SWEEPING THE COUNTRY
They say it does; and I hardly wonder! The broom is so long and searchful; it goes into so many holes and corners that surely not a single spider’s web is left unvisited. It gathers up the pale dust of British gullability with an admirable adroitness, and what is perhaps the best thing about it is that it pays for its sweepings. Not every broom does that! But I am told—I do not assert it or vouch for it—that it is a German broom; and no make of broom in all the world is more capable of industry or more resistless to wear and tear. Opposed as we are, and as we must be, to German militarism, German labour will, I fear, be always ahead of us, especially if the German worker puts in eight or ten hours where the British decides to give only four or six. This is a matter for future testing; in the meanwhile let us consider with attention, in capital letters “THIS MORNING’S NEWS ABOUT PELMANISM,” as it appears in that esteemed journal The Sunday Times, to which I have had the honour to contribute. It is but the other day that I was assured “on the highest authority” (as the bewildered press reporters at the Peace Conference have expressed it) that “Pelman” was originally spelt “Poehlmann,” and that at discreet intervals his “Magic Card” would be followed by another, inscribed “Roth.” Both names have the euphonious Teuton ring about them, and they both imply Money—money spent lavishly and magnificently on the “flowing tide of Pelmanism” by way of opulent and ceaseless advertisement in all the newspapers which joyously yield their columns to cash rather than to intelligent information, and give up whole pages to “Pelman” or “Roth” indiscriminately, in competition with a kindly Swedish masseur or exercise-man, who in equally lavish announcements and large type, promises health to the healthless even as “Pelman” and “Roth” promise brain to the brainless. Of “Roth” I know little except that according to advertisement “he is a remarkable man” (of which I am entirely convinced), but of “Pelman” I have learned something at first hand. I have learned, for instance, how it is that the spacious, tremendous, profuse, and overpowering advertisements of this system of brain-forcing flood every corner of the press, squeezing out by their size and the space they occupy legitimate news of interest to the public; of course, the first and chief reason is that they are paid for. Everything in every line of business, pleasure or social position, is paid for; even the clergyman who professes to show you the way to heaven is paid for. Then surely it follows that Pelman or Poehlmann must be a multi-millionaire? No! he need not be. As the controller of the “flowing tide” he may make others pay, and so may command cash without being personally wealthy. He no doubt realises the truth of what a certain frank proprietor of pickles assured me—“If advertising is done well and continuously it brings in double and treble the money it costs.” And the channels in which the “flowing tide” is set to run are cleverly prepared and delved out in the shifting sands of British innocence and credulity—two admirable traits of our national character. It is a touching thing to realise that the guileless Briton should so simply confess himself to “Pelman” as mindless and memory-less—and it is equally pathetic to discover in the “Census” of “Pelmanists” there can be counted one barmaid, one bacon-curer, and one “corporation official”! “Art and music and literature are being re-born,” says Pelman—and no doubt the Pelmanists are already in travail. It is all very clever and amusing; a little comedy in which the guileless Briton is the bear that dances to the Pelman pipings. I admire cleverness wherever I find it; it is a star in the general murk of stupidity, and I am the last person in the world to depreciate the brilliancy of its glitter. But it has interested me to study the movements of this particular scheme, and chance or fortune placed one or two threads in my hands which seemed to suggest a clue. Briefly then, I was offered Fifty Guineas to “write up” Pelmanism. The offer came through a very agreeable and enterprising journalist, employed, I presume, to secure fresh supplies for the “flowing tide,” and he added to his own personal and friendly entreaties a considerable quantity of literary matter setting forth the miraculous improvement in heretofore dull brains under the influence of Pelman or Poehlmann. I made a careful study of these documents, and the first thing that dawned on my own dim intelligence was that every would-be student of the “course” would be called upon to pay six guineas, either in one sum or by “easy instalments,” though one can have a copy of the book entitled Mind and Memory (which tell “all about” Pelmanism but does not instruct) gratis, and in that book are “particulars” showing how one can obtain the “course” at a reduced fee. Thanks to my journalist friend I had the gratis book (in its forty-fourth edition, and for this reason called “The World’s Most Widely Read Book”—well! with all diffidence allow me to hint that this is incorrect, as I myself am the author of one or two books in their fifty-first editions), but the “Course” did not tempt me to disburse guineas, not even had I accepted the Fifty offered. (I may say here that I never accept “tips.”) But I could not, and cannot refrain from considering how, if the scheme works successfully, as of course it must, the British public are paying for these splendid advertisements! Paying so well that it is easy to understand how the Pelman promoters can afford to pay Fifty Guineas, more or less, to the obliging individuals who are ready and willing to praise the “system.” Canon Hannay (“George A. Birmingham”) for instance—does he get Fifty Guineas? Or Mr. Spencer Leigh Hughes, M.P.? Or dear George R. Sims? Or Mr. Gilbert Frankau? Or do they send in their testimonials gratis? I feel that I cannot be the only “eminent” (to quote advertisement) person who has received the munificent offer of Fifty Guineas, and refused the same! In the Pelman “Census” I note there are 339 accountants, 8 actresses, 490 clergymen, and—one archbishop! Whereby it would seem that accountants and clergymen need more brain-prodding than others. And if the “one Archbishop” should consent to “write up” the advantages of the “course” (like Mr. Will Owen, who declares that, artist though he professes to be, he had “hardly begun the first lesson in Pelmanism before he discovered something he had been drawing incorrectly all his life), sure His Grace would merit a Hundred Guineas for his good work at the very least? Anyhow his fee should be more than that of a “bacon-curer” or a novelist! In openly confessing the offer to myself of Fifty Guineas which I refused without a moment’s hesitation, I do so that I may call the attention and admiration of the public to the clever way certain people manage to make money through human gullability. The brain-prodders and memory-pushers are almost as astute as Government officials. The mass of people who never stop to think, still less to calculate, are their happy hunting-ground. Personally I think Pelman and Roth too “sharp” to be of the Anglo-Saxon race, though I do not assert them to be Germans, naturalised or de-naturalised. But they have the Teuton line of intelligence; that is, wherever they find a good thick soil of stupidity, they plant seed therein, fertilise it and make it grow. These special people who feed the coffers of journalism by purchasing whole pages of space for their advertisements, are so convinced of the thickness and richness of Anglo-American stupidity that they boldly offer to transmute it, like alchemists, into the gold of intellectual ability, and if this could be done ’twere a worthy thing. But one must pause at the idea they put forward—“If only we had 1,000,000 clever thinkers!” It is too terrific! This poor earth of ours could not survive! Its rolling ball like a bomb would burst in space, overburdened by the sheer weight of brain! Be merciful, therefore, O munificent Pelman! spare us, gentle Roth! Do not instruct the bacon-curer or train the Archbishop beyond what we have the strength to endure! Do not compel us to bow the knee to the “barmaid” as another De Stael!—to the “corporation official” as a new Admirable Crichton! It is the American philosopher Emerson who writes, “Let the world beware when a Thinker comes into it!” But “1,000,000 thinkers!” The prospect is horrible—spare us, good Lord! We have much to be thankful for in Carlyle’s famous assertion “most fools,” for if our population were all wise, life would be dull indeed! Fools make the gaiety of nations—they are the staple support of all governments—the foundation of the press and the drama—the stock-in-trade of all authors, philosophers, and wits whatsoever, and Heaven forbid we should ever be deprived of their existence! We are always more or less in the position of Shakespeare’s “melancholy Jacques” and ready to say, “A fool, a fool, I met a fool i’ the forest! as I do live by food I met a fool!” and when we chance on company with this simple friend of all men should we “Pelmanise” or “Roth” him? Never! He is too valuable an asset to the world!
TO SAVE LIFE OR DESTROY IT?
A CHALLENGE TO CERTAIN CLERGY (Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
Does the Christian Church profess to follow the teaching of Christ? Or the Law of Moses? That is to say: Is it Christian or Jewish? If Jewish, its “sabbath” should be kept on Saturday, in conformance with the rest of the Jewish world; if Christian, then, according to Christ, we may, if necessity compels, do imperative work on Sunday. But a section of our clergy are up in arms at the idea of “profaning the Lord’s Day” by allowing labour of tillage and planting the land on Sundays, for the necessities of the nation’s food. Where do these contentious persons get their authority? Not from their divine Master! Their spirit is that of the Scribes and Pharisees who “watched” Our Lord—“whether he would heal on the sabbath day, that they might find an accusation against Him.” The world has not outgrown that contemptible spirit. “That they might find an accusation” is often everybody’s aim and clearest business! “Then said Jesus unto them—I will ask you one thing: Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good or to do evil?—to save life or destroy it?” And when the hypocrites could not answer Him, He healed the afflicted man who had sought His aid, whereat those who had “watched” Him, so says the Gospel narrative, “were filled with madness and communed one with another what they might do to Him.” But, despite His scorn of their narrow sectarianism, “He went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”
No true servant of Christ can find the least excuse in any one of the Divine Teacher’s commands for a rigidly sectarian observance of Sunday. A seventh day’s rest was wisely and rightly instituted by Moses for the relief of the Israelites when they had been worked as slaves by their Egyptian taskmasters; but Christ never incorporated its observance as any part of the instructions He gave to His disciples. “What man shall there be among you,” He said, “that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out? How much, then, is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore, it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.”
Mark those last words! They were spoken by One “in whom there was no guile.” It is lawful to do well on the sabbath days. And yet, Oh! narrow and rigid men who “profess” Christ, you, who see and know that on the feeding of our population depends their health, their strength, and their ultimate victory over a barbarous foe, you would discourage the willing hearts and hinder the ready hands from virtuous and unselfish labour on Sundays in a time of unexampled national necessity! Shame! For the blessing of God must be on all such honest workers whose toil is for the help and honour of their country. Christ told us there were but two commandments, not ten—the first: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength”—and the second: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”
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Now what do the dogmatists make of this? If we truly love God, we surely know His “work” never ceases. We could not live a second without His sustaining principle. Every moment of every hour some active propulsion of creative force labours to produce a result which is perfect of its kind. On whatever day we sow our wheat we cannot stop its growing on Sundays. The energies of Divine beneficence never slacken. If they did, existence itself would be at an end. Our “love” of God must therefore include our consciousness of His unresting “work” for His creation. Then, if we are to love our neighbour as ourselves, it follows that we must care for his sustenance as well as our own. In times like the present we must help him to produce food for himself and his family, even if we till the land on Sundays, which, so employed, may be considered truly “holy” days. For “it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days,” and it is better to benefit a neighbour than listen to a sermon. That is, if we accept the teaching of Christ and assume to be Christians. The times are pressing; the necessity for food production urgent; and men owe it as a duty to the land God gives them that it should yield sufficient to keep the population in health and safety. Therefore, if this needful, noble work has to be done quickly, there is no sin, but rather great virtue and self-sacrifice, in working on Sundays as well as weekdays during a time of war and stress. If any of the clergy can quote a single one of Christ’s own words forbidding necessary work on Sundays, let them do so. Christ’s own words, remember! They are generally ignored by all Churches. Had they ever been obeyed, the purity and strength of a perfect Faith would, long ere this, have exterminated War. Now, all good “Christian” clergy, who object to necessary national work on Sundays, produce your Master’s warrant for such action—if you can! I say you cannot!
