Even if Chesterton cannot work himself up to Cowper's enthusiasm (and few of us can), he cannot deny that the race he is continually blackguarding was preparing his religion, and discovering the way to health at a time when his own Gentile ancestors were probably performing human sacrifices and eating worms. Unquestionably what is the matter with the modern Jew, especially of the educated classes, is that he refuses to be impressed by the Christian Church. But the Christian Church cannot fairly be said to have made herself attractive in the past; her methods of Inquisition, for example. . . .
It is difficult to write apathetically on this extreme instance of a great writer's intolerance. One single example will suffice. A year or two ago, a Jew called Beilis was put on his trial (after an imprisonment of nearly three years) for the murder of a small Christian boy named Yushinsky, in order that his blood might be used for ritual purposes. Yushinsky, who was found dead under peculiar circumstances, was probably a Jew himself, but that does not affect the point at issue. Mr. Arthur Henderson, M.P., tried to arouse an agitation in order to secure the freedom of Beilis, because it was perfectly evident from the behaviour of certain parties that the prisoner's conviction would be the signal for the outbreak of a series of massacres of the Jews, and because a case which had taken nearly three years to prepare was obviously a very thin case. Chesterton wrote a ribald article in The Daily Herald on Mr. Henderson's attempt at intervention, saying in effect, How do you know that Beilis isn't guilty? Now it is impossible to hold the belief that Beilis might be guilty and at the same time disbelieve that the Jews are capable of committing human sacrifice. When a leading Russian critic named Rosanov, also an anti-Semite, issued a pamphlet proclaiming that the Jews did, in fact, commit this loathsome crime, he was ignominiously ejected from a prominent Russian literary society. The comparison should appeal to Chesterton.
The nadir of these antipathies is reached in The Flying Inn, a novel published a few months before the Great War broke out, and before we all made the discovery that, hold what prejudices we will, we are all immensely dependent on one another. In this book we are given a picture of England of the future, conquered by the Turk. As a concession to Islam, all intoxicating drink is prohibited in England. It is amusing to note that a few months after the publication of this silly prognostication, the greatest Empire in Christendom prohibited drink within its frontiers in order to conquer the Turk—and his Allies. A Patrick Dalroy, an Irishman (with red hair), and of course a giant, has been performing Homeric feats against the conquering Turks. A Lord Ivywood, an abstraction bloodless to the point of albinism, is at the head of affairs in England. The Jews dominate everything. Dalroy and Humphrey Pump, an evicted innkeeper, discovering that drinks may still be sold where an inn-sign may be found, start journeying around England loaded only with the sign-board of "The Green Man," a large cheese, and a keg of rum. They are, in fact, a peripatetic public-house, and the only democratic institution of its kind left in England. Every other chapter the new innkeepers run into Ivywood and his hangers-on. As the story wriggles its inconsequent length, the author curses through the mouths of his heroes. He anathematizes teetotallers, brewers, vegetarians, temperance drinks, model villages, æsthetic poets, Oriental art, Parliament, politicians, Jews, Turks, and infidels in general, futurist painting, and other things. In the end, Dalroy and Pump lead a vast insurrection, and thousands of dumb, long-suffering Englishmen attack Ivywood in his Hall, and so free their country from the Turk.
Only the songs already described in Chapter V preserve this book from extreme dullness. Technically it is poor. The action is as scattered as the parts of a futurist picture. A whole chapter is devoted to a picture of a newspaper editor at work, inventing the phraseology of indefiniteness. Epigrams are few and are very much overworked. Once a catchword is sprung, it is run to death. The Turk who by means of silly puns attempts to prove that Islamic civilization is better than European, never ceases in his efforts. The heartlessness of Ivywood is continuous, and ends in insanity.
Parts of The Flying Inn convey the impression that Chesterton was tired of his own style and his own manner of controversy, and had taken to parodying himself. The arguments of the already-mentioned Turk, for example, might well pass for a really good parody of the theological dispute in the first chapter of The Ball and the Cross. There, it may be remembered, two men (more or less) discussed the symbolism of balls and crosses. In The Flying Inn people discuss the symbolism of crescents and crosses, and the Turk, Misysra Ammon, explains, "When the English see an English youth, they cry out 'He is crescent!' But when they see an English aged man, they cry out 'He is cross!'" On these lines a great deal of The Flying Inn is written.
