would have been entirely neglected had not some progressive School Boards stretched the term " elementary " to cover as much as they could until sharply pulled up by the Cockerton judgment, while some of the more progressive Councils stretched the term " technical " in much the same way, and would probably, but for the intervention of the Act, have met with the same fate.

Now what did the Education Acts do? The first and by far the most important change which they made was to transfer all education to the County and Borough Councils.* The effect of this was to provide that in future there should be everywhere throughout England one popularly elected local authority responsible for every kind and grade of education within its administrative area, and that this body should be that responsible for local government as a whole. Thus they made possible for the first time the co- ordination of all forms of education and the co-ordination of education with other municipal and local services.

*I omit mention of the proviso whereby certain Non-County Boroughs and Urban District Councils have authority over Elementary but not over Higher Education. The concession was a most unfortunate one, but it does not affect the general drift of my argument.

This change had of course the effect of sweeping away the old system of electing educational authorities ad hoc This seems to have struck many people as a flagrant piece of injustice, an impudent repudiation of democracy, and a shameless invasion of popular rights. It is difficult to understand why. A County or Borough Council is fully as democratic a body as a School Board, if democratic be taken to mean elected by popular suffrages. And if it is seriously contended that a body ought to be specially elected to deal with education alone, because the issues at a general municipal election may be confused, why not carry the principle further and have ad hoc bodies for each branch of local activity? Indeed why should the principle be applied only to local affairs? Why not elect a separate Parliament to deal with foreign affairs another to deal with Colonial matters, another to deal with social reform and so on? The fact is that the much Taunted ad hoc principle never had any real existence. It is not contained, as Nonconformists and Radicals seem to imagine either in the Bible or in Magna Charta; it is no part of the Natural Rights of Man or the Social Contract or even of the British Constitution. It is nothing but the last relic of a thoroughly discredited system of local government. The framers of the Education Act of 1870 themselves knew of no such principle. They created ad hoc bodies to deal with education, simply because government was then so undeveloped in this country that there was no other body to which it could be entrusted.

County Councils did not then exist; the Local Government Act of 1889, which like the Education Act of 1902 we owe to a Tory government, had not yet been passed. Over the greater part of Eng- land there was no democratic local government at all. Therefore it was necessary to create a stop-gap authority to deal with education. Similarly there were in the earlier part of the century innumerable other ad hoc bodies, entrusted with the duties of lighting the streets, making public improvements, etc., but they have all been swept away and their powers absorbed by county, borough, town, district or parish council. In course of time it was inevitable that the obsolete School Boards should follow them into the limbo of rejected experiments. It now only remains for Parliament to complete its work by abolishing our hopeless and discredited Boards of Guardians.

I suppose I ought in passing to refer to the contention that the administrative machinery of the Acts is undemocratic because the Councils are to govern through Committees. The absurdity of such a view will be obvious to anyone acquainted with the machinery of local government. All local bodies act through committees in educational and other matters. The Committee is a purely executive body, absolutely subject to the authority which creates it; and in this respect there is no essential difference between the Education Committee and that which controls the trams, the parks or the music halls.

To return to the other provisions of the Acts of 1902-3. The second effect which they have is to give to the local authority complete control over the "Voluntary" Schools now called Non-Provided Schools in all matters relating to secular education. This, I know well, will sound an audacious statement in the ears of those who have taken their views from the declarations of the Liberal press. I can only re- commend such people to buy a copy of the Act and read it for themselves. They will find that the managers of the non- provided schools are expressly compelled to carry out any instructions of the local education authority in regard to secular education, that in the event of failure to do so they can by a single stroke be deprived of all the benefits of the Act, and that the authority has two nominated representatives on the board of managers who are responsible to the public alone and can at once appeal to the public authority should their denominational colleagues show symptoms of recalcitrance.

Lastly all the cost of maintaining these schools (except for the upkeep of the buildings) is to come from public funds, the balance once borne by private subscriptions now coming out of the rates (bear in mind that already two thirds of their income was derived from taxes) so that a great nation is no longer placed in the humiliating position of having to rely on private charity in order to meet its educational needs, while denominational schools will no longer be able to plead beggary as an excuse for inefficiency.

That in plain English is what the Education Act of 1902 and the London Education Act of 1903 have effected. I defy any Liberal or Nonconformist opponent of the measure to show that I have misrepresented their purport in any particular.

But no sooner was the first draft of the Bill before the country than the campaign of unscrupulous misstatement began. The loudest and most popular cry was that the Bill "imposed" a religious test on teachers. I remember once at a public debate asking a gentle- man who urged this with great rhetorical effect to point out to me the

Clause of the Bill which imposed such a test. There upon I experienced the keen pleasure of watching my antagonists struggle through a copy of the Bill in the hopeless endeavour to find such a clause. Of course he did not find it for the same reason which prevented Tilburina from seeing the Spanish Fleet. There is no religious test imposed by the Act. Its sole effect in this respect is firstly to introduce an elective and non- sectarian element into the body which appoints the teacher and secondly to allow that body to over-ride any religious test imposed upon assistant teachers by the Trust-deeds of the school.