THE WAR LOAN
HOW IT MIGHT BE INCREASED (Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
We are all bound for victory. Every nerve and sinew of every man and woman in Imperial Britain is bent on the task of winning it, not only for ourselves, but for the whole civilised world. America knows, and the intimidated and secretly tampered with neutrals also know, as well as we do, that the full triumph of the Allies means their great peace as well as ours—their advantage, their progress, their commerce, as well as ours. That brave and straight-speaking hero of science, Thomas Edison, recently said: “The people of the world have willed that they shall be their own masters, and what the people will is sure to come to pass.” True enough, it is the people only who can realise every aim, every ideal, every conquest; and in this matter of the War Loan they can raise a veritable mountain of gold if they so determine. But—there is a “but” in their willingness: an obstacle in the race—they will not give as much as they would if they have to realise that some of it or any of it may be used to pay wages and provide food for German foes dwelling in our very midst.
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Think of it! Is it reasonable, is it just, to ask this patient, docile, strong, and law-abiding people of Britain to give their lives, their homes, their children, their time, with all their service and money, towards the vigorous and incessant prosecution of the war, when they know that there are more than 20,000 German foes kept at large in this realm, free to do as they will? Twenty thousand, who go about in all towns and villages unchallenged, listening, spying, noting every coign and circumstance of vantage, and often (assuming to be English themselves) using persuasion to prejudice the Loan among the uninstructed classes.
Twenty thousand enemies, prepared and ready to work devastation at the first opportunity, while we “hush up” all that may seem unchivalrous or to the dear creatures’ detriment! Is it right that these same Germans should have their own meeting places and restaurants in London as freely as if they were in Berlin? And, to add insult to the injury of the whole position, is it even sane that our authorities should actually permit Germans to work in our munition factories? Germans who, when they leave the works and go to their eating houses, take off their munition badges and spit on them in token of their contempt for Britain, even while they are accepting British pay and eating British food!
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What does it mean, this employment of Germans in British munition factories? Death-dealing explosions, of course! What else can any one, not entirely a drivelling idiot, expect? Is it likely that a German will make shells absolutely as they should be made for the destruction of his own countrymen? No; he would rather burn down the whole factory!—and he does if he gets the chance. Nor can he be blamed; it is the authorities who are to blame for putting him in the way of temptation to murder. There is something so “dumb-driven, cattle-like” in the sheer stupidity of two or three of our Governmental Departments that one is fain to compassionate them as one might compassionate sheep bumping their heads against a stone wall and expecting to get through.
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If a house is threatened with burglary, is it reasonable to ask the burglar in on a “dine and sleep” visit? Yet that is what is being done with the Germans in our country to-day. And it is not possible that our people can or will rise to their full strength, either in service or in money, as long as they are affronted by the presence of the enemy in the centres of their business and social life. The extraordinary indulgence shown to the Huns in London is a perpetual worry to our French friends, who cannot understand it. They discuss it and deplore it as a sign of weakness. But whatever it is, we may be sure it will not be allowed to last. Once the people take the law into their own hands nothing will stop them. Après ça le deluge!
No spitting on British munition badges then! No extra allowances of food to German prisoners while British folk are ordered to measure their rations! No “official” posts for men with German wives! Taken as a whole, the position is more than scandalous. The British people have every right to demand that their own land shall be cleansed of all the associates of the pirates and murderers who slay their men, women, and children without mercy, and who yet remain here, living at the nation’s expense. Every German at large in these islands is a walking “wireless” of swift and useful information to headquarters. Each new device of Britain for worsting the foe is at once conveyed to those most interested, and our newspapers, frequently more zealous than discreet, lend their aid by giving details, and often illustrations, of the latest of our scientific inventions for warfare.
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It is time this matter was handled boldly, with “gloves off,” as Queen Elizabeth would have handled it. She would have sent all Germans out of the country at the very declaration of war, and so would have saved an infinite number of treasons against the State. Late in the day as it is, why not send them now? Send them all, in comfort and luxury if you will, with “rations” of first-class food, on British ships flying the British flag, and let them take their chance of the kindness and humanity of their own countrymen. They will be useful additions to the “national service” of their Vaterland—we do not want them here. Our own men and women will suffice us for our own labor, and work will be done more readily, while money will flow in more plentifully, when we are sure that our own land is purged of the Hun, and that we are not, like fools, paying to keep and feed plotters against the peace of the realm.
FOOD PRODUCTION
A PLEA FOR COMMON SENSE (Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
Talk of “National Service!” Where is the man, woman, or child that refuses to do any really necessary or useful work for the country? Such cannot be found! There is an eager and splendid willingness in every one to give his or her best; but without proper organisation the fine forces of this fine, patient, and enduring people are scattered and disunited. From all that the bewildered mind can gather through the roaring megaphone of an apparently semi-crazed and ruinously expensive system of advertisement, the National Service most demanded is “food production.” So says Mr. Prothero. Very well. Then why not set about it in an orderly practical manner, without screaming our shortcomings aloud for the amusement of the Germans? There is no difficulty whatever in sufficient food production if some sort of method be brought into the present chaos. Take this for an example:—
With the help of an old soldier with a wooden leg and an old man of seventy, a pig farmer and market gardener was able to put on the market in six months £1487 worth of pork and £174 of garden produce.
In the next three months he anticipates an addition to his stock of about 240 pigs from his twenty-five breeding sows.
Already he has 211 pigs on the place, apart from the breeding animals.
What can be done in one place can be done in another, and if every rural town and village were encouraged to work its own allotments, if every cottager were persuaded to grow his or her own garden produce, and keep pigs and poultry, half the food problem would be solved. Why not organise such a plan and concentrate scattered forces? It would be a mistake to confide the management of such a scheme to “local” magnates, whether mayors or members of corporations, for those who have any experience of such “bodies” know well enough what hindrances they are in the way of active progress, having always their own axes to grind. But an impartial, unprejudiced, friendly director of each agricultural centre, a man or woman of helpful, sympathetic and practical knowledge, who would encourage the workers and spare them any of that “superior” tone of insolence so hurtfully employed by some of the temporary jacks-in-office on our military tribunals, could very easily energise the whole business. Suppose, too, that instead of a daily patter about potatoes and “shortage,” the Government were to offer prizes from ten to a hundred pounds for the cottagers and holders of allotments who, in six months, should produce most food for their own families and neighbours, would it not cost less money than the printing of millions of “food tickets”? Certainly, it would hearten, not dishearten, the workers, and give them an extra zest for “production.”
Moreover, it is high time our rulers and Ministers left off talking about “shortage of food” altogether, if the following is true:—
A statement made in the House of Commons recently emphasises the fact that German agents are still active in this country. In refusing to supply a member with certain information about the supply of aeroplanes, he said: “Any answer we give in this House is at once sent to Germany.”
Printed or written information can always be stopped by the censor. The question remains: How is the information conveyed?
How, indeed? Why should we give the Huns the satisfaction of supposing we need food? Or allowing them to think their U-boats are “blockading” us into famine? Let the public keep its “weather eye” open, and consider recent events in Russia! There, part of the German scheme was “to create an artificial scarcity of food, so as to precipitate food riots and compel a separate peace.”
Beware of the dog! How about Great Britain? Who can swear that the same “influence” is not at work here, “to create an artificial scarcity of food”? And if it should be so, why do our politicians fall sheer into the trap and spread the mischief which the foe may have started? Food was poured into Petrograd as soon as the German “unseen hand” was cut off. It is a significant fact worth remembering!
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Again, let it be emphasised that there is no difficulty about food production in these islands if the work be properly organised. Food is not grown on emotional impulse, such as that displayed by a charming lady I lately met, who told me with sweet resignation: “I will not have flowers in my window boxes this summer. I shall plant potatoes in them instead!” Dear soul! She evidently thought it worth while! Just as some folks think it worth while to dig up and disfigure the parks of London with potato growing when there is any amount of waste land around which needs cultivation! One deplores “the falsehood of extremes.”
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If we are to accept Mr. Prothero’s statement, the most important line of “national service” is this food production. Then, let him take action and not listen to hearsay or report. Let him see for himself the thousands of acres in this country waiting to be cultivated and to produce richly and royally all that is needed for the population. Let there be common sense organisation in each district—not “compulsion”; the people are too cheerfully brave and willing to be “compelled.” But no one cares to work in the dark without a plan, and without any encouragement. They are told to “produce food,” but are denied labour to produce it. The capable field-worker is taken, and inefficient substitutes sent instead—men who do not know how to plant a root or sow a seed, with the obvious result that plants and seeds represent so much money thrown away. But, once more to emphasise the need of common sense, let us hold fast the fact that no lack of food is possible to this country if things are properly organised. And as we see by report that, despite U-boats, ships laden with useful cargoes are constantly arriving in our ports, let us not forget the possibility of “the creation of that artificial scarcity” which stirred the blood and roused the devil in Russia!
OUR FORTUNATE “RESTRICTIONS”
(Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
The Germans are reported to be in ecstasy over what they call the “despairing appeal” of the Prime Minister’s great “restrictions” speech. But, however great their “ecstasy” may be, it can hardly equal ours! For we have sufficient sense to see what hope and strength for our Empire springs, like a bright rainbow, from what the Boche obtusely imagines is a cloud. Our “lead” is towards increasing prosperity and happiness for all. We are invited to look forward to a self-supporting country; we are given fresh chances of barring the ungrateful Teuton from our trades by showing him that we can do all our own work ourselves. We are promised another “Merrie England” of the spacious days of yore, when foreign supplies were rare and costly, and when all the fields were thick with golden grain and all the orchards glowed with many-coloured fruits and the agricultural population were given the chance to reap what they had sown.
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Now, in our lovely rural villages we may perhaps hope to see the last of many frowsy, idle sluts who for years have preferred to gossip away their time rather than do any useful work; and in their stead we may look for healthy, active girls and women who are proud of their dairies and poultry farms, and glad to show interested customers the great bowls of milk, the churning of butter, the making of cheese, and all the endless charms of “country” work well done. If the submarine menace teaches us to produce all the food that can be produced in these islands, it will be a blessing in disguise, a helper and saviour of the grit, stability, and fine reasonableness of the British race. Talk of potatoes! There are many hundred of acres of waste land in South Cornwall alone, notably wide, treeless fields running into sand dunes by the sea, where the potato would flourish as well as it does in similar Dutch soil, and all this precious land is empty and untilled. To urge the digging up of parks and public recreation grounds, where it is doubtful whether potatoes would grow at all, when there is all this acreage available, is sheer nonsense. I would that I had even a hundred acres of that Cornish sandy soil by the sea just now. With a few skilled labourers (for one must know how to plant potatoes) it should yield gold! At Newquay, by the way, there is a golfing ground reserved for the amusement of a dozen or so of privileged selfish persons; it would grow tons of potatoes and other good edibles with very little trouble.
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Nothing has ever been a greater source of wonder to me than the improvidence of such British folk as prefer to buy their vegetables and fruit food rather than grow it. Nowhere are allotments so untidily kept or so altogether neglected as in certain parts of England; nowhere is so little grown in them. Surely it stands to sense that if each cottager grew his own vegetable and fruit food there would be less need for foreign supplies. And if every waste field were made to produce something in the way of foods a submarine blockade must needs prove futile in any attempt to starve the population. We may, if we will, foresee the vision of a happier, grander Britain than ever, when the people of these fruitful islands are given their own, and no longer have need to sever their lives from the homes of their kindred because there is no work for them here owing to the intrusion of German influence and German labour. We might also consider with belated sorrow the depopulation of the Scottish Highlands, and the preservation of vast tracts of moor and forest for mere “sport,” which has for years been a scandal and a disgrace to the nation. Let us have the people back on the land, and let the deer and the grouse take their own wild chances of existence. The submarine menace has come to teach us what we ought to have learned long ago—namely, that what we want on our own land are our own men, as skilled farmers and workers in every useful and profitable department, and that it ought never to be possible to see, as I once saw posted up on a large factory in London itself: “No English Need Apply.”
