BACK TO LOST IDEALS
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must be accompanied by the name and address of the author, which will be treated as confidential.—Ed. TIIE SPECTATOR] [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR,—The last War will indeed have been fought in vain, not necessarily if there be another war, but inevitably and emphatically, if those ideals for which the youth of England fought and died—ideals of liberty and truth and justice which they regarded as the indispensable basis of any civilisa- tion worthy of the name—can now be lightly discarded and thrown to the winds by a pack of egotistical merchants, snivelling parsons, moribund old women, decadent aristocrats and effeminate young men.
There are dangerous theories abroad in England today which, unless stoutly combated, will lead us swiftly by the Path of Slovenly Reasoning, through the Valley of Cowardice, into the Gulf of Hell. One of these is the theory of isolation : that England should " mind her own business," shut her eyes to the horrors at her gates, and concentrate upon her own selfish money-making concerns. As if a nation, any more than an individual, can escape from her duties and live upon a pinnacle of self-satisfaction and material comfort, while cruelty, violence and injustice stalk unhampered through the rest of the world ! This theory is not only morally con- temptible but, in these days of lightning communications and the consequent interdependence of State on State, utterly and fatuously stupid.
Another theory, expressed, I think, by a correspondent in your last issue, is that, irrespective of the State, our young men have the right to pick and choose and announce to us the causes for which they are prepared and the causes for which they are not prepared to fight. When we have to pay an outrageous income tax, however unjust we may think it to be, it never enters our head to refuse payment. We go on paying till we burst, because we are disciplined and know that we shall be put into prison if we do not, and because we realise that in principle this is fair, because this payment is one of the duties which we owe to the State in return for its protection and care of us, When we are called upon to fight for the State, we are called upon simply to fulfil another of these duties, albeit the most important and, maybe, the supreme one.
No State could long continue in existence if individuals were allowed at their own discretion to criticise the cause for which the State as a whole is determined to fight, and to translate such criticism into individual action or abstention from action. In their own interests, as well as ours, these young men should be disciplined and taught this obvious fact, for if they are not prepared, when called upon to do so, to offer themselves unreservedly to the State, they will lose for ever that freedom and leisure which they now enjoy for the examination of their delicate consciences.
A third dangerous theory is the so-called " Christian " attitude adopted by certain pacifists and by far too large a number of clergymen—that no man can fight and be a Christian. So then, all our brothers and fathers who " gathered the spears of the Prussian legions in their breasts," that we might live and continue in comfort and air our smug little theories—all these were heathens, were un-Christian and therefore, as a Christian reward for their self-sacrifice, are condemned to utter darkness and to gnashing of teeth ! But I will answer these pseudo-Christians, these shameful mis- interpreters of the whole life of Christ and of his fighting Apostle, Saint Paul, not in the words of a soldier or statesman, but in those of a Bishop, one of the most saintly, gentle and humble men who have ever lived. The late Bishop Moule, Bishop of Durham, was not afraid to preach in his Cathedral on the " holiness of patriotism, the benediction of God upon the love of country " ; and he went on to say : " I read, a few days ago, a long and able letter against the patriotic idea. It affirmed that Christ the Lord in proclaiming God as Father and men as brethren abolished nationality. . . . I boldly call this position a subtle and most dangerous fallacy. . . . It is no more sin to bar the gates of England against German outrage; although ideally all men arc brethren, than it is to lock the home doors within which children sleep against a midnight burglar, though he, too, is potentially a child of God. . . . Who dies if England lives ? ' is fit for the utterance of a soul whose life all the while is hid with Christ in God."
What has come over us in these recent years ? We seem to have lost all sense of values, and we tremble before the arrogant exhibition of brute force, as a sheep trembles before the butcher. And when we talk of " Civilisation," to which we have recently sacrificed so much—so much of Justice, so much of Truth and so much of the liberty of others— what do we mean by this " Civilisation " ? Do we mean the truly Christian, the old English ideals of Chivalry and Freedom and Co= _le, the protection of the weak, the cham- pionship of Good and the defiance of Evil ? Or do we mean our personal wealth and our personal safety, our motor-cars and our big businesses, our night-clubs and our scarlet finger- nails ?
Incredible though it may seem in an age where evil has so blatantly advertised its power and its purpose for all men to see and understand, scarce one man of consequence has arisen in this land which boasts of its love of justice and liberty —scarce a statesman, scarce a newspaper, scarce a philan- thropist, scarce a priest—to dcnounce in unequivocal terms the greatest tyranny, the most rapacious and cynical injustice that modern history has seen ; a tyranny and injustice publicly proclaimed and exercised, not once, but repeatedly, over individuals, over States, over Christians, over Jews, over women, over children ; not in one small corner of Europe, but spread, like foul blotches, all over its face.
How can this be ? There must be a secret canker some- where in our midst, some foul plant with its roots in selfishness and unimaginative stupidity, assiduously watered by those whose interest it is to poison the heart of our Empire. We have seen already some of the fruits of their labours in the recent hysterical outburst in the House of Commons ; in the fallacious arguments and the subtle evasions of the truth, of certain great newspapers ; in the silence and timidity of the Church over the fundamental question of right and wrong ; in the complete absence of a sense of shame in many of our personal friends for the price which others have paid for their temporary security ; in the triumphant acclamation of our new-found friendship with the bully of Europe ; in the almost contemptuous official disregard of the sufferings and the dignity of the Czechs and of the debt which we owe to them.
Does not all this point, too clearly for our peace of mind, to the sinister explanation that, although, thank God, the heart of the people is sound, " Something is rotten in the State of Denmark " ?—Your obedient servant,
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