Essays in Rebellion

by Henry Woodd Nevinson

In a large part of the country peasant proprietors would be established, and the peasants as a whole would be far better protected against the exactions and petty tyranny of the landlords than they are at present. Under the pressure of external rule, all the troublesome divisions and small animosities between English, Scots, Irish, and Welsh would tend to disappear, though the Germans might show special favour to the Scots and Presbyterians generally on the principle of "Divide and Rule," just as we show special favour to the Mohammedans of India. We should, of course, be compelled to contribute to the defence of the Empire, and should pay the expenses of the large German garrisons quartered in our midst and of the German cruisers that patrolled our shores. But as we should have no fleet of our own to maintain, and in case of foreign aggression could draw upon the vast resources of the German Empire, our taxation for defence would probably be considerably reduced from its present figure of something over seventy millions a year.

That, I think, is an impartial statement of the reasons which some dominant Power, such as Germany, might fairly advance in defence of her rule if we were included in a foreign Empire. At all events, they very closely resemble the reasons we put forward to glorify the services of our Empire to India and Egypt. I suppose also that the Fabians among ourselves would support the foreign domination, just as their leaders supported the overthrow of the Boer republics, on the ground that larger states bring the Fabian—the very Fabian—revolution nearer. And, perhaps, the Social Democrats would support it by an extension of their theory that the social millennium can best arrive out of a condition of general enslavement. The Cosmopolitans would support it as tending to obliterate the old-fashioned distinctions of nationality that impede the unity of mankind, while a host of German pedants and poets would pour out libraries in praise of the Anglo-Teutonic races united at last in irresistible brotherhood and standing ready to take up the Teuton's burden imposed upon the Blood by the special ordinance of the Lord.

The parallel is false, some may say; the conditions are not the same; in spite of all material and educational advantages, we in England would never endure such subjection; we should live in a state of perpetual rebellion; our troops would mutiny; much as we all detest assassination, the lives of our foreign Governors would hardly be secure. I agree. I hope there is implanted in all of us such a hatred of subjection that we should conspire to die rather than endure it. I only wish to suggest the mood of a subject race, under the best actual conditions of subjection—to suggest that other peoples may possibly feel an equal hatred toward foreign domination—and to supply in ourselves something of that imaginative sympathy which Madame Malmberg tells us the Finns only learned after their own freedom had been overthrown.

We feel at once that something far more valuable than all the material, or even moral, advantages which a dominant Power might give us would be involved in the overthrow of our independent nationality. That something is nationality itself. But what is nationality? Like the camel in the familiar saying, it is difficult to define, but we know it when we see it. Or, as St. Augustine said of Time, "I know what it is when you don't ask me." Nationality implies a stock or race, an inborn temperament, with certain instincts and capacities. It is the slow production of forgotten movements and obscure endeavours that cannot be repeated or restored. It is sanctified by the long struggles of growth, and by the affection that has gathered round its history. If nationality has kindled and maintained the light of freedom, it is illuminated by a glory that transforms mountain poverty into splendour. If it has endured tyranny, its people are welded together by a common suffering and a common indignation. At the lowest, the people of the same nationality have their customs, their religion, generally their language—that most intimate bond—and always the familiar outward scenes of earth and water, hill and plain and sky, breathing with memories. Nationality enters into the soul of each man or woman who possesses it. Mr. Chesterton has well described it as a sacrament. It is a silent oath, an invisible mark. Life receives from it a particular colour. It is felt as an influence in action and in emotion, almost in every thought. In freedom it sustains conduct with a proud assurance of community and reputation. Under oppression, it may fuse all the pleasant uses of existence into one consuming impulse of fanatical devotion. It has inspired the noblest literature and all the finest forms of art, and chiefly in countries where the flame of nationality burned strong and clear has the human mind achieved its greatest miracles of beauty, thought, and invention.

Nationality possesses that demonic and incalculable quality from which almost anything may be expected in the way of marvel, just as certain spiky plants that have not varied winter or summer for years in their habitual unattractiveness will suddenly shoot up a ten-foot spire of radiant blossom abounding in honey. Partly by nationality has the human race been preserved from the dreariness of ant-like uniformity and has retained the power of variation which appears to be essential for the highest development of life. With what pleasure, during our travels, we discover the evidences of nationality even in such things as dress, ornaments, food, songs, and dancing; still more in thought, speech, proverbs, literature, music, and the higher arts! With what regret we see those characteristics swept away by the advancing tide of dominant monotony and Imperial dullness! The loss may seem trivial compared with the loss of personal or political freedom, but it is not trivial. It is a symptom of spiritual ruin. How deep a degradation of intellect and personality is shown by the introduction of English music-hall songs among a highly poetic people like the Irish, or by the vulgar corruption of India's superb manufactures and forms of art under the blight of British commerce! You know the Persian carpets, of what magical beauty they are in design and colour. When I was on the borders of Persia in 1907 the Persian carpet merchants were selling one kind of carpet with a huge red lion being shot by a sportsman in the middle of it to please the English, and another kind decorated with a Parisian lady in a motor to please the Russians. From those carpets one may realise what the English Government's acquiescence in the subjection of Persia really involves.

