IS ENGLAND GROWING WEAKER?
_MR. T. E. KEBBEL starts a question in the Nine- teenth Century for March which at another time might be regarded as purely academic, but which under present circumstances, with the war-clouds gathering so thickly overhead, is of very urgent interest. Is there any grave reason for doubting whether Englishmen of to- day are morally fit to endure the sacrifices and suffer- ings which a long war might entail ? Mr. Kebbel thinks there is. The English, he says, have been trained ever since the great war to dislike alliances with non-moral Powers, and all Powers except Britain and America being in their judgment non-moral—that is intent upon selfish gain—they have become "isolated," and will remain, unless their opinion changes, isolated even in a great war. Their organisation, too, has been materially altered. The country gentlemen of ancient standing who led them before 1830 have gradually lost their influence, and it was to their tenacity, courage, and above all endurance, that the ultimate success of the great war was due. England, says Mr. Kebbel, who avows himself an old Tory, is now governed by workmen, and if he may judge from the action of the Trade-Unions, they will not suffer hardship in the form of reduction of wages for any length of time, and will not, therefore, consent to a struggle of the old dogged kind against two Great Powers at once. We have stated Mr. Kebbel's argument as fairly as we know how, and we will venture to complete it by a suggestion or two which, as we note with surprise, he has not made. There cannot be a doubt that all classes in this country, without exception, are more devoted to physical comfort than they were in 1815 ; that they will feel the loss of the amenities of life which come from their surplus monies, whether little or much, most, severely ; and that the constant enjoyment of those amenities has to a certain extent softened them all. All, too, have become much more "sensible," better able to compare risks and gains, and therefore less disposed to fight, either for the pleasure of it, or merely for the sake of a victory which offers no advantages. And, finally, all have become much more sensitive as to the horrors which must accompany war, are more shocked by a list of killed and wounded, and, because they comprehend them better, have more sympathy for the physical sufferings of all engaged in actual opera- tions. The people see them fall, as it were, and they shiver at the sight in a perfectly novel way.
Nevertheless, though we give their full weight to Mr. Kebbel's views, as those of a man who with competent eyes has patiently observed Englishmen for a long series of years, we differ from his conclusions. In the first place, we reject altogether his idea as to alliances. Britain may not find allies, but it will not be in conse- quence of any change in her inclination to find them. Forty years after the great war the people of this country accepted, and throughout a difficult war adhered to, two alliances, and one was with Napoleon Ill., a man whom every Englishman distrusted, and the other with Turkey, a State which to the majority of Englishmen even then represented social rottenness and political tyranny. Our people have since then probably become better men, and the abhorrence of Turkey has gone very deep, but were war once declared or certain they would, we believe, cast all sentiment to the winds, accept help wherever they could get it, and make and keep agreements with any Power whatever, save possibly Turkey, which could put an effective army in the field. We feel sure, for example, that if the enemy were Russia, they would ally themselves with Japan, or, if France had also declared war, with any Power whatever which was willing to attack France by land or sea. They would allow those allies to claim any reward they might desire, and would, in fact, arrange with them on just those purely business principles which Mr. Kebbel thinks they have for so long a period forgotten. The Spectator might oppose, but few other journals would, and both the people and Parliament would exhibit from the first that selfish contempt of every consideration except victory which it is the first evil consequence of every great war to produce. The British have too many Mahommedan and Pagan subjects to think much of religious differences ; and they would believe, on rather doubtful evidence, that they could always prevent any allies from refusing quarter in the field, or oppressing a civil population. Nor do we believe that the new social organisation of Great Britain tends to weakness in war. If an aristocracy has a tenacity of its own, so has a democracy. The country gentlemen did not show more firmness in the war with Napoleon than the middle class, who exclusively rule India, did in the Great Mutiny—in the whole course of which not one suggestion of com- promise was so much as discussed—or than the "common folk" of the United States did in the terrible war between North and South, which involved more carnage than our own war, and as great a draft upon the future prosperity of the people. Democracy longs for success quite as much as aristocracy, is more confident, not less, that it will win in the end, and throws up at least as many competent and persistent leaders. Napoleon's Generals were at least as good fighters as the nobles of Louis XIV., and the leading soldiers of the North, who were usually plebeians, defeated the leading soldiers of the South, who as slave-owners were essentially in their strengths and in their weaknesses aristocrats. In this country Clive was the son of an obscure squire, Nelson sprung from the very modest parsonage of Thorpe, and the Wellesleys, or Wesleys, though they had reached the Irish House of Lords, would on the Continent have been ranked as men but recently sprung from the people. The City of Loudon was at least as determined in prosecuting the war as the aristocracy, the Army was raised from first to last by voluntary enlistment, and there never was a year in the whole war when, if the people had been resolutely set against its further prosecution, they could' not have brought it to a close. What has altered since then that the people should refuse to go on with a struggle once begun ?
