THE INDIFFERENCE OF THE MENT -JUGGLING WITH THE PEOPLE THE DECAY OF PARLIA INCOME TAX - LORD GOSCHEN LIBERAL, NOT DEMAGOGUE-THE INTERFERENCE OF THE STATE GOSCHEN AND HOME RULE. NOT long since Lord Rosebery, from his place in the House of Peers, deplored, as well he might, the indifference of the British People. "The daily papers," he pointed out, 66 were filled with the details of the Coronation, with football matches, with contests at golf, and a few race meetings." Such topics as these alone avail to stimulate the popular curiosity, to absorb the popular interest. Every candid observer will admit that the indictment, the gravest that can be brought against a nation, is well founded. Triviality has marked the People's mind for its own, and if there be not a reaction, we shall presently see the sun of our Empire set in nothingness and folly. The indictment is the heavier because we are passing through the gravest crisis known to our history since 1832. In that year the first blow was struck at what Mr Gladstone described as a perfect constitution. The evil then begun will be consummated in 1911, unless the People can be aroused from its trance of indifference. The stealthy revolution prepared by our Government marches apace. Rough hands are ready to disturb the are exquisite balance of our tripartite constitution. The safeguards which for centuries have ensured the personal freedom of Englishmen being insolently torn in pieces. Hitherto our countrymen have been proud of their king and Parliament. They have reverenced the noble precedents of liberty, the august traditions of their race. Conscious that they have been an example of good government to all the world, they have guarded their privileges with a jealous care. They have not bounded their policy and their aspiration by their pocket. They have freely recognised the claims of honour, and have fought for their country by land and sea. And now a sudden change has overtaken the British People. With perfect indifference it views its traditions outraged, its privileges withdrawn. The Government now in office, though not in power, is intent only upon destruction. If it has its will, that which is shall no longer be. The House of Lords torn down, the Throne threatened, the Empire dismembered, the Church disestablished, the law flouted if the judges decline to do the work of partisans,-these are the promised first fruits of tion. To-day, as we have said, apathy holds all classes in its frozen grip. They are tired of politics, grumble our enfranchised citizens. They care not what becomes of the country so long as they can have their bread and their circus. Their journals reflect accurately enough their aims and ambitions. Above all, they say, let us have no more politics. If there be a in the House, of That the members of our present Government should lay violent hands upon the timehonoured institutions of our country need not surprise us. Their talent is readily supported by their inclination. Office and its spoils are dear to them; and so long as they can persuade Ireland to confer upon them the places and titles of power, England is not likely to receive the smallest consideration at their hands. What we most bitterly deplore is England's carelessness and inaction. It seems as though she she had lost the strength of resistance. With a shrug she sees her honour and freedom stripped from her. Twenty years ago such a crisis as we now confront would have packed the newspapers with protest. Public meetings would have been held to denounce the iconoclasts. The old landmarks of party would have been rudely broken down, and patriots of every creed and kind would have joined hands in the defence of Union and the Constitu "scene course they must be told of it. Otherwise small type and the end of a column is sufficient for a Parliamentary debate. Let us talk, they murmur, of the weather, of crime in New York, of anything that does not promote thought or remind us of the duties of citizenship. And as we must have excitement, let our newspapers make a scandal of rainfall or sunshine, and reserve their most potent headlines for the flagrant episodes in the lives of wholly unimportant persons. Thus is the People lulled to forgetfulness of politics, and with an equal sense of boredom it regards all other pursuits of the intelligence. Our theatres, with a few exceptions, are a national disgrace. The talent of our actors is thrown away upon "comedies," spoken or musical, at which any other capital in Europe would laugh in scorn. Nor is the failure of our stage a mere incident. It goes deeply into our nature and helps to explain the sad triviality of our citizens. "There will never be civilisation," said George Meredith, with perfect truth, "where Comedy is not possible," and civilisation is falling from our shoulders like a discarded cloak. The People cannot laugh; it prefers to sentimentalise. Let it bleat and it is happy. Ask it not to think or to smile. Wit and irony are alike distasteful. Either with grim puritanical insistence it will shed tears over the crudest melodrama, or it will shake its sides with boisterous laughter at the nimble antics of a knockabout "artiste." Comedy it disdains, as it disdains politics, because comedy is a criticism of life, and provokes thought. With a like contempt the People looks upon literature. Here, also, it demands no more than an anodyne. Its printed matter must be highly spiced or imbecile, it matters not which; in either case it makes no urgent demand upon the intelligence. And so we have a vast amount of books that are no books; of fiction fit for the lunatic asylum; of historical compilations written below - stairs, in which the past is treated with the prying curiosity of the Society journalist. Our popular magazines neither instruct nor amuse. If they dared to attempt either