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The Message, a novel by Alec John Dawson |
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Part 2. The Awakening - Chapter 11. The Spirit Of The Age |
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_ PART II. THE AWAKENING CHAPTER XI. THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
From the first, the courtesy of the Press was securely enlisted in The Citizens' favour by John Crondall. For many months the Standard, now firmly established as the principal organ of the reform movement, devoted an entire page each day to the progress of our campaign and the pilgrimage of our forerunners--the Canadian preachers. John Crondall had gone thoroughly into the matter at the beginning with the editor of this journal, and the key-note thus given was taken by the Press of the whole country. The essence of our treatment by the newspapers lay in their careful avoidance of all matter which would be likely to earn for the movement the hostility of Germany, or of the officers in command of the German forces in England. Our language took on a new and special meaning in the columns of the newspapers, where reports of our campaign were concerned. Such adjectives as "social," "moral," and the like were made to cover quite special meanings, as applied to the organization of The Citizens. So ably was all this done, that the German authorities regarded the whole movement as social and domestic, with a direct bearing upon the General Election, perhaps, but none whatever upon international politics or Anglo-German relations. In Elberfeld's ponderous history we are given the text of a despatch to the Kaiser in which General Baron von Fuechter assured his Imperial master that any interference with The Citizens and their meetings would be gratuitous and impolitic: "Their aims being purely social and domestic, and those of a quasi-religious Friendly Society, resembling something between their 'Band of Hope' and their 'Antediluvian Buffaloes.' The English have a passion for this kind of child's play, and are absurdly impatient of official surveillance. Their incorrigible sentimentality is soothed by such movements as those of the Canadian preachers and The Citizens; but even the rudiments of discipline or efficient cooerdination are lacking among them. Combination against us would be impossible for them, for this is a country of individualists, among whom the matter of obligations to the State is absolutely not recognized. There is no trace of military feeling among the people, and in my opinion the invasion might safely have been attempted five, if not ten years, before it was. The absence of any note of resentment in their newspapers against our occupation has been quite marked since their preoccupation with the Canadian preachers and The Citizens. The people accept it in the most matter-of-course manner, and are already entirely absorbed once more in their own affairs, and even in their sports. British courage and independence have been no more than a myth for many years past--a bubble which your Majesty's triumphantly successful policy has burst for ever." Another important feature, alike of our campaign and the pilgrimage of the preachers, was their positively non-party and non-sectarian character. John Crondall had been firm upon this point from the beginning. I remember his saying at the first meeting of the executive of The Citizens: "Our party government, party conflict, here in England, have sapped the vitality of the British Empire long enough. I believe the invasion has scotched the thing, and we must be very careful to do nothing that might help to bring it to life again. A Radical, as such, is neither better nor worse than a Conservative. It does not matter two pins what becomes of the Conservative organization, or the Liberal party, as parties. I should be delighted never to hear of either again. Our business is the Empire's business; and we want the people of the Empire with us--the whole lot of them--as one solid party." Accordingly, no mention of any political party was ever heard at our meetings. We made no appeal to any given section of the community, but only to the British public as a whole. We aimed at showing that there could be no division in national affairs, save the division which separates citizens and patriots from men worthy of neither name. And that is why Maurice Hall, in his famous British Renaissance, was able to write that: "The General Elections of the invasion year were practically directed and decided by two forces: the influence of The Citizens and the influence of the Canadian preachers' Duty teaching. Political opinions and traditions, as previously understood, played no part whatever." Of course, it seems natural enough now that the British public should be united in matters of national and imperial import; but those whose memories are long enough will bear me out in saying that in previous elections nine voters in ten had been guided, not by any question of the needs of the country or the Empire, but by their support of this party or of that, of this colour or of that. Our politicians had strenuously supported the preposterous faction system, and fanned party rivalry in every way, because they recognized that it gave them personal power and aggrandizement, which they had long placed before any consideration of the common weal. By this they had brought shame and disaster upon the nation, in precisely the same manner that the same results had been produced by the same means, when these were used by the oligarchs of the Dutch Republic, prior to the downfall of the Netherlands. Indeed, for some time before the invasion our politicians might have been supposed to be modelling their lives and policy entirely upon those of the Dutch Republic in the eighteenth century; particularly with regard to their mercenary spoliation of the nation's defence forces, and their insane pertinacity in clinging to the policy of "cheapness," which killed both the manufacturing and the agricultural industries of the country, by allowing other properly protected nations to oust our producers from all foreign markets, and to swamp our home markets with their surplus stocks. Down to the minutest detail, the same causes and actions had produced the same results a century earlier in the Netherlands; and even as, first, King William of Prussia, and then revolutionary France, had devastated the Netherlands, so had the Kaiser's legions overrun England. It was not for lack of warning that our politicians had blindly followed so fatal a lead. "The Destroyers" were still being