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Look at the thing squarely. With each householder, in rural districts at least, growing his own vegetable and fruit supply, and the farmers growing for the community in general, what lack should there be of the necessities of life? The Prime Minister has restricted nothing that we cannot well do without. Somebody has grumbled about apples. Where will you beat homegrown apples? Plant orchards of them without stint; they will repay the trouble. Somebody else grumbles—yes, we know somebody always grumbles! This time it is about “Paris hats.” They are “forbidden.” O wise judge! O learned judge! No more (for a time, at least) shall we be pestered by receiving elaborate circulars printed in gold stating that Monsieur Satanique “presents” his latest “creations,” as if the good Satanique were a sort of deity. Nor will he, with all his persuasive charm, be able to entice the foolish among women to pay him six or eight guineas for a bit of wire, a scrap of lace, a feather, and a ribbon. O bold “restriction”! No more “Paris hats”—but, let us hope, a great deal more common sense!
“HIS PAINFUL DUTY”
THE SORROWS OF THE HOME SECRETARY (Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
We grieve for Sir George Cave. He suffers as a martyr suffers in the cause of his country. Martyrs are not so common as heroes nowadays, but Sir George puts in no claim to heroism. He leaves that to “Tommy.” “Tommy” makes short work of the Huns wherever and however he meets them, but Sir George is almost on the verge of tears because he is unable to make their stay on in this country as agreeable and profitable as he would wish.
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In the House of Commons he said: “Only the other day it was his painful duty to order the internment of sixteen members of one alien club alone!” Alas, alas! “Sixteen” out of twenty thousand wandering spies! “One club alone,” out of hundreds of enemy information centres! Poor Sir George! How his heart must have been torn! how it must, even now, be lacerated and sore! “Had this club been in existence during the whole war?” asked Sir Henry Dalziel pointedly. And surely Sir George must have fetched a sigh from the bottom of his soul as he was compelled to answer “Yes!” Mr. Herbert Samuel, the late Home Secretary, was also apparently in sad plight, for he “seemed very anxious about the thousands of friendly aliens” in the East End of London and other large towns. He may well be “very anxious.” For these “thousands of friendly aliens” are not “friendly,” and in nine cases out of ten “show,” as Mr. Samuel gravely observed, “that their hearts are not with this country.”
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Is Mr. Samuel really so ingenuous, so simple, so altogether infantile in experience as to suppose their hearts could be “with this country”? Are the hearts of Britishers interned in Germany “with” Germany? The Germans have turned English and Americans out of Berlin; why is not the same course pursued by us with Germans in London? Every German in the British Isles hopes for their “invasion” by his countrymen, and with invasion the signal to mobilise. With 30,000 interned and 20,000 at liberty, 50,000 foes are in our midst, ready to turn upon us at short notice. Why should this matter be dealt with in such a spineless, semi-paralytic way? What are the British public to think of the Ministers who put them on “rations” of four pounds of bread a week, while the German prisoner is allowed ten? Two and a half pounds of meat to the German’s three and a half? And everything on the same scale, so that, summing up the total, the honest British worker gets seven pounds four ounces of food to his enemy prisoners’ fourteen pounds fourteen ounces! Can any Controller of any department be so blind as to think the British people will stand such injustice? Many of us know all about Donnington Hall, though an honest attempt to clear up that scandal was nipped in the bud by some “Unseen Hand.” But what of the life of ease led by the German prisoners interned in the Isle of Man? There, in the great internment camp, officers are “at home,” and are permitted to buy whatever quantity of food they like to pay for—food which the native population cannot get! Just as the enemy officers at Donnington Hall can order all they like “without restriction,” while British prisoners in Germany are given hardly enough to keep them from starving!
* * * * *
Sir George Cave, in his extreme solicitude for “enemy aliens,” has committed himself to one utterance which he may live to regret. It is this: “Enemy aliens freed from internment ought certainly to be employed on useful work of national importance.”
Ought they, indeed! The employment of enemy aliens on “work of national importance” would be little short of a criminal act. For human nature is the same as it ever was, and no “enemy alien” is likely to do “work of national importance” for his jailer or conqueror without at least trying to do it in such a manner that it shall never be done, or else done so badly that it shall not serve its purpose. What sane Englishman imagines that an “enemy” born of a ruthless race, which has proved itself murderous and treacherous, will serve him in “work of national importance” without a good effort to blow him and his “work” to the four winds of heaven? The guileless simplicity of Sir George Cave reminds one of the nursery’s “little lamb”:—
“Whichever way the German went,
The Lamb was sure to go!”
Down in the country, where we are commanded, with a sort of megaphone shouting through the Press, to “Grow food,” when we have no skilled labour to grow it, we are told that we can employ “enemy prisoners” on the land. A friend, anxious to get waste land under cultivation, asked what would be the rate of pay. The reply was: “One guinea a week; fifteen shillings if you feed him.” Compare this with the pay given to our British prisoners who work in Germany—“one penny a day,” i.e., sixpence a week! My friend decided to put guineas in the War Loan rather than spend them on a German prisoner who, if he worked on the land, would be sure to work “against the grain.” And one asks again: Why so much indulgence and care for the men of a dishonourable race who have plunged Europe into blood and tears, and who have murdered innocent women and children, and who, far from repenting their crimes, add to them the awful blasphemy of calling God to witness their “humanity”? Surely it is time this weak and nerveless inaction on the part of the authorities concerned should cease, and that they should, in the words of Shakespeare,—
“Take our cause
Out of the gripes of cruel men.”
THE POTATO “SCREAM”
A PROTEST AGAINST A STUPID PANIC (Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
No potatoes! Dear, dear; whatever shall we do? Some of the clever boys who write the “purple patches” for the sensational Press say that the present shortage is “nothing compared to the grim possibilities of the near future.” “Grim possibilities” is good—a phrase that will delight the Huns! But, quite dispassionately, may it not be asked how Britain got on without potatoes in her historic past? Henry VIII. was a goodly King; he ate greedily, drank heavily, and married profusely, but never a potato adorned his groaning banquet board. He “fared sumptuously every day,” and his subjects were not starved. Strong armies, victorious navies, existed without potatoes. Crècy, poitiers, Agincourt were fought on other food. People lived in those days even more hazardously than they live now, and did not worry about “grim possibilities.” They grew their own food produce, and had no chance of Overseas supplies. And they never knew the potato!
* * * * *
The history of the potato is quite modern, proving that it is by no means a necessity of life. According to some historians, it is a native of Chili and Peru, and was introduced from Santa Fé, in America, by Sir John Hawkins in 1563—one year before the birth of Shakespeare. So, as it was a new product and uncommon, it is possible that the Poet of the World struggled up to manhood without so much as one potato scream! The soliloquy in Hamlet owes nothing to the potato—the famous adjuration in Henry V.:—
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the walls up with our English dead”—
has nothing of the “mealy”-mouthed about it! Other authorities say it was brought over by Sir Francis Drake in 1586, but not generally introduced till 1592, and that Sir Walter Raleigh cultivated it first in Ireland on his estates in the county of Cork. It apparently was not known in Flanders (according to its biographers) till 1620. Well, then, how on earth did we get on without it? And if we did get on without it, why cannot we get on without it again? I imagine that it is very much the fault of our gifted melodramatic actors on the stage of the Press that we are startled and “shivered” by the thrilling exits and entrances of the potato at stated intervals. One Bathurst is responsible for an actual “potato boom,” he having made it appear that this particular edible is a main prop of existence, when it is nothing of the kind. He has frightened a number of unreasoning women into “long queues” that “besiege” the potato dealers. If these women would only stay at home and decide to do without potatoes at all, the “shortage” and the dealers would soon display an altered aspect! One does not like to be rude about any portion of the human anatomy, but surely people who know Ireland have heard of the “potato abdomen” (the actual word is too Scriptural for polite usage). There is such a thing; and it is not at all a desirable ornament. Women who wish to keep graceful, svelte figures never eat potatoes. In all dietetic rules for the fat, “grave” warnings are uttered against potatoes, and “grim possibilities” are in store for any obstinately large man or woman who continues to eat them!
* * * * *
Why should the restless Bathurst seek to create a sort of South Sea Bubble in potatoes? The frenzy need not spread, if reasonable folk will collect their wits (some of which have gone a wool gathering) and realise that the potato, though an excellent vegetable when properly cooked (which it seldom is) is not a necessity of life. If it were, the brilliant history of Britain from the beginning up to Tudor times would be a mere record of famines. Pessimist Bathurst “gravely” states that “there will be no potatoes for any one in about six weeks.” Well, all who have vegetable gardens know that there is always a scarcity of potatoes every year, when the old ones are practically finished and we are waiting for the new; and owing to the general “sensationalism” the scarcity this year is likely to be more pronounced. But it need not disturb any one’s equanimity. Potatoes are no more necessary to life and health than the “hot roll,” of which the following amazing report appears in the Press: “The passing of the hot roll is the chief sacrifice.” (Think of these noble words! “The chief sacrifice!” One would imagine it was the life of a hero!) “Tens of thousands of people will lament the loss of a breakfast luxury!” “Lament the loss?” Oh, oh! Tens of thousands of people lamenting a hot breakfast roll! Ye Gods! “A roll,” continued the Press-interviewed baker, “alters its character when stale.” True, deplorably true! But if those tens of thousands of lamenting people do not alter their character and “lament” to better purpose than for the daily indigestion provided for them in “hot roll” at breakfast, it is time they felt the pinch, not only of “no potatoes,” but “no food” at all for a wholesome period of fasting, with shame and penitence!
“HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF”
A STUDY IN WAR BREAD (Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
Complaints are rife and bitter concerning the tough, indigestible, and injurious mixture permitted to the taxpaying public as “war bread.” General condemnation of Government flour has been expressed at a meeting of the London Master Bakers’ Protection Society, where a resolution was passed asking for an interview with the Prime Minister to point out the “ineptitude” of the Ministry of Food. Thousands of us are of the same mind with the Master Bakers! Thousands of us affirm the “ineptitude” of which they speak. Thousands of us know that a more lamentable display of ignorance concerning the “things that matter” could hardly be seen between now and the next world. Furthermore, the Master Bakers (God bless them!) have actually declared that if the Bread Order is not revoked or amended they, to safeguard the health of consumers, will be compelled to take “drastic action.” Well done, Master Bakers! The sooner this drastic action is effected the better for many ailing, suffering human creatures. The faddists and health specialists may talk as they will, nothing can satisfy the appetite or suit the palate of the average man and woman so well and so safely as bread made with pure white flour. The raw germ of wheat, though in a sense nutritious, exercises a “very deleterious effect,” so say the bakers, on the colour and keeping qualities of the loaf. In many cases “war bread” causes internal hæmorrhage, to say nothing of fermentative dyspepsia and severe inflammation of the delicate coating of one’s interior mechanism, and it would be easy to compile a volume of statistics proving the poisonous effect produced by this coarse stuff on our soldiers in hospital who are slowly recovering from gunshot wounds or shell shock, and who are peculiarly sensitive to the quality of their food. The distinguished muddlers who are muddling with the grain and the “milling” thereof, seem to judge the fine and complex human organism as somewhat tougher than shoe-leather and less liable to injury than pig-iron. But they are not the first of their class by any means! There were muddlers before them, as senseless, as callous, and as deaf to reason as they—men who, like themselves, were “dressed in a little brief authority” during that terrific upheaval of which the very name is ominous—the great French Revolution. Here is what Carlyle writes of the bread trouble in those days:—
“Complaints there are that the food is spoiled and produces an effect on the intestines, as well as ‘a smarting in the thoat and palate,’ which a municipal proclamation warns you to disregard or even to consider as drastic—beneficial! But ... the Mayor of Saint Denis, so black was his bread, has, by a dyspeptic populace, been hanged on ‘La Lanterne’ there!”
