Ich Dien: The Tory Path

Table of contents :
A RE-STATEMENT OF TORYISM
THE MACHINERY FOR OUR NATIONALITY
THE TORY MEANING OF PROTECTION
FINANCE, EMPLOYMENT AND THE HUMAN SIDE OF INDUSTRY
AGRICULTURE AND SEA FISHERY
THE USE AND DEFENCE OF EMPIRE
UNCOMPROMISE

Citation preview

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CONTENTS CHAPTER

I

ARE-STATEMENT

W

THE

Ill

THE

Iv

V VI VII

MACHINERY

TOR

NATIONALITY . ‘ TORY MEANING PROTECTION . ‘

FINANCE, THE

EMPLOYMENT WUMAN SIDI

INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE FISHERY

THE USE AND EMPIRE UNCOMPROMISE

PAGER

OF TORYISM

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OF

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.

22

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45

AND oF

»

56

AND SEA ‘ : : 94 DEFENCE OF . ‘ » 89 ,. ‘ . 115

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PREFACE

Tus writer makes no apology for the proud

title of this little book. It is a Tory title because service before rights is the ancient Tory creed. We only enjoyed the rights of man because we served the King of England. “Ich Dien” has been a royal motto for nearly 600 years. It was won in battle. The writer cannot claim to weight his arguments with years, experience or achievement. His writing and his scholarship are small in the Science of Government and the Philosophies of Economics. The most he can claim is that “to know well the dispositions of Princes sutes best the under-

standing of a subject.”

CHAPTER A

RE-STATEMENT

OF

I TORYISM

Our countrymen, to-day, whistle to kee their courage up as they plunge through the dark forest of our distresses. This whistlin

is our boast that we shall muddle through. The boast rings tinnily for the belief is too improud. Perhaps we are lost because we have forgotten the way. This book is an attempt to remember it by re-discovering our Englishness;

in its purpose to examine

(however imperfectly) the proposals to regain national prosperity, and to plead for the pride and courage only to accept those which can be permanent for the English race ; since Toryism means leadership in national service. Yet Toryism is out of fashion for two reasons. Its exponents are a country party. Crowded by the Industrial Revolution, which

it hated, into the fields, it became instinctive,

and lacked the spokesmen who could translate instinct into the language of intellect.

[11]

ICH

DIEN

It has never been glib.

Hence it is mis-

understood as merely reactionary when, in fact, its purpose is renascence rather than revolution. The second reason is that as revolution

(by ballot or violence) is the perquisite Democracy, Toryism is not and cannot of be democratic in the political sense It is significant that the only dateof the word. the word “ revolution” is used for which history is 1688, when the Whigs in English the era of individualism which inaugurated flowered into the Industrial Revolution and ultimately into a universal franchise mitigate the organic ills ofthat now seeks to opiates of Socialism. For industry by the the Whigs of 1688, however high they may have attained, Were in essence an oligarch y of powerful individuals responsible to ing a Toryism of service themselves, replacto the Crown however low it may have sunk may be defined as the , Individualism right to do with Property as one plea

ses and with man econ Omically as one can, And individu alism Carried to its logical conclusion means

anarchy, since politica] Civilisation is built On the forbearance of priv ate passions for the pu blic weal,

Tt is worth while shor tly 12 ]

A

RE-STATEMENT

to see just where

OF

TORYISM

the Industrial Revolution

under Whig ideas has taken us. “Merry England” is a phrase which takes us back to the time before slums on the one hand and the economics of invisible

exports on the other. It reaches past the drab eras of Chartism and Speenhamland to an age far from easy, when

there was an

essential sanity in the nation; when, taken as a whole, service was rewarded with full

life. It means the kind of courage, of ideals and of loyalty, and therefore, of lightheartedness, which was completely English. By these principles in 1500 we had managed to become

and remain

a nation for over 400

years. Toryism is often gibed at as a relic of feudalism. It is. So is Merry England. Is it impossible for us to use what remains

for the re-making of England ? Individualism

has nearly eradicated this

relic of service to the Crown, and, therefore, of

service to the people who serve the Crown, which is the nation. Individualism also

produced its

particular law and the prophets,

who contradicted their own piety of “the greatest good of the greatest number” by treating human labour as a commodity to

be bought in the cheapest market.