Then came the cry that the "People's Schools" were being "handed over to the Priest." What this meant I cannot conceive. The reference could hardly be to the denominational schools which before the passing of the Act were absolutely under the control of the " Priest " while under the Act his control is to say the least of a very shadowy and much mitigated character. I am therefore forced to the conclusion that those who used the phrase really supposed or at any rate wished others to suppose that the Board Schools were handed over to the Church, which is of course so monstrously untrue_ so devoid of even the faintest shadow of foundation in fact, that it is difficult to put it on paper without laughing.

There is, so far as I can see, no escape from one of these conclusions. Either the Nonconformists who made use of these catch-words and of many others like them had never read the Education Acts, or they were incapable of understanding the plainest English, or, having read the Acts and knowing their purport they deliberately misrepresented them. Take which ever explanation you choose: are they men whom we can safely trust with political power?

Later the agitation passed through another phase. After flagrant misrepresentation came nausious cant and fantastic casuistry. I believe that the English Nonconformists profess a great horror of Jesuits. But nothing attributed to the latter in the fiercest of Pascal's satires can equal the extraordinary casuistical tour de force whereby the former tried to find a distinction between the payment of rates and the payment of taxes. With one voice the Nonconformists declared that it would sear their consciences as with a hot iron if they had to pay a penny towards the support of schools where "Romanising" teaching was given. Whereto sensible men replied by pointing out that for years the Nonconformists had been paying for the cost of such schools out of the taxes. Then it was that the new ethical principle was discovered. It appears to be as follows: It is not wrong to pay money to a national body to meet the cost of supporting Denominational Schools but it is wrong to pay money to a local body for the same purpose, I will not attempt to follow the various lines of argument by which this remarkable conclusion is reached. I merely set down the conclusion itself for the amusement of my readers.

It should be remembered moreover that all the time that they were ranting about " Rome on the Rates " and the wickedness of compelling Dissenters to pay for teaching in which they did not believe the Nonconformists were themselves forcing on the provided schools and endeavouring to force on all schools a form of religious instruction notoriously abhorrent to Anglicans (at any rate of the Catholic type), Romanists, Agnostics and Jews. Could sanctified hypocrisy go further?

Yes, it could and did! No sooner was the Education Bill law than the leaders of Nonconformity with Dr. Clifford at their head entered upon the Opera Boujfe rebellion (mischievous enough despite its silliness) known as "Passive Resistance" That is to say that, fortified by the magnificent ethical principle italicised above, they considered themselves justified in repudiating their plain duties as citizens in the hope that by so doing they might injure the educational machinery of the country. The form which their very prudent insurrection took was that of refusing to pay their rates and compelling the community to distrain on their goods.

With the manifold humours of the movement, with the sale of Dr. Clifford's trowels and the sad fate of his bust of Cromwell, with the evident eagerness of our Nonconformist martyrs to part with their Bibles at the earliest possible moment, with the diurnal letters of Dr. Clifford to the Daily News, with his just anger against the brutal authorities who let a "resister" out of prison, with the even more delicious letters of minor lights of Dissent, with the fear expressed by one of these lest his heroic action should be supposed by the cold world to be merely an economic distraint for rent,* with the olympian wrath of those aspirants for the martyr's crown who found their hopes blighted by the baseness of some unknown person who had cruelly paid their rates for them with none of these do I propose to deal. Doubtless the proceedings of these brave martyr-rebels, whose motto, like that of the conspirators in one of Mr. Gilbert's operas, "is Revenge without Anxiety that is without unnecessary Risk," are delightful, if regarded from the standpoint of humour. It is to be regretted that we cannot altogether afford so to regard them. No Christian can free himself from a sense of shame at seeing Christian bodies sink so low, nor can any patriotic Englishman, whatever his creed, watch the signs of the times without anxiety when he sees what was once a great English party flatter such men and condone such a policy.

*The gentleman in question announced, if I remember rightly that he proposed to avoid this misunderstanding by showing in his front garden a placard with the inscription "MY GOODS ARE BEING SOLD TO PROMOTE RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE." a remarkably candid confession!

Seriously considered the "Passive Resistance" campaign proved two things. The immense impetus which it has gained among the Nonconformists is a symptom of that utter disregard of the public interest which has in all ages been characteristic of political sectaries. The toleration, if not encouragement, of it by the bulk of the Liberal party shows how superficial is the conversion of Liberals from their former anarchic view of civic duty. For "Passive Resistance" cannot be justified except the philosophic doctrines and assumptions of Anarchism be first accepted. Mr. Auberon Herbert might be a passive resister without inconsistency, for he regards taxation as a mere subscription sent by the subscriber to an organisation of his own choice and to be used only for such purposes as he may approve. He therefore maintains that all taxes should be voluntary and, were he to " resist " at all, would doubtless resist in the case of all state expenditure which he may think undesirable, armaments, wars, state ceremonial, and even municipal enterprise. Now this theory, if once accepted, will tell much more against the progressive side than against the reactionaries. The Nonconformists are as likely as not, I imagine, to "resist" the payment of money required to start a municipal public house; taking example from them, other persons may resist payment of taxes needed to furnish old age pensions on the ground that their con- sciences forbid them to allow their money to be used for the discouragement of the virtue of thrift. In a word the only logical conclusion of the "passive resistance" policy is complete Anarchism - Anarchism from which the Liberal ideal sprang and in which it will end. For us Collectivists, of course, the problem does not arise at all. From our point of view it is not Dr. Clifford's money that is going to support Roman Catholic schools, but some of the money which the community allows Dr. Clifford to handle subject to certain conditions, one of which is that he should pay his contribution towards the general expenses of government. If he does not like the use made of it, he has his vote as a citizen and such influence as his abilities may command, and that is all he is entitled to. That is the case against Passive Resistance, and I can only say that, if it is invalid, the whole case for taxation is invalid also.

