women left in England whose a flicker of a smile erossed his ideal of life is not the caboose, (or her) solemn face. who hate uniformity as they hate slavery, who are determined to guard their personal liberty, and who will resist spoliation as they will resist the drab uniformity of the jail. Whether Mr Webb or Mrs Webb possesses the cold fanaticism which has enabled their great exemplar, Lenin, to ruin Russia for the sake of pedantry and his own glorification, we do not know. There is no doubt that, if they attempted to put their plans into practice here, a long, bitter, and bloody war would be the result. They are kind enough to say that they will not instantly strip their victims. "Much as the moralists may condemn 'living by owning," they say, "it is not only humane but also expedient, and moreover, in the long-run, less costly to the community, to treat fairly, and even liberally, not merely every employee whose livelihood is disturbed, but each particular owner as he is dispossessed." Jonathan Wild has not often used words more sweetly honeyed. The honey, of course, is very thinly coated. The fair and liberal treatment of which they speak will depend entirely upon the property owners themselves. "They will, in short, be allowed gradually to extinguish each other's private ownership over a term of years." There's kindness for you! There's generosity! And we will make a bet that whichever one of the gifted beings wrote that astounding sentence, not VOL. CCVIII, NO. MCCLX. But the plan of inviting the wicked owners to extinguish each other's private ownership is not enough, and on the next page our amiable prophets promise us that "beyond this the Death Duties would rise very steeply to nearly 100 per cent." No doubt they would, and in the second generation, for all the kind words uttered presently by the couple about "this continuous increase of private property in individual ownership,' there would be nothing to leave and no death duties to collect. However, Mr and Mrs Webb, being wholly devoid of humour, as we have said, being blind and deaf to the amenities of life, finding dissipation in a municipal counoil and hilarious excitement in а board of guardians, go blithely on in their absurd dogmatic way. On one page they ask with an exquisite pomposity what will become of the country houses of England. "Some of the largest of them," we are told gravely, "will doubtless be maintained as convalescent homes in connection with the Local Health Authorities." "Doubtless" is an admirable stroke, and it is evident that these two fanatios admit no abatement of their pride. "But," thus they go on, "for the most part we look to see these pleasant residences becoming, under various forms of voluntary associations, the holiday homes and recreation grounds of the urban toilers by hand or brain." Oh dear! 20 oh dear! Doesn't it ever that democracy is the only ooour to our two pedants that possible form of government. "residences" are pleasant only They assume it in the face because they have been con- of all recorded history, and verted into homes by those in opposition to the soundwho loved them and cared for est political philosophy. The them? When the 22,000 only certain truths that can country houses have been be set down about democracy converted into 22,000 jails by are that they are transient dull unimaginative socialists, and corrupt. Nor do we bethey will have utterly lost their lieve that under Socialism the value and their meaning. They democracy would be so pure have in the past, in spite of Mr even as it is to-day, when there and Mrs Webb's ignorance of are still some few checks of life, been a centre of English decency to control its passions. happiness and prosperity, and These checks Socialism will they who have lived in them remove, and under its vile deshave done far better voluntary potism we shall arrive at the service to the people about state described by Aristotle, them than ever could be done "when the people, who is now by the brutal cast-iron system a monarch, and no lon dreamed of as progress by under the control of lefanatios. And if the 22,000 to exercise monar country houses are to be and grows in annexed by fusty boards and flatterer stuffy associations, why not sor the costly villas and the large houses in town? We gai from their preface that Sidn and Beatrice Webb "reside, as they would say, at 41 Grosvenor Road. If country houses are given up, why should Grosvenor Road escape? It would serve excellently to shelter such "rural toilers by hand or brain" as wished to spend a week in the theatres and picture palaces of London. Are they ready for the sacrifice which they would impose upon others, or is the proposed new system of plunder to be used only against those who do not accept the untried, untested dogmas of Socialism? The argument of Mr and Mrs Webb is based upon a series of the craziest assumptions. They assume, of course, the ar; this -y being relacher democracies ranny is to other forms Monarchy." That is whither Mr and Mrs Webb would carry us if they could. Happily they must travel a very long way before they extinguish our liberty, and it is reassuring to remember that in the end pedantry always fails in a conflict with courage and righteousness. Another vain assumption, of which Mr and Mrs Webb are guilty, is that the nationalisation of industry is a worthy and profitable scheme. Here also the experience of the world is against them, and they heed it not. In their vanity they make no attempt to prove their