[13]

Three

Ic

H

DI

EN

centuries ago, when Toryism was stilla force,

this was checked.

Yet after two centuries

of progress when the Reform Bill became law,

it gave the vote, not to the people, but to the moneyed interests. That interest certainly

“3

a

ee

SET

ep epeeger

ee By

or

‘

3

contained many Snap dake in charity, But it as certainly killed the English tradition. England was not merry. Much fine stuff grew and flowered and was destroyed without fruit. The people, resigned to industrialism and the Industrial Revolution, brought up undernourished children in ever-increasing quan-

tities to swell the amount

and,

cheapen the commodity of human Charity flourished to excuse it all.

therefore,

labour.

Because

of our lead in industrialism we were not forced to pause to see where free trade, which meant the right of individuals to do as

they chose, was leading. Each Act Parliament, every charity, was undertakenof to palliate a specific ill rather than

disease

drug

in the

body

more

than

addicts.

mattered

Relie

politic.

for

health

We

the

revent

became

moment

for the future.

Insensibly and inevitably we have gone from

, i'egism The evils of individualism to haveSocialism. had to be checked by the inspectors of bureaucracy, To excuse the

[14]

A

RE-STATEMENT

OF

TORYISM

fact that a man in work was too ill-paid to provide for sickness or unemployment we

had to have pensions and doles.

Liberalism

taught that you could serve yourself for profit,

and devil take the hindmost. Radical Socialism taught the remedy: State compulsion

to make

individuals

behave,

doles for the victims of individualism.

State

Side by side Science accelerates the pace.

The doctors keep the feeble-minded and the

; and movies.

Our amusements

are radio

Jazz from New York;—talkies

Mh

wy a

7 from Los Angeles. Transport and machin‘2 €ry have tied up the round earth. Our G culture is American. Our standard of living N

vg

,& threatens to become Asiatic. “% On top of all this, because we have not

had the time or the courage to face our

position, we deceive ourselves. Doles paid for by invisible exports keep us alive, and We call it State Insurance. Medicine has so ar preserved

the unfit that we

asylums—mental hospitals,

call lunatic

0 wonder Toryism is out of fashion, and We, whose instinct is against these things, are

C15]

annie

;combinations.

TT:

unfit alive for breeding. The inventor makes more and more for the snapping of tradition _fnd the necessity of gigantic mass-production

called

when

‘‘ backwoodsmen.””

‘The

every political party has

Whiggism

and then fallen

more

so

propagated

into the trap of

Socialism. Hardly ever in the last 100 years have we paused to consider our actions in the light of our destination, or our purpose in

attaining it.

The true Tory, however inartic-

ulate and instinctive his action, has somehow felt this in his bones. Because this remains

to him,

he is needed

in the nation

at this

moment. ‘T’o the Tory, the producers, (the captain and private in industry and agricul-

ture) the soldier, the sailor and the servant. of the nation in far and difficult Dependencies,

are the persons who matter, and who, for

health that we can give.

But this, says the Socialist, might be part of the Socialist ideal. True enough. But the Socialist aim

is muddled

by wanting

opposites, Equality, F raternity and Liberty, while their methods lead to a different end.

It means the palliation of the evils of Liberalism by bureaucracy. It has long been a Radical doctrinaire ailing to regard the rights of men as something greater than the purpose

of Englishmen.

Socialism

18 a foreign importation,

[16]

in the

extreme

In the moderate

i

their services, should have the fullest life in

A

RE-STATENMENT

OF

TORYISM

sense it is a compromise with Liberalism,

‘he first is a cutting away of the foundation of English traditions and the second is a degeneration

from them.

The Communism

ee SE Be

af Russia is suited to Russia because it is a pekce revolution, Peter the Great began the destruction of Slav-Mongol tradition. Alexander the Ist and Miliutin completed this. There the Communist, finding few foundations, can build on the site he chooses.

2 Cet Ny

an ae

England, because of her 900 years of continuous national development, even now is the most national of all western civilised nations. The Tory would keep and tend this fine tradition. The Socialists would uproot it and substitute compulsion by inspection of the State for freedom in service to the

Crown.