Finally what strikes one most about this propaganda is its utterly cruel and cynical carelessness of the interests of the children. At a time, when education is so necessary to our national existence, it is no light thing when a deliberate attempt is made by responsible citizens to wreck our educational machinery in the interest of a group of sects. This is no exaggeration. We are told explicitly that the object of the agitation is to make the Education Act unworkable, that is to say to make it impossible to educate the children properly. How far in this direction the leaders of the movement are prepared to go may be seen from the case of Wales, where they are dominant and can act as they please. There they have formulated a policy whereby the deliberate ruin of Welsh education will be brought about by Welsh "patriots," the object being to defeat what they are pleased to call the "Welsh Coercion Act," which of course is not a Coercion Act at all, but merely an Act making provision for the upkeep of the children's schools in cases where local authorities neglect their duties and leave the unfortunate children fireless and bookless. I could wish that the Non- conformist leaders, who are so fond of the "Open Bible" would devote a little attention to Matthew XVIII 6.

Where it will all end no-one can say. Given favourable circumstances and a fair and firm administration of the law, I believe "Passive Resistance" in all its forms would soon die of its own inanity. The Dissenting Anarchists failed to capture the L.C.C. thanks to the patriotism and good sense of the Progressives at whom they have been snarling ever since ; and it hardly seems as if, outside Wales, they would achieve much in the arena of municipal politics. In Wales, where they have perhaps a slightly stronger case, some compromise might be effective, the proposals of the Bishop of St. Asaphs might form a basis for discussion. But, of course, the whole situation would be profoundly changed, were a Parliament dominated by Dissent to be returned at the General Election. In that case the settlement of 1902 would be upset, whole question would be flung once more into the melting pot, and our educational system would be fought for by Churchmen and Dissenters, as two ill-tempered dogs fight for a bone. That is what is quite likely to happen if we are not very careful, and serious educationalists can only look to the future with anxiety and disquiet. Though perhaps in the last resort we can rely on the House of Lords!

Gladstonian Ghosts - The Fetish of Free Trade

Let it not be supposed that I propose to argue the eternal Fiscal Question here. For the last twelve-month and more we have had quite enough flinging backward and forward of childish platitudes, scraps of obsolete economics, and masses of irrelevant and ill-digested figures by both parties to the controversy. You are quite safe from figure-shuffling as far as I am concerned, and you are equally safe from bodiless a priori economics. For me, indeed, the question is not one that can ever be decided on general principles.' To ask whether nations ought to adopt Protection is exactly like asking whether men ought to wear over-coats. Obviously in both instances the answer depends on a number of attendant facts not stated on the weather, the constitution of the men, and the thickness of the coats in the one case, on the character of the people, the distribution of their wealth, the state of their commerce, and the character of the proposed tariff in the other. Tell me that you wish in certain specified circumstances to impose protective duties on certain specified imports, and I am willing to examine the evidence and express an opinion. But so long as you put the issue as one of abstract principle, I must ask to be excused from indulging in what seems to me an utterly barren and profitless exercise in immaterial logic.

Of course, as I have already insisted, there is a sense in which every Socialist is of necessity a Protectionist and Preferentialist. As Mr. Bernard Shaw once expressed it, (I quote from memory) he believes that the highest wisdom of governments is to know "what to protect and what to prefer." For him the Utopia of "economic harmonies" is a foolish and mischievous dream. He knows that the commercial instinct unless subjected to energetic and un- sparing state supervision, is certain to become a cause of ruinous social disorder. His whole mind will be set to the task of regulating it, directing it, curbing its excesses, and protecting the public interest against it. In a word the advanced social reformer of the new school is necessarily an emphatic Protectionist, only differing from Mr. Chamberlain and his supporters in that he gives to the word "Protection" a wider scope and a fuller meaning than they.

Now it inevitably follows that there is not and cannot be any kind of objection from his point of view to a protective tariff on grounds of principle. The theoretic objection which used to be urged against such a tariff was founded on the assumption that Adam Smith, Bastiat and others had demonstrated the futility and peril of all legislative interference with commerce. Cobden put the whole case as he and his party saw it in one phrase of one of his ablest speeches, when he declared that you could not by legislation add anything to the wealth of a nation. That is a doctrine which no one (save perhaps Mr. Auberon Herbert) now holds; which no one who approves for instance of any kind of factory legislation can possibly hold. And that doctrine once fairly out of the way, the question becomes simply one of expediency and the balance of utilities.

