Highlanders Everywhere
At Home and Abroad. Essays by the Rt. Hon. J. Rams,iy MacDonald. (Cape. 7s. ed.)
IN the last few years Mr. Ramsay MacDonald has had to put up with a good deal of spiteful and silly abuse ; spiteful in the sense that these attacks have gone beyond criticism of public policy, and have been made to wound; silly in that in most eases they have done little more than show the factiousness or foiled ambition of those who have made them. The public,l- tion of these essays is evidence that Mr. MacDonald himself does not mind giving hostages to fortune. Indeed, he goes out of his way to invite remark when, after accusing other people of "vanity, self-appraisement, and self-superiority (sic)," he writes that no one is better equipped for doing homage to the 'past, or for prizing the freedom of the open air and the glamour of the blue of heaven and the fairness of the landscape, than one who as a craftsman creator is Moulding human affairs so that as the generations end he may be able to survey his work and feel that it is good and is evolving accord- ing to a desirable plan." Thus do Cabinet Ministers sit with God on the seventh day.
Is it true that successful statesmen are better equipped than other people for seeing the world ? Have they a long start in essay-writing ? On the whole, literary and academic persons have not held this view ; but the politicians may answer that these literary men are content to take their experience at second-hand and that they show a certain fear of life, a sur- render to over-sensitive nerves. The dispute is an empty one. At all events Aristotle gave the best answer in his paradox that contemplation is a form of action. It is more to the point in discussing the literary work of a statesman to consider the advantages and disadvantages under which he writes. He has in his favour the exercise of power, a wide knowledge of men, familiarity with good and evil in their larger, if not their subtler, aspects. One may expect a wide tolerance ; one may look for he vrai style des grandes affaires.- On the other hand, there are dangers. Many people who have made a great num- ber of political speeches tend to acquire a dreary habit of repeating clichés, labouring the obvious, vamping up emotions which they do not feel. From a technical point of view Mr. MacDonald's essays suffer front these defects. The rhythm_ is always slipping into a sing-song anapaestic or dactyllic verse. The cliches are there. A hotel is (twice) a great . caravanserai ; a doctor is "my medical preserver." Mr. Mae-;. Donald takes the well-known walk from the Chateau Lake Louise. He stops in his climb to say that, as you leave the level of the lake, "the world gets more and more beitutifuLt I have taken this walk. It is a fine walk ; but I ant bound Be say that things do not get more beautiful as you go up and op.. Mr. MacDonald crosses the Atlantic. He observes the sea. "Man passes over it, and his way is forgotten." Yes. But these two undoubted facts have been noticed by others.
It is inevitable that commonplaces of this kind should lead to exaggeration. I really cannot bring myself to believe that Mr. MacDonald sees all that he claims to see when he goes for a walk in Hampstead before breakfast, or that he finds the breakfast-gong so sad a distraction. Exaggeration leads to Uplift. Is it wise of Mr. MacDonald to tell people that, when- ever he is bored in the House of Commons, he can think of "the Open Road, the Green Road, the Golden Road, the. Road that winds upwards from the inn door over the hills to the stars " ? Among these many roads, it must be said that Mr. MacDonald takes the Caledonian Road a little too often.
Are these defects of style and manner offset by a wisdom learned from experience ? One may leave out a passage of terrible bathos—the hick has been against Mr. MacDonald on this particular page. One may also leave Out two or three passages of " self-superiority." Elsewhere One sees the work of a manof scholarly mind, honest, sympathetic; charming, and at times passionate. There are a few flashes of anger which do the writer more credit than all his success. It is well for a conntry that its ministers of state should have this largeness of sympathy. If they cannot be sublime or profound, it is better that they should be simple. These essays are simple enough. Clever people will laugh at them, more perhaps for what is good in them-:than for their flaws and shortcomings. A man who has'becn Priine Minister of England can afford to be laughed itt by-clever people.
E. L. WOODWARD.
Previous page