Rightly

or wrongly,

the

cavalry have always regarded the difference between themselves and the infantry as the

MA

Meat ad Ba LA Ge, aia prearatianty Aaah Soh dé ST fe CS ResigeP ie SnPS eee coal lans Hagen

oe

difference between

leadership

from

in fro

and compulsion instilled by long and painfunt l ack-square drill. This may be unjust, butit is the difference between Toryism and Socialism. The Tory believes in the Samura i

leadin g driv ing,

The Socialist in the State inspector

while because his Socialism is a \ Cemocracy of viberd ae he doe s not even B

17

1cuo

D1fieEN

discipline the individual to attain his end, The Tory believes that, given the free leader-

ship to develop the nation, the nation will

have the courage to answer.

That is aris-

tocracy. The Socialist believes that what democracy has failed to accomplish can be obtained by compelling the democrat. The result of this has been that while a Liberal oligarchy and later a democracy of moneyed interests has, in the last century, consumed nearly all our reserves of health and national sanity, the Radical Socialist. democracy has since 1908 been eating up the reserves of wealth accumulated by their Liberal predecessors. While the first spoliation has in the end been wholly evil, the latter may accidentally prove to be a source

of health, though it makes our immediate path more difficult. “Where wealth accumulates and men decay ” is a copybook maxim which has a partial converse;

where

wealth

is dissipated

because

it should

be

possible to begin again untied from vested interests, Now this might have happened but for the fact that being sired by Liberalism

this form of Socialism is true to its origin.

It has attacked wealth along the line of least resistance and gone for the points where

[18]

A

RE-STATEMENT

wealth was of most use.

OF

TORYISM

The landlord has

small influence upon the urban vote. Hence death duties, especially on land, have

resulted in the destruction of continuity which

wealth, properly used for the national service, should possess. Accumulated capital, unless it can be put at the service of the nation, begins instead to demand services from the nation. That is the difference between productive industry and national debt. The burden of national debt shows itself not onl in war-begotten obligations but in the whole field of vested interests. If a moribund industry is to be reorganised, those whos watered capital has long since served e turn claim equal rights to drain the its of any new prosperity to which the reorg sap anisers can attain. If there is a movement to

free impoverished land of intolerable tithe, it 1s forgotten that the tithe was imposed spiritual and physical needs of the for the people when the Church was the single giving relief; for it is now argued means of that the tithe has become a property, ho service is attached to it, and wever little is therefore sacred,

a $926 the people faced revolution—the

that remained in them immediately rose

[19]

DIEN

ICH

to defeat it.

But the result of that victory

was not apparently a mandate for leadership,

but that two great sets of vested interests,

mining

union

and mine

owner,

should

be

allowed to continue to fight for their own

ends, and in doing so ruin themselves and

the nation.

Tory instinct, fighting in this welter of democracy under the name of the Conserva-

tive Party, rightly saw that it must have the

workers of this country on its side.

The

voice was the voice of Jacob, but the hand was the hand of Esau. For the Conservative

method was to give the worker pensions and doles instead of independence and high wages within a protected national life. Because we confused democracy with leadership we

gave the franchise to girls instead of educating them to tend the hearth.

Thus we see that the task of Toryism is to unite purpose and method. ‘The machinery of Government must be repaired if it is to be able to continue to guard our national life. There must be some reform from democracy.

All men are not equal.

They are different.

But they can only be useful to our national

life according to their health, their instincts and the service they perform, The chapters

[20]

A

RE-STATEMENT

OF

TORYISM

which follow are a humble endeavour to show some of the means of our desired end. Unless there is to be bloodshed and ruin

followed by tyranny, in which case England will be the island whence

she started before

1066, it will have to be done, not by one, but

by an unnumbered and continuous stream of

leaders, never céasing in their vigilance for national life and health and never deflectin for a moment from the aristocratic ideal.

Hence the machinery must be our first care, ¢

to assure continuity

[20]

_ CHAPTER THE

MACHINERY

FOR

OUR

II NATIONALITY

‘On the following, as indeed on preceding

matters, the writer if he be dogmatic is not

so from pride, but for the fact that it is easier for an inferior writer to be lucid if he state things roundly and without reserve. It has often been remarked that a nation 1s very comparable to the individual made. seemingly more complex by the tangible multiplication of its people’s mode of life. Now the higher individual, for purpose of

living as well as peace of mind, must have

reached a certain philosophy.