But, when we come to the balancing, another point of divergence instantly arises. The Socialists' conception of utilities differs in essence from that of Free Traders and Protectionists alike. For Mr. Chamberlain, for Mr. Morley, for the Tariff Reform League and for the Cobden Club, the aim of commercial statesmanship is simply and solely to increase the aggregate commercial wealth of the country. But this is by no means what the Socialist is mainly concerned about. His object is not so much to increase the sum total of such wealth as to secure its better distribution and more socially profitable use. He sees that the economic struggle between nations is by comparison a matter of surface fluctuations, while the economic struggle between classes is an enduring and essential feature of our social system. And whether or no he likes the old Marxian phrase "Class War," he is bound to recognise the existence of a class antagonism cutting right across society as a fact without the understanding of which the structure of capitalist civilisation is unintelligible. This implies that the Socialist, whether he be a "Free Trader" or no, has to dismiss as untenable practically the whole of the old economic case for Free Trade. Adam Smith did doubtless prove that under a system of absolutely free exchange, every country would tend to engage in those trades which were (for the moment at any rate) most commercially profitable to it ; but he never proved or attempted to prove that these would be the trades which were most socially beneficent. It might, for example, happen that the White Lead trade proved the most commercially advantageous industry in which English- men could engage. But would any modern reformer say that in that case it would be well for us to abandon all our other industries and take to the manufacture of white lead with all its inevitable concomitants. It may be urged that such a case is not likely to occur. But cases differing from it only in degree may very well occur have indeed occurred already. Such a case is the decline of our agriculture and the consequent flooding of the towns with cheap unskilled labour; such also is the tendency already more than faintly visible for small trades, largely unskilled and often sweated, to supplant our staple industries. And these things, though they are the inevitable consequence of unrestricted competition and though Cobden would have regarded them with complete equanimity, are the very things against which social reformers have for years been fighting a long and apparently a hopeless battle. No Socialist can give them a moment's toleration. Whether Socialists will think Mr. Chamberlain's remedy adequate is another thing. For Mr. Chamberlain's point of view a purely commercial one is at bottom identical with that of his Cobdenite opponents.

And it is just this that makes mere statistics of trade and comparisons between imports and exports so barren and misleading. What we want to know is not how much tribute the capitalist gets out of our foreign trade, but what wages the labourer gets, what are the conditions under which he works, and what is the amount of employment available. Thus for instance foreign investments pay the capitalist as well as British investments and are accordingly highly esteemed by the Cobdenites as "invisible exports." But they are not equally satisfactory to the workman who loses his job and drifts into the ranks of the unemployed. From this point of view Protection if it kept capital in the country and even attracted foreign capital might be eminently beneficial to the workers, even though the aggregate of national wealth were thereby diminished.

Now we have reached two conclusions. Firstly that Socialists will approach the tariff question with an open mind; secondly that they will approach it mainly from the standpoint of its effect upon the social condition of the people and upon the distribution of wealth. That, I say, is what one would naturally expect Socialists to do. What the English Socialists and the leaders of organised labour in this country have actually done is to fling their Socialism and their "class-consciousness " to the winds, to stampede once more into the Liberal camp (as they did before over South African affairs), to sing pious hymns in honour of the memories of Bright and Cobden, oblivious of the former's opposition to factory legislation and the latter's freely expressed detestation of trade unionism, to trot out for the confusion of Mr. Chamberlain the very doctrines which Socialist economists have spent the last fifty years in riddling with destructive criticism, and generally to devote their energies to the hopeless task of strengthening the ruined fortifications which protect Liberalism from the attacks of the time-spirit.

When the Fiscal Question first began to agitate the minds of Englishmen the new-born Labour Party was in an unusually strong position. It was as yet uncommitted on the subject, and both sides would willingly have paid a high price for its support. Nothing strikes one more in Mr. Chamberlain's early speeches than his evident anxiety to gain at all costs the sympathy of Labour. And the Liberals were at that time equally anxious. Had the leaders of British Trade Unionism followed the excellent example set them by Mr. Redmond and the Irish Nationalists, had they held their hands and said frankly to both combatants " What social reforms will you give us as the price of our support ? " what unprecedented pressure might they not have been able to exert ! To Mr. Chamberlain they might quite fairly have said "You say that all is not well with British Trade": we agree with you, we have been saying so for years. But before we accept your proposed remedies we want reliable guarantees that the working classes shall not be the sufferers. Tack on to your programme a maximum price for bread (or some system of municipal bakeries which would achieve the same object) and a minimum wage for labour, and we will consider them." To the Liberals again they could have said "You tell us that Mr. Chamberlain's policy will not remedy the evils to which he rightly draws attention; granted, but what is your remedy? If we help you to resist these proposals what drastic measures are you ready to pro- pose for dealing with the unemployed and kindred problems?" Had they taken this line, they might have achieved much. But, having the game in their hands, the labour leaders deliberately threw all their cards away. Directly the question of fiscal reform was mooted, without waiting for any pledge from either party, they began to violently espouse one side and violently denounce the other. By this they fruitlessly abandoned their excellent strategic position. Mr. Chamberlain, seeing that he had nothing to hope from them, treated them as enemies and organised the Tariff Reform movement frankly as a purely capitalist affair, leaving Labour out of account in the formation of his celebrated Commission as completely as Cobden himself left it out of account in the formation of the Anti-Corn Law League. The Liberals on the other hand are not so foolish as to give pledges to those who do not ask for them, so that the opposition to Mr. Chamberlain is as completely capitalist- ridden as is his own propaganda. Thus, instead of standing to win either way, Labour now stands to lose either way. Should Mr. Chamberlain succeed, as he very well may, if not at this election at the one after it, his tariff will be framed by powerful organisations representing capital and finance, who will naturally follow their own pecuniary interests. Should the Opposition triumph they will come into power quite unpledged, save to Lord Rosebery's programme of "commercial repose" which is the newest name for our old friend "laissez faire." And we shall be unable to make use of the stir made by Mr. Chamberlain's agitation, as we might well have done had we acted wisely, in order to get measures which we really do want and which are in some sense of the nature of counter-remedies the nationalisation of railways, an imperial shipping fleet with preferential rates, and the re-organisation of our agriculture by state aid and state supervision.

