I find this view borne out in a guarded way in a book recently published by a prominent colonial official who spent some time in England. He insists that the lack of patriotism, which one can hardly fail to observe, is due to the present social system. He declares that the common people take little interest in national affairs and make no study of problems confronting the government. They expect the so-called “upper classes” to do the governing for them; there is no need to concern themselves over matters that must be settled by a House of Lords in whose choosing they can have no voice.
The recruits to the nobility now come almost exclusively from the wealthy class; we often have flung in our faces in England the taunt that there is an aristocracy of wealth in America, and that the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar is the all-prevailing passion. It may be just, in the same general way that I intend these remarks to apply to England, but we can at least retort that our oil, beef, mining and railway magnates cannot purchase a title and found a “family,” thus becoming in the public eye a superior class of beings and established as our hereditary rulers. A wealthy brewer may not become “my lord” for a consideration, in any event.
A recent American writer makes the curious apology for the House of Lords as a legislative body that it affords the English people the services of the most successful moneyed men in framing laws and that the sons of such men are pretty sure to be practical, well-trained fellows themselves. He also argues that the families usually die out in a few generations, thus introducing new blood continually and forming, in his estimation, a most capable legislative body. The preposterous nature of such statements can best be shown by trying to apply such a system to the United States Senate. If our senators, for instance, were hereditary lords, recruited from the oil, beef, brewing, mining or railway magnates aforementioned, what might the American people expect from them? We complain vigorously if any senator is shown to be influenced by such interests and more than one legislator has found out to his grief that such a connection will not be tolerated. Suppose we had a system that put the principals themselves in a permanent legislative body and invested them with all the glamour of “his grace” or “my lord?” Quite unthinkable—and yet such is the system in Britain.
And these self-sacrificing hereditary legislators are no fonder of bearing the real burdens of the country than our own plutocrats are. There is much complaint in England that in the ranks of the nobility are to be found the most flagrant tax dodgers in the Kingdom. Nor does this complaint lack for vigorous utterance—a most hopeful sign of the times, to my notion. But recently a London paper exploited the case of the Marquis of Bute, owner of Cardiff Castle—and most of Cardiff, for that matter—who returned his personal tax at less than a thousand pounds, and that included Cardiff Castle and grounds, which represent literally millions! Yet no man in the Kingdom is better able to afford payment of his just tax than this nobleman. To show the gross injustice of his tax, a comparison was made of the castle with a humble tailor shop in Cardiff, ninety by one hundred and twenty feet, which was taxed at a higher figure! The newspaper in question also declared that this case was typical of tax-dodging lords all over the country.
That there is a strong under-current against the feudal system cannot be doubted; we found it everywhere, though at times but half expressed and again only to be inferred, but it exists none the less. Indeed, more recent developments have shown the extent of such sentiment in the overthrow of the veto power of the Lords. This is a great step in advance, though England would be infinitely the gainer if the feudal system were abolished and not merely modified. This antagonism does not extend to royalty—that institution escapes through the popularity of the present king and queen. But the time may come when a weak and unpopular king will turn public sentiment against the very keystone of feudalism and the whole structure is likely to fall. When one recollects the furore that prevailed in England when the former king as Prince of Wales was mixed up with the Baccarat scandals, it is easy to see how much royalty owes its existence to good behavior. At that time doubt was freely expressed as to whether the prince would ever be king of England, but he lived it all down by his subsequent good record. I had many intelligent men admit that “your system of government is right; we shall come to it some time,” or words to that effect, and we heard many ill-concealed flings at the nobility. “We are all the property of the nobility,” said one intelligent young shopman of whom in the course of conversation we inquired if he owned his home. “No one has any chance to own anything or be anything in England.” And in a prayer-book at Stratford Church we found the petition “for the nobility” erased with heavy pencil lines.
I give these as typical of many similar instances, but I have no space in this book for discussion of the impressions I record. A volume would be required should I attempt this. I can only set down these random notes without elaborate argument. And yet, what could be more convincing that the social system of England is wrong than the hopelessness we found everywhere and the refrain that we heard oftener than any other, “A common man has no chance in England?” If he is not fortunate or a genius, there is nothing for him. He must either succumb to inevitable mediocrity and poverty or get away to some new country to gain the opportunity of competence and social promotion in any degree.
It is to the feudal system that can be charged the astonishing state of affairs in England that makes a gentleman of a person with no occupation—a loafer, we would style him in America—and socially degrades the useful citizen engaged in trade. On this particular phase I will not pass my own comment, but quote from a book, “Wake Up, England,” by P. A. Vaile, Premier of New Zealand, lately issued by a London publisher:
“There is perhaps nothing in English life so disgusting to a man who has not the scales upon his eyes as the loathsome snobbery of those who profess to despise a man because his income is derived from a trade or business. It is wholly inexcusable and contemptible. Trade, instead of being considered honourable and dignified, is, in the eyes of every snob, a degradation. Unfortunately, snobs in England are not scarce.
“The tradesman is himself in a great measure to blame for this, for he accepts humbly as his due the contempt that is meted out to him. Most of those who so freely despise the poor necessary man of trade, have a portion of their savings, when they are lucky enough to have any, invested in some large millinery or pork-butcher’s business that has been floated into a limited liability company—yet to them the man who earns their dividends is absolutely outside the pale.
“If there is any nation that I know that is hopelessly bourgeois, it is England. Why can we not be manly enough to recognize the fact, to acknowledge and freely admit to ourselves that we are a nation of very commonplace individuals, mostly shopkeepers, that it is the shopkeepers who have made the nation what she is, and that commerce is an occupation worthy of any gentleman instead of being a calling which merits the contempt of the idle, the rich and the foolish?”