He may have

had boyhood and the love of friends effaced

before enormous

passions and then have had

to learn “ To make an armour out of

kindliness and laughter from the unheroic years .” And if he is anything of a philosopher it will have served him ill if he gets no farthe r. For he will in his own way (whatsoever God-

head he may ronceive) work out the con22 ]

MACHINERY

FOR

NATIONALITY

viction, through his human meetings, that in

himself alone must he create enough of Godinternal to serve his time and his people.

If his way lies in Statecraft he must add to

that a purpose fellows.

in the destination

So, too, the nation.

of his

Between the

day-to-day heroism and love produced in war, and the the long years; survive, internal

strivings of adolescence, there are fallow times of peace, “‘ the unheroic beyond which, if the people is to there must be the building of an creed and the forevision of an end.

An individual dies and is renewed in his seed . a nation cannot afford to die, but must be

reborn in the old body. There must be no waste of the old. In this truism much of Tory practice consists, that there should bs

continually preserved in health the best of the old to guide the new. The philosopher, for whom the experience of his striving means nothing, bases his philosophy on nothing,

attains nothing, Likewise insulated from the currents

experience,

the nation of its racial

|

Our present form of democracy has nearly achieved this insulation. For its leaders

have had to forgo the art of governing in

order to cadge the suffrage and affect the

[23]

IC

H

DIEN

bonhomte of the multitude.

occupied

in walking

with

directing the march.

Their time jg

the crowd,

not

But it has had this

fortunate result, that Democracy itself is discredited. The House of Commons comes

more and more to be regarded by

every class

as ineffectual. The House of Lords has been the butt of every demagogue, but it

has never quite lost its sense of self-respect. Thus the problem becomes clear. Let the House of Lords renew itself and the

Commons continue to be the demagogue’s safety valve. ) Just as in natural history a part ceasing to be used becomes an atrophied appendage, so in politics. The toe and the finger in

simian circles are of equal use and equally

used.. In anthropoid circles the toe gives place to the ball of the foot, but the finger is more cunning than ever. Democracy,

figuratively speaking, has ceased to be erect,

and is turning its fingers into toes : equality by levelling down. Now the House of Lords is threatened with atrophy, less because

it failed in the past than because it ceased to be used and was shorn of responsibility. The

individual people,

not the Crown,

the governing body,

meet teats sacs cn Sidi

isn:

Mini

a ial

St aei ac ce

became

Since the Crown repre-

[24]

ccf

ic

NATIONALITY

FOR

MACHINERY

sents the peo le as the nation, and since it gives continuity to the people by the hereditary system, those next the throne should

have

nation

the

should

Democracy

greatest

has

be

not

responsibility.

built

like

so much

a

The

pyramid.

inverted

the

pyramid as it has flattened everything but

The natural bred leaders have lost the base. responsibility and have, therefore, ceased to

lead. In-a contest of peers v. people the demagogues’ concept of the people’s will was sacrosanct. ‘The good of the country was disregarded. The power of the Lords to override the unconsidered judgments of a

single chamber was practically taken away by Yet even now the Parliament Act of 1911. there are few bills not the better for the wise amendments of the Peers. This loss of leadership by atrophy always happens in history. The Senate of the Czsars was a very different body from the Senate upon whom Brennus intruded, and the Romans, too, were a very different The French aristocracy was rotten people. use the Roi Soleil took them from their responsibilities to add splendour to Versailles. But in the Vendée, which he never induced

the nobles to leave, the French Revolution

SC

™-_ SS"

=

[25]

ICH

DIEN

met its finest obstacle through the loyalty of the people, and the leadership of the nobles,

In England it happened differently through Whiggism. Through coal and money being accounted more than land or service, and then

through

Whiggism

giving

place

to

demo-

cracy, the House of Lords became an exalted haven for the rich, instead of a place of government by the best. Because Englishmen do not acknowledge change and there-

fore have bloodless revolutions, the House of

Lords lost its power but kept its prestige with

the

snobbish.

It

became,

therefore,

like

the land, increasingly the place of the. rich but less worthy... In so far as it gained new

political

peers it gained: those who

embarrassingly | eminent - but

were

sometimes

embarrassingly incompetent in the House of

Commons.

The

hereditary principle

service and leadership was sapped by reward-of ing, into its ranks, the rich and occasionally

rascally, together with the politician who needed secondin

g. In these additions to the House of Lords during the past twenty years, the Radical Socialist governments, irrespective of party labels, have excelled, As the

power of the Lords dwindled their numbers swelled,

Is it possible, then, to re-make the

[ 26}

MACHINERY

House of Lords?