No subject race can entirely escape this degradation. No matter how good the government may be or how protective, all forms of subjection involve a certain loss of manhood. Under an alien Power the nature of the subject nationality becomes soft and dependent. Instead of working out its own salvation, it looks to the government for direction or assistance in every difficulty. Atrophy destroys its power of action. It loses the political sense and grows incapable of self-help or self-reliance. The stronger faculties, if not extinguished, become mutilated. In Ireland, even to-day, we see the result of domination in the continued belief that the British Government which has brought the country to ruin possesses the sole power of restoring it to prosperity. In India we see a people so enervated by alien and paternal government that they have hardly the courage or energy to take up such small responsibilities in local government as may be granted them. This is what a true Liberal statesman, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, meant by his wise saying that self-government is better than good government. And it might be further illustrated by the present condition of the largest subject race in the world—the race of women—to whom all the protective legislation and boasted chivalry and lap-dog petting, fondly supposed to be lavished upon them by men, are not to be compared in personal value with just the small right to a voice in the management of their own and national affairs.

Such mutilation of character is the penalty of subjection at its best. At its worst the subject race pays the penalty in tormenting rancour, undying hatred, and the savage indignation that tears the heart. It may be said that indignation is at all events better than loss of manhood, and again I agree. Where there is despotism it may well be that for this reason a cruel despotism is less harmful than a paternal despotism—less harmful, I mean, to the individual soul, which is the only thing that counts. But the soul that is choked by hatred and torn by indignation is not at its best. Its functions go wrong, its sight is distorted, its judgment perturbed, its sweetness poisoned, its laughter killed. The whole being suffers and is changed. For a time it may blaze with a fierce, a magnificent intensity. But we talk of a "consuming rage," and the phrase is terribly true. Rage is a consuming fire, always a glorious fire, a wild beacon in the night of darkness, but it consumes to ashes the nature that is its fuel.

Loss of manhood or perpetual rancour—those are the penalties imposed on the soul of a subject race. Nor does the dominant race escape scot free. Far from it. On the whole, it suffers a deeper degradation. A dominant race, like a domineering person, is always disagreeable and always a bore, and the nearer it is to the scene of domination the more disagreeable and wearisome it becomes, just as a tyrannical man is worst at home. I have known English people start as quiet, pleasing, modest, and amiable passengers in a P. & O. from Marseilles, but become less endurable every twenty-four hours of the fortnight to Bombay. There are noble and conspicuous exceptions alike in the army, the Indian Civil Service, and among the officials scattered over the Empire. But, as a rule, we may say that the worst characteristics not only of our own but of all dominant races, such as the French, Germans, and Russians, are displayed among their subject peoples. If, indeed, the subjects are on a level with spaniels that can be beaten or patted alternately and retain a constant affection and respect, the English son of squires thoroughly enjoys his position and does the beating and patting well. But it is always with a certain loss of humour and common humanity: it brings a kind of stiffness and pedantry such as Charles Lamb complained of in the old-fashioned type of schoolmaster. It exaggerates a sense of Heaven-born superiority which the English squire has no need to exaggerate.

I am not one of those who set out to "crab" their countrymen. We have lately had so much criticism and contempt poured upon us by more intelligent people like the Irish, the Germans, and an ex-President of the United States that sometimes I have been driven to wonder whether we may not somewhere possess some element worthy of respect. But, keeping the lash in our own discriminating hands, we should all perhaps confess that in regard to other people's feelings and ideas we are rather insensitive as a nation. This form of unimaginative obtuseness undoubtedly increased during the extension of our grip upon subject races between the overthrow of Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill and the end of the Boer War. Perhaps those fifteen years were the most entirely vulgar period of our history, and vulgarity springs from an insensitive condition of mind. It will be a terrible recompense if the price of our world-wide Empire is an Imperial vulgarity upon which the sun never sets.

There is another danger, not so subtle and pervading, but more likely to escape the notice of people who are not themselves acquainted with the frontiers of Empire. It is the production and encouragement of a set of scoundrels and wasters who trade upon our country's prestige to rob, harry, and even enslave the members of a subject race while they pose as pioneers of Empire and are held up by sentimental travellers, like Mr. Roosevelt, as examples of toughness and courage to the victims of monotonous toil who live at home at ease. There is no call either for Mr. Roosevelt's pity or admiration. I have known those wasters well, and have studied all their tricks for turning a dirty half-crown. They enjoy more pleasure and greater ease in a day than any London shop assistant or bank clerk in a month. They take up the white man's burden and find it light, because it is the black man who carries it. Of all the impostors that nestle under our flag, I have found none more contented with their lot or more harmful to our national repute than the "toughs" who devour our subject races and stand in photographic attitudes for Mr. Kipling to slobber over. These scoundrels and wasters are a far worse evil than most people think, for they erect a false ideal which easily corrupts youth with its attraction, and they furnish ready instruments for land-grabbers and company directors, as is too often seen in their onslaughts upon Zulus, Basutos, and other half-savage peoples whom they desire to exterminate or enslave. They are a singularly poisonous by-product of Empire, all the more poisonous for their brag; and though they belong to the class whom their relations gladly contribute to emigrate, they are far worse employed in debauching and plundering our so-called fellow-subjects in Africa than they would be in the public-houses, gambling-dens, pigeon-shooting enclosures, workhouses, and jails of their native land. Of course, it is very useful to have dumping-grounds for our wasters, and it is pleasant to reflect upon the seven thousand miles of sea between one's self and one's worthless nephew, but a dumping-ground for nepotism can scarcely be considered the noblest aim of conquest.