A THEORY OF BRITISH FREEDOM
From the national point of view, it is ennobling that at some period of their lives the great majority of citizens should have served the commonwealth disinterestedly. This after all is the only principle which will support a commonwealth. For a commonwealth will not stand against the shocks, which history teaches us to beware of, merely by dropping papers, marked with a cross, into a ballot-box once every five years, or even oftener. It will not stand merely by taking an intelligent interest in events, by attending meetings and reading the newspapers, and by indulging in outbursts of indignation or enthusiasm. It will only stand by virtue of personal service, and by the readiness of the whole people, generation by generation, to give their lives and—what is much harder to face—the time and irksome preparation which are necessary for making the sacrifice of their lives—should it be called for—effective for its purpose.
If the mass of the people, even when they have realised the need, will not accept the obligation of national service they must be prepared to see their institutions perish, to lose control of their own destinies, and to welcome another master than Democracy, who it may well be, will not put them to the trouble of dropping papers, marked with a cross, into ballot-boxes once in five years, or indeed at all. For a State may continue to exist even if deprived of ballot-boxes; but it is doomed if its citizens will not in time prepare themselves to defend it with their lives.
The memories of the press-gang and the militia ballot are dim. Both belong to a past which it is the custom to refer to with reprobation. Both were inconsistent with equal comradeship between classes; with justice, dignity, honour, and the unity of the nation; and on these grounds they are rightly condemned.
But the press-gang and the militia ballot have been condemned, and are still condemned, upon other grounds which do not seem so firm. Both have been condemned as contravening that great and laudable principle of British freedom which lays it down that those who like fighting, or prefer it to other evils—like starvation and imprisonment—or who can be bribed, or in some other way persuaded to fight, should enjoy the monopoly of being 'butchered,' both abroad and at home. And it has been further maintained by those who held these views, that people who do not like fighting, but choose rather to stay at home talking, criticising, enjoying fine thrills of patriotism, making money, and sleeping under cover, have some kind of divine right to go on enjoying that form of existence undisturbed. Since the Wars of the Roses the latter class has usually been in a great majority in England. Even during the Cromwellian Civil War the numbers of men, capable of bearing arms, who actually bore them, was only a smallish fraction of the entire population.
The moral ideals of any community, like other things, are apt to be settled by numbers. With the extension of popular government, and the increase of the electorate, this tendency will assert itself more and more. But providing the people are dealt with plainly and frankly, without flattery or deceit—like men and not as if they were greedy children—the moral sense of a democracy will probably be sounder and stronger than that of any other form of State.
Even in England, however, there have been lapses, during which the people have not been so treated, and the popular spirit has sunk, owing to mean leadership, into degradation. During the whole of the industrial epoch the idea steadily gained in strength, that those whose battles were fought for them by others, approached more nearly to the type of the perfect citizen than those others who actually fought the battles; that the protected were worthier than the protectors.
According to this view the true meaning of 'freedom' was exemption from personal service. The whole duty of the virtuous citizen with regard to the defence of his country began and ended with paying a policeman. With the disappearance of imminent and visible danger, the reprobate qualities of the soldier became speedily a pain and a scandal to godly men. In time of peace he was apt to be sneered at and decried as an idler and a spendthrift, who would not stand well in a moral comparison with those steady fellows, who had remained at home, working hard at their vocations and investing their savings.
NINETEENTH CENTURY NOTIONS
The soldier, moreover, according to Political Economy, was occupied in a non-productive trade, and therefore it was contrary to the principles of that science to waste more money upon him than could be avoided. Also it was prudent not to show too much gratitude to those who had done the fighting, lest they should become presumptuous and formidable.