Essays in Rebellion

XXII

One night Mr. Clarkson, of the Education Office, was rather late in leaving the Savile Club. He always makes a point of selecting the best articles in the Nineteenth Century, the Fortnightly, and the Contemporary on the first Monday of every month, and, owing to a suspension of political activity in the House of Commons, he had lately spent more time than usual over the daily papers as well, since they could now afford greater space for subjects of interest. He noticed with some regret that it was half-past eleven as he came up Piccadilly and admired, as he never failed to admire, that urbane aspect of nature's charm presented by the Green Park.

It was late, but the evening was cool and dry. He wished to follow up a train of thought suggested by the question: "Should Aristotle be left out?" but, to preserve his mind from exclusiveness, he now and then considered it advantageous to plunge into what he called the full tide of humanity at Charing Cross. So that night, instead of making his way by the shortest route to his rooms in Westminster, he strolled, with a pleasurable sense of sympathetic abandonment, through the usual crowds that were hurrying home from theatres or supper-room.

But he soon perceived that all the crowds were not usual. Some were not hurrying; they were stationary. They were nearly all men, unrelieved by that subdued feminine radiance which Mr. Clarkson so much valued in the colour scheme of London. They were mainly silent. They appeared to be waiting for something.

"Is the King returning from the Opera?" he asked a policeman near King Charles's statue. But the policeman regarded him with a silent pity so profound that he suddenly remembered a King's recent death and the mourning in which the country was still partially immersed. No, it could not be royalty, and, feeling for the first time like a stranger in the centre of existence, Mr. Clarkson hurriedly crossed the road.

Between the top of Northumberland Avenue and Charing Cross Station he observed another crowd of the same character, but in thicker numbers still. Unwilling to eschew any emotion that thus stirred his fellow citizens, he approached the outskirts and waited, in hopes of gathering information without further inquiry. But the crowd was doggedly silent. Nearly all were reading the evening papers, and the few snatches of conversation that Mr. Clarkson caught appeared to be meaningless. At last he ventured to accost a harmless-looking, pale-faced youth in a straw hat, who was reading the latest Star, and asked him what he was waiting for.

The youth looked him up and down from head to foot, and then slowly uttered the words: "I don't think!"

"I'm so very sorry for that," said Mr. Clarkson, a little irritated, but, as he turned hastily away he reflected with a smile that, after all, one should be grateful to find imbecility so frankly acknowledged.

Next time he was more diplomatic. Standing quietly for a while beside a good-tempered-looking man, who was evidently an out-of-work cab-driver, he yawned two or three times, and said at last: "How long shall we have to wait, do you think?"

"Depends on cable," said the cab-driver. "Got a bit on?"

"Well, no; I haven't exactly got anything on," said Mr. Clarkson, uneasily; "but may I ask what cable you mean?"

"Don't be silly," said the cabman, and spat between his feet.

"Cheer up, long-face!" said another man, who had been listening. "He only means the cable from the States. Perhaps you've never heard of the White Man's Hope?"

Light at last broke upon Mr. Clarkson. "Of course," he said, "it's Independence Day! I've seen the American flag flying from several buildings. It has always appeared a most remarkable thing to me that we English people should thus ungrudgingly accept the celebration of our most disastrous national defeat. Such entire disappearance of racial animosity is, indeed, full of future promise. I suppose, if you liked, you might without exaggeration call it the White Man's Hope?"

"Stow it," said the cabman.

"No doubt the day is being marked in the United States by some special event," Mr. Clarkson continued, "and you are waiting for the account?"

No one answered. An American was reading aloud from a newspaper: "If the Imperturbable Colossus gets knocked out, a general assault upon all negroes throughout the States may be expected to ensue. The wail that goes up from Reno will be re-echoed from every land where the black problem sits like a nightmare on the chest. It is not too much to say that a new chapter in the world's history will open before our astonished eyes, so adequately is the gigantic struggle between the black and white races prefigured in the persons of their chosen champions."

All listened with attention.

"That's what I call thickened truth," said the American, looking solemnly round. "If that coloured gentleman with a yellow streak worries our battle-hardened veteran and undefeated hero of all time, the negro will grow scarce."

"They've been praying for Jeffries in all the American churches," said one, in the solemn pause that followed this announcement.

"So they have for Johnson in the negro churches," said another, "but he counts most on his mother's prayers. She lives in Chicago."

"It is peculiar in modern and Christianised countries," said Mr. Clarkson, anxious to show that he now fully understood the point at issue; "it is peculiar that the opposing parties in a war or other contest implore with equal confidence the assistance of the same deity."