“La Lanterne” is not a pleasant theme to dwell upon, and we may be deeply thankful that we have something nowadays less ferocious than such a form of settling disputes between the people and their rulers—the great trade unions and protection societies, consolidated bodies of reasoning and reasonable men, who can, when necessity calls, take concerted action against Sentimental Cant and wilful Ignorance. For, to quote Carlyle again, “Is not Cant the materia prima of the Devil, from which all falsehoods, imbecilities, and abnominations body themselves, from which no true thing can come?” And are not the Master Bakers, as well as the Seamen’s and Firemen’s Union, conscious of this Cant somewhere? Whether in pacifism or food-controlling, matters little, so long as they can put an exterminating finger on the spot!
Ours is a land of cranks; we produce cranks as quickly as untended grass grows plantains. We have peace cranks, food cranks, health cranks; and, without doubt, plenty of these will dash wildly into the open with hysterical hymns of praise for the utterly detestable “war bread,” more vigorously possibly when they think their fellow-creatures are being made ill by it. But “let ’em gnash as can,” as the toothless old dame blandly observed after hearing a sermon on hell where “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Happily deprived of all ability to “gnash,” hell offered no alarms for her. Similarly, those whose powers of digestion cannot tolerate “war bread” will support the screams of whole-meal faddists with equanimity, saying, “Let ’em masticate as can.” If “whole-meal” gives strength and sustenance with hæmorrhage, most of us will prefer to be a little less strong and well-nourished, without internal bleedings. The complaints of the bread sold in Paris during the fateful months preceding the French Revolution are precisely the same as now; but, whatever the rising tide of discontent may be, we have bulwarks against it in our own people’s organisations, which bind the members of every trade together against any possible injustice or tyranny. This Empire has cause to be thankful for its vast network of trade unions; they are in very truth a governing body whose weight and importance cannot be over-estimated. And so it may be that the Master Bakers will be the saviours of the country’s health, despite Food Controllers and their ideas of “milling.” We are losing enough life, Heaven knows, on the fields of battle; we do not want illness and the spread of disease at home. We can be sparing and careful of grain and precious with our “white flour,” but we need not debilitate or poison our people with food which they cannot digest or which in any way proves injurious to women and children. Waste is encouraged by the making of bread which the people dislike. They would rather throw it away than suffer illness—which is very natural. The Food Controller is safe from “La Lanterne” in these days; but everybody will be glad if the London Master Bakers’ Society will take the matter well in hand and see to it that we need not “live on the husks which the swine did eat.” The country will not starve because we prefer to be well on white flour rather than dyspeptic on brown!
“SHODDY CHIVALRY”
A NAVAL CHADBAND (Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
So now we know! No longer need we denounce the “submarine menace”; no longer need we (as the German Press suggests) “grow pallid with fear,” for we are in “brave and gallant hands!” “Brave and gallant” are the noble creatures who sink hospital ships; “brave and gallant” are the sharers of dividends in the corpse-fat factory; “brave and gallant” are the raiders who sought to intercept the Prime Minister on his way back from France across Channel in order to make short work of him and his escort—“brave and gallant” are they all! Our own Vice-Admiral at Dover implied as much when, with all the unctuousness of Dickens’s immortal Mr. Chadband, he laid a wreath of flowers on the coffin of one of the Hun raiders with the inscription: “To a brave and gallant enemy!” He spared no wreath and offered no tribute to any of the dead among our own bluejackets, whose “brave and gallant” conduct had succeeded in beating off and sinking the enemy’s ships; they were “only” British sailors. But for the dead Huns, this British Vice-Admiral publicly displayed the tenderness of a twin brother. One wonders what Nelson would have said to such an action? How does it accord with the Defence of the Realm? One can imagine the noble dust of the victor of Trafalgar stirring for very shame at such a lack of dignity at the very time when British ships are being wickedly sunk and British lives wickedly lost by the nefarious “brave and gallant” brutality of an enemy with whom honour is a mere straw. It may perhaps be easier now to understand the rumours that these “brave and gallant” Huns are allowed to work with our men in British docks, where they watch our ships loaded with millions of munitions, and count up our troops leaving for the front, and then, without doubt, communicate with their kinsmen of the submarines, letting them know the hour and moment of departure! No wonder that our ships are sunk! Such methods prepare the way for their sinking. No action is taken by the authorities to put a stop to the inroad of German labour in the docks alongside of the British—a state of things which, on the face of it, invites and encourages spying and treachery. Such scandals are “an offence that’s rank, And smells to Heaven”; and the powers in office who allow them to go on without check are nearly as guilty of the loss of torpedoed ships and lives as the Huns themselves. And when a British Vice-Admiral sets the hall-mark of “brave and gallant” on even a dead specimen of the most treacherous, inhuman, and barbaric foe his country has ever had to contend with, we can hardly wonder at anything except the amazing excess of patience, wellnigh lethargy, with which the British people tolerate such an exhibition of Chadbandism in the Navy. One is thankful for the plain speaking of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, who, in the House of Lords, designated this action as one of “maudlin sentimentality and shoddy chivalry.” There spoke the sturdy seaman and loyal Britisher, untainted by the pro-German measles, which infect only the degenerates of our race. The Vice-Admiral at Dover, by his openly displayed admiration for the Hun, would seem to wish us to understand that he is something neither British nor of the sea—“neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring.” We can almost hear him soliloquising over the flower-strewn coffin of the “brave and gallant” Hun: “My friend, you are to me a pearl, you are to me a diamond, you are to me a gem, you are to me a jewel! And why, my friend? Are you a beast of the field? No. A bird of the air? No. A fish of the sea or river? No. You are a Hun, my friend! You are much worse than any beast of the field; more voracious than any bird of the air; more slippery than any fish of the sea or river! Oh, how glorious to be a Hun! And if I went forth as far as the Southampton Docks and there saw a ‘brave and gallant’ fellow-countryman of yours taking stock of troops and munitions, and I was to come back and call unto me Sir Edward Carson and say unto him, ‘Lo the docks are barred against Huns,’ would that be terewth?”
No; it would not be “terewth”—unless, as the original Chadband propounded, such terewth, or truth, were another form of deception. Until we have loyal men “above suspicion” in authority at home we shall never satisfy our Allies abroad. America will be unable to understand a British Vice-Admiral laying flowers on the coffin of an enemy whose intent was, without doubt, to sink and slay a valuable life on which much of Britain’s welfare depends, any more than she will understand the collection of a large sum of money for the assistance of Germans in England (more than £17,000) to which liberal subscriptions have been made by two German members of the Privy Council. As Mark Twain observed during his tour in Palestine, “Blessed if I believe a turtle can sing!”
“HINDENBURG’S EYE!”
THE BABIES’ BOGEY (Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
There are several objections raised to the merry-go-round “National Service” whirl devised by Mr. Neville Chamberlain. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” nowadays, even if it only be the crown of a temporary Director of Service or of Food Production. Even Lord Devonport comes in for his share of contumely, especially since he assumed that a 5-oz. chop was sufficient for a busy City man’s luncheon. Lord Devonport has evidently never tried his hand at cooking, and is blissfully unaware how soon 5 oz. may be reduced to 3 oz. on the fiery grill! The public resent this ignorance; but nothing excites their indignation more than the blatant, vulgar, and positively offensive advertisements which have been spread broadcast to call them forth to voluntary enrolment. Whoever it may be that is the inventor, designer, or word-weaver of these newspaper roarers, he serves his country ill, and is guilty of the worst possible taste. Instead of a dignified, effective appeal to Labour, these wretched advertisements are mere gibes and insults flung in the face of a brave, patiently enduring people, whose homes have, in many thousands of cases, been invaded by Death, and whose hearts are wrung by sudden and bitter bereavements, none the less hard to bear because borne with such noble and uncomplaining fortitude.
“Are You Fiddling While Rome Burns?” asks one of these idiotic newspaper Fat Letters, a question met with the silent scorn of many tired eyes grown dim with weeping, or strained and anxious with watching and waiting for the beloved ones who may never return. Is it impossible to expect from these Government Press agents (if they are Government Press agents) a little thought for the people they seek to attract, a little decency and respect? At present their loud, even coarse, advertisements represent—
“The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes.”
The last form of their coster-like shouting is perhaps the worst.
“HINDENBURG’S EYE IS UPON YOU!”
Now, what in the name of all that is British, do we care about “Hindenburg’s Eye”? Are we a whimpering troop of babies to be frighted with the eye of a Hun? or to be told “Hush-oh! Mind its little P’s and Q’s! Go and do its little National Service properly, or ‘Hindenburg’s eye’ will be on you!” Was ever such arrant, open, disgraceful nonsense! What have we to do with “Hindenburg’s eye,” except bomb it out if we can? What terrors can it have for us? Does it roll or squint, blink or wink? Nobody cares, but if it is to be “on” anywhere, it had better be fixed to Berlin! It’s an old eye and a filmy one—probably, as Hamlet pointedly remarked, “purging thick amber and plumtree gum”—it’s a false eye and a brutal one, but just now it has enough to do to see its own surroundings without dropping out of its socket. The tactless, witless individual who dares to write and circulate would-be “scare” lines about this bloodthirsty old eye being “on” the brave men and women of Britain, watching (as if such a brute had authority to watch!) to see how many of them work (and weep!) willingly enough in their country’s service, should be at once convinced of his unfortunate lack of intelligence and discernment. Any one with the smallest spark of imagination must almost see and hear the loud German guffaw of mockery and delight at this fool’s placard for the British:—
“HINDENBURG HAS HIS EYE UPON YOU!”
“Ha, ha! Dot is goot!” says Hans to Fritz. “Unser Hindenburg! Dot is fright for Gott strafe England!—and de English demselves say it!”
Weird inventor of megaphone press-roarings, whoever you are, don’t do it! You may be a Bernard Shaw in the bud for all we know, but we have enough already of the perfect flower. National Service demands your brilliancy elsewhere. Offer yourself as a substitute for the bootblack who may be glad to go “on the land.” The Cause is injured by these unwarrantable music-hall methods. Call up the people with a friend’s cheerful and inspiring voice—a silver trumpet-blast if you will—but not with a donkey’s bray!
(The above little article had the fortunate effect of causing several of these placards, so offensive to the British spirit, to be removed.)
“HOARDING”
A MODERN SETTING OF AN OLD PLAY AND A LITTLE STORY OF THE Y.M.C.A.
“Man, proud man,
Dress’d in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His ghostly essence like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep!”
Measure for Measure.
Nothing in all the various confused and contradictory orders issued by the capricious and neurotic “Dora” gave such unalloyed festive delight as the edict against “hoarding.” It opened the door to all the little spies and scandal-mongers of every neighbourhood, especially to the provincial types of these gentry, who are always of a more inquisitive and slanderous disposition than the same class found in large cities, for the reason that they have little other excitement beyond the gratifying stimulus of inquiring into their neighbours’ affairs and meddling with them if they can. The “Hoarding” order suited them down to the ground and set them all on the alert, peering into windows and peeping through open doors—following their “dear friends” into shops and taking eager notes of their purchases, till every eye grew hard and sharp as a gimlet, and every nose as pointed as the beak of a crow. It was astonishing and amusing to watch the alteration for the worse in the looks of men and women during this period; the theory of “psycho-suggestion” was amply verified in the visible fact that people who were previously open-faced and good-natured were almost unrecognisable in the sudden “squeezing-in” of their features to the ugly furrows of suspicion and meanness.