The people, replies Mr. Kebbel, are more anxious about wages, as is shown by the action of the great Trade- Unions. Now is that true We should have said it was the exact reverse of the truth. The one class which in 1861-63 bore the frightful misery inflicted on Lancashire by the American Civil War was that of the cotton-spinners, which, while it hovered for two years on the verge of starvation, and was compelled to accept an outdoor relief which it thought shameful, never faltered for a moment in its adherence to the North, and endured the miseries of the war with a serene patience which extorted the admira- tion of the few Americans who had leisure to study, or even to observe it. If the members of the Trade-Unions have a virtue, it is the pertinacious courage with which they cling to their leaders in disaster, the calm way in which they accept for themselves and their families for months, or even years, on end allowances wholly insuffi- cient for comfort, rather than surrender what is often only an idea. If the workmen accept a national war as they accept a trade war, the chance of Great Britain being defeated for want of endurance pushed to its farthest limits will be small indeed ; and why should they not accept it ? Because, says Mr. Kebbel, they will no longer be led by gentlemen. Are the Trade-Union leaders gentlemen in his sense ? The workmen will have matters more directly in their own hands than they ever had, their honour is just as directly involved as that of the gentry, and our only fear is that they will doggedly insist on victory with dramatic effects, when undramatic compromises would be much more to the permanent advan- tage of their country, which does not want to be hated through a generation as Germany has been by France. If the people do not approve a war, there will be no war, and if they do approve it, they will, Mr. Kebbel may depend upon it, be as stubborn as ever they were yet, stubborn. as bull-dogs or non-commissioned officers of the Navy.
Our fear for the English people in a war would be a different one from Mr. Kebbel's. "Grit" has not decayed here any more than courage, though there is a new tolerance for washy sentiment ; but we are not so sure as to the judgment of the huge electoral body. It may think victory too much its due, and be ready to break any General who fails to secure it at once, or who is defeated under circumstances which reflect no discredit on either his daring or his skill. Great Kings and great aristo- cracies have been from the earliest times singularly fair in that matter, probably because they personally knew the men, and have been sure, therefore, that all had been done that could be done, and that they could find no better servants. The tendency of democracies, on the other hand, has been to send the unsuccessful to the guillotine, whether actual or professional, and to forget that defeat may be possible even when the General has made the- wisest dispositions. The Americans, however, who are at least as democratic as we are, left the selection of their Generals to the chiefs of the State ; and as regards the Navy, the people have only once that we can remember- insisted on a choice. They thought, accurately as it turned out, that Nelson carried victory in his bosom, and insisted on his appointment ; but they have rarely presumed to be certain that a less successful Admiral was disqualified for his post. They have not interfered in the smallest degree with the Government of India throughout the vicissitudes of the Frontier War, though during that war they have fancied that lives were being uselessly thrown away. They will be calm enough, we hope, though dour in an hour of disaster ; and if they are, we have no fear that they will not be steady enough for a cam- paign. And it is on them that the new conditions are ex- pected to exercise bad effects ; for Mr. Kebbel, with all his pessimism, does not suggest that the men who actually fight have lost any of their ancient courage. All recent experience proves that in that respect the English, Scotch, and Irish are precisely what they always were, men who in battle are among the most resolute of earth's children. They are not all heroes, nor all indifferent to danger, they require leadership, and they have a necessity for good food ; but if they are fed and led they will stay for ten minutes fighting after any other troops in the world would have fallen back, and what can the country ask more ?
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