But there are reasons other than tactical ones why Labour should have refused to adopt the Liberal attitude of non-possumus in regard to fiscal reform. Whether or no Mr. Chamberlain's tariff scheme would have been favourable to the interests of labour,* there are a great many proposals which are clearly and unmistakeably in its interests which are yet in their nature protectionist even in the narrow sense in which that word is ordinarily used.

*Lest I should be accused of "sitting on the fence" (a phrase much beloved by those who always want to have judgment first and evidence afterwards) I may as well state definitely that in my opinion a protective tariff, if framed by genuine reformers solely in the public interest, would be decidedly advantageous to Labour.

It is characteristic of the Liberal party that even when it has dropped accidentally across a right conclusion it invariably seizes with great eagerness upon the wrong reasons for supporting it. The most striking example of this is to be found in the case of Chinese Labour. For myself, I detest Chinese Labour, and am prepared to go, I fancy, a good deal further than the Liberal front bench in fighting it. But then I am a Protectionist; and I believe that a plentiful supply of cheap labour is the worst curse with which a nation can be visited. The Liberals and their Labour henchmen, precluded by reason of their Free Trade orthodoxies from taking up this sane and tenable position, have to devote their energies to denouncing the "slavery" involved in the conditions of the Ordinance. Now no Socialist can be expected to get very excited on this point. He hates slavery, but he recognises that in one form or another it is an inherent part of the capitalist system, and the difference between telling a man that he must work for his master or be imprisoned and telling him that he must work for his master or be starved, can hardly seem to him important enough to make all this fuss about. Moreover "forced labour" is implicit in the Socialist ideal, though most of us would prefer to begin by applying it to the Rand shareholders. As a matter of fact the conditions of the Ordinance are a mitigation of the evils resulting from Chinese Labour, not an aggravation of them. They serve to circumscribe to some extent the limits of the damage which the imported Chinaman can do. My objection to them is that I do not for one moment believe that they can be made effective. But the danger of denouncing the conditions of importation instead of denouncing the importation itself, is that one of these days our Hebrew masters will say to us: "Very well. You object to conditions; you shall have none. We will import Chinamen freely and without restriction, and they shall supplant white men, not in the mines only, but in every industry throughout South Africa. We shall reap still larger dividends, and the danger of a white proletariat will be still more remote. Now we hope you are satisfied." What will our Free Trade Labourites say then?

A less serious but more amusing example of the shifts to which trade union leaders are sometimes reduced in their efforts to reconcile the obvious interests of the workers with their holy and sacred "Free Trade Principles" was afforded by an episode which took place at the Leeds Trade Union Congress last year. It appears that in certain mines in these islands the capitalists have taken to employing foreign un- skilled labour. Their motives are doubtless the same as those of the Rand magnates, namely to bring down the price of labour all round by the competition of indigent Poles and Italians with the fairly well-paid workers of this country. It was a very natural thing for capitalists to do; it was an equally natural thing for workmen to resist. They are resisting and a resolution was proposed at the Congress condemning the employment of foreign unskilled labour in the mines. So far so good; but now comes the comedy of the situation. To exclude the foreigner as a foreigner is clearly protection of the most barefaced kind; and the proposal had to be recommended to a body which had just declared in favour of unmitigated Free Trade. Then some genius had an almost miraculous inspiration. It was suggested that the foreigner ought to be excluded, not because he was a foreigner, not even because his labour was cheap, but because he could not read the Home Office regulations which are hung up in the mines. The plea was eagerly clutched at, and seems to have been received with all solemnity. The correspondent of the Daily News who had at first regarded the resolution with natural suspicion felt all his scruples vanish, and actually hailed the declaration as proof of the unflinching Cobdenism of the workers. Now what I want to know is does anyone, does the Daily News correspondent himself really believe in the sincerity of this ridiculous excuse? Would the British miners have been satisfied if the regulations were printed in Polish or Italian? Or, supposing this to be impossible, would they be satisfied if the immigrants learnt enough English to read them? Of course they would not. The objection to foreign unskilled labour is a purely protectionist objection, as inconsistent with Free Trade as anything proposed by Mr. Chamberlain. I may add that it has my entire sympathy.

Very soon, much sooner I think than they suppose, the leaders of organised labour will be forced by the sheer pressure of events to throw "free trade principles " over-board and find another foundation for their economic faith. For buying in the cheapest market clearly implies buying labour in the cheapest market; and the capitalists will not be slow to grasp its consequencesat a time when the expansion of European civilisation is every day throwing new drafts of cheap labour on the market. Less developed races with a lower standard of life are exceedingly useful weapons to the hand of the capitalist eager to force down wages. Already the appearance of the Chinaman in South Africa is parallelled on the other side of the Atlantic by the employment of negro blacklegs to defeat the Colorado strikers. What has happened in Africa and America may happen is indeed beginning to happen here. Are the labour leaders prepared to go on defending Free Trade, if Free Trade should prove to mean the free importation of great masses of cheap blackleg labour from Poland, Italy and China? And, if they so far abandon Free Trade as to shut out such labour, what about the goods which it produces? Suppose the capitalist, forbidden to bring the Chinaman here, take to exploiting him in his own country, relying on our policy of free imports to secure the admission of his sweated goods. Will not the champions of labour begin to regard the question of free imports in a different light? The slope is steep and slippery and the end is Protection!

