Somehow the letter to Titterton got into the hands of a Mr. Hennessy who, after Gilbert's death, sent it to Wells.
Wells wrote, "Thank you very much for that letter of G.K.C.'s. It is exactly like him. From first to last he and I were very close friends and never for a moment did I consider him responsible for Pugh's pathetic and silly little outbreak. I never knew anyone so steadily true to form as G.K.C."
Besides the cleansing of public life two other things were seen as vital by the New Witness, the restoration of well-distributed property and the restoration of liberty. Under the heading "Reconstruction of Property" Belloc set out a series of proposals, highly practical and very far from what is usually called revolutionary: that savings for instance made on a small scale should be helped by a very high rate of interest; that the purchase by small men of small parcels of land or businesses or houses should be freed from legal charges while these should be made heavier for those who purchased on a large scale thus encouraging small property and checking huge accumulation. He pointed out how vast sums could be found for such subsidies out of the money spent today on an education which the poor detested for their children and which most of the wealthy admitted to be an abject failure. Most of those, he noted, who oppose Distributism do so on the ground that the proposals are unpractical or revolutionary, which generally means that they have not examined the proposals. His own were certainly practical and would by many be called reactionary. But he admitted one doubt—besides the overwhelming difficulty of turning the current of modern Socialism—the doubt whether Englishmen from long disuse had not lost the appetite for property.
Chesterton's own line of approach to the double problem was also twofold. In a volume of Essays published near the end of the war and called The Utopia of Usurers he remarked: "That anarchic future which the more timid Tories professed to fear has already fallen upon us. We are ruled by ignorant people."
The old aristocracy of England, in his view, had made many mistakes but certain things they had understood very well. The modern governing class "cannot face a fact, or follow an argument, or feel a tradition; but least of all can they, upon any persuasion read through a plain impartial book, English or foreign, that is not specially written to soothe their panic or to please their pride." There had been reality in the claim of the old aristocracy to understand matters not known to the people. They had read history; they were familiar with other languages and other lands. They had a great tradition of foreign diplomacy. Even the study of philosophy and theology, today confined to a handful of experts, was not alien to them. On all this had rested what right they had to govern. But today "They rule them by the smiling terror of an ancient secret. They smile and smile but they have forgotten the secret."
On the other hand the ordinary workman had the advantage over his probably millionaire master by the necessity of knowing something. He must be able to use his tools, he must know "enough arithmetic to know when prices have risen." The hard business of living taught him something. Give him a chance of more through property and liberty and see what he will build on that foundation. The war had already shown not only the courage of our men but their contrivance: their trench newspapers, songs and jests: their initiative as sailors and as airmen: at home the same thing was happening. Allotments had sprung up everywhere and solved the problem of potato shortage. Men were doing for themselves a rough kind of building. The inclination to get away from the machine and do things oneself was on the increase.
Armistice and the men's return were heralded by outdoor tea-parties with ropes stretched across the streets for safety. The outburst of pageants was spontaneous and national. "It is time," said Chesterton, "for an army of amateurs; for England is perishing of the professionals." Vitality seemed to be flowing back into national life, but Bureaucracy does not love vitality. Agitated Town Councils met and stopped the tea-parties; fought against street markets through which allotment holders could sell their produce cheaply; put heavy rates on land reclaimed and buildings erected by hard work. Town families living in single rooms had secured plots on building estates and run up shacks for themselves and their families. They were forbidden to live in these dwellings—only intended as temporary, but far more healthy than living eight people to a room in a slum. The New Witness suspected that the real objection in the eyes of Councillors was a lowering of the value of neighbouring plots for wealthier purchasers.
Worst of all, the allotments were taken: fields sold for speculative building, land dug in public parks taken away in the name of "amenities." The little spark that could have been fanned into a flame was crushed out.
An episode of a few years later best illustrates the spirit Chesterton was fighting. In 1926 a threat arose to the traffic monopoly from soldiers who put their war gratuities into the purchase of omnibuses which they drove themselves. The London General Omnibus Company decided to crush them and with the aid of a Government Commission succeeded. Chesterton's paper followed the struggle with passionate interest. Just as he believed that the small shop actually served the public better than the large, so too he believed that these owner-drivers would serve it better than the Combine. But if it could have been proved that the Combine was more efficient Gilbert would still have championed the Independents. It was better for the Community that men should take responsibility and initiative for themselves even if the work could be done more efficiently by wage slaves. To his dismay he found that the Trade Unions did not dream of applying this test and that they were aligned against the Pirates—as the independent owners were usually called.
He had always been an ardent supporter of the Trade Unions. To him it had seemed they were trying to do the work of the ancient Guilds under far more difficult conditions. But after the war for the first time a little note of doubt creeps into his voice when he is speaking of them. They were still vocal for the rights of labour, but they had begun to lay stress exclusively on the less important of those rights.