Changing Winds / A Novel

by St. John G. Ervine

"Rum chap, you are!" Gilbert said to Henry in a low voice.

3

"You see," said Roger, "my notion is to restore the prestige of the Tories. Somehow, they've let themselves get the reputation of being consciously heartless. The Liberals go about proclaiming that they are the friends of the poor, and the inference is that the Tories are the friends of the rich!"

"So they are," said Ninian.

"So are the Liberals!" said Roger.

"So's everybody!" said Gilbert.

"But the Tories aren't culpably the friends of the rich," Roger continued. "I mean, they don't go into parliament with the intention of exploiting poor men for the benefit of rich men. It isn't true that they are indifferent to the fate of poor men; but they have allowed the Liberals to give them that character. I've always said that the Tories have the courage of the Liberals' convictions!..."

Gilbert lay back on the floor with his arms under his head. "I remember the first time you said that. It was in the Union!" he exclaimed.

"I shall say it again in the House some day," Roger retorted. "I'm not trying to be funny when I say that. I think the history of the Tory Party shows very plainly that the Tories have done very admirable things for the working-people: Factory Acts and Housing schemes and Workmen's Compensation Acts. Well, I want the Tory Party to remember that it is the custodian of the decency of England. It isn't decent that there should be hungry children and unemployed men and badly-housed families. That kind of thing is intolerable to a gentleman, and a Tory is a gentleman. It seems to me inconceivable that a Tory should be willing to make money by cheating a child out of a meal ... but there are plenty of Liberals who do that. And I'm against all this legislation which makes some public authority do things for people which they ought to be doing for themselves. I mean, I hate the notion of the State feeding hungry school-children because the parents cannot afford to feed them, when the proper thing to do is to see that the parents are paid enough for their work to enable them to feed their children themselves. I suppose I'm sloppy ... the Fabians used to say so at Cambridge ... but I prefer the spectacle of a family round its own table to the spectacle of a crowd of assorted youngsters round a municipal school table! And I don't think we're getting the most out of our people! Just think of the millions of men and women in this country who really do not earn more than their keep! That isn't good enough. If you can only just keep yourself going, then you've no right to go ... except to hell as quickly as possible. My idea is that we waste potentialities at present, not by squandering them, but by never using them. All those poor people, for example, how do we know that some of them, if given an opportunity, would not be amazingly worth while! There must be a great deal of brain-power simply chucked away or misused. I know that lots of people believe that men of genius work their way up to their level no matter how low down they begin, but I doubt that, and anyhow I'm not talking of geniuses ... I'm talking of the average clever man ... there must be men of good average quality lost in slums because none of us have taken the trouble to clear the ground for them. And the ground has to be cleared! You can't grow wheat on a sour soil. I often think when I see some hooligan brought into Court that, given a real chance, he might have been a better judge than the man who sends him to gaol. The Tory's job is to restore the balance of things. It isn't only to maintain the level, but to raise it and to keep on raising it.... I believe in the State of Poise, of equitable adjustment, in which every man will be able to move easily to his proper place.... There are so many obstacles now in the way of man finding his place that, even if he has the strength to get over them, he probably won't have the strength to fill it...."

"My view, perhaps, is narrower than yours, Roger," Henry said, "but I see all these people chiefly as men and women who are shut out of things: books and pictures and plays and music and all the decent things. I don't believe that if they had the chance they would all read Meredith and admire Whistler and go to see Shaw's plays and want to listen to Wagner ... that's not the point, and anyhow the middle and the upper classes are not all marvellously cultured. My point is that their lives are such that they don't even know of Meredith and Whistler and Shaw and Wagner. They don't even know of the second-rate people or the third rate. Magnolia, for instance ... I suppose she reads novelettes, and when she grows out of novelettes, she won't read anything. And she can't afford to go to a West End theatre.... When I think of these people, millions of 'em, I think of them as people like Magnolia, completely shut out of things like that, not even aware of them...."