Yes the Labour party will have in the end to become protectionist. Already progressive municipalities do not buy in the cheapest market but in the best market, regard being had to the remote social consequences of the purchase. And since the home market is the only one where they can exercise any real or effective supervision over the conditions of production, we have the curious spectacle of local bodies with a big Liberal majority forced into what is in effect a policy of Protection by the protests of unimpeachable Free Trade Labourites such as Mr. Steadman. Of course the new Protectionism will not be that of Lord George Bentinck or even of Mr. Chamberlain. It will "protect" not the landlord or the capitalist but the labourer and if to this end import duties are found useful it will make no more fuss about imposing them than any other necessary piece of state intervention.

Gladstonian Ghosts - "Militarism and Aggression"

We are continually being told by Socialists of the hazier sort that Labour has no concern with the question of national defence. We have had recently a considerable ebulition of this particular form of imbecility provoked by the efforts of one who has always seemed to me quite the sanest and most far- sighted of English Socialists, Mr. Robert Blatchford, to draw general attention to the importance of the subject. Mr. Blatchford is in controversy very well able to take care of himself, and in this instance he has overwhelmed his critics with such a cannonade of satire, eloquence, indisputable logic and inspired common-sense that it would be quite impertinent of me to offer him my support. But the episode is so very typical of the ineffable silliness of "advanced" persons that I cannot pass it by without comment.

As to the contention so much favoured by those who have been assailing Mr. Blatchford's "militarism" that England is not worth defending and that a foreign invasion would be no evil to the bulk of the people, the position has been so thoroughly dismantled by "Nunquam's" heavy artillery that I need hardly trouble about it here. As Mr. Blatchford says, a few weeks of Prussian or Muscovite rule would probably be the best cure for reformers of this type. But the whole argument is on the face of it absurd. That your country is badly governed is an excellent reason for changing your present rulers. But it is no reason at all for welcoming (patriotism being for the moment set on one side) a cataclysm which would destroy good and bad alike the good more completely than the bad and would inevitably throw back all hope of reform for at least a century. As well might a man say that, since London was admittedly in many ways an ugly and horrible place, he proposed to vote for the abolition of the fire-brigade.

So also with the very popular platitude which asserts that a peaceful and unaggressive people need not fear attack, and that, if we refrain from injuring our neighbours they will refrain from injuring us, (unless presumably we happen to be North Sea fishermen). The obvious controversial retort is that the people who maintain this doctrine are for the most part the very same who a little while ago were never tired of maintaining that the Boers were peaceful and unaggressive and lamenting that in spite of this their country was attacked conquered and annexed by a powerful neighbour. Of course I do not accept this account of the Boers, whom indeed I respect far too much to accuse of Tolstoian proclivities. But the point is plainly unanswerable for those who do accept it. In any case the whole of the above lofty generalization is flatly contradicted by history and experience. Indeed, if the strong will not wantonly attack the weak, then is our preaching vain! Why are we Socialists? What is the good of Trade Unionism? The humane capitalists will not attack us if we remain "peaceful and unaggressive" Perhaps not. As Mr. Hyndman (I think) once said: One does not muzzle sheep! But, if there is anything which the whole history of human institutions proves, it is this, that the people that does not know how to defend its liberties will lose them, and that it is not the strong and aggressive nation but the weak and defenceless nation that has cause to dread aggression from its neighbours.

In a word the doctrine of non-resistance and its consequence, the abolition of armaments, is good Anarchism and may therefore in a sense be called good Liberalism. But Socialism it is not and cannot be.

There is however, a position sometimes maintained by controversialists rather saner than those dealt with above. It is suggested that, while it may be admitted that an army of some sort is necessary, there are plenty of people already concerned with the promotion of its efficiency, and that Socialists, having other and more important work to do, had much better leave the question alone, intervening only to restrain the militarists when their demands become excessive.

Now to this contention there are as it seems to me three complete answers. By far the most important objection to such a policy is that it would make it permanently impossible for us to gain the confidence of the electorate. The people of Great Britain (especially the working classes) will always demand as the first condition of supporting any government that it shall be able and willing to defend the country against foreign aggression. No party which was not thought to fulfill this condition would find it possible to achieve or retain administrative power. And those of us whose desire is not to sit in arm chairs and read Tolstoi and congratulate ourselves on the non-conformity of our consciences, but to get some sort of socialism put into bricks and mortar, must feel the urgent necessity of convincing the voters that we are trust- worthy in this respect.

Moreover if you leave the discussion of army reform to the representatives of the landed and capitalist classes, such reforms as we get will be carried out exclusively in the interests of those classes. At present our military and naval forces are officered and controlled by one class; they are an appendage of that class and will always, so long as this is so, be employed successfully to protect its interests. So long as the English people are asked to choose between such class army and the risk of a German invasion, they will choose the former, but it by no means follows that they would do so were a practicable alternative placed before them.