warned most urgently at the very time of the invasion by public speakers, and in such lucid works as Ellis Barker's The Rise and Decline of the Netherlands. In spite of the emphatically non-party character of The Citizens' campaign, John Crondall kept in close touch throughout with all his political friends, and very many members of Parliament were among our leading workers. My chief's idea was that, when the elections drew near, we should cease to map out our movements in accordance with those of the Canadian preachers, and allow them to be guided by the exigencies of the electoral campaign; bringing all our influence to bear wherever we saw weakness in the cause of patriotism and reform. Already we had arrangements made for leading members of The Citizens to address meetings throughout the elections at a good many centres. But, before the electioneering had gone far, it became evident that more had already been accomplished than we supposed. Candidates who came before their constituents with any kind of party programme were either angrily howled down or contemptuously ignored. Old supporters of "The Destroyers," who ventured upon temporizing tactics, were peremptorily faced with demands for straight-out declarations of policy upon the single issue of patriotic reform and duty to the State. With a single exception, the actual members of the Cabinet in "The Destroyers'" Administration refrained from any attempt to secure reelection. Such an electoral campaign had never before been known in England. Candidates who, even inadvertently, used such words as "Conservative," "Radical," or "Liberal," were hissed into silence. Even the word "Labour" was taboo, so far as it referred to any political party. "Duty," "Patriotism," "Defence," "Citizenship," "United Empire," "British Federation," and, again, ringing loudly above all other cries, "Duty"--those were the watchwords and the platforms of the invasion year elections. The candidate who promised relief from taxation was laughed at. The candidate who promised legislation directed toward the citizen's defence of the citizen's hearth and home, was cheered to the echo. The one member of "The Destroyers'" Administration who sought reelection, found it well to assert the claims of his youth by making a public recantation of all his previously expressed views and policy, and seeking to outdo every one else in the direction of patriotic reform. Though he gulled nobody, he was listened to good-humouredly, and defeated with great ease by Abel Winchester, the Australian, who saw years of work before him, in conjunction with Forbes Thompson, in the supervision of village rifle corps throughout the country. In many ways the country had never known a Parliamentary election so constructive; in one respect it was absolutely destructive. It destroyed all previously existing political parties. No single member was returned as the representative of a previously existing party. The voters of Britain had refused to consider any other than the one issue of patriotic reform: the all-British policy, as it was called; and the consequence was, that when Parliament assembled it was found that the House of Commons could no longer boast possession of an Opposition. The members of that assembly had been sent to St. Stephens to busy themselves, in unison, with the accomplishment of a common end; and if one among them should waste the time of the House by any form of obstruction, he could only do so by breaking the pledges upon the strength of which he had been elected. This fact was clearly set forth in the Speech from the Throne, delivered by the King in person. The business of Parliament was in full swing before its second sitting was far advanced. Though then an aged man, the famous statesman to whom the King had entrusted the task of forming a new Cabinet bore himself with the vigour of early manhood, and no Prime Minister had ever faced Parliament with so great a driving power behind him of unity, confidence, and national sympathy. The fact that for years his name had been most prominently associated with every movement making for unity within the Empire; that he had striven valiantly for many years against the anti-British forces of disintegration; this was admitted to augur well for the success of the Conference of Colonial representatives then holding its first sitting in historic Westminster Hall. Meantime, the patriotic enthusiasm of the general public seemed to have been greatly heightened by the result of the general elections. By common consent a note of caution, of warning, took the place of the stirring note of appeal and stimulation which had formerly characterized every public address delivered under the auspices of The Citizens. Almost without invitation now the cream of the country's manhood flocked into our travelling headquarters for enrolment on the roster of The Citizens; and: "Hasten slowly--and silently," became John Crondall's counsel to all our supporters. The effect upon the whole public of this counsel of caution and restraint was one of the most remarkable features of that period; and it showed, more clearly, I think, than anything else, the amazing depth and strength of the influence exerted by the Canadian preacher's Duty teaching. Our relations with the Power to which we were in effect a people in vassalage, and payers of tribute, demanded at this stage the exercise of the most cautious restraint; and finely the people responded to this demand. In his History of the Revival, Charles Corbett says, with good reason: "It was the time of waiting, of cautious preparation, of enthusiasm restrained and harnessed to prudence, which must really be regarded as the probationary era of the Revival. It is in no sense a depreciation of the incalculable value of the work done by the Canadian apostles of the new faith, to say that their splendid efforts might well have proved of no more than transitory effect, but for that stern, silent period of repression, of rigid, self-administered discipline, which followed the access to office of the first Free Government.