We now come to Chesterton's political decadence, traceable, like many features in his history, to Mr. Hilaire Belloc. The friendship between G.K.C. and the ex-Liberal M.P. for Rochdale bore a number of interesting fruits. There were the amusing illustrations to The Great Enquiry, an amusing skit on the Tariff Reform League, to Emmanuel Burden and The Green Overcoat. But curious artificialities sprang into existence, like so many funguses, under the lengthening shadow of Mr. Belloc. To him is due the far-fetchedness of some of Chesterton's pleading in support of the miraculous element in religion. To him also is due the growing antipathy against the Liberal Party and the party system in general.
Up to the end of January, 1913, Chesterton had continued his connection with The Daily News. On January 28th there took place, at the Queen's Hall, London, a debate between Mr. Bernard Shaw and Mr. Hilaire Belloc. The latter moved "That if we do not re-establish the institution of property, we shall re-establish the institution of slavery; there is no third course." The debate was an extremely poor affair, as neither combatant dealt, except parenthetically, with his opponent's points. In the course of it Mr. Shaw, to illustrate an argument, referred to Chesterton as "a flourishing property of Mr. Cadbury," a remark which G.K.C. appears to have taken to heart. His quarrel with official Liberalism was at the moment more bitter than ever before. Mr. Belloc had taken a very decided stand on the Marconi affair, and Mr. Cecil Chesterton, G.K.C.'s brother, was sturdily supporting him. The Daily News, on the other hand, was of course vigorously defending the Government. Chesterton suddenly severed his long connection with The Daily News and came over to The Daily Herald. This paper, which is now defunct, except in a weekly edition, was the organ of Syndicalism and rebellion in general. In a letter to the editor of The Herald, Chesterton explained with pathetic irony that The Daily News "had come to stand for almost everything I disagree with; and I thought I had better resign before the next great measure of social reform made it illegal to go on strike."
A week or so later, Chesterton started his series of Saturday articles in The Daily Herald. His first few efforts show that he made a determined attempt to get down to the intellectual level of the Syndicalist. But anybody who sits down to read through these articles will notice that before many weeks had passed Chesterton was beginning to feel a certain discomfort in the company he was keeping. He writes to say that he likes writing for The Daily Herald because it is the most revolutionary paper he knows, "even though I do not agree with all the revolutions it advocates," and goes on to state that, personally, he likes most of the people he meets. Having thus, as it were, cleared his conscience in advance, Chesterton let himself go. He attacked the Government for its alleged nepotism, dishonesty, and corruption. He ended one such article with, "There is nothing but a trumpet at midnight, calling for volunteers." The New Statesman then published an article, "Trumpets and How to Blow Them," suggesting, among other things, that there was little use in being merely destructive. It is typical of what I have called the decadence of Chesterton that he borrowed another writer's most offensive description of a lady prominently connected with The New Statesman in order to quote it with glee by way of answer to this article. The Syndicalist hates the Socialist for his catholicity. The Socialist wishes to see the world a comfortable place, the Syndicalist merely wishes to work in a comfortable factory. Chesterton seized the opportunity, being mildly rebuked by a Socialist paper, to declare that the Fabians "are constructing a man-trap." A little later on he writes, with reference to a controversialist's request, that he should explain why, after all, he was not a Socialist:
If he wants to know what the Marconi Scandal has saved us from, I can tell him. It has saved us from Socialism. My God! what Socialism, and run by what sort of Socialists! My God! what an escape! If we had transferred the simplest national systems to the State (as we wanted to do in our youth) it is to these men that we should have transferred them.
There never was an example of more muddled thinking. Let us apply it to something definite, to that harmless, necessary article of diet, milk, to be precise, cow's milk. To-day milk is made expensive by a multiplicity of men who have interests in keeping milk expensive. There are too many milkmen's wages to be paid, too many milk-carts to be built, too many shop-rents paid, and too much apparatus bought, simply because we have not yet had the intelligence to let any municipality or county run its own milk-service and so avoid all manner of duplication. Chesterton's answer to this is: "I used to think so, but what about Lord Murray, Mr. Lloyd George, and Mr. Godfrey Isaacs?" It would be as relevant to say, "What about Dr. Crippen, Jack Sheppard, and Ananias," or, "But what about Mr. Bernard Shaw, the Grand Duke Nicolas, and my brother?" The week later Chesterton addresses the Labour Party in these words: