MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
WHEN I was a lad I was taught, and I believed, that the English (we made much use in those days of that now discredited word) were morally and physically superior to all other peoples. Foreigners, we were told, might be more intellectual, they might surpass us in the arts and in some even of the sciences, but to us alone had been accorded that special mixture of strength and gentleness which is the secret of Empire. Hae tibi erunt artes- these were the only arts which, we were assured, really counted in the end. I do not assert that this was an Edwardian fallacy. I still believe that the British people, having since 1688 enjoyed the luxury of free institutions—having, as no other people, been able to combine tradition with change—have acquired a higher degree of patience than exists in the democracies abroad. I still believe that, in spite of our party conflicts and social dissensions, we remain one of the most united nations in the world. And P can still boast that there exists in this country an exceptional degree of tolerance, good humour and honest dealing. I should go further. I should say that what foreigners call our hypocrisy is in fact a laudable and constant effort to relate our actions to ethical standards, and that even if our endeavours to salve our own consciences are often pitiably plausible, they do at least suggest that such consciences exist. What strikes me as strange, when I look back, is that we should also have been convinced that our moral qualities were accompanied by exceptional practical and physical prowess. We assumed, for instance, that we led the world in sport. It is true that the British are more given to taking exercise than are other people ; but we are not better, or as good, at games. We took it for granted, when I was young, that English horses ran quicker than French horses, that Engliih batsmen batted better than Dominion batsmen, that English shirts and suits were neater and more tasteful than American shirts and suits, and in fact that the only things in which foreigners excelled us were the things for which we did not care.
The last forty years have taught us to revise some of these esti- mates. Even in this matter of men's clothes, in which we were certainly supreme in 1912, the tide has turned against us. It was true half a century ago that men in England, Scotland and Ireland were better dressed than men in France, Germany or Holland. It was not easy in those days to find even a neck-tie abroad ; today in any side-street at Rouen or Malmo one can find ties as elegant as anything that Bond Street can produce. I am assured that we are still supreme in the production of certain types of machinery, certain precision instruments, certain grades of piece-goods and cloth. Our leather goods even today are tougher and neater than the leather goods produced in other countries. Our book production remains unsurpassed. How far superior are the ordinary books published in England today either to the thick wads they turn out in the United States or to those fragile fascicles which they produce in France ! Yet I am forced to admit when I look back across the stretch of years that the number of things which we made or did better than other people has seriously diminished. It is this consideration which renders it so important that in our present reckless mood of target-hunting we do not forget that it was quality as well as quantity which in the nineteenth century laid the founda- tions of our riches and our repute. It is this also which should induce us, as a nation, to cling firmly to those things in which we are still unquestionably supreme. There are many things in England which are better than anywhere else. Among them are our English gardens. * * *
Foreigners will sometimes say that the excellence of the English garden, and of some Scottish gardens also, is to be attributed, not to any superior taste or knowledge on our part, but to the favour- able conditions of our soil and climate. There is some truth in that contention. We all know the story of the don at Oxford (or it may have been Cambridge) who when asked by a visiting American to disclose the secret of our English lawns replied, "But there is no secret. One merely mows and rolls and waters, and if one continues to do that for three hundred years one achieves a satis- factory result." That story flatters our vanity in that it suggests an advantage which no dollars can buy ; but it was not a true remark. The Nizam of Hyderabad, for all I know, may have devoted many years, much money and an enormous staff of gardeners to achieving an anaemic patch of lawn ; in England, if you prepare the soil properly, you can have within three years a lawn as perfect as any which the courts and quadrangles of our universities can boast. I do not deny therefore that the beauty of our gardens is largely due to the temperance and variety of our much abused climate. But the fact remains that the British people know more about flowers, care more about flowers, and have a better taste in flowers than any race on earth. Gardening assuredly is one of the things which we do far better than anyone else ; it would be a disaster were this charming capacity allowed to decline. I am not suggesting that the public interest in gardens is diminishing ; far from it ; one has only to attend a flower-show or to estimate the number of visitors who flock to public or private gardens to realise that more and more people are every year becoming addicts to the gardening hobby. All I am suggesting is that, with the increase in wages and decrease in incomes, many of the more important gardens in England may run to seed.; and if that happens the country as a whole will lose a national possession of special value and our high level of horticultural taste may decline.
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For these reasons we should all welcome and support the project announced last Monday in a letter addressed to The Times news- paper above the signature of some of our leading horticulruralists. The National Trust, whose function it is to preserve houses of historical or architectural interest and to maintain certain areas of scenic importance, have for long been worried by this problem of our English gardens. The Trust themselves cannot command the necessary powers or finances, and do not claim to possess the required expert knowledge, either to acquire gardens which are likely to fall into decay or to maintain as efficiently as they would wish the gardens attached to the great houses which they own. It has been a cause of distress to them to be unable to accept a garden, such as that of Hidcote Manor, now so generously offered to them by Major Lawrence Johnston ; they would desire that the gardens attached to some of their own properties, such as Blickling and Montacute, should be planted and preserved in a manner worthy of the great houses which they adorn. They have decided therefore, in consultation with Lord Aberconway, the President of the Royal Horticultural Society, to create a joint " Gardens Committee " representative of the National Trust and the R.H.S. This committee is now appealing for public subscrip- tions in the hope of acquiring a fund sufficient to take over certain carefully selected gardens and to turn the gardens already attached to National Trust properties into models and examples of what English gardening can be. All these gardens will be open to the public, who will thus have the chance of relating their own experi- ments to the highest standards of contemporary knowledge and taste. If the scheme is successful—if, that is, a sufficient number of people send subscriptions to the " Garden Fund " at the National Trust in 42 Queen Anne's Gate—then we shall have preserved for future generations a level of taste and beauty which may otherwise decline and disappear.
* * * I should hate to feel that there will be nothing left in England which is not better than can be found anywhere else. Gardeners well know that it is of little use scanning catalogues or even visiting flower-shows ; one needs to see new varieties of flowers actually growing in garden soil. Under the Gardens Committee magnificent old gardens, such as those at Bramham, lovely modern gardens, such as those at Hidcote, will be preserved. Visitors to Blickling or Montacute will not only enjoy the stately rooms and galleries, but the gardens as well. Surely so imaginative a national project should receive wide national support.
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