Of the stranglehold there was no doubt and Gilbert soon found it too much for his own allegiance to the Liberal Party or any other. At the election of 1910, he addressed a Liberal meeting at Beaconsfield and dealt vigorously with constant Tory questions and interjections from the back of the hall. He obviously enjoyed the fight and a little later he spoke for the "League of Young Liberals" and was photographed standing at the back of their van. But although he went to London to vote for John Burns in Battersea and would probably have continued to vote Liberal or Labour, he showed at a Women's Suffrage meeting in 1911 a growing scepticism about the value of the vote. He was reported as saying, "If I voted for John Burns now, I should not be voting for anything at all (laughter)."
It must have been irritating that this interpolation "laughter" was liable to occur when Chesterton was most serious; he did not change quickly but in the alteration of his outlook towards his party, his growing doubt whether it stood for any real values, he was very serious. In the years that followed the coming into power of Liberalism there were a multitude of Acts described as of little importance and passed into law after little or no discussion. At the same time, private members complained that they could get no attention for really urgent matters of social reform. The Nation, as a party paper, defended the state of things and talked of official business and of want of time. Their attitude was vigorously attacked by Gilbert, whose first letter (Jan. 17, 1911) ended with this paragraph:
Who ever dreamed of getting "perfect freedom and fulness of discussion" except in heaven? The case urged against Cabinets is that we have no freedom and no discussion, except that laid down despotically by a few men on front benches. Your assurance that Parliament is very busy is utterly vain. It is busy on things the dictators direct. That small men and small questions get squeezed out among big ones, that is a normal disaster. With us, on the contrary, it is the big questions that get squeezed out. The Party was not allowed really to attack the South African War, for fear it should alienate Mr. Asquith. It was not allowed to object to Mr. Herbert Gladstone (or is it Lord Gladstone? This blaze of democracy blinds one) when he sought to abolish the Habeas Corpus Act, and leave the poorer sort of pickpockets permanently at the caprice of their jailers. Parliament is busy on the aristocratic fads; and mankind must mark time with a million stamping feet, while Mr. Herbert Samuel searches a gutter-boy for cigarettes. That is what you call the congestion of Parliament.
The Editor of the Nation was so rash as to append to this letter the words, "We must be stupid for we have no idea what Mr. Chesterton means." This was too good an opening to be lost. G.K. returned to the charge and I feel that this correspondence is so important in various ways that the next two letters should be given in full.
Sir,
In a note to my last week's letter you remark, "We must be stupid; but we have no idea what Mr. Chesterton means." As an old friend I can assure you that you are by no means stupid; some other explanation of this unnatural darkness must be found; and I find it in the effect of that official party phraseology which I attack, and which I am by no means alone in attacking. If I had talked about "true Imperialism," or "our loyalty to our gallant leader," you might have thought you knew what I meant; because I meant nothing. But I do mean something; and I do want you to understand what I mean. I will, therefore, state it with total dullness, in separate paragraphs; and I will number them.
(1) I say a democracy means a State where the citizens first desire something and then get it. That is surely simple.
(2) I say that where this is deflected by the disadvantage of representation, it means that the citizens desire a thing and tell the representatives to get it. I trust I make myself clear.
(3) The representatives, in order to get it at all, must have some
control over detail; but the design must come from popular desire.
Have we got that down?
(4) You, I understand, hold that English M. P.s today do thus obey the public in design, varying only in detail. That is a quite clear contention.