"Millionaires is sleeping three in a bed at Reno. There's a thing!" said the man who was most anxious to impart information.

"The gate comes to £50,000, let alone the pictures," said another. "Each of them's going to get £500 a minute for the time they fight."

"Beats taxis," said the cabman.

"It's hardly fair to criticise the amount," Mr. Clarkson expostulated pleasantly; "the £500 represents prolonged training and practice in the art. As Whistler said, the payment is not for a day's work, but for a lifetime."

"Who are you calling the Whistler?" asked the cabman; "Jim Corbett, or John Sullivan?"

"Jeffries ate five lamb chops to his breakfast this morning," said the man of information, "and Johnson ate a chicken."

"Wish I'd eat both," said the cabman.

"What do you think of the upper-cut?" said the other, turning to Mr. Clarkson to escape the cabman's frivolity.

"Well, I suppose it's a matter of taste—upper-cut or under-cut," Mr. Clarkson answered, smiling at his seriousness. "Most people, I think, prefer under-cut."

"Johnson's right upper-cut is described as the piston of an ocean greyhound making twenty-seven knots," said the man, taking no notice of the answer, and speaking in awestruck tones. "Do you know, one paper describes Johnson as the best piece of fighting machinery the world has ever seen!"

"I thought that was the last Dreadnought?" said Mr. Clarkson.

"Perhaps you don't study the literature of the Ring," the other answered, with cold superiority.

"Oh, indeed I do!" cried Mr. Clarkson eagerly. "It is rather remarkable what a fascination the art of boxing has frequently exercised upon the masters of literature. Even the Greeks, in spite of their artistic reverence for the human body, practised boxing with extreme severity, and on their statues, you know, we sometimes find a recognised distortion which they called 'the boxer's ear.' It seems to show that they hit round rather than straight from the shoulder. The ancient boxing-gloves were intended, not to diminish, but to increase the severity of the blow, being made of seven or eight strands of cow-hide, heavily weighted with iron and lead. There is that fine description of a prize-fight in Virgil, where the veteran—'the imperturbable colossus' of his time, I suppose we may call him—almost knocks the life out of the younger man, and sends him from the contest swinging his head to and fro, and spitting out teeth mingled with blood—rather a horrible picture!"

"Ten to six on the boiler-maker," said the cabman; "I'll take ten to six."

"And then, of course," Mr. Clarkson continued, "in recent times there are splendid accounts of the fights in Lavengro and Meredith's Amazing Marriage, and Browning once refers to the Tipton Slasher, and we all know Conan Doyle."

"No, we don't," said the cabman.

"It seems rather hard to explain the attraction of prize-fighting," Mr. Clarkson went on, meditatively; "perhaps it comes simply from the dramatic element of battle. It is a war in brief, a concentrated militancy. Or perhaps it is the more barbaric delight in vicarious pain and endurance; and I think sometimes we ought to include the pleasure of our race in fair play and the just and equal rigour of the game."

The crowd gasped. Then it shouted, it swore, it broke up swearing.

"Negroes had best crawl underground to-night," said the American; "it ain't good for negroes when their heads grow through their hair."

"Another proof," sighed Mr. Clarkson, "another proof that, on Roosevelt's principle, the United States are unfit for self-government."

When he reached his rooms it was nearly one, but a door opened softly on the top floor, and the landlady's little boy looked over the banisters and asked: "Please, sir, did Jim win, sir?"

"Let me see," said Mr. Clarkson, "which was Jim?"

XXIII

Surely at the Hague Conference, in the fulfilment of time, peace had come on earth and goodwill among men. Here once more would sound the song that the morning stars sang together, when all the sons of God shouted for joy.

As loaders in that celestial chorus, I found about 400 frock-coated, top-hatted gentlemen from various parts of the world—elderly diplomatists, ambassadors inured to the stifling atmosphere of courts, Foreign Ministers who had served their time of intrigue, professors who worshipped law, worthy officials primed with a stock of phrases about "the noble sentiments of justice and humanity," but reared in the deadening circle of uniforms, decorations, and insincere courtesy, having no more knowledge of the people's desires than of the people's bacon, and instructed to maintain the cause of peace chiefly by safeguarding their country's military interests. An atmosphere of suspicion and secrecy surrounded them, more dense than the fog of war. For their president they elected an ambassador who had grown old in the service of three Tsars, and now represented a tyrant who refused the first principles of peace to his own people, and repressed the struggle for freedom by methods of barbarism such as no general could use against a belligerent in the stress of war without incurring the execration of mankind.