[1] That period may be regarded as the crucible in which British Christianity was tested and proven; in which the steel of the new patriotism was tempered and hardened to invincible durability. The Canadian preachers awakened the people; The Citizens set them their task; the period of waiting schooled them in the spirit of the twentieth century, the key-note of which is discipline, the meaning of which is Duty." [1] This title, applied by the Prince of Wales in a speech delivered at the Guildhall to the first Parliament which met without an Opposition, remained in use for a number of years afterwards. I do not regard that as a statement of more than the truth; and I do not think it would be easy to overrate, either the value of the period or the excellence of the response to the demand it made upon them. The only dissatisfied folk were the publicans and the theatre and music-hall lessees. The special journals which represented the interests of this class--caterers for public amusement and public dissipation--were full of covert raillery against what they called the new Puritanism. Their raillery was no more than covert, however; the spirit of the time was too strong to permit more than that, and I do not think it produced any effect worth mentioning. Here again our difficulties proved real blessings in disguise. The burden of invasion taxation was heavy; all classes felt the monetary pinch of it, apart altogether from the humiliation of the German occupation; and this helped very materially in the development of common sense ideals regarding economy and simple living. Not for nothing had John Crondall called the Canadian preachers the mouthpiece of the hour. One saw very plainly, in every walk of life, a steadily growing love of sobriety. The thing was perhaps most immediately noticeable in the matter of the liquor traffic. Throughout the country, those public-houses and hotels which were in reality only drinking-shops were being closed up by the score, or converted into other sorts of business premises, for lack of custom in their old misery-breeding trade. The consumption of spirits, and of all the more expensive wines, decreased enormously. It is true there was a slight increase in the consumption of cider, and the falling off of beer sales was slight. But this was because a large number of people, who had been in the habit of taking far less wholesome and more costly beverages, now made use of both beer and cider. It was not at all evidence that the consumption of alcohol among the poorer classes maintained its old level. The sales of gin, for example, fell to less than half the amounts used in the years before the invasion. And this was no more than one aspect of the great national progress toward realization of the ideals of Duty and simple living. Extravagance of every sort became, not merely unpopular, but hated and despised, as evidence of unpatriotic feeling. In this, I think, the women of England deserve the greater meed of gratitude and respect. The change they wrought in domestic economy was not less than wonderful when one realizes how speedily it was brought about, and how great was the change. For in the years immediately preceding the invasion the women had been sad offenders in this respect, particularly, perhaps, in their vulgar and ostentatious extravagance in matters of dress. Now, the placards of the British Commercial Union, exhorting the public to "Buy British Empire Goods only," became out of date almost as soon as they were printed, their advice being no longer needed. No more could one see the wives and daughters of England competing with their unfortunate sisters of the demi-monde in the extravagance of their attire. One of the first evidences of the effect of the Canadian preachers' teaching that I can remember was the notable access of decorum and simplicity in dress which dominated the fashion of our clothes. In this, as in sundry other matters, I think we were helped by the unprecedented number of Colonials who began to flock into England at this time from Canada, South Africa, and Australia. But, despite the general desire for economy, it is certain that from that time on the middle-class folk at all events began to wear better clothes and buy better commodities generally--articles which lasted longer, and were better worth using. The reason of this was all a part of the same teaching, the same general tendency. Shoddy goods, representing the surplus output of German and American firms, could no longer be sold in England, however low the prices at which they were offered; and shopkeepers soon found that they lost standing when they offered such goods to the public. Thus true economy and true patriotism were served at one and the same time. Extravagance in eating, dress, entertainment, and the like, became that year more disgraceful than drunkenness had been a year before in the public eye. In the same way we attained to clearer vision and a saner sense of proportion in very many matters of first-rate social importance. I remember reading that the market for sixty and seventy horse-power touring motor-cars had almost ceased to exist, while the demand for industrial motor-vehicles, and for cars of something under twenty horse-power, had never been so flourishing. Before this time we had fallen into incredible extravagance in our attitude toward all the parasitical occupations, and paid absurd tributes of respect to many of those who waxed fat upon pandering to our weaknesses. This passed away now, like a single night's dream, and incidentally gave rise to a certain amount of complaining from those who suffered by it. But the public was no more inclined to heed these complainings than it was to fritter away its time and substance in drinking-bars or in places of amusement. The famous "Middle-class Music-halls" faded quickly into the limbo of forgotten failures, and the most popular of public performers were those--and they were not a few--who forsook grease-paint for khaki, and posturing on stages for exercising on rifle-ranges and drill-grounds. The word "Puritanism" was still a term of reproach then, by virtue of its old associations; but, as we see things nowadays, there is room only for gladness in admitting that the wave of feeling which swept through the homes of England in the wake of the Canadian preachers, The Citizens, and the organizers of the village rifle corps, was in very truth a mighty revival of Puritanism, backed by the newly awakened twentieth-century spirit of Imperial patriotism, with its recognition of the duty of loyalty, not alone to country, but to race and Empire. Yes, it was true Puritanism--stern, unfaltering Puritanism; and it came to England not a day too soon. Without it, we could never have been purged of our insensate selfishness; without it, the loose agglomeration of states, then called the British Empire, could never have been welded into the State; without it, the great events of that year would have been impossible, and the dominion of the English-speaking peoples must, ere this, have become no more than a matter of historical interest. _ |
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