THE SANITY OF MR. WELLS
A Year of Prophesying. By H. G. Wells. (T. Fisher Unwin. 1Qs. net.) " Tuts," says the superior reviewer, as he opens Mr. Wells's new book, " is obviously mere journalism. I suppose these great men must collect the scraps which the bounty of American editors has extracted from them during the year ; but the result in bookform 1" But once he has opened the book the reviewer, if he is still human, will almost certainly be en-
trapped into reading some of it. And if he does that, though he may not revise his estimate that the book is "mere journal- ism," he will be compelled to recollect that whatever else Mr. H. G. Wells is, or is not, he is a supreme journalist. And, as the reviewer will himself in all probability be a member of that remarkable profession, he will find this book a storehouse of examples of his craft.
Take, for example, the art of phrase-making. We do not
usually think of Mr. Wells as a great phrase-maker, and yet this book is full of delightful aphorisms. We will mention two. Mr. Wells is discussing the question of Russia and democracy. " Parliamentary democracy did for a brief interval appear in Russia, but it was as suitable wear for that country at its present phase of education as a silk hat for a whale." Here is a simile which really hits. Russia is so
exactly the great, wallowing, spouting, destructive sperm- whale of the world. The silk hat so vividly calls up the image of the Chamberlain of yesterday, or of to-day, resting his spot- less top hat upon " the box " as he forms the opening phrases. of his perfect reply to a " Supplementary "—the silk hat, and not the mace, is the symbol of parliamentary government. Again, when Mr. Wells wishes to compare Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill, he says :-
"Both Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill denounced Socialism, but while Mr. Churchill really meant Socialism by Socialism, Mr. Lloyd George only meant a tendency to vote for Labour instead of for Lloyd George."
But this is a book of prophecy as well as of journalism,
and here Mr. Wells is on weaker ground, for much of it is a book of prophecy of events which have already happened.
Thus we may test the prophet. And here it seems to us Mr. Wells betrays his besetting weakness, that of an impatience with the slowness of the affairs of men so great that he cannot believe that anything so crude and clumsy as politics can have any significance whatever. Consider, for instance, what he said in December, 1923, about the British Elections of that year :-
" The noise of the British General Election subsides, and we
realise that a crisis of supreme ance to the world in general is over. The affair has had much t e same importance as a wayside epileptic fit."
Now the result of the 1928 election was to give this country the first Labour Government of its history. That event may be regarded from different angles. Mr. Wells himself later on makes it clear that he regards it as the final degradation of the Labour Party into a mere political hack from which he and all other men of intellect and spirit must withdraw immediately, Others, however, no more friendly to the Labour Party than Mr. Wells (although perhaps for opposite reasons) regard the fact that Labour tasted for a moment the responsibilities of - office as one of the few favourable factors in the political position of this country. They feel that it marked the end of the revolutionary period of the Labour movement, and the party's final absorption into the English political consti- tution, as the recognised party of the Left. It is simply nonsensical to pretend that the election which resulted in such an event had the importance of a " wayside fit." As a matter of fact, its reactions upon the whole civilization of Western Europe were profound, as Mr. Wells himself would, we imagine, now admit. Certainly Mr. Wells is right in thinking he should leave the Labour Party. Indeed, he should leave politics. He dislikes them so much that he is unwilling to pause long enough to understand even their outline. But how much he can do for politicians, even though politicians can do nothing for him, or with him ! How much wider and bolder, for instance, is his vision of the future of the British races than that of most of his friends of the Left ! We wish they would read his chapter on " The Future of the British Empire." Mr. Wells has grasped a principle which too many are apt to neglect, the principle of Unity and of " Unionism." He has learnt to value the process of building up, and not the process of cutting up. That, too, has made him in the end cautious of the absolute affirmation, and it leads him to one most surprising conclusion :- " With aggressive wealth and canting patriotism floundering destructively about us, in an atmosphere of catchwords and wild misconceptions, with masses of people angry, distressed, and misinformed, and with worse to follow, the straight path to martyr- dom is a mere evasion of our responsibilities. You cannot make a new world in gaols and exile ; you must make it in schools and books, in Legislatures and business affairs, humorously, obstinately, and incessantly. This monstrous, distressful, pathetic, but pre- posterous social disarticulation is too intricate and complicated for any simple act or any simple formula to avail. We must all do what we can, but our best efforts may, after all, be not so much right as right-iesh. It would be hard enough to struggle in a world
i in which other people did not understand, but in which we at least were sure we were right ; it is infinitely harder to struggle, as many of us are doing now, with a realisation that our own under- standing is limited and faulty. . . . In such circumstances a jest, laughter, may come as relief, as illumination. Of all men of modern times, I am inclined to think Lincoln was the greatest. He held on ; he, more than anyone, saved the unity of the New World. And throughout the worst of that dark and weary struggle against disruption he joked, he told stories. Nobody has ever attempted yet to make an anthology of those extraordinary stories. But they were of infinite benefit to him and the world. They kept him supple. They saved him from the rigour of a pose."
That choice of Lincoln as one of the greatest figures of the age is the symbol of what Mr. Wells has to teach the earnest reformers of the Left. It is his own particular sanity which he can contribute to progressive thought.
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