Letters to the Editor
The Establishment Sir Norman Angell 'Freedom' Movements John Pringle, Edward Martell The `Sunday Star' A. W. Kingsley Nationalised Prodigality J. H. Brebner THE ESTABLISHMENT
SIR,—On May 25 Mr. Henry Fairlie, returning once more to discussion of the Establishment, criticises an observation of mine made in a recent review of Sir Evelyn Wrench's biography of Geoffrey Dawson.
My review dealt, necessarily, with certain public events of Dawson's lifetime—events which together led to the all but complete dis- integration of the British Empire and disastrous reduction in Britain's power and influence. Related to those events is the fact that this country now faces an economic situa- tion in which British governments, of what- ever party, seem as impotent as past govern- ments have proved to be in the field of inter- national politics. lacked the power of govern- ment based on Parliament is rapidly becoming subordinate to the power of small groups in the trade unions able a( their sole discretion instantly to lame or paralyse the country's whole economy, a power never possessed by the capitalists, financiers or money barons of the past. The small militant groups who possess this power of paralysis are not likely to be unconscious of the fact that the more their policy of totalitarian State-control fails, the more it will have to be applied. Let a con- dition of semi-starvation throughout the country arise and no one is going to object to the most ruthless rationing, nor the most socialistic control of property and income. To ascribe such forces, or any appreciable part of them, to the existence of a little coterie of grey eminences lurking in the shadows of All Souls, or Lambeth Palace, or Printing House Square, or Broadcasting House, is, I suggested, not merely almost comic in its inadequacy, but has further the effect of turning things upside down. It leads us to regard the symptoms of the disease as its cause, creating thereby con- fusions which prevent the application of cura- tive measures, and to evade our responsibilities by creating a scapegoat.
That All Souls constitutes 'an unofficial club for running or helping to run the destinies of the British Empire' is a fact, says Mr. Fairlie, which I choose to ignore. I no more ignore it than I would ignore the significance of another unofficial club, that which used to gather in a Munich beer hall with a view to running the destinies of the German Reich. The question which concerns us about this latter—and which Western civilisation must, elm pain of collapse, answer truthfully—is this:
What gave that Munich club made up of failures, misfits, neurotics and psychopaths the power to dominate the highly educated German nation; to direct its destinies and lead it, a second time, to disaster?
We cannot answer that question truthfully unless we take into account the fact that the tyrant or the dictator—Hitlerian, Stalinist, or any kind—has no physical power in himself to govern. The power which he uses must be furnished by the governed; by the active sup- port of some, the acquiescence or failure of effective resistance of others. But for a certain quality in the minds of the German millions Hitler would have remained powerless and the world would never have heard of him. But for certain qualities in the minds of the British millions the Establishment, including All Souls, would have no more power than the gathering of the villagers for their evening pint at the Pig and Whistle. So long as we ignore this major fact of the character of the public mind, 'the public philosophy,' it will serve no purpose to 'expose' or gird at this or that clique. We may get rid of one to find that another even more mischievous has arisen to express or exploit a prevailing mood or illusion. It is happening in Britain. The little group of Communist or near-Communist militants in the larger trade unions is infinitely more dangerous, and more immedi- ately so, than All Souls ever was.
It is now three-quarters of a century since we began to talk about educating our masters. We have failed to do it. Our universal educa- tion has not equipped the millions coming from our schools to understand either their own natures, the emotional forces which lead them to error, or the nature of the society which, as voters, they will be called upon to manage. In what way our education should be modified to meet the problems of a nuclear age is another and separate story. But we shall not make even a start on the problem unless and until there is fuller realisation of the fact that the quality of any society depends upon the capacity for sound judgement on the part of the multitude.—Yours faithfully,
NORMAN ANGELL
The Stone Cottage, Fernden Hill, Haslemere, Surrey
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