Gilbert Keith Chesterton

by Maisie Ward

To most of the Eye Witness group the fight for freedom was so bound up with the fight against corruption that all was but one fight. I think that when they looked back they were too much inclined to see the shadow of Lloyd George behind them as well as around them: that in fact the Liberal Party of those years had brought with it a new descent in political decency—a descent which would have startled both Gladstone and the more cynical Disraeli. Of this more when we come to Marconi. Meanwhile there was certainly a whole lot to fight about and the group responsible for the Witness, not content with the pen, formed a Society entitled "The League for Clean Government," with Mr. John Scurr as Secretary. This League specialised in promoting the candidature of independent Members of Parliament for such vacancies as occurred between general elections, and in attacking Party "place men." Doubtless other elements were present at some of these by-elections but the League boasted its success on several occasions, notably in the three defeats sustained by C. F. G. Masterman.

Charles Masterman had been with Gilbert and Cecil Chesterton a member of the group of young Christian Socialists that drew its inspiration in great part from Canon Scott Holland. He had gone further than most of them in his practical sympathy and understanding for the destitute. With a friend he had taken a workman's flat in the slums and he had written a somewhat florid but very moving book recording conditions experienced as well as observed. He was one of the Young Liberals who entered Parliament full of ardour to fight the battles of the poor. The sequel as they saw it may best be told by Belloc and Cecil Chesterton themselves. In The Party System they wrote:

. . . Mr. Masterman entered Parliament as a Liberal of independent views. During his first two years in the House he distinguished himself as a critic of the Liberal Ministry. He criticised their Education Bill. He criticised with especial force the policy of Mr. John Burns at the Local Government Board. His conduct attracted the notice of the leaders of the party. He was offered office, accepted it, and since then has been silent, except for an occasional rhetorical exercise in defence of the Government. One fact will be sufficient to emphasise the change. On March 13th, 1908, Mr. Masterman voted for the Right to Work Bill of the Labour Party. In May of the same year he accepted a place with a salary of £1200 a year—it has since risen to £1500. On April 20th, 1909, he voted, at the bidding of the Party Whips, against the same Bill which he had voted for in the previous year. Yet this remarkable example of the "peril of change"* does not apparently create any indignation or even astonishment in the political world which Mr. Masterman adorns. On the contrary, he seems to be generally regarded as a politician of exceptionally high ideals. No better instance need be recorded of the peculiar atmosphere it is the business of these pages to describe.

[* The title of one of Masterman's books was In Peril of Change.]

At the succeeding General Election, Masterman was not re-elected. And he failed again in a couple of by-elections. In all these elections, the League for Clean Government campaigned fiercely against him. There was certainly in the feeling of Belloc and Cecil Chesterton towards Masterman a great deal of the bitterness that moved Browning to write, "Just for a handful of silver he left us," and I do not think there is anything in the history of the paper that created so strong a feeling against it in certain minds. There seemed something peculiarly ungenerous in the continued attacks after a series of defeats, in the insistence with which Masterman's name was dragged in, always accompanied by sneers. Replying to a remonstrance to this effect, Cecil Chesterton, then Editor of the New Witness, stated that in his considered opinion it was a duty to make a successful career impossible to any man convicted of selling his principles for success.

I dwell on this matter of Masterman for two reasons. The first is that it was one of the rare occasions on which Gilbert Chesterton disagreed with his brother and Belloc. Gilbert was a very faithful friend: it would be hard to find a broken friendship in his life. He had moreover much of the power that aroused his enthusiasm in Browning of going into the depths of a character and discovering the virtue concealed there. And as with Browning his explanation took account of elements that really existed but could find no place in a more narrowly adverse view.

"Many of my own best friends," he wrote of Masterman, "entirely misunderstood and underrated him. It is true that as he rose higher in politics, the veil of the politician began to descend a little on him also; but he became a politician from the noblest bitterness on behalf of the poor; and what was blamed in him was the fault of much more ignoble men. . . . But he was also an organiser and liked governing; only his pessimism made him think that government had always been bad, and was now no worse than usual. Therefore, to men on fire for reform, he came to seem an obstacle and an official apologist." After G.K. became Editor of the New Witness the attacks on Masterman ceased, but he did not differ from the two earlier Editors in his views on the ethics of political action or the principles of social reform.

The second reason for which the Masterman matter must be dwelt on is because it affords the best illustration of one curious fact in connection with the Eye and New Witness campaign. When the Life of Masterman recently appeared I seized it eagerly that I might read an authoritative defence of his position. I searched the Index under Eye Witness, New Witness, Cecil Chesterton and League for Clean Government. No one of them was mentioned. At last I discovered under Belloc and Scurr a faint allusion to their activities at a by-election in which Belloc was coupled with the Protestant Alliance leader Kensit as part of a contemptible opposition, and the unnamed League for Clean Government described as "those working with Mr. Scurr"! Clearly where it is possible to use against something powerful the weapon of ignoring it as though it were something obscure, that weapon is itself a powerful one. Against the New Witness it was used perpetually.

A paper which included among its contributors Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, J. S. Phillimore, E. C. Bentley, Wells, Shaw, Katharine Tynan, Desmond McCarthy, F. Y. Eccles, G. S. Street—to name only those who come first to mind—obviously stood high. Cecil Chesterton's own editorials, Hugh O'Donnell's picturesque series Twenty Years After, the high level of the reviewing and (oddly enough, considering the paper's outlook) the financial articles of Raymond Radclyffe, were all outstanding. The sales (at sixpence) were never enormous but the readers were on a high cultural level. The correspondence pages are always interesting.

The Eye Witness group, besides courage, had high spirits and they had wit. "Capulet's" rhymes; the series of ballades written by Baring, Bentley, Phillimore, Belloc and G.K.C.; "Mrs. Markham's History" written by Belloc; there was little of this quality in the other weeklies. Side by side with the serious attacks was a line of satire and of sheer fooling. The silver deal in India was being attacked in the editorials, while Mrs. Markham explained to Tommy how good, kind Lord Swaythling, really a Samuel, had lent money to his brother Mr. Montague (another Samuel) for the benefit of the poor people of India. The next week Tommy and Rachel grew enthusiastic about the kindness of Lord Swaythling in borrowing money that the Indian Government could not use. Mrs. Markham too made Rachel take a pencil and write out a list of Samuels including the Postmaster-General, now so busy over the Marconi Case. The next lesson was about titles. Then came one about policemen, and finally about company promoters and investments. How a promoter guesses there is oil somewhere, how money is lent to dig for it ("But, Mamma! How can money dig?"), how the Company promoter may find no oil, how if they think he has cheated them the rich men who lent their money can have him tried by twelve good men and true—(Tommy: "How do they know the men are good and true, Mamma?" Mrs. M.: "They do this by taking them in alphabetical order out of a list.").