enterprise they would be doomed to that worst inferno, a small circulation. It is their end and aim only to be trivial, to record everything that does not matter, and therefore they are eagerly read by an apathetic public. That which is called the "personal touch" by the journalist is prized more highly than wisdom or eloquence. What a great man has written is of no importance. What causes the generous heart of the People to throb is a knowledge of what the great man eats, and with what spirit he faces the camera. How, then, does the People, callously reckless of its country and its fate, ask to be amused? As Lord Rosebery says, it demands of its press details of the Coronation, which does not take place for two months. It demands these details that it may be ahead of the news. The real appreciation of a great pageant, which will symbolise the sovereignty and security of these islands and our dominions oversea, is beyond its reach. When the great day comes, its poor brain will be too much fatigued in anticipation to understand the nobility of the processions, the grandeur of the ceremonies. And after this premature interest comes a spectator's interest in sport. The sense of danger in a football match just stirs its sluggish blood. Fashion and advertisement have combined to ensure the momentary popularity of golf. But cricket has lost the favour of the mob, which asks, through its accredited mouthpieces, "What shall we do to make the national game attractive?" Meanwhile gate-money, which supersedes skill and sport in the minds of our cricketers, falls off, and if the batsmen of England cannot raise the speed of their scoring, then their patron, the people of England, foiled of excitement, will refuse to spend their shillings any more at Lord's or the Oval. In brief, the popular indifference has spread from politics, through literature, to every form of human activity, and it is difficult to believe that any thing will arouse the People to a proper view of its dangers and duties save revolution or a foreign war. The cause of the indifference is not far to seek. For this, as for many other evils, the democracy alone is to blame. By a curious irony, to thrust responsibility upon the People is to deprive it of all energy and resolution. The flattery which numbs its individual victim, destroys the spirit of the mob. How, indeed, should the people, uninstructed and unimaginative, survive the truculent praises of the demagogues who assure it from a thousand platforms that it is all-wise, all-powerful, and alljust? So it gathers in its pot-houses, with the smirk of conscious vanity on its face, and boldly declares that it is always right. Why, then, should it be at the pains to instruct itself? It can send what delegates it likes to Westminster, pledged to guard its interests and to carry out its wishes. What these interests and wishes are it knows dimly and cares not at all. It has cast its votes for Cleon, and Cleon is the man to do what is right. Why should it trouble to think or inquire? Cleon's flattery still buzzes in its ear, and if under Cleon's captaincy the ship of state founders on the rocks, what does it matter? The People's wisdom is unimpaired. No disaster will ever satiate the people's hunger of applause. And the democracy, which means nothing else than the worship of numbers, must perforce destroy the taste of the community. The polling-booth controls also the things of the mind. That theatre is supreme which can attract within its doors the greatest number of spectators. That newspaper, that book, bears upon it the true mark of genius which can boast the largest circulation. In every field of human energy there is but one efficient method of judgment-the counting of heads. And as the majority votes but does not discriminate, the worthless play, the worthless book, will always head the poll. Pleasures shared in common are the meanest pleasures of all, and the will of the People must prevail. So everybody says, and the People, assured of its prevalence, sinks back into a tired attitude of flattered apathy. The indifference of the People has for its necessary consequence a general decline in the morals of Government. When the majority is easily satisfied our Ministers have small scruple in subordinating the good of the State to the security of official tenure. a debate on the Parliament Bill Lord Hugh Cecil pointed out, with perfect truth as we the House of one formula, "Wait and see,' its for his only argument, relies upon two hostile and corrupt factions to lead the attack upon his country. On the one hand, he receives an interested support from the Labour Party, which guards its place in the House of Commons by an open and unchallenged contempt of the decision of the highest court in the land. On the other hand, he obeys the imperious behest of eighty Irishmen, the avowed enemies of England, who are kept in Parliament by foreign gold, and whose capital has declined to present an address to King George. Such a situation is, as we have said, without parallel. It marks an immeasurable step downward in the corruption of Parliament. And it is all the worse because the Irish alliance is the result of an obvious bargain. Ireland condescends to destroy the constitution of a country to which it professes undying hostility, merely on condition that it may achieve legislative and political disruption. Not in 1874, not in any year of our history, could such a discreditable bargain have been possible. No other English Government would have dared to deprive the House of Lords of privileges conferred upon it in the dim backward of time against the will of an English majority. How, then, shall we accept Mr Balfour's kindly estimate, and reject the theory of deterioration forced upon us by every debate on the Parliament Bill? think, that There is another proof of |