After cataloguing carefully the industries which occupy the working hours of the Englishman and the sports which amuse his leisure, there would still be left to be considered a great field of activity which can come strictly under the heading neither of work nor of amusement, though it affords much of both. That is the field of politics.
Huge amounts of time, energy, money, are expended yearly by the Englishman on politics. To some of the wealthy and leisured, political activity in some direction or another is the chief interest of life. To some of the poor and discontented, politics seems to offer a way to better things. To the middle classes a degree of political activity is dictated if not by personal predilection then by the dictates of fashion or by the ambition to "get on" socially. There is no better way of social advancement than the way of politics. It is not only that knighthoods, orders, peerages even, reward the political worker, but that entry into social circles otherwise closed becomes possible when some mutual political interest smooths the way. Thus the ranks of those genuinely interested in political issues are recruited by a great crowd of social aspirants, sincere enough probably, but with, as their main object, the desire to parade their excellent political principles as a reason for advancement into "good society."
This aspect of political life is not peculiar to England. Wherever representative institutions exist it may be found in some degree. But in England it has gone to an extreme length. The existence of a very numerous leisured class is partly responsible, no doubt. Another explanation is that in England with political issues are inextricably involved personal and clan rivalries. The Montagues and Capulets do not brawl in the streets of London or Manchester. They fight out their rivalries on the hustings and in the field of politics. Where there are no ready-made leaders of political faction in a town or district they soon develop; or there may grow up a joint-stock rivalry between the political clubs, in which the personal leadership becomes of minor importance but the corporate struggle for supremacy is tremendous. Then the position resembles the fierce but on the whole good-natured contests between football clubs and their supporters.
The rival political organisations, under these circumstances, seek always eagerly the man who can win or hold the seat, and their chief interest is that the party platform shall be so framed that it will be most likely to attract the "wobblers," who are not definitely and permanently bound to either party. Victory carries with it intense satisfaction. With defeat there is rarely any enduring bitterness. In politics, as in other games, the Englishman is a "good sport," and if he loses to-day hopes to win next time, or consoles himself, when he is permanently and hopelessly outnumbered, that at least he has won a "moral victory." A "moral victory" is won when you are decisively beaten, but would certainly have won on account of the excellence of your cause but that Providence was on the side of the bigger battalions.
Aside from the main party issue:
Every little boy or girl that is born alive
Is born either a little Liberal or a little Conservative.
English political activity finds expression in numberless leagues, societies, organisations, and unions to promote some special idea in politics. These usually have a nucleus of enthusiasts and a great body of followers with no very precise idea of what they want, but an impression that the league is a good thing because it has this or that personality among its office-bearers. I tried once to make a census of the political organisations of England, and gave up the task when the number passed into the hundreds without the end being in sight. Each party has several organisations to meet the needs of different types of supporters. Then each idea claims its league to advocate, and often also its league to oppose. Further, there are all sorts of leagues which aim at the abolition of something, and again there are some leagues pseudo-political, which really have no more serious purpose than afternoon tea.
But usually the purpose is serious and sincere. Else why the street meeting, which in the English climate is usually a harsh tax on the comfort of speakers and audience? My first impression in London of one of these street meetings at first inspired in me ridicule, then a reluctant admiration. At a street corner—brilliantly lighted from a public-house on one side and a grocery store on the other—a little pulpit set up in the road: from it a man speaking vigorously, almost passionately, apparently to the idle wind, for no one is there to listen, unless indeed that horse drowsing in the shafts of a cart at the grocery store is listening, and what looks like sleepiness on its part is really quiet and intelligent appreciation. This was strange enough to arrest attention. I forgot a purpose to see from Primrose Hill the young moon rise over London on a clear night, and stopped to listen. That was the first of the audience. The speaker had announced, "We are met here to-night to——"; but that was, it seemed at first, an unjustifiable optimism, for nobody had met; nobody seemed inclined to meet.
But the speaker, after all, knew. There was to be, later on, a meeting, and he, with a stolid courage that evoked an admiration strong enough to smother the first sense of ludicrousness, was making that meeting. To speak to a meeting which isn't, to pour out eloquence to an empty waste of street for half an hour or so until the curious are attracted and an odd bystander swells to a group, and a group to a crowd—that surely calls for courage of the highest; it calls, too, for that stolid self-confidence and imperviousness to ridicule which seems characteristic of the Englishman when he feels that he is in the right.
But very depressing is the beginning of this street meeting. The speaker has put up his little barricade, a street pulpit of deal, which bears a placard urging "the electors to insist on a candidate who will support British work for British hands"; but at first there is neither friend to help nor enemy to fight. In a little while two supporting speakers appear with bundles of pamphlets. Three small boys, attracted by curiosity, are enlisted to distribute these among the audience (as yet non-existent). The man in the pulpit talks energetically and sensibly. There are all the essentials of a good meeting, except an audience. The horse at the street corner still drowses. With irritating persistency a street beggar—a sturdy young chap apparently, perhaps one of the victims of the political evils that the speaker is talking of—plays a dismal tune again and again on a concertina. The air is eager and nipping, and it seems hopeless to expect that any number will give up their Saturday night to stand listening at this cold street corner.