MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
ON Saturday last I was present at a demonstration organised by the Cornish-Breton Committee at Penzance. The French officers and sailors who came by train were given a civic reception at the station. The flags fluttered, the band played the Marseillaise, and the mayor delivered a short address of welcome. A march-past was held in front of the Municipal Building, where the Lord Lieutenan: for Cornwall, flanked on one side by Admiral Auboynau and on the other by General Sice, took the salute. The cameras clicked, the recording van of the Ministry of Information hummed gently, the rain swept down upon the proceedings in an angry drizzle, the French sailors swung past smartly, the crowd clapped their hands, and everyone was much pleased. Thereafter there followed a municipal luncheon and an entertainment at which many men made stirring speeches, at which the Grand Bard of the Cornish Gorsedd gave an address in Breton, at which the male choir from Mousehole sang " Trelawny " with fervour, and at which "Aria ef a-dhe " (a Cornish ballad forecasting the return of King Arthur) was given to the harp. We were told also of the Breton legend of how one day, not only Brittany, but Gaul itself, would be overrun by barbarians from the east ; of how many of the Bretons would escape from their country and find refuge in an island of the west ; how a man would arise from the land of the Gauls who would unite these refugees into a mighty army ; and how in the end they would return to Britanny and sweep the barbarians from their home. We were much encouraged by this legend and by the ringing of Arta ef a-dhe, each of which rendered it evident that the defeat of the Axis and the triumph of General de Gaulle are written in the book of destiny. We came out into the rain, hitching our waterproofs round us, feeling on our lips the salt breath of the sea mingling with the sweet western drizzle, feeling in our hearts the warm glow of pre- destined victory. It was a cheerful occasion.
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The Breton sailors were tough and fit and clean. Their smiles flashed white against the bronze of their cheeks, the scarlet blobs on their caps danced down the rain-grey streets, they picked hydrangeas from the gardens and stuck them in their blouses. Underneath their gaiety and strength one was conscious of a gnawing homesiekness, of a dumb longing for the rocks and sea-Weed of home. Gazing across the weeping sea to where the rocks of Corn- wall stretch out towards the rocks of Brittany ripae ulterioris amore —they assured us that before Christmas they would be back in France. "There is no doubt about it," they said, "this affair is nearing to its end." It seemed cruel to suggest to them that December would certainly not see the end of their exile ; we murmured "perhaps—who can tell?" and they nodded their heads in simple affirmation. I asked them whether their home-sickness was intolerable. They shrugged their shoulders, "Well, we belong home," they said, "On ..ist du pays." It is stimulating, in these days of dispersed emotion, to find so concentrated a fire of local sentiment as that of the Bretons and the Cornishmen. These peninsular folk have a sense of corporate identity which, when I was young, was called "patriotism," and which we in England would seem to have lost awhile. For them the spire of their church, the high fields from which one watches the sun's feet shine across the sea, the little harbours where the smacks snuggle together, arc not merely the extension, but the very fibre, of their own personality. And what do the ills of the capitalist system mean to them compared to the scent of their own seaweed on familiar rocks? For them the intimate and the familiar are symbolised, not by economic or social fictions, but by concrete facts which can be identified by scent and touch and sight. On en du pays.
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I do not really believe that patriotism is dead in this country. It is rather that the old coins of jingo phraseology have been so thumbed in the market-place and on the hustings that their images and superscriptions have become blurred. Foreign coinage—often of highly doubtful minting—shines more brightly, and seems to have a sharper edge. It is cleat that the old currency of patriotic fervour, such as was in circulation at the time of Mafeking or Omdurman, has become sadly inflated, and has now lost its pur- chasing power. The determinists would, I suppose, contend that this inflation is a classic symptom of the decline of every civilisation, and that the rise of an internal or an external proletariat is always heralded by the depreciation of existing formulas. I quite see that in Great Britain we have ceased to believe unreservedly in the political fictions of our grandfathers, without having as yet acquired any clear confidence in the economic fictions of our grandchildren. Even those whose heart-strings vibrate with loathing at the very thought of the profit' motive must feel at times that it is more difficult to maintain a high level of excitement in regard to economic heresies or doctrines than it was to be stirred by the simpler passions for equality and freedom. A certain lukewarnmess of enthusiasm is thus apparent in regard to both the past and the future. But this emotional lethargy does not necessarily imply that patriotism is dead ; it implies that we have not as yet discovered the language by which patriotism can be expressed in modern words.
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The Fascists and the Nazis have imposed upon their peoples a remarkably intense form of national self-consciousness, mainly by concentrating upon the instincts of conceit, jealousy, greed and fear. They have taught their boys and girls that those of Teuton or of Roman blood are destined at this turning-point in world history to impose their superiority on lesser breeds. They have aroused in them the demon of envy by contending that other races of less virtue and greater cunning have seized for themselves the riches of the earth. They have persuaded them that the day has now dawned when they, the elite of the young nations, can obtain these riches, these superb and unlimited spoils, with their own ardent hands. And they have made it quite clear that those who do not conform to this theory, or join the brigand band, will be exposed to carefully calculated suffering. Even in its most preda- tory days British patriotism was never as bad as that. We are not a conceited race, nor do we in the very least enjoy the delights of ostentation or the uncertain pleasure of being feared. We are not a jealous race, and we can look across the oceans without the acids of envy fermenting in our souls. We are not a greedy race, mainly because we have fed long and largely upon the benefits of riches and power. Nor is it feasible to rule our people, whose civic courage is both wide and deep, by processes of intimidation. Thus when I sometimes hear people praise the " patriotism " of our enemies, I exclaim—" But if that state of nervous tension, if that odious compound of defects, is indeed patriotism, then I trust that my own dear country will remain for ever the most un- patriotic upon earth."
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There does exist, however, a common factor among all people of our race upon which a common " patriotism " can be based. It is the factor of pride: "immense orgeuil—justifie." Pride, as the Prime Minister showed us so toughly on Tuesday, is something wholly different from boastfulness. From that excellent quality derive many of our most "English" characteristics—our self- assurance, our humour, our laziness, and• our boundless tolerance. There have been phases in our history, as at the time of the French Revolution, when the granite of our national pride became veiled in the mists of foreign doctrine, and when perfectly patriotic Britons thought it more important that "tyrants should be hurled from , their blood-cemented thrones" than that we should hold Majorca or Toulon. But always, in the end, these mists have cleared away, and the rock of our pride has stood out again, unassailable and aloof. I am aware that some of our young people question whether we have much to be proud about—a question which seems-strange as coming from the inhabi- tants of a tiny island which has spread its culture and language across the seven seas. Yet even .these pale Ebenezers would flush with anger if invasion came. On en du pays.
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