“Some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them,” says the sapient Malvolio; and I frankly admit that I felt myself to be entirely in the latter category when I became a sort of modern heroine in a new version of Much Ado About Nothing, in the precincts of Stratford-on-Avon itself, under the sacred ægis of the Immortal Bard. A real stage was set for me, with the real “city officers Dogberry and Verges”—in fact “the whole dissembly appeared.” I was summoned for “hoarding” sugar. In plain truth I have never “hoarded” anything—not even money, as the town of Stratford-on-Avon has sufficient reason to know. I have never even had the careful housekeeper’s habit of a “store-cupboard”—my house being destitute of such lock-up conveniences, wherefore we have found it best always to order what is wanted from week to week, paying for it likewise from week to week and incurring no debts. In the affair of the sugar I could not procure enough to obey the commands set upon me by the Food Production and other Government Departments. Correspondence with Mr. Prothero had impressed upon me that there was a shortage of all foodstuffs, especially butter, and it was represented to me that every householder growing their own fruit should make as much jam as possible to replace the butter. That year (1917) was a wonderful fruit year; in my own garden, not an “orchard” by any means or abundantly stocked, there was gathered nearly a thousand pounds dead-weight of fruit. Some of it we sold—much of it we gave away—the rest had either to be wasted or preserved. “Shortage of foodstuffs” necessitated its preservation. Our local surveyor, though obliging, could not supply his customers with enough sugar to go round. The “Hoarding Act” distinctly stated that the order did not apply itself to “sugar obtained for the preservation of homegrown produce”—so I appealed to my old friend, Sir Thomas Lipton, not only because he was a friend, but because he was a grocer, and as such, would be sure to know what quantity of sugar he might or might not sell to any customer. But——! Here comes in another story!
A short time previous to the Sugar-Comedy of “Much Ado,” I had been approached by two gentlemen from Birmingham on behalf of the Y.M.C.A. and Sir Arthur Yapp (then Director of Food Economy) to help the Society by a subscription. I gave a hundred pounds; and a generous friend of mine, on hearing what I had subscribed, gave another hundred. In the warmth of this success I wrote to Sir Thomas Lipton and asked him boldly for another hundred. I received a truly heart-rending reply to the effect that he was a “poor man,” and “could not afford so large a sum,” but that if I had asked him for ten or fifteen pounds he would have gladly subscribed. I at once seized the opportunity and begged him to send the fifteen. He did so, and I wrote my acknowledgments, assuring him that when he went to heaven that Fifteen Pounds given to the Y.M.C.A. would be an extra feather in his Angel-Wing! (I do hope he will one day show that letter to Sir Arthur Yapp!) Then, feeling I had not yet done enough for the Y.M.C.A. Huts, I agreed that the Cinema company, then running some stories of mine on the “film,” should give a few “shows” of them in Stratford for the sole benefit of the Y.M.C.A., and I am glad to say that they drew packed houses and brought a substantial result. For this and such assistance as I had freely given to help on the good cause I had a note from Sir Arthur Yapp expressing his “most grateful thanks.” And now we can revenons à nos moutons—that is to say, I can return to the Sugar version of “Much Ado”—but I would earnestly request my readers to “mark, learn, and inwardly digest” what we may call “The Y.M.C.A.-Yapp Interlude.”
As I have already stated, I could not get sufficient sugar from the local grocer to preserve the fruit in hand, and as fruit is perishable, and there was no time to be lost, I rang up Sir Thomas Lipton on the telephone and asked him what he could do for me. The familiar “Glasgie” accent came harmoniously along the wire—“Ye’ll never want for sugar so long as Tom Lipton’s on the ‘phone!”
So it was settled. I and my friend (a lady who has been my companion throughout my life since my childhood, and who has generously and kindly undertaken all my household cares) set happily to work to preserve our fruit; whole in jars where we could do so, but made into jam for the most part. I would here remark, with all diffidence, that I do not revel in jam myself; but I like having it for others—such as schoolboys, for instance, before whom whole pots vanish like snow in the sun when they come to tea with me, bless their frank appetites! We had nearly completed our labours, all except the transmutation of apples into jelly and “apple cheese” (the best possible substitute for butter), when one afternoon, while I was out, a police constable called and said he must search the house for “hoards.” He brought no authority, but stated that if he were refused he would procure a search warrant. My friend, who received the intruder, was naturally rather surprised, but having nothing to hide she cordially invited the official to go all over the house wherever he would. Accordingly he tramped into the dining-room, opened cupboards and drawers, even peering into an unobtrusive little tea-caddy, and went down into the cellar and inspected the larder. He found nothing but a large flour-bin, into which for convenience had been put fifteen pounds of sugar (duly weighed) left for use with the apples yet to be preserved. While he was still on the prowl, I returned home, and though I am never much taken aback at anything Stratford-on-Avon “authorities” do, I was, I think, justifiably annoyed at having my private rooms searched on such a ridiculous charge of which I was absolutely guiltless. Moreover, the “hofficer” who had thus broken into my house without warning, was a man who had often had supper in our kitchen with beer galore, which he had greatly relished—while another detail of the matter was that for some years, since the intrusion of an unhappy lunatic-tramp into my garden, the police had been given by myself a private key to the premises, so that they could enter at any time. Therefore, if they had sought to keep me under “observation” there was nothing to hinder their surveillance, which indeed I had personally requested and was grateful for. But—as the official informed me the “hoarding” accusation came “from London”—“on account of Sir Thomas Lipton.” This rather amazed me, and for a moment I thought it must be that “feather in the Angel-Wing”! My doubts were soon set at rest by a visit from my solicitor who told me Sir Thomas was “much distressed and could not sleep” for thinking about the threatened trouble. Some one at certain Stratford-on-Avon Stores had noted the arrival at the railway station of the Lipton supplies of sugar—quite openly sent, and openly marked “Sugar,” for we were under the impression that all was in due observance of the Food Production rules, and that there was nothing to hide or to “hoard.” Naturally I wrote at once to the Lipton office requesting these supplies to be stopped, without, however, at once succeeding, as, notwithstanding my expressed desire, a fresh package was transmitted, which I promptly returned. I then wrote to Sir Arthur Yapp, feeling quite sure that his recent experience of my conduct in respect to the Y.M.C.A. would convince him that there was some “official blundering” (to quote a press term) in the absurd notion that I, whose work throughout the war had been to help, not to hinder all patriotic aims, could possibly sink to the “hoarding” level. I had written to him long before, pleading that the poor working women should not be compelled to stand in “queues,” waiting to get food for themselves and their children, on which subject he wrote me the following letter:—
“December 17, 1917.
“Dear Miss Corelli,—Thank you very much indeed for your further letter and enclosure, and I hope to be able to arrange for the workers to get things for their children. All the points you mention shall receive careful attention and I am consulting some of my colleagues forthwith. Again thanking you,
“Yours faithfully,
“A. K. Yapp,
“Director of Food Economy.”
This does not look as if I had sought to “rob the poor by hoarding,” as one accuser in the “gutter” press made out later on! When I wrote, explaining the position which had so wrongfully arisen, Sir Arthur wrote regretting it and saying: “I will make all inquiries and am more than sorry you should be worried.”
However, the “case” instigated “from London,” went on remorselessly and I asserted my innocence in vain. A second appeal to Sir Arthur Yapp, strengthened by a personal visit to him from my solicitor who urgently pointed out the absurdity of the “hoarding” charge in my regard, brought the following:—
“National Council, Y.M.C.A.
December 26, 1917.
“Dear Miss Corelli,—Thanks for your letters. I was glad to see your solicitor, but am not sure that I can help you. I will gladly do so if I can. Unfortunately all the people are away for a few days. I will try to get in touch with the Chairman of the Sugar Commission to-morrow, Friday or Saturday. I will write again. I am so sorry you are having this worry. In haste,
“Yours sincerely,
”A. K. Yapp.”
Nevertheless, with all this amiable “Yapp-ing” he did not “get in touch” with the Chairman of the Sugar Commission, then Sir Charles Bathurst, who wrote himself and told me he had never heard a word of the affair till he saw it in the newspapers. On this point my solicitor wrote as follows: “I am glad to hear that you have a letter from Sir Charles Bathurst, expressing sympathy. I cannot, however, overlook the fact that whereas Sir Arthur Yapp had no power apart from Sir Charles to take cognisance of facts which I brought to his notice with a view to stopping an unjustifiable prosecution calculated to do you an injury, Sir Charles Bathurst had ample power and did not exercise it, although approached by Sir Arthur Yapp. I do not think the Food Control Department even troubled to send the case to their counsel, but merely seized the opportunity to accept a statement which was not in conformity with the evidence, was a violation of the highest principles of justice, and a slur upon the summary jurisdiction of the land.”
And so the case went on. Yapp meantime addressed a crowd on Tower Hill and assured them “Marie Corelli’s sugar had been taken from her”—which was a flaring fiction as there was no excess of sugar to take. He failed to mention that the victim he thus pilloried had given far more than the sugar’s worth to the Y.M.C.A., of which he posed as the pious and conscientious Head! But “that’s another story”! He felt perfectly justified, however, in handing over my personal letters to him (marked “Private”) to a Mr. Wise, his secretary, I believe, whom my solicitor found reading them to his lady clerks by way of a little entertainment—and so altogether I rank Sir Arthur Yapp with Shakespeare’s Brutus, and here express my profound acknowledgments.
On the 2nd of January, 1918, the case for my “hoarding” was tried by the eminent “bench” of Stratford-on-Avon. My servants were subpœnaed—they sat patiently in court, but nobody asked them a single question! A legal representative of Sir Thomas Lipton’s, glib as Sergeant Buzfuz, managed things for his principal in such a way as to leave Sir Thomas scot-free, though in other similar cases the supplier was fined in the same sum as the supplied. I was not in court. My friend, who has all the responsibility of housekeeping, went into the witness-box and answered all questions plainly and honestly—but plainness and honesty do not count for much in law. The point which Dogberry and Verges adhered to was that they did not believe we had used the sugar for jam! Was ever anything more absurdly humorous! We were ready and willing to make public exhibition of the jam; we offered those amazing “city officers” free permission to inspect it—but they would not! They preferred to doubt the word of a lady through whose hands many hundreds of pounds had been spent in the town and whose well-known straightforward character makes her incapable of truckling to falsehood or hypocrisy. I must not forget to mention that the worthy Dogberrys had been much bamboozled by the constant delivery of large wooden boxes at my house labelled “Maypole Tea,” “Tate’s Sugar,” “Nestle’s Milk,” etc., etc.; it looked very like “hoarding,” surely? A constable followed the packages up through an open passage leading to out-houses, and there to his immense chagrin discovered that these cases contained nothing but material for electric-wiring and lighting, sent by Messrs. Tredegars of Brook Street, who had undertaken the installation of the electric light in my house. They were compelled to pack their goods in any boxes they could secure, there being a “shortage” in packing-cases as in everything else, and when the “hoarding” trial came on, the director of the firm offered most kindly and courteously to attend the court and explain the share his boxes had in the silly accusation. But there was no need; Dogberry and Verges had already made up their minds. My chief assailants were the Superintendent of Police in Stratford and the Town Clerk—and after the case was over and they had “convicted” me of what I had never committed (though the “bench” disagreed among themselves), all the clues were placed in my hands in such a remarkable way as would remind one of Sherlock Holmes if there were time or space to tell it! Perhaps the following sentence from a legal document may put the matter clearly:—
“The root of the whole evil is your local bench, and bias is self-evident by the action of the Acting Clerk, when he withheld information from us as to the findings of the Justices until after the time to appeal to Quarter Sessions had elapsed.”
