XII
THE DECADENCE OF LATIN RACES
I have read with the attention due to the author's name the essay of Professor Sergi on the decadence of the Latin nations. It seems to me, when reflecting on it, that the esteemed author gives to every slight change, the much-used, and much-abused, name of progress; and considers mere change as an indisputable betterment. He also considers that the Latin races cannot exist under modern conditions unless they form themselves on the models and follow the examples of non-Latin races; if, that is to say, they do not imitate what is foreign and alien to them. It is clear that he does not for a moment doubt that the non-Latin are infinitely superior to the Latin peoples, and he rebukes the latter for remaining immovable, although, somewhat oddly, he excepts France from his censure on account of her great commerce, and only includes in his ban his own country and Spain.
With Spain I do not occupy myself, as I am not sufficiently well acquainted with her to do so; indeed, Professor Sergi himself says very little about her; but of Italy I cannot consider that his condemnation is merited. If she do merit it, why does she do so?
Both questions are interesting. Professor Sergi, like too many writers of the present time, assumes as an indisputable fact that the mere innovation, the mere alteration of a thing, is of necessity improvement, advancement, amelioration; and this being his rooted conviction, he considers Great Britain and the United States the models and ideals of modern life. For this reason he would force Italy to abandon entirely her traditions, her instincts, and her natural genius, and substitute for them an exact and servile imitation of these two foreign peoples who have tastes in common with her. Unfortunately he does not inform us to what point he carries this desire, and if the immense changes he advises are to be dynastic and political, or merely social and intellectual. He prints in capital letters his chief advice to the Latin nations to move on new lines; but he does not explain whether he means to move to a new Constitution, to a new Representation, to a new theory and practice of Government; and he does not even say whether he thinks or does not think that the Church is the greatest enemy of national progress in Latin nations. It would be interesting to know in what proportions he holds the two antagonistic forces of Church and State to be guilty of opposing progress; that each is an obstacle to the higher forms of progress there can be no question in the mind of any dispassionate thinker. But he is careful not to commit himself to this view. Since he gives us so little information on this head, and limits himself to the counsel, somewhat meagre in its expression, to move on new lines, we may endeavour to find out for ourselves how far his advice goes: if Italy do actually merit his contempt for her inertia, and if the non-Latin races deserve or do not deserve the admiration with which he pronounces on their superiority.
That the Italian nation is immovable is not true: for good or evil it moves as its great son Gallileo said of the earth. The fault, the peril, lie the other way. It is to be feared that the Italian people run the risk of losing their finest instincts, and their most gracious characteristics, through the exaggerated and obsequious imitation of foreign peoples, and by a too ready adoration of new things merely because they are new. They are the ideals of many a modern Italian. Guglielmo Ferrero has dedicated many hundreds of pages to the celebration of their perfections. I believe that such worship is chiefly founded on illusion, for it is as easy to cherish illusions about a steam mill as about a mediæval saint.
Let us look at the actual situation of Great Britain, setting aside her imperialist swagger, and regarding only facts. The English themselves admit that if a European naval coalition succeeded in preventing grain reaching their shores from America and the colonies, the nation in a fortnight would want bread. Is that an ideal or a safe position? If, in a sea-war, the British fleet would be successful is wholly uncertain, since no one can say how the metal battleships would behave in any distress; the manœuvres have not shed much light upon this question, and many of the marine monsters, as regards their utility in active warfare, are still unknown quantities. Equally uncertain is what would be the conduct of the Indian population were Great Britain vanquished in any great war, for the majority of the peoples of Hindostan most unwillingly endure through coercion the yoke of the British rule.
In Ireland there is a racial hatred which nothing can extinguish, and only demands a favourable occasion to show itself. Canada may any day embroil England with the United States; and so may the West Indies, and the Nebraskan and Nicaraguan questions; and so may Newfoundland with France, and East or West Africa with Germany. In every part of the globe Great Britain has on her hands conquests, colonies, intrigues, enemies, open questions, and concealed questions, of every kind. Her greed is great, and her entanglements are innumerable. There are many weak points in her fortifications. To meet her obligations she is obliged to use legions of Asiatics, or Africans, or employ as mercenaries men from her distant colonies, or send the soldiers of one vanquished nation to help vanquish another. Thus did Imperial Rome, and so went to her undoing. Doubtless Great Britain is rich, powerful, strong, proud, and vain. So was Rome; so was Spain. It is possible, even probable, that at some, perhaps not distant day, Great Britain also will give way under the enormous weight of her self-sought responsibilities, and the still more ponderous weight of her many enemies.
Internally, also, England is not what she used to be. The old nobility is elbowed out of prominent place by a new aristocracy which has been created entirely on a money basis. Every ministry, when going out of office, creates a new batch of titled rich men, lifted into the Lords in return for political or financial service. Wealth is now the dominant factor of English social life; and a commerce, wholly unscrupulous, is the sole scope of the tawdry and noisy empire of which Joseph Chamberlain is the standard-bearer.
What is there in all this to admire or to imitate?