A year of prophesying

10.5.24

At the last General Election the British Labour Party was supported with the most whole-hearted enthusiasm by a great cloud of artistic and intellectual workers. It had the Intelligenzia solidly for it. It had all the higher and better theatrical and artistic workers on its side: such great literary names as Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell, such men of science as Soddy. They supported it for a variety of very understandable reasons. They were revolted by the mean and sterile dullness of the two historical but disintegrating parties. They were bored to death by Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Baldwin, Lord Birkenhead, their endless differences, and their essential resemblance. They were attracted by the brave hopefulness and the constructive programme of the new party. They were even allowed to dot the i’s and cross the t’s of its ample promises. No doubt they helped at the election, though Heaven knows to what extent. They certainly brought in youth, ever in love with ideas, to canvass and toil for the party; they brought in clever journalists and able controversialists.

But all that was six months ago. Now Labour has been tarnished by office I doubt whether it will exercise the same compelling magic upon intellectually adventurous people. There is all the difference in the world between encouraging a Labour Party which promises everything glorious, and bolstering up a Labour Government which does nothing amusing. I doubt if the Intelligenzia is likely to be very energetic when the next election comes.

It is not in the nature of an Intelligenzia to support a political party in office. Its function in the community is to criticise actuality, and to startle and enlarge people’s æsthetic, scientific, political, and social perceptions. It is always against the thing that is, and it is always in advance of the thing that can practically be. And what it is saying of the Labour Government now is that it is just as dull and just as shifty and just as futile as a Left Liberal Government would have been. Mr. C. P. Trevelyan seems to have some meritorious intentions about education, and there has been a recognition of Russia—which the Liberals would have given us just as well. Apart from that, what have the Intelligenzia got for all their support of Labour?

In Mr. Ramsay MacDonald we have one of the ablest of living public speakers, a Prime Minister of unparalleled piety and gentility, but that is insufficient to console the Intelligenzia for their general disappointment. The more brightly the personality of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald shines, the less visible are the creative ideas for which their advanced spirits followed him. Instead of some genuine effort toward disarmament there has been the most foolish treatment possible of the business of the five cruisers. There has not even been a gesture towards the nationalisation of transport, mines, and the production of staple commodities. At least the Labour Ministers might have availed themselves of official files and opportunities, to prepare reports, digest facts and set inquiries afoot that would open a way to future nationalisation. The Capital Levy has gone behind a screen. There has been a muddle over housing and a resort to Liberal assistance. These Labour leaders over whom the Intelligenzia waved its banners of constructive Socialism and of a world remade, so bravely, turn out to be for the most part just ordinary politicians abjectly afraid to stop anything or start anything that may affect votes.

There is the utmost symbolical value in the behaviour of the new Labour Ministers towards Court affairs. Great Britain is a monarchy and the Ministers must go to Court, but there was no law and no necessity to require a Labour representative in a Labour Ministry to dress up in an expensive and unsuitable livery. The neat blue serge suit in which such a man would attend a Labour Congress or pay his respects to his God in church or chapel was surely good enough for a Court visit. A red tie, perhaps, in suitable cases could have emphasised the note of Socialism. But no! These men the Intelligenzia worked for and elected as the representatives of a new age must needs set out at once to beg, borrow, or steal the uniform of the old. As the newspaper photographs witness, most of them wear it with little grace or dignity. They have the self-conscious solemnity of a new local mayor in his robes. As a rule it matters little what a man wears, but these liveries betrayed stupendous acquiescences.

It was unfortunate for the good relations of the Intelligenzia with the Labour Party that two police spies were found under the platform of a private meeting of the Communist Party the other day. The Intelligenzia will always have a very tolerant corner in its heart for the Communist Party in Britain and America. The party gets hold of a lot of the best of the young people and does them a lot of good. It is extremist, and you cannot have a healthy mental life in a community in which extremist opinions and intentions are not fairly stated. Prohibition of opinions is an insult to adult citizens. In Great Britain at least the Communist Party is a perfectly legal organisation. It has as much right to hold a private meeting as the Liberal or Tory Party. It is the business of the police and Government to respect and protect its privacy. Mr. Henderson ought to know a lot about the Communists. They supply a healthy criticism and irritant on the Left wing of his party. He ought to have known this police annoyance was going on, and he ought to have stopped it as soon as he came into office. Either he knew this meeting was going to be spied upon or he did not. If he did he does not understand freedom, and if he did not his officials are lacking in respect for him.

In a large number of quite symptomatic affairs the Labour Government either through ignorance or through other preoccupations has failed to take advantage of its opportunities, and each one of these failures estranges some new group of intelligent people. For example, everyone with a vision a little wider than the politician’s realises the importance of China to the future of mankind. In the long run, even the question of the mishandling of the five cruisers may prove less serious than negligence on the part of our Government toward the China Boxer indemnity money. The Chinese ask for a directive voice in that matter. Dr. Tsai is the Chancellor of Pekin University; he represents the best educational influences in China. He comes to London, but he finds most of the Ministers he wants to see too busy trying on their breeches and stockings to see him. He is given a nice talk with a permanent official, and told in the best official style that all his suggestions will be most carefully considered by the “Committee.” The Committee which is to be set up may be just the sort of Committee that destroys the confidence of progressive Chinamen in British good faith. As it was first planned it represented material interests strongly; it had only one member who could be called an educationist; and there was no representative of New China upon it at all. There has been much coming and going since then, and the situation may be to a large extent saved, but if so it will be in spite of rather than thanks to any creative comprehension on the part of the Foreign Secretary or any member of the Labour Government.

One could multiply instances of this sort of wasted opportunity, in which the Labour Government has displayed itself as obtuse and blind as any Government could have been. Mr. Smillie, the other day, rejecting “all understandings with Liberals,” declares that the Labour Party is “out to deal with root causes.” But this Labour Government has never dared to be caught looking at a “root cause” yet. Take the question of birth-control. England is over-populated; it has a million unemployed; it cannot house its population decently, and it cannot educate its numerous progeny above a miserably low standard. But the Roman Catholic vote is organised against birth-control, and the Labour politicians dare not offend the Roman Catholic vote. Yet the housing problem, the unemployment problem, the organisation of education, the relations of the British Empire with other countries, the question of the necessity of war, all become absolutely different according to whether the population of the country is considered as being stationary or expansive. But this present Labour Government does not know whether it is for birth-control or against it. It does not know anything of that sort about itself. It does not know whether it is shaping the future for a restrained or overflowing population. The Intelligenzia, in the enthusiasm of its plunge into politics, thought that the Labour Party—as distinguished from all other parties—did. And generally they are coming to realise how greatly they overrated the creative power and the creative will of Labour.

As the exhilaration consequent upon being allowed carte blanche to write promises for the Labour Party evaporates, the Intelligenzia will revert to its normal and proper aloofness from politicians. The Intelligenzia are the rain and the wind and sunshine of the political field, but not the field-workers of politics. To have the Intelligenzia in a party is like an elemental being married to a mortal. Elementals have magic gifts, but they are not always comfortable to live with. The Labour politicians will feel more and more masters in their own house—at least until the next election—as the critical, exacting Intelligenzia evaporate from the party.