BOOKS OF THE DAY
The Sage of Eyot St. Lawrence
Everyfody's Political What's What ? By Bernard Shaw. (Constable. los.)
jAmEs BRIDIE has recently pointed out that a post which the British public has created and keeps constantly filled is that of a Sage. By some tacit agreement there is never more than one Sage at a time ; at most, there is a Sage and an Aspirant-Sage. Physically, a Sage of Great Britain must be easily recognisable, both in person and in picture—if possible, he should be identified by a beard. His literary output must be voluminous. His political opinions must be of the Left—with flashes of extreme Rightness. Above all, his utterances must be oracular, which is to say authoritative, but capable of more than one interpretation. Given these qualities he will, eventually, be accepted as an authority about anything he likes—for as long as he likes. It is not necessary that anyone should listen or do what he says. But the British nation, which is deeply reverential, feels the better for having such a figure around. Just as India feels the better for the possession of Mr. Gandhi. Apart from India and Britain, no nation goes in for Sages.
The present holder of the office, Mr. Shaw, is one of the most successful Sages ever produced. To fulfil the terms of his appoint- ment, which are communicated to each Sage, no one knows how, he has written a new book. Not a play, alas. These he turns out for a living. This is the Sage, and he is doing his stuff. As one who has read, for his own sake, every line that Mr. Shaw has ever written, including The Commonsense of Municipal Trading (I am not in favour of municipal trading) and The Quintessence of Wagnerism (I am profoundly anti-Wagnerian), I solemnly testify that this book is unreadable. I have worked through it because I have been paid to do so. It is a good thing that some should be so paid. But I am willing to bet a handsome sum that many of them will shirk their work. In fact, Mr. Shaw admits as much, and inserts a small chapter (leaving out all the plums) called " For the Reviewers."
The book is entitled Everybody's Political What's What? It is not meant for everybody. Nor are any of the best bits about politics, even in the widest sense; and it gives much inaccurate information about What's What. Its real interest is in the autobiographical details which are embedded deep in the intricacies of its 364 pages. They are interesting because they -are the first-hand observations of a highly intelligent man. The political observations are blurred recollections of what someone else once told him, unchecked by any personal investigation or practice, save for that brief period, about the time of the Crimean War, when Mr. Shaw was a member of a London local government body. Mr. Shaw states—and it can only be because someone told him, for he is an intelligent man and would not have thought of it for himself—that Parliament, to be all right, must amongst other things be elected for fixed and unalterable periods. If he looks across the Channel he will see the ruins of a State which was governed by a Constitution which had this as one
of its cardinal principles. He believes that " in the Four Years War most of the Allies borrowed its cost from England, and England borrowed it from the United States,'; although any American, smartingly conscious of the many billions of dollars which other countries borrowed direct, could have told him otherwise. He believes that municipalities, because of their virtuous systems of election and methods of working, are free from party politics. Heavens above! I wish he saw Glasgow. Or, if that is too much to hope for, he might take a mild look at Mr. Herbert Morrison. Wheri facts jolt themselves for a moment into his consciousness, he escapes from them by saying, for instance, that the remedy for party politics in municipal affairs is the exclusion of " °vines " from the municipal panel. I do not know how it is in other cities. But anybody meeting a majority of Glasgow Town Councillors and proceeding on the assumption that what he was encountering was ." ovines " would do better to take refuge in a cage of Bengal tigers, Which brings me to the parts of the book devoted to Mr. Shaw's opinions ; and these parts are if anything, worse than the parts devoted to his political facts. " The choice (of leaders and rulers)," says he, " should therefore be limited to panels of .persons who can pass such tests as we can devise of their wisdom, comprehension, knowledge and energy." But who are " we"? This question is not answered. It is the kernel of the book. No one has the right to propound such a solution seriously and bolt from the techniques involved. Give me the drawing-up of a questionnaire and I will guarantee its answers. Give me the right to lay down "tests" and I can nominate any " panel" you can think of. (Otherwise, says Mr. Shaw, we shall have stampedes led by liars like Titus Oates— believing apparently that Titus Oates obtained power at some hotly- contested by-election.) I said there were good bits in this book ; and there are, excellent bits, wonderful bits. The whole of Mr. Shaw's philosophy is revealed, with the greatest honesty, by his casual remark that on a
piece of perfectly stationary dry land in Chelsea he visited the facsimile of the first-class passengers' quarters in• a modern P & 0.
liner, and that in the passage between the P. & 0. cabins he suddenly felt seasick and had to beat a hasty retreat into the gardens. The power of Mr. Shaw's imagination, its utter disregard of anything that conflicts with his mental conceptions, could not be more vividly demonstrated.
Oh dear, oh dear ; I would swop the whole darn book for die two words "maternal massarzh '' in which Mr. Shaw, crashing into
a recent controversy, summed up his own ideals as to child welfare and sketched, instantaneously, the kindly American judge who had informed him. Why a man who could do that, or who could wri In Good King Charles' Glorious Days, should blanket the light his mind in 364 pages of abracadabra is beyond human comprehe sion. This nation works its Sages too hard. Carlyle thought necessary to write forty volumes on the merits of Silence. But es, he stopped at last. Mr. Shaw might well be content to let h eighty-eight yeafs testify to his views on biology ; and let conduct reveal, to those who would study it, the secrets of h
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