And this brings me to my third point. It so happens that for the purpose of formulating an alternative. Socialists are in an exceptionally favoured position. Our army has by common consent broken down. It is not even effective for the purposes for which the capitalist classes want it. It is not only, as foolish people suppose, the War Office that is decadent and inefficient; the army is decadent and inefficient. Our soldiers are perhaps the best raw material in the world, but the whole machinery of war and defence is eaten up by a corruption which is all the worse for being largely careless and unconscious The two worst enemies of the British Army are the power of money and the power of caste. These are our enemies also. We Socialists alone are in a position to see what is really wrong. Would it not be worth our while to bring our best brains to bear upon the subject and see whether our Socialism cannot provide us with a remedy.

In spite of the unfortunate prevalence of the sort of sentimentalism referred to above, there have always been in the socialist movement witnesses to the common-sense view of militarism. Here and there throughout this volume I have been obliged to criticize the attitude of the Social Democratic Federation; I therefore admit the more gladly that on this question that body has indubitably led the way. Its views are obtainable in the form of a remarkably able pamphlet* from the pen of Mr. Quelch, wherein the old Liberal Quakerism is thrown completely overboard and the institution of universal citizen service on something like the Swiss model put forward as the socialist solution of the problem of national defence. The Fabians followed in "Fabianism and the Empire," adopting a suggestion of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb's that the half-time age in factories and workshops should be raised to 21 and the time thus gained devoted to training in the use of modern weapons. Finally there is Mr. Robert Blatchford, whose plan is too elaborate to be detailed here I refer my readers to his articles in the Clarion during July, August and September last year and to his forth- coming book on the subject but whose cardinal demand is for an immense increase in the numbers and efficiency of the volunteers, who are to form a citizen force of almost national dimensions. Of course the Fabian programme and, I gather, Mr. Blatchford's also imply the existence of at any rate a small professional army in addition.

Now it seems to me that the one defect of the S.D.F. plan is that, if I understand Mr. Quelch's pamphlet rightly, it professes only to provide a militia for the defence of these islands. That is to say it does not provide for the defence of our possessions in different parts of the world nor for any aggressive movement against the territory of the power with which we chance to be at war; while even for purely defensive purposes it is open to the grave military objections which can always be urged against relying solely on irregular troops.

I have already discussed the question of Imperialism and I need not go into it again. But I suppose that all but the most fanatical Little-Englanders, whatever their views on expansion, would admit that it is both our right and our duty to assist in the protection of our fellow-citizens in other parts of the world against unprovoked attack. If, for example, Germany were to make a wanton attack on Australia, or Russia on India, or the United States on Canada, I suppose that every sensible Englishman would admit that we ought to come to the assistance of our fellow-countrymen. But in that case we shall want an army for foreign service as well as for home defence.

The other point needs rather more explanation because it is constantly misunderstood by people who will not try to comprehend the nature of war. Such persons are always confusing aggresssion in the political sense as the cause of war with aggression in the strategic sense as a method of conducting it. A war may be waged solely for defensive purposes, yet it may be the right course from a military point of view to take the offensive. France found this in the wars of the revolution; and Japan fighting (as I believe) for no other purpose than the protection of her own independence against the lies of Russian diplomacy and the brutalities of Russian power, has yet been obliged to conquer Korea, invade Manchuria, and lay siege to Port Arthur. Similarly we might easily find ourselves engaged in a purely defensive war with France or Germany, in which it might be still the only safe policy to raid the territory and seize the over-sea possessions and especially the coaling-stations of our enemies.

As a matter of fact the distinction so often made between offensive and defensive war is more theoretic than practical. It is seldom possible to say in the case of a modern war that either side is unmistakably attacking or defending. Which side was the aggressor in the Crimean or Franco-German wars? Are the Japs aggressors because it was they who actually declared war or are they only defending their country? The real question to be asked is not which side is the aggressor, but which nation is so situated that its triumph will be beneficial to mankind as a whole.

Lastly there are the serious disadvantages from a military standpoint of trusting to a citizen force alone. Experience seems to prove that such a force is suitable only to a certain kind of warfare. The example of the Boers to which Mr. Quelch appeals so confidently tells directly against him. The Boers doubtless did wonders in the way of guerrilla fighting and in the defence of strong positions, but they never followed up their successes effectively, and they had to waste a great deal of time, when time was of the utmost value to them, in sitting down before Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking when a professional army of the same size would have taken all three by assault.

It seems to me that we can get an excellent military policy for Socialists by a judicious combination of the three suggestions to which I have referred. Taking Mr. Webb's plan first, let us by all means by a modification of the Factory Acts (much needed for its own sake) train the whole youthful population in the use of modern weapons and not in the use of modern weapons alone but in the best physical exercises available and above all in discipline, endurance and the military virtues. Then, following Mr. Quelch and the S.D.F. we might keep them in training by periodic mobilizations on the Swiss pattern without subjecting them to long periods of barrack life. From the large citizen force so formed we ought to be able to pick by voluntary enlistment a professional army which need not be very large, but which should be well-paid, efficiently organised and prepared for any emergency. Another and larger professional army would be needed for the defence of distant dependencies such as India.

