There was a quite considerable period--five or six years, at least, I think--during which political work tended to broaden my mind, widen my sympathies, and enhance my esteem for a number of my contemporaries. Beyond that point I am afraid no good came to me from the study of politics; from which fact it is probably safe to assume that any influence I exercised ceased to be beneficial. For a time it had, I think, been helpful in its small way. That was while faith remained in me.
I remember conceiving a warm respect for a number of men engaged in political work as writers, organisers, and speakers. I admired these men for the fervour with which they appeared to devote their lives to the service of political ends. I even derived from my conception of their enthusiasm, strong, almost emotional interest in certain political issues, tendencies, and developments. Later, as I learned to know the men and their work better, came rather painful disillusionment. We differed fundamentally, it seemed, these eloquent fellows and myself. One actually told me in so many words, and with a cynical smile at his other companion of the moment, as who should say: 'Really, this innocent needs awakening'; that I was playing the gull's part on the surface of things. 'We are not concerned with principles,' he said, in effect. 'That may be all right for the groundlings--our audience. Our concern is parties, office--the historic game of ins and outs, in which we have our careers to make.'
Until I put the whole business for ever behind me, I never lost my interest in issues and principles; neither did I ever acquire one jot or tittle of the professional's interest in the political game, as such; or endeavour to utilise its complex machinery for the furtherance of my own career. But in the course of time the study, not so much of politics as of political life, came to fill me with a kind of sick weariness and disgust; a sort of dull nausea and shame, such as I imagine forms one of the penalties for the unfortunate sisterhood, of what is sardonically called the life of pleasure. Upon the whole, I am afraid there is a good deal in common between the political life and the life of the streets. Certainly, the camp followers in political warfare are a motley crew of mercenaries, and they take their tone from quite a number of their leaders.
It would be quite beside the mark to add that there are some fine men in British politics. There are, of course, in all professions, including (I dare say) that of burglary. There still are in the political arena gentlemen whose single aim, pursued with undeviating loftiness of purpose, is the service of their country. I will not pretend to think their number large, for I know it is not. (But I dare say it is larger than it will be a few years hence, when we have pursued a little farther the enlightened ideal of governance by the least fit for the least fit, by the most poorly equipped for the most poorly equipped, by the most ignorant and irresponsible for the most ignorant and irresponsible.) But the class of well-meaning, decent, clean-lived politicians is a fairly large one. As these worthy if unremarkable men have not a tithe of the brains of the most prominent among the quite unscrupulous sort--the undoubted birds of prey--their good intentions are of small value to their generation or their country, and represent little or nothing in the shape of hindrance to the skilled pirates of political waters.
But my personal concern was not so much with the rank and file of actual politicians as with the great army of camp followers; the band of fine, whole-souled, well-dressed, fluent fellows, for whom 'something must be done, you know,' because of this or that interest, because of the alleged wishes of this great person or the other; and because, above all, of their own quite wonderful pertinacity, untiring pushfulness, and, of course, their valuable services and great abilities as talkers, writers, 'organisers,' and what not.
I have known men who, for years, had found it worth not less than £800 or £1000 a year to them to have been spoken of by Mr. ----, Lord ----, or Sir ----, as 'an exceedingly capable organiser, and--er--devoted to the Cause.' No one ever knew precisely what they had organised (apart from their own comfortable subsistence in West End clubs and houses) or were to organise; but there they were, fine fellows all, tastefully dressed, in the best of health and spirits, and indefatigably fluent in--in--er--the service of the Cause, you know!
There was a period in which I fancied these parasites were the monopoly of one political party. But I soon learned that this was far from being the case. All the four parties which the twentieth century saw established in parliament are equally surrounded by their camp followers, who each differ from each other only superficially, and, not unseldom, transfer their allegiance in pursuit of fatter game. The differences do impress one at first, but, as I say, they are mainly superficial. All are equally self-centred and true to type as parasites; though one brood is better dressed than another, and has a more formidable appetite. What makes rich pickings for the follower of one camp would leave the follower of another camp lean and hungry indeed. But the necessary scale of expenditure being higher in one division than another, things equalise themselves pretty much. I believe it is much the same in the case of the other ancient profession I have mentioned.
I have seen quite a large number of promising young men, fresh from the Universities, and beginning life in London with high aspirations and genuine patriotism in their hearts, only to become gradually absorbed into the gigantic parasitical incubus of the body politic. The process of absorption was none the less saddening and embittering to watch, because its subjects usually waxed fatter and more apparently jovial with each stage in their gradual exchange of ideals for cash, patriotism for nepotism, enthusiasm for cynicism, and disinterestedness for toadyism. Some had in them the makings of very good and useful citizens. Their wives, so far as I was able to see, almost invariably (whether deliberately or unknowingly) egged them on in the downward path to complete surrender. As a rule, complete surrender meant less striving and contriving, a better establishment, and a freer use of hansom cabs in place of omnibuses. (I am thinking for the moment of the days which knew not taxi-cabs.)
When they were writers, a frequent sign of the beginning of their end (from my standpoint; of their success, from other standpoints, including, no doubt, those of their wives) was that they began to write of persons rather than principles; to eulogise rather than to exhort, criticise, and suggest. So surely as they began their written panegyrics of individuals, I found them laying aside the last remnants of their private hero-worship. Very soon after this stage they generally changed their clubs, becoming members of the most expensive of these establishments; and from that point on, their progress towards finished cynicism, fatty degeneration of the intellect, and smiling abandonment of all scruples, all ideals, and all modesty, was rapid and certain.
The inquiring student of such processes would perhaps have found banquets, luncheons, and public dinners of a more or less political colour his most prolific fields. Upon such occasions I always found the genus very strongly represented. In one camp the dress clothes of the followers would be of a better cut and more gracefully worn than in the other camp; and those of the better-dressed camp had more of assurance, more of brazen impudence, and more of hopelessly shallow cynicism, I think, than those of other divisions. In many cases, too, they had more of education; but, I fear, less of brains.