With commendable industry, those delegates at this Second Peace Conference devoted themselves to careful preparations for the next war, especially for the next naval war. They appeared to me like two farmers making arrangements to abstain from burning each other's hay-ricks. "Look here," says one, "this rick-burning's a dangerous and expensive job. Let us give up wax vestas, and stick to safety matches." "Done!" says the other. "Now mind! Only safety matches in future!" and they part with mutual satisfaction, conscious of thrift and Christian forbearance. Or, again, I thought the situation might be expressed in the form of a fable, how the Fox of the Conference said to the Rabbit of Peace, "With what sauce, Brer Rabbit, would you like to be eaten?" "Please, Mr. Fox, I don't want to be eaten at all," said the Rabbit "Now," answered the Fox, "you are gettin' away from the pint."

Neither in the representatives nor in their governments can we find any principle or passionate desire for peace. The emperors, kings, and men of wealth, birth, and leisure who impudently claim the right of deciding questions of peace and war in all nations, display no objection to war, provided it looks profitable. Provided it looks profitable—what a vista of devilry those words call up! What a theme for satire! But also, to some extent, and in the present day, what ground for hope!

To advocates of peace, here comes a gleam of hope at last—perhaps the strongest gleam that has reached us yet. Upon the kings of the earth, sitting, as Milton said, with awful eye; upon diplomatists, ambassadors, Foreign Office officials, courtiers, clergy, and the governing class in general, appeals to pity, mercy, humanity, religion, or reason have had no effect whatever. If you think I speak too strongly, look around you. Name within the last century any ruler or minister who has been guided by humanity or religion in the question of peace or war. Name any ruler who has abstained from war because force is no argument. With the possible exception of Mr. Gladstone in the cases of the Alabama and Majuba Hill, I can think of none. Against that one possible exception place all the wars of a century past, including three that were among the most terrible in human history—the Napoleonic war, the Franco-German, and the Russo-Japanese. And as to the sweet influences of Christianity, remember the Russian Archbishops, how they blessed the sacred Icons that were to lead the Russian peasants to the slaughter of Japanese peasants. Remember our Archbishop of Canterbury in February 1911 deeply regretting that a previous engagement prevented him from passing on the blessing of the Apostles to the battleship Thunderer. Remember how he sent his wife as a substitute to occupy the Apostolic position in the hope that the hand which rocks the cradle might prove equally efficacious.

Against the pugnacity and courage which urge our rulers to send other people to die for them, the claims of humanity, reason, and religion have no effect. The new hope is that self-interest may succeed where the motives that act upon most decent people almost invariably fail. Norman Angell's appeal goes straight to the pocket, and his choice of that objective inspires hope. If rulers can no longer plead that by war they are advancing the material interests of their State, if it is recognised that even a victorious war involves as great disaster as defeat, or even greater (and it is remarkable that, in one of his latest speeches, Moltke maintained that, next to defeat, the greatest disaster which could befall any State was victory)—if it can be shown that, in a war between great nations, trade does not follow the flag, but moves rapidly in the other direction, then one of the pretexts of our rulers will be removed, one veil of hypocrisy will be stripped off. To that extent the hope of peace will have grown brighter, and that extent is large.

There is one other point that may obscure the hope arising from Norman Angell's book. His main contention concerns wars between great Powers, nearly equally matched—Powers of high civilisation, with elaborate systems of credit and complicated interdependence of trade. But most recent wars have been attacks—defensive attacks, of course—upon small, powerless, and semi-civilised nations by the great Powers. Under the pretext of extending law and order, justice, peace, good government, and the blessings of the Christian faith, a great Power attacks a small and half-organised people with the object of taking up the White Man's Burden, capturing markets, contracting for railways, and extending territory. To wars of this kind, I think, Norman Angell's comforting theory does not apply—the great illusion does not come in. A strong Power may conquer Morocco, or Persia, or seize Bosnia, or enslave Finland, or penetrate Tibet, or maintain its hold on India, or occupy Egypt, or even destroy the Dutch Republics of South Africa, without disorganising its own commerce or raising a panic on its own credit. Most actual fighting has lately been of this character. It aims at the suppression of freedom in small or unarmed nationalities, the absorption of independent countries into great empires. It is the modern counterpart of the slave-trade. It is supported by similar arguments, and may be quite lucrative, as the slave-trade was.