point. They are content to take it for granted. And yet it should be evident to them that, wherever the State has taken charge of an industry, industry has instantly withered. Without the very proper impetus of personal success and private property men will not work with all their zest. Will men of business bring their brains to the State, will inventors devote their lives to their work as cheerfully if they are prisoners or bureaucrats, who are permitted on good conduct to "enjoy" an associated holiday in somebody else's stolen country house, as they would if they were free men, free to come and go as they pleased and to make what profit they ld out of hand or brain? only good temper and the Webbs (Mr ull dogma, anu and the ing robbed if we ha. and thrifty. We u the security. And when the pedants paint us a Utopia, they must have a keener intelligence, a wider understand ing of men and women than have fallen to the lot of the sad couple which now aspires to reform the world. Their greatest strokes of humour may be found in the chapters devoted to sketching a new form of national government. By a noble act of condescension Mr and Mrs Webb have consented to keep the King upon the throne. Aren't they forbearing? King Sidney or Queen Beatrice would sound well enough, wouldn't it? And they refrain. But the King will keep his place only upon certain conditions. "Unless the Court' can acquire better manners"-suoh is the ultimatum-"and a new sense of social values, it may be expeoted that the institution of monarchy, whatever its political advantages, will become unpopular, and in that case it might very quickly disappear." The Court, however, need not despair. No doubt Mr and Mrs Webb would consent to mend its manners for it in a few easy lessons, and surely none is so competent to impart a new sense of social values as these two eminent moralists. The King, then, by the kind permission of our two rulers, may for the present remain upon the throne, and British Commonwealth of Nations will not yet be dissolved. There the conservatism of the despots ends. The Second Chamber is given short the Per rift. "There is, of course, nese are the winged words, in the Socialist Commonwealth no place for the House of Lords, which will simply cease to exist as a part of the Legislature." There is a quiet confidence in the word "will," which shows that Mr and Mrs Webb mean business. haps if their active lives had permitted them to ponder more deeply on the past, they might have discovered that there is little chance for the Throne to survive in a government consisting only of itself and a House of Commons. But the word has been spoken: the House of Lords is a misfit. To its shame be it said, it controls its own environment. Worse still, it educates its children as it chooses, and this, as any good Socialist will tell you, is a direct attack upon the Socialists' liberty to make other men slaves. So it must go, and make way for two Houses of Commons, as though one were not enough, designed especially by Mr and Mrs Webb to keep the Socialist Commonwealth alive and alert. One is to be called the Politioal Parliament, and the other is to be called the Social Parliament. And since there is no possible chance of their coming into being, it is hardly worth while to consider their functions. Meanwhile, we can only pay a tribute to Mr and Mrs Webb's momentary moderation. Had they planned a dozen parliaments we should not have been surprised, for they have no interest in anything save in public bodies. The rest, no doubt, will come in time, and it is fortunate that there are two Webbs, for as it is essential that one or other of them should dominate all our deliberations, they will be able to divide the long hours of duty between them. The book of Mr and Mrs Webb tells us a vast deal about the Webbs, and nothing that is worth reading about the British Constitution. These two sad personages seem to be confident that they can pit themselves successfully against the traditions of a thousand years. Of course they cannot. England is an old country, which has grown slowly to its present stature, And slow growth ensures conservatism. Indeed, our great salvation lies to-day, as it has always lain, in our power of reaction. We have reached the very depth of folly, and we shall now begin, in good heart, the ripened journey. The past, however, means nothing to those who, like Mr and Mrs Webb, are condemned to live and to think in a vacuum. They fondly believe that, detached from all that has been, they can sit down and concoct a constitution as a child would put together a jig-saw puzzle. It would be a pathetic situation if Mr and Mrs Webb ever once showed the smallest sympathy with those who do not agree with them. It is merely comedy, when we find two municipal councillors discussing men and women as though they were made of stone. Nevertheless, despite their lamentable lack of humour, we have found a certain pleasure in reading Mr and Mrs Webb's dreary book, which is a confession of failure. We know that their over-confident prophecy will never come true, that the paradise of functionaries, of which they dream, will never be a reality. Englishmen love freedom, they love humour, they love amenity, they love justice, and they will never submit to live in a country from which these virtues are excluded; they will will never endure the oruellest of all tyrannies, the tyranny of the pedant who applies the thumbscrew in the sacred name of the People. Printed by William Blackwood and Sons. |