These forces must, of course, be constituted on a basis of equality of opportunity, efficiency and reliability and capacity to command being the only passports to promotion and no bar being placed between the most capable soldier, whatever his origin and the highest posts in the army. From the purely military point of view this would be an enormous improvement on the present system, It is worth noting that the two armies which, organised in an incredibly short space of time out of the rawest of materials, broke in pieces every force which could be put into the field against them, the army of Cromwell and the army of the First Republic, were alike based on the principle of the "career open to talent." So the policy which I suggest would, I sincerely believe, convert our impossible army into one of the best fighting machines in the world. Not only would the officers under such a system be more capable than some of the fashionable commanders, whose glorious defeats and magnificent surrenders we were all eulogising five years ago, but better chances and a higher rate of pay would attract to the ranks of the professional army the very best type of man for the purpose, which the present system can hardly be said to do.

Beyond this we want an effective General Staff and an Intelligence Department not only alert but strong enough to enforce its demands on the government, as well as a complete overhauling of our war-machine both on its civil and military side. But there is no space for details here ; Socialists could hardly do better than leave them to Mr. Blatchford to work out*

* There is one of Mr. Blatchford's proposals to which I feel the strongest possible objection; that is the suggestion that those who do not volunteer for his citizen force should pay extra taxation. This sounds fair enough, no doubt, but its effect would clearly be that the rich could escape service and the poor could not which is hardly a Socialist ideal. Surely 'it is sounder policy to make such citizen training as you give compulsory for all able-bodied citizens.

No one who thinks seriously of the consequences of such a policy can doubt that, if it could be carried out, it would effect a greater transference of real power to the democracy than any Reform Bill. The objection which most reformers instinctively feel to any proposal to increase military establishments rests, I fancy, at bottom on their sense that such establishments are organized by a class to protect its narrow class interests. So it is that British troops are found useful to British governments not only in Egypt and South Africa but also at Featherstone and Bethesda. With such a military organisation as I have suggested this menace would disappear. Nay, the weights would be transferred to the other scale. Nothing, I conceive, is so likely to put a little of the fear of God into the hearts of our Liberal and Conservative rulers as the knowledge that they have to deal with a democratic army and a democracy trained in arms. This, I know, will sound shockingly heterodox to idealistic persons who are fond of repeating (in defiance of universal human experience) the foolish maxim of John Bright, the Quaker apologist for plutocratic Anarchism, that "force is no remedy," and the equally unhistorical statement that "violence always injures the cause of those who use it." But practical men pay little attention to such talk, knowing that nothing helps a strike so much as a little timely rioting and that the most important reforms of the late century were only carried when it was known that the mob of the great towns was "up." As a matter of fact, force is the only remedy. If Socialism comes about, as I think it probably will in this country, in the constitutional Fabian way, this will only mean that the Socialists will themselves have captured the control of the army and the police and will then use them against the possessing classes, forcing them to disgorge at the bayonet's point. And, if it does not superficially wear this aspect, that will merely be because the latter, seeing how invincible is the physical force arrayed against them, may very likely surrender position after position at discretion until they find that they have no longer anything to defend.*

*Since these pages were sent to the press a striking confirmation of my view has been furnished by recent occurrences in Russia. There, it will be remembered, the populace (acting on strictly Tolstoian principles) marched unarmed to lay their grievances before their Sovereign. We all know what happened. They were shot down and cut to pieces by Cossacks. One hopes that the survivors will be less faithful to Count Tolstoi's gospel in the future, and will perhaps realise that "moral force" is an exceedingly poor protection against bullets and bayonets.

It may be remarked incidentally that social reform would receive a considerable impetus from such a policy.

Not only would periodic mobilizations take the workers for a time out of the foetid atmosphere of their slums and factories and perhaps make them less contented to return, but the heads of the army would themselves be compelled to become social reformers and insist on some decent minimum of housing and factory conditions in order to keep up the physical efficiency of the material of which they would have to make soldiers. Herr Molkenbuhr the German Social- Democrat pointed out to the Socialist Congress at Amsterdam this year that this had happened in Germany even under an undemocratic and often really oppressive form of conscription. An immense impetus given to housing and factory legislation would be among the by-products of Army Reform, if carried out on the right lines.

I have left myself no space here to deal adequately with the Navy. I will therefore pass it by here with the remark that an invincible navy is absolutely essential to the welfare of the workers of this country, whose food comes almost entirely from overseas, and that the navy has never been like the Army a menace to popular liberties. It is generally thought that our navy is in a much more efficient state than our army is known to be in ; but a thorough overhauling would do it no harm and might expose weaknesses which we do not suspect. At any rate any attempt to weaken our naval predominance should be resolutely opposed by all Socialists as by all sensible men.

Of course an effective army and navy will cost money. But the Socialist will be by no means so frightened of high estimates as the old Radical who regarded all taxation as being of the nature of a compromise with Satan. The Socialist knows that at least 600,000,000 a year goes at present into the pockets of landlords and capitalists and shareholders generally, and, until this is absorbed, the cry of "ruinous expenditure" cannot be expected to appall him.

Works Cited by Chesterton:

Social Democracy and the Armed Nation
Twentieth Century Press, 373 Clerkenwell Green,
E.C. id.

Fabianism and the Empire,
edited by Bernard Shaw, the Fabian Society, 3, Clements Inn, W.C. 3d.