I have often wondered why this malignity? Why, too, on the part of the “Acting Clerk,” whom I have always beheld with respectful admiration in his curly white wig marching in the Shakespeare Sunday or Mayoral processions to Church? He is my beau-ideal of a cultured Dogberry—his very look and movement express—“I am a wise fellow; and which is more an officer; and which is more a householder; and which is more as pretty a piece of flesh as any in Messina (Stratford) and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses; and one that hath two gowns and everything handsome about him! O that I had been writ down——” No—I will not finish the quotation; suffice it to say that I have never intentionally or to my knowledge caused offence to this excellent man. But both Church and State were in the persecution of my quite innocent personality; two dismissed outdoor employés of my own first started the mischief, and as one had found a temporary job on the local “food control,” it was easy to trace the work of hands guided by personal spite and desire to give me trouble. Afraid to start the accusation in Stratford itself, they quite ingenuously managed to transfer it through a mutual friend to London, from whence the “summons” was “arranged” to come—and since then, having found out the whole petty plot, I have been full of amused compassion for the miserable plotters. They must surely feel that the game was hardly worth the candle! Of course, press-reporters rushed down like hounds in full cry directly they scented possible injury to me—they would never have troubled themselves to note anything I did of good—but anything that savoured of meanness and disloyalty on my part was “nuts” to them! As they never saw me, and I made no appearance in court, these poor untidy pressmen were reduced to their usual fictions, and wired all over the world that I had “made a scene in court,” “attacked Lloyd George,” etc., etc.! (And yet, just before this comedy started, and â propos of sugar, I had sent Miss Megan Lloyd George some chocolate “eclairs” made at home, with which this charming little friend of mine was much delighted!) Yes—these chivalrous press-men labelled me from England to furthest Ind as a hoarder and hypocrite and I was left without remedy. I was assailed by the lowest anonymous letters and post cards; of course one knows how to take such off-scourings of depraved human minds, as no one but a villain, male or female, would write an anonymous letter. But with all the pain I felt at the misjudgment, amounting almost to cruelty, of the press, which deliberately did its best to injure me with my reading public, I had my compensations. I had hundreds of letters from our men at the front indignantly protesting against the wrong done to me—and a wonderful document signed by the officers and men of the Overseas Military Forces of Canada came to hearten me up by its generous testimony as follows:—
“We, the undersigned Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Men of the Overseas Military Forces of Canada desire to take this opportunity of expressing to you our gratitude for the many acts of kindness and hospitality that you have shown to the members of the Canadian Forces since they arrived in this country.
“We also wish to express to you our sympathies in the recent cruel and unjust charge of ‘hoarding’ which was brought against you, and we feel sure that when the true facts are brought to the knowledge of the public they will realise that the spirit of patriotism you have shown throughout the war, and the generosity with which you have contributed articles to the various periodicals published for the benefit of the troops do not coincide with the possibility of any contravention of war measures.
“We also wish to add the expression of our admiration for the pre-eminent position you have attained in the world of literature and art, and to assure you that none appreciate your works more than the people of Canada.
“We trust that this assurance of our admiration for your genius, and our sympathy in the worry to which you have been so unjustly subjected, will prove to you that we are not unmindful of the kindness and warm interest you have invariably shown towards Canadian soldiers.
“We beg to remain,
”Sincerely yours,”
Here followed a long list of officers’ and men’s names; the kind and generous testimonial of their friendship was dated from Bramshott Camp, Hants, April 16th, 1918.
I make no comment on this most valued “vote of confidence” voluntarily given by brave and chivalrous men. I publish it just as it is—one of my most precious possessions. I can endure even dear Dogberry’s malice with such a battalion of fighting friends!
One other thing may be mentioned as showing the curious cross-purposes of the Stratford-on-Avon “justices” in the prosecution against me, and that is the letter written to me by the Deputy-Mayor on the eve of the trial—thus:—
“December 31, 1917.
“Dear Miss Corelli,—Allow me to offer you my sincere wishes that the year 1918 may prove to you and yours one of unalloyed happiness. In these days such a wish may seem impossible of achievement. Amidst the strife of nations and the world-wide clash of arms there must be anxiety and care for all who love their country, and the ‘petty pin-pricks’ which come to all who try to do their duty will no doubt try the temper and patience; but amidst all life’s worries the consciousness of duty done, of love for others, and the desire to do always what is right will bring you that real peace and happiness which the world cannot give. That you may have this in 1918 and the years to follow is my earnest wish. With kind regards,
“Yours sincerely,
“Fred Winter.”
So was the “Winter of my discontent” moved to try making a bit of “glorious summer” on the eve of the “Hoarding” case! I was grateful, of course—and I did not allow myself to dwell on the thought that perhaps, only perhaps, he was thus moved because long before the “hoarding” case, my “hoarding” tendencies had prominently displayed themselves in agreeing to pay £60 towards the restoration of his ancient house in the High Street, a sum which no one else volunteered! I did it for love and honour of the town’s antique beauty—not for any self-laudation or advantage; and I am glad to have been of some use in this direction. It is a quaint coincidence that this same Deputy-Mayor, when I previously aided the restoration of the now famous “Tudor” House opposite the Town Hall, accused me in the local press of doing it for “self-advertisement.” I am sure he must regret this temporary misjudgment now that his own house shows its Henry VIIth timbers to the light of day.
Briefly to sum up, I am and always have been absolutely guiltless of “hoarding” anything. I would rather give than receive, and am quite an adept at “doing without.” And if I may presume to quote finally from the original Much Ado About Nothing I can say that while I am perfectly aware of the local “Conrade” and “Borachio” who vented their spite against me, I think there are many now in Stratford-on-Avon itself who would say with the original Dogberry:—
“Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily they are slanderers; sixth and lastly they have belied a lady; thirdly they have verified unjust things.”
As for the excellent Sir Thomas Lipton, who was much more troubled in his mind about this little affair than I was, and who, though he supplied the contested sugar, escaped all fine and also escaped the contumely of the press which was heaped upon me like a cartload of bricks, without rhyme or reason, without honesty or justice, and without a single word of truth in the various reports cabled all over the world to do me as much injury as possible; he was so relieved and happy to think nothing was said about his own share in the matter that he was more genial and delightsome than ever. And I have reason to believe that he is “flattered to death,” as our American cousins sometimes say, by the parody I wrote for him “after Robert Burns,” which I call—
A New Version of
“A MAN’S A MAN FOR A’ THAT”
Cordially Inscribed to Sir Thomas Lipton
Fair fa’ our bouncin’ braggart Tam,
Wha perks his heid an’ a’ that,
The Prince o’ Pickles and o’ Jam,
Wha daurs be rich on a’ that!
For a’ that an’ a’ that,
His Butter, Tea, an’ a’ that,
He’s found his Bank the way to rank,
An’ Tam is Tam for a’ that!
What though wi’ Royalty he’ll dine,
’Mid sleekit Jews an’ a’ that,
Tam disna drink their best o’ wine,
He’s wide awake an’ a’ that!
For a’ that an’ a’ that,
Their duds an’ shows an’ a’ that,
The “Lipton Shares” are worth them a’
An’ Tam is Tam for a’ that!
Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord,
Wha struts an’ stares an’ a’ that,
When tradesmen winna tak’ his word,
Tam rules his roast an’ a’ that!
For a’ that an’ a’ that,
His ribbon, stars an’ a’ that,
Tam kens his man baith oot an’ in,
An’ looks an’ laughs at a’ that.
The Premier maks a belted knight,
A duke, an earl an’ a’ that,
But a “Lipton’s Stores” aboon his might,
Gude faith! he maunna fa’ that!
For a’ that an’ a’ that,
Their pride o’ place an’ a’ that,
Monopolies o’ Ham and Tea
Mak’ louder fame than a’ that!
An’ Tam has gi’en Y.M.C.A.
A muckle cheque an’ a’ that,
An’ angels waft him on his way
To Paradise an’ a’ that!
For a’ that an’ a’ that,
For that’s the end o’ a’ that;
His lavish hand’s its own reward,
An’ Tam is Tam for a’ that!
THREE HUNDRED YEARS OF FAME
AVE SHAKESPEARE!
Three hundred years ago, on April 23, 1616, William Shakespeare, of whom Carlyle wrote as “the pink and flower of remembered Englishmen—the greatest thing we have yet done and managed to produce in this world,” drew his last breath at “New Place,” the home he had earned for himself in his native town of Stratford-on-Avon. The great bell of the Guild Chapel facing the garden side of his “pretty house of brick and timber” tolled for his passing; but the great voice of the world which acclaims him so loudly to-day was dumb.
In those Puritan times he was but little considered; and no hint or whisper of his coming renown stirred the sleepy quietude of the little country place where he was born and where he died. His fellow-townsmen of that period kept no particular record of him, nor did they dream of him as the future King of English Literature. He was laid to rest in the chancel of the Parish Church—an honoured place allowed to him, not because of his genius as a Poet, for this was as indifferent a matter then to the good bucolic folk of Stratford-on-Avon as it is now, but because he had, by purchase, become part owner of the tithes and as a lay-rector had right of interment there.
In his lifetime he assumed to be nothing but a simple industrious man of business who “adapted” and rearranged old plays to suit the requirements of the Globe Theatre; and he flung out the splendid rays of his dazzling poetic genius over these dry bones of romance and history as freely and with as grand an absence of self-consciousness as the sun which shines alike on the just and the unjust.
Nothing probably would have surprised him more or moved him to such incredulous smiling as to have been told that in three hundred years his fame would surpass that of any other Englishman ever born! He would have put aside the prophecy with good-humoured laughter and would never have given it another thought. For his wordly aims were perfectly straightforward and simple; they were, plainly—to earn a sufficient competence and to stand on an independent footing with his fellows, to live with his family in ease and comfort, and to end his days in peace in the town where he was born. No ideal could be more free from arrogance. His whole career is an object lesson of infinite Greatness to the infinitely Little!
The vital centre of Shakespeare’s marvellous power is surely his impersonality. His creative spirit moved behind the passing show of kings and queens and historic events, moulding them to his mood, but never displaying itself. Like light it shed colour on whatsoever it illumined. So little may we guess of Shakespeare’s personality from his writings that he has made of himself an Enigma. We cannot even tell what form of creed he professed, though we know and feel that the devout worship of an invisible and intelligent Force behind Nature filled him with highest faith and purest service towards God. We cannot find out his special likes or dislikes, save in slight indications here and there, such as his plainly indicated abhorrence of Jews—and Germans! Great as is the professed admiration of the Teuton for our English Master-Mind, we wonder how he can get over such lines as these:—
“A German from the waist downward, all slops!”
Much Ado About Nothing.
“Like a full-acorn’d boar, a German one.”—Cymbeline.
“Three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.”
Merry Wives of Windsor.
“Holding in disdain the German women
For some dishonest manners.”
Henry V.
“Like a German clock,
Still a’repairing, ever out of frame.”
Love’s Labour’s Lost.
While the discussion between Portia and Nerissa in the Merchant of Venice caps all:—
Nerissa: How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony’s nephew?
Portia: Very vilely in the morning when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk; when he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.
One other thing we may perceive, and that is our Poet’s scorn of pettiness and treachery. Individual deceit—public or private hypocrisy—these seem to Shakespeare’s mind unforgivable. The “black-handed” hit—the cruel slander—the malicious lie—against these he delivers his most trenchant blows; but farther than this we are unable to penetrate into the kingdom of his heart or sentiment.
