ASPECTS OF ENGLAND I T is a strange deficiency in the
English language (who has ever talked yet of a British language ?) that it has found no adequate term to apply to the inhabitants of these islands as a whole. No adequate term ; for while Britain, British and Briton serve. for particular purposes, in particular contexts, the briefest experiment will show how insufficient they are in literary quality and historical association as substitute for the adjective or noun which, properly speaking, applies to citizens of the southern half of Great Britain only. Be the explanation what it will—the great majority of the people of Britain, and even of the United Kingdom, are in fact English ; England as a political entity goes back some ten centuries, Great Britain only three —the fact remains. And concerned as any writer may be to anticipate the just demurrers of those who, not being Englishmen, object to the complacent extension of that term to cover Scots and Welsh, he finds literary tradition too strong for him. The poets have settled it. " What would I do for thee. . . ."—Britain my Britain " Sonic corner of a foreign field that is for ever. . . ." Britain ? " Here and here did " Britain " help me, How can I help . . ." Britain ? " Dipping between the rollers, the " British ? " flag goes by."
No, it will not do. Yet those who stick to "England" and "English" are fully conscious that if in one sense they arc right, in another they are wrong. And if they arc fair-minded men, and at the same time diplomatic men, they will make what apologies they may in advance. Such an apology is here and now extended to all who may be tempted to approach the articles which follow with instinctive prejudice because their titles indicate that they deal with different aspects of the life of England." In fact not one of them excludes from its purview every part of Britain. Recognition of the part the northern and western regions of our island have played in building up the island story is inherent, if not explicit, in every one of them. Neither " English Freedom " nor " An Englishman's Religion " could be conceived' of in any but a cribbed and narrowed sense by anyone who left the Scottish Covenanters out of mind. Ideas on the relationship of " Englishmen and the Throne " would show great gaps if the picture failed to take account of the display of loyalty unmatched in warmth and picturesqueness manifested when the King holds his court at the Palace of Holyroodhouse or journeys to his Highland home at Balmoral.
And on the broadest ground of all, the ground on which these articles are designedly based, reference to England and Englishmen in any restricted sense would be hopelessly inept. With all due consciousness of our own shortcomings we arc entitled to claim that for men and women who value freedom, who claim the right to think their own thoughts and to express them openly, for men and women who recognize the dependence of members of a national society on one another and are resolved that even fur the poorest of the unemployed life shall be made at least livable, for men and women conscious of a national heritage, of religion, of literature; of law, of political institutions, that has broadened and enriched their lives, this country—England, Scotland Wales and as much of Ireland as chooses to be of us— is the place of all places in the world today where most of them would choose to dwell.
It is with a view to inviting reflection on various features in the national life that the articles which follow have been arranged. They make admittedly no com- plete whole. The veil, it may be objected, has not been lifted on unemployment generally, and those dark spots known as the depressed areas in particular, nor on the slums in which hundreds of thousands of English and Scottish and Welsh fainilies are still condemned to live. That is true. The articles concentrate rather on the reasons why the people of Britain would, for the most part, choose to live in Britain first, or why—in termino- logy adopted for literary convenience only—English- men are well content to he Englishmen. As such they need neither apology nor commendation. The authority of the writers will he sufficient to secure them all the hearing they could ask.
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