Political Commentary
BY HENRY FAIRLIE AHISTORY of England which does not mention Sir Winston Churchill—that was the first I knew of Biography of a Nation, which has been written by two Conservative MPs and published by Phoenix House. In my innocence, I thought that there must be some simple reason for it. Perhaps the authors had decided not to mention any living person. But there, on page 205, are seven lines devoted to Sir William (in the index, Lord) Beveridge. Seven lines for Sir William (Lord) Beveridge, and not one for Mr, (Sir) Winston Churchill. Clearly, the omission was deliberate; and, in view of what the authors say in their introduction, it is even more startling than at first appears. They have attempted, they say. to describe how the consciousness of being a nation began among the English and how it has grown and changed. If ever in the lifetime of the two authors the consciousness of being a nation has been dramatically revealed among the English it was in 1940, and it was one man who summoned that con- sciousness and forged it into an indestructible will to survive. Yet the authors have nothing to say of the man, and of Eng- land's finest moment only one insulting sentence.
Obviously it would not be necessary to pay attention to this book if it were not written by Mr. Angus Maude, MP. and Mr. Enoch Powell, MP. As history it is not just useless, it is shamelessly misleading. A book—even one of only 200-odd pages—which pretends to give an account of the story of the English and yet does not mention Halifax the Trimmer, one of the most significant English political figures at the end of the seventeenth century; which reduces the career of Charles James Fox to a parenthesis and that referring only to the most in- glorious episode of his life; which has no room for Wilkes and Bradlaugh, two of the most effective challengers of pre- sumptuous Parliaments; which omits Robert Owen and the Fabians, who between them have been a more formative influence on us today than any other small handful of men; which can find no word for Shaftesbury, the typical High Tory and High Evangelical Churchman who fought for the Factory Acts; which leaves out John Stuart Mill and Macaulay—how can the nineteenth century in England be understood without them?—and Richard Cobden, the personification of the new middle class : a book with these omissions at least lends some support to Henry Ford's conviction that 'history is bunk.'
But, look over the list of the omissions again (and many more could be added.) Is there not something significant and even sinister about them? What Mr. Powell and Mr. Maude have done is leave out the protesters. The genius of the English political achievement has been to reconcile liberty and order. Mr. Maude and Mr. Powell have omitted or denigrated those who through the centuries have kept liberty alive. Part of the English political traditions has rested on voluntary, extra- Parliamentary movements, such as the Anti-Corn Law League and the League of Nations Union. Mr. Maude and Mr. Powell find no place for them. Every serious political mistake which the English have made has been kept this side of disaster because a protesting minority has been allowed to raise its voice and so present the other way of doing things to the public. Yet, how niggardly is Mr. Powell's and Mr. Maude's treatment of the Englishmen who strove for conciliation with the American colonists, and how brazen their omission of any mention of the Little Englanders during the South African War. Perhaps the book had to be put together in a hurry. But I do not think so. The fearful truth is that this is how Mr. Maude and Mr. Powell see English history.
This is why it is pertinent to notice this book in 'Political Commentary.' Biography of a Nation is absurd as a history, but fascinating as a contemporary political document. Disraeli began his political career by rewriting English history—and let it be admitted that it had to be rewritten after a century of Whig domination—and now Mr. Maude and Mr. Powell are rewriting it again. Biography of a Nation has the same interest as Disraeli's early political novels : both are fiction, both reveal what their authors are after. To be frank, neither Mr. Maude nor Mr. Powell will get a twentieth as far up the greasy pole as Disraeli. But they have, in their different ways, sought to set themselves up as keepers of the new Conservative con- science. Mr. Maude brings to the task the simple-mindedness of PEP. Formerly a deputy director of Political and Economic Planning, the most effective body that has yet existed for socialising business men, he represents the young Conserva- tives who have more faith in planning than the young Socialists. Mr. Powell is more old-fashioned. He simply believes in Order and Authority and is always prepared to offer a half-brilliant, half-mad, intellectual defence of them.
Both of them are, in spite of their different approaches," epre- sentative of certain trends in the 'new' Conservatism. Neither of them is really interested in the extension of freedom. I had always suspected this : freedom is the one subject which receives scant attention in the writings of the 'One Nation' group; it was ignored in the series of lectures, Tradition and Change, which were arranged by the Conservative Political Centre last year. Now comes this frightening history of Eng- land which finds every assertion of authority and every extension of sovereignty 'necessary,' and which has not one good word to say for the nonconformists of the English political tradition. This is not primarily a question of histor'ical judgement. If two 'new' Conservatives can write a history of English which persistently underrates that part of the national consciousness which has demanded air to breathe and think freely, they are not likely to give much thought to resisting the numerous encroachments on freedom today. And that, 1 think, is one reason why they left out Sir Winston Churchill. He has always had a disturbing belief that Englishmen are not Englishmen unless they are free.
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