To woman he assigns the highest place as inspirer and saviour of man; when he shows her other than this, as in Lady Macbeth, he makes remorse half condone her sins and death conclude them. He seemed to be absolutely unconscious of any superiority in himself to others of his own calling. His poetic gift was like song to a nightingale that warbles for sheer delight and amorousness, in delicious ignorance of the entrancing beauty of its melody.
What affects, or should affect, us most deeply to-day is the deplorable fact that for three hundred years we have had no poet, no dramatist, to approach Shakespeare in any sense—neither in beauty of language, loftiness of thought, nor simple naturalness of expression. He towers among us as a veritable giant among pigmies—for the men of letters in all parts of the world at this epoch, men who are scrambling and pushing themselves forward to offer a very poor and inadequate “homage” to this mightiest genius of all time, are of such microscopic attainment when compared with him that one needs a mental lens to perceive them at all.
These are they for whom Self is not only the keynote, but the whole tune. Some of them take pride in their “style”; whereas Shakespeare had no “style” save his own, which has become a living part of the English language. He defied laws and conventions and dramatic “unities”; he dared to be his own master; and fortunately there were no newspapers in his day to publish venomous criticisms which might have daunted or discouraged his efforts.
The earliest newspaper, or News Packet, as it was called, was issued in 1619, three years after Shakespeare’s death. Shakespeare’s critics were the public—in fact, the “gallery.” He “played to the gallery,” and played “up”—never “down.” Moreover, he was apparently so indifferent to his own literary reputation that he made no effort to publish any of his works, and allowed them to be pirated wholesale. Only in the case of the two poems dedicated to the Earl of Southampton—“Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece”—does he seem to have taken any personal interest in his own productions.
One may perhaps venture to suggest that probably he attached no importance to what he knew were “adaptations” of old plays, and thought nothing of the rich poesy wherewith he had endowed them. The most of his work was this of industrious “adaptation”; so that he might have modestly considered it to be scarcely his own and that the magnificent speeches he put in the mouths of his stage puppets were only a part of what is called “business.” The superb indifference he thus displayed to his own place in the estimation of others was a striking proof of his sub-conscious power. That his contemporaries mentioned him but little would not have troubled a mind like Shakespeare’s and Robert Green’s jealous attack upon him as “an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, with his Tyger’s heart wrapt in a Player’s hide,” would but have moved him to a compassionate smile at such an outburst of malice and envy.
The chief lesson we may learn from Shakespeare’s unapproachable fame is of that greatness which is “impersonal.” The literary men of our day are all painfully personal and are seldom satisfied unless they are elbowing each other out of the way or scrambling over each other to the front; and some of them are never happier than when they can fasten themselves, like barnacles, to the splendid ship of Shakespeare’s immortal genius, which sails serenely onward over the seas of the infinite. As barnacles they do no particular harm; for, cling as they will, the great waves of time generally sweep them off in the progress of the voyage, while the great Ship goes on, carrying its messages of truth, honour, and strong patriotism to all the world! And it will still sail on, till the English language shall be no more. For if, in centuries to come, nothing should be left of England but Shakespeare, his name would be sufficient to prove that England once had lived!
SHAKESPEARE’S WAR BIRTHDAY IN 1917
NEGLECTED HONOURS
Many of our newspapers devoted columns of matter to “St. George’s Day”; and the writers of the various articles on this subject “gushed” in special and particular fashion over a purely mythical knight, whom legendary lore supposes to have killed a purely mythical dragon. But a very general omission was made of a real and a far greater personage than St. George, whose day of birth and death coincides with that of the dragon-slayer, namely, William Shakespeare, “the beautifullest English soul this England confesses to have made, the pink and flower of remembered Englishmen, the greatest thing, it appears, that we have yet done and managed to produce in this world,” according to right-thinking Thomas Carlyle. America, too, bears witness to the same truth through the golden voice of her noble teacher Emerson, who thus writes: “All the sweets and all the terrors of human lot lay in his mind as truly, but as softly, as the landscape lies on the eye.” He was, and is, our greatest Englishman—our finest patriot—and, when all is said and done, he will be our chief claim to remembrance in history. Very strange has it seemed to thousands of us, especially Americans, that during the present crisis and stress of war the Press of Great Britain should have apparently forgotten to mention the name of perhaps the greatest Maker of England on his natal day. Some one tells us, “It has never occurred before.” Then why has it occurred now?
Had Shakespeare been alive to-day we can easily imagine his attitude in regard to the war. Very English of English, he would have tolerated no half measures. He, like Sir Francis Drake, would have had short shrift for any foe that sought to “raid” the shores of his beloved Britain! Not for him would have been the message of the Vice-Admiral at Dover: “We were fortunate in being able to save the lives of ten German officers and ninety-five men from the vessels which were sunk!” He would have exclaimed: “Out upon such ‘fortune’!” And he might have judged it as somewhat of a misfortune that a British Vice-Admiral lived who could write it down as “fortunate” to rescue any members of the same savage Hun tribe that sank the Lusitania and scruples not to sink hospital ships! Another word might have been found for the occasion; and Shakespeare would have been the man to find it. To Shakespeare’s mind, a friend was a friend—a foe was a foe. Treachery was his chief abhorrence. When he lived in Stratford-on-Avon for the last remaining years of his career we know by various records that he was subjected to many petty annoyances at the hands of his own townsfolk, so that almost up to his death he was involved in litigation, defending himself from libel and his daughter from scandal. The Corporation were ready enough to borrow money of him—yes! that goes without saying. But for sympathy, comprehension, and friendship he had to seek outside his native town altogether. It would seem he has to do that still; and not only has he to go outside his native town, but outside his native land. In America his works are much better known, loved, and honoured than in Great Britain; in France, where it is difficult to understand him owing to the insuperable obstacles of his language for Frenchmen, there is a “société” founded by an erudite Israelite, with a British committee who are entirely unknown as real students of Shakespeare, but who have “names” distinguished in other walks of life. In Russia the bard is viewed as a sort of demi-god, for his verse translates into Russian superbly; and in the Germany of the past Lessing’s translation of the plays made him the father of German literature, as represented by Goethe, Schiller, and others who distinguished themselves before the black night of Hohenzollern decadence. But if we take our own islands—in Scotland he is hardly understood; in Ireland, seldom read or acted; in Wales, almost a sealed book; while in England itself—well, as Martin Harvey has recently said, a quarter of one day’s war expenses would establish a National Theatre, where the great plays could be produced in a fitting manner as part of the national education.
* * * * *
In Stratford-on-Avon this year’s anniversary of the poet’s birth and death has passed almost unmarked. No actor has urged his willing service to his Master in the theatre by the Avon, though this, for many reasons, is not to be wondered at. True, the bells of the church rang—true, the flags of nations were unfurled, and there was a dolefully shabby “flower” procession; but in the Memorial Theatre there was only a lecture, not on Shakespeare, but on a movement inaugurated by the lecturer himself. Then there were all the usual “pats on the back” of every person to the other concerned, a trifle of music, and there an end. Shakespeare himself was nowhere, though—yes!—perhaps out in the moist woods, where the primroses are beginning to push through the mould and the call of the cuckoo is faintly heard, one might have met his tranquil Spirit moving apart from all “alarums and excursions,” and have heard his voice in words which he could well address just now to England.
“Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.”
“DON’T TRAVEL”
A HARD HIT (Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
We are all called upon to make sacrifices, both public and personal. No one can assert that we do not make them willingly, and for the most part uncomplainingly. But our Dictators appear blind to the fact that in many cases their orders and “restrictions” are ruining British trades, while affording the greatest possible relief and satisfaction to the Boches. The well-fed Huns heard with malicious glee the admission of Mr. Bonar Law that we were at one time short of fighting men by a hundred thousand—an undiplomatic avowal which for sheer bad tact ranks alongside of Lord Devonport’s “grave” warnings of “food shortage,” and Captain Bathurst’s advertised appetite for “pickled herrings.” If “shortage” of any kind exists, why “give it away” to the enemy? It is of a nature to be dealt with “in secret Session,” not in the open House, where prominent members themselves admit that whatever is said is at once taken to Germany. Is it surprising, then, that with the crazy exaggerations and falsehoods of the German Press, our foes assert that “England is starving!” and that “there are not enough men left to us to fight with!” How much wiser and more dignified it would be to let them clearly understand that, honestly, we are not suffering at all from any real food hardships, and that we shall have more than a hundred thousand extra men ready to fight them should occasion arise. Mr. Bonar Law may be a Scottish “man of iron,” but he is also very guileless if he does not realise the derision and delight of the Boche over the statements he made in the House—statements repeated throughout Germany, just as Mr. Lloyd George’s unfortunate phrase, “the horrible danger of the submarine,” was caught up by Bethmann-Hollweg, and repeated with devilish laughter at every street corner in Berlin. When we are at grips with a foe it is not advisable to show him the loose joints in our armour. To us British there should be never a thought or a word of “horrible danger,” especially as we know we can grow our own necessary food if we make up our minds to do it; nor should we ever publicly admit any “shortage” of any kind, whether in men or supplies. To admit weakness is to court attack.
Now we are told “not to travel”; not to take the much longed-for Easter rest, with Easter hope of the slowly coming spring, and there is no doubt that those of us who have comfortable homes are willing enough to stay in them. But for the brave, patient men and women who have given up their homes to toil day and night at munition work, and who naturally crave for a breath of country or sea air, whose bodies and souls are weary, and who need, if only a few hours, change of scene and movement for their very health’s sake, the restrictions of train and motor service are surely rather an exercise of tyranny? Not only does the ban affect the travelling public (we presume the Cabinet Ministers will not deny themselves their Easter recess?), but it spells ruin to thousands of hard-working folk who depend for their living at this season on letting lodgings in the country or at the seaside; to say nothing of the disaster undeservedly inflicted on all our lovely watering-places and rural resorts, which exist, in a great measure, on the influx of visitors, whose patronage keeps them going. Surely it may be asked, Why destroy the prosperity of our own people? Why lay a paralysing hand on our own trades and industries? Is it to give the Boche a better chance when the war is over? Before the outbreak of the Hohenzollern madness, hotels and lodging-houses in all our pleasure resorts were numerous and prosperous, and the greater part of them were carried on by—Germans! One could not go anywhere without meeting German managers and German waiters. Now, when there might be the faint ghost of a chance for the British hotel-keeper, the British caterer, the British tradesman, the public are warned off with “Don’t travel!” What joy for the Germans! Our Dictators simply “fall” into their hands like drugged moths into a net, and the way they go to work suggests an attempt to “Prussianise” England, and make ample preparation for a German “boom” after the war, when our own people, half ruined by “restrictions,” have not even the time to recoup their losses or start afresh on any new line of possible prosperity. If the enormous expenditure of the war is to be met by the people, every chance must be given them to earn the money wherewith to meet it. None of the workers would trouble the railway service if motor-cars and conveyances were allowed to carry them out for an Easter breath of Easter air, but though military “swaggerers” at home are allowed to dash about everywhere in cars with apparent freedom, the “restriction” on petrol holds up all the rest of the public. Yet, as a matter of common hearsay, it is asserted that “there is no real scarcity of petrol!”
What are we to believe? One thing is pretty certain, and that is that the British public, though so patient “a hass,” may kick at last and refuse to take “rations” of thistles, while the German Hog is fed on carrots and corn. To quote from a well-reasoned article in a morning contemporary: “The blind and fatal shears of promiscuous prohibition cut off the just and the unjust together. They are, moreover, a most disturbing element in trade, and are reducing our merchants to despair.” True! And if the “disturbing element” is not promptly checked, we may look out for storms!
“TE DEUM LAUDAMUS”
THE GREAT THANKSGIVING (Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”)
It is time we gave thanks—indeed, it is more than time! Perhaps, had we seen more clearly into the future we might have given thanks long before this—thanks for our kinship with America—for the ties of blood, of language, of tradition, memory, and association which have made us, as some say, “cousins,” but as we prefer to believe, brothers—brothers in heart and soul, as we are to-day brothers-in-arms. Let it be admitted that we have not always quite understood each other. Small rancours, petty jealousies, trifling differences have arisen casually from time to time between the people of a great Empire and the people of a great Republic, which seem now but the merest gossamer cobwebs spun by the ever-working spiders of rumour and mischief, easily brushed away at a touch. The trumpet blast of a noble Cause has brought to our side our youngest comrade, alive with energy, passion, and enthusiasm, expressing in every attitude Tennyson’s eloquent lines:—
“I wake to the higher aims
Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold
And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames
Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told,
And I hail once more the banner of battle, unroll’d!”
* * * * *
And we have taken our comrade by both hands, and have knelt with him under the great dome of St. Paul’s, giving our thanks to God for bringing us this, our brother; and we claim to say with Lincoln that we do not presume to ask the Almighty to be on our side, but we do pray that we may be on the side of the Almighty! If President Wilson’s “Declaration of War” against Germany means anything, it means that right and justice, freedom and truth, are all of God; and therefore to fight for the maintenance of these things is to fight for God’s own Law and Order. The one piece of eloquence which stands out in distinctive greatness amid all that has yet been spoken concerning our world-contest, is this “Declaration,” which will go down to posterity as matchless for high principle, reasonableness, and clearness of diction—an oration which no statesman of old time, whether Greek or Roman, has ever surpassed, in what we know of history. It should have been read aloud in every church, every school, every theatre, every public assembly, with as much impressiveness as a Pope’s “Encyclical,” and more!
Nothing do we need so much in this country as to “catch on” to some of the enthusiasm and eagerness which fires our American Ally, as he springs to our side in the battle under the bright stars of the “Old Glory.” He is young, ardent, and ready for anything—quick eyed, alert of brain, he means to “hustle”! Some of us need to be infected by this splendid youth. A curious lethargy clings to us at times—a kind of dumb spell. Is it excess of feeling? Or—is it sheer egotism? Our French friends marvel at the indifference we show at the victories just won by Sir Douglas Haig. They thought to see all London beflagged in the great soldier’s honour. Very certainly they had hoped the “Stars and Stripes” might be flown from every public building on the day of the President’s Declaration—but no!—not even in Stratford-on-Avon, that shrine of America’s devoted Shakespeare-Worship, was any sign given of the momentous event. Rather discreditable to Stratford, remembering that in peace times Shakespeare’s Town depends very much for its livelihood on its crowds of American visitors. But what does Shakespeare himself say?
“Blow, blow thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude!”
Let us hope that it is not so much ingratitude as inability to appreciate the situation.
* * * * *
No wonder Americans find it sometimes difficult to know or to understand us. For months they have heard their President persistently abused, they have seen him cruelly caricatured and jeered at in the lower sections of the British Press, and they have had to possess their souls in patience till their day of triumph came. It has come—the bitter tongues are now all honey—and their generosity in forgiving and forgetting wrongs and coming to us in perfect amity, glittering in the panoply of battle, and placing almost inexhaustible supplies at our service, is a truly great and wonderful thing. We have done ourselves honour by the thanksgiving in St. Paul’s; and some of us who knelt in the dim shadows of that vast shrine and heard the thunderous chords of the American National Hymn surging in our ears, prayed that the two great English-speaking peoples, now joined in a vaster Crusade than was ever before undertaken, might find their union cemented, not only by the blood shed for country, but by all the ties of mutual comprehension and sympathy. To-day, we are as one in the resolve, that
“God’s just wrath shall be wreaked on a giant liar,
And noble thought be freer under the sun!”
And so shall the “Old Glory” help to make for us all the New!
THE WOMEN’S VOTE
NATURE VERSUS POLITICS
Those far-sighted and indulgent men who supported “Votes for Women” should surely be enjoying to the full the result of their pliability and humour! In the “Coupon Election” they expected six million feminine votes—for Coalition, of course. If we conjugate Ministerial messages as one verb, they could all have been rendered thus: “I expect, you expect, he expects” women to do their duty. But one point seems rather overlooked, and that is, the precise idea women have of duty. When I say “women” I mean women in the grand majority—not a few hundreds or even a few thousand agitators. And I dare to suggest that these “women in the grand majority,” do not care about their “votes” in the least—and that all the roaring of a megaphone press will never make them care. Nature is, and always will be, too strong for them, and Nature has not endowed them, except in a few rare cases, with a taste for politics. But Nature has given them far greater qualities, and has organised them in a special way—a way most beautiful, wonderful, and nobly privileged; and the greatest social reformer that ever risked the oft-tried sorry business of “re-constructing” civilisation, can never alter the work for which Nature is alone responsible. I do not believe that Women, speaking in the plural of nationalities, ever wanted the vote at all—but that seeing (and hearing) the wild clamour of some of their sisters, who shrieked and smashed themselves into notoriety, they were attracted by the fun of it, the noise of it, the curious, rowdy, non-feminine spirit of it, and followed the whooping and the yells with the fascinated amusement of children running after the “One Man Band” who beats a drum with his elbows and clashes cymbals with his feet. Mr. Lloyd George is a wise thinker in his generation, but his sagacity will be at fault if it should be proved (Heaven forbid!) that after all—yes, after all the screaming and smashing of windows, and all the efforts made on their behalf—the women as a whole prove apathetic and indifferent to this wonderful privilege they have fought for and won!
There is a French story of a certain spoilt little lady whose husband adored her, from the glimmer of her topmost blonde curl to the point of her broidered shoe, and who expressed to him her ardent wish for a diamond chain she had seen in an expensive jeweller’s window. Her husband, though rich and generous, apparently paid no attention to her oft-repeated request, till one day he suddenly presented her with the coveted ornament as a “surprise packet” and token of his affection. But she pushed the gift aside and gave way to bitter tears. “Why, oh, why did you bring me such a thing?” she sobbed. “I shall never wear it! Oh, why didn’t you buy me that dear weeny-teeny dog I saw yesterday! The weeny pet! I would have loved it so! I would have talked to it about you!—it would have been such a companion! Oh, I did want that weeny darling!”
There is a moral in this story (despite the contempt it must evoke among future female M.P.s), and “the pint,” as Captain Cuttle or his friend Jack Bunsby remarked, “lies in the application on it.” Whether Mr. Lloyd George and the supporters of the Women’s Franchise will perceive it is problematical—but whether they do or do not, there is a curious nature-fact about Woman which is frequently missed or overlooked by Man. It is this: That when she is given what she wants, she doesn’t want it! That is to say—the gaining of her objective concludes her active interest in it; the thing is possessed, and promptly loses its value. With the swiftness and ease of a butterfly she deserts the blossom from which she has stripped the pollen!
“Equality of the sexes” is one of the advanced feminine war-cries, when every one with a grain of common sense knows there is and can be no such equality. Nature’s law forbids. Nature insists on contrasts; the small and the great, the weak and the strong, the light and the dark. And women know well enough that their “calling and election” are superior to those of men—they are the makers of the race and the ordainers of the future, but their strength is not on the hustings or in the polling-booth—it is in the silence and sweetness of “Home.” The home is the acorn from which springs the oak of a nation. Women’s own instincts teach them that their power is too sacred a thing for common discussion; and when, in their despite, such discussion is let loose in the press by vulgarly interested sexualists and sensualists, their contempt is not concealed. They feel, strongly enough too, when questioned in the right spirit, that it is not needful for them to mix with the undignified scrambling of political methods; and any “apathy” as to the use of the vote, is simply that they have, or think they have, something better to do. Yes, indeed! They really and truly think that their home affairs, their children, their daily duties, even their clothes, are more in their line than “Coalition”! They are for unity of purpose most assuredly—all of one mind as to the punishment of surely the most miserable man on earth, the ex-Kaiser—equally of one mind concerning the barring out of the Huns from further interference of their own folks’ businesses—but they think, and rightly too, that so far as putting the nation’s house in order goes, the men should be trusted to do it. There was something very funny in Mr. Lloyd George’s opening words to a women’s meeting at Queen’s Hall—“I feel very shy and solitary!” Did he? Surely this was a bit of “camouflage”? But putting all blandishment aside, it is just a toss-up as to whether women’s votes will be quite as influential as prophesied. One of the surprises of the Coupon Election was Mr. Lloyd George’s “sweep-aside” of a chivalrous male candidate in favour of Miss Pankhurst, who, so it is understood, threatened the direst things against him in past “militant” days! Generosity and magnanimity on the part of a Prime Minister to a Suffragette, a male to a female, could no farther go!—but one wonders if the modern “Glendower” realised the effect his action had on many thousands of non-Pankhurst women? For sheer humiliation it came second only to the surrender of the German Fleet! Whether it served as good a purpose was answered by the result. “Drive Nature out of the door, she comes flying back through the window,” and one of the most curious, purely natural traits in woman’s complex character, is that she loves to have her own way up to a certain point, but when that point is gained she has had enough, and turns to man with a “Here! You take it!” And no woman has yet been returned to Parliament, for which we may all, if we have any common sense, thank God, and hope for the best that she never will be!
A “HAPPY THOUGHTS” DAY
(Written specially for the Grantham Red Cross Outings Fund)
Here is an idea for every one—young and old, rich and poor! Let us institute a “Happy Thoughts” Day!—one day out of the seven on which we resolve to think only “Happy” thoughts! Thoughts of kindness, tenderness, hope, and unselfishness—thoughts which, even while we think them, take fairy wings and fly from ourselves to our neighbours and propagate other happy thoughts, creating cheerfulness and hope wherever they go. It is not easy, perhaps, to think “happy” thoughts in dark days, but no good task can be accomplished without difficulty. A much more simple and convenient thing it is to grumble!—to lay our own faults on the shoulders of others,—to believe that our own troubles are the worst in the world,—to sneer at other folks’ manners, looks, clothes, and opinions, and to throw out mocking jests and cruel laughter at those whom we affect to despise yet secretly envy;—but on our “Happy Thoughts” day we can have none of these ugly and ordinary vulgarities,—we must make a bid for something higher and more exquisite in grace and refinement. We must think “happily” of others while we hope they will also think “happily” of us. We will make up our minds to find our friends beautiful, charming, and lovable; we will cheerfully admire them and their appearance and conversation,—we will agree that it is a special blessing conferred on us that we have any friends at all,—and we will confess that our lot in life is much better than we have any right to expect. And we will send our “happy thoughts” across the seas to suffering nations, conjoined with our hopeful prayers—prayers that they may be sustained and comforted, and by God’s mercy be victorious. And above all, we will let our “Happy Thoughts Day” reflect its cheeriness in ourselves,—in our looks and bearing, our talk and expression, so that we may be the carriers of mental sunshine everywhere, even during the passing of the darkest thundercloud. One day out of the seven, dear friends!—take it and consecrate it to “Happy Thoughts,” happy thoughts of earth, of heaven, of God and man,—and you will find it a day on which you unconsciously grow stronger, braver, pleasanter to look at, more valuable to know,—for happiness is a powerful magnet, and never fails to draw others to its vital line. May a “Happy Thoughts Day” be the true holiday of every loving and faithful soul!