FOR

NATIONALITY

The constitution-mongers

of the nation would have a senate: demoA hair of the cracy watered by democracy.

tail of the dog is the remedy of the tippler

and

drug

addict.

No,

realising

that

the

material is poor we must not give way to let

a Senate top our Congress.

We have this hope : the House of Lords still has the highest standard of debate of any and legislative assembly in the world; ineffective as a body, it yet possesses the remnants of our leaders in many walks of life. The lawyer, the churchman, the soldier, the proconsul are almost automatically represented. Here and there the best of the old aristocracy is taking its part. It is this heterogeneity of what is at once the best in the nation, and the Upper House, that gives us our cue. : The old estates of the realm, as summoned

by Edward

III, were

not based

on

the

representation of individuals but on the life

and functions of the nation, Thus the Church and the Barons represented service to the Crown, spiritual, civil and military, together with the territorial side, the agriculfure of England, while the burghers repre-

sented the guilds and trades of the country.

[27]

IcuH

Therefore

if we

DIEN

could

substitute

for

the

present House a body representing the con-

tinuous life of the nation in its widest sense, we should get the vehicle of government to carry us forward on a national highway. The hereditary principle, for at least a part of the body, must be there to ensure continuity. It is still not too late to harness the best of the hereditary system to the service of the State. Give it responsibility and it will respond, The machinery is already invented in the Scottish system of choosing a number of peers in the House of Lords from amongst their national peerage. Only those who wished to serve would offer themselves. As their number would be limited, only the best, in such a college of electors, would generally be chosen. After all the descend-

ants of the most venal “creation” of this period could in time, through breeding and responsibility, approximate to the peers bred for aristocratic service of old. It is not pretended that there would not be, as there

are to-day, peers rotten by degeneration of

blood or reversion in breeding. But they would, by electing say 100 of their number, on the whole represent the best in hereditary leadership and understanding of the land.

[28]

MACHINERY

An hereditary

FOR

NATIONALITY

peerage in the future

d only be granted, on very rare occasions shoul as an

order of merit for service and only to those with normal healthy offspring or, if they are

unmarried, of normal healthy Ppysique. For the rest, the House of

Lords should

be formed to represent the life of the realm.

The Church should be represented as to-day, but the Church of England, it is because it has ceased to be the religion of the people as it was four hundred should share its representation years ago, great bodies of religion whose with those leaders will take the oath to the Crown. allow religion and its leaders This should Country without making for a voice in the civil life, Simultaneously, interference in no person in clerical orders should be allowe d to stand for the House of Commons.

Demagogues ve done their worst in th e name of religion, 2

best men of religion should be leaders in the co2u unnt t ry, but moraS l in terferences should notapreludice the

M

government € soldiers and sailors and of the people. “ir members as they pe airmen should rhaps represent

truest form arshals,

arehals

might

of service to the Crown. full Admirals and Air.

ts

29

ypecome

hereditary

1C

eers.

breed

DIEN

H

They are of the service and they

for the service.

Lest the Forces be

represented by those too old there should

be places in the House of Lords for a certain number of officers on active service, but not

in active command. Next to them the great Civil Services should be represented, not only by proconsuls and ambassadors becoming peers for life (necessarily life peers lest appointments to governorships be made, as they tend to become to-day, for political views sooner than real worth), but by a certain number

also on active duty.

These,

as also the

soldiers on active service, should be strictly

limited by etiquette against pronouncement on their own immediate province of the service. They might be chosen for a certain period as staff appointments are chosen. ot only would the active soldier leaven the House of Lords, but he would learn the civil difficulties before he received the highest

‘There used to be soldiers an commands, sailors in the House of Commons who were temporarily seconded from active duty. he lawyers are well represented, as they

are now, and need little addition to their number

in the

House.

[30]

There

might

be

MACHINERY

FOR

some

to place

rectification

NATIONALITY the lawyers

and

the other professions on the same footing.

The medical profession should have equal representation, say, with the lawyers, and those responsible

for education

should

send

their

members, half from the teaching service of

the State and half from the Universities.

Twenty or so of the best of the Nation’s

financiers should be members, including the Governor of the Bank of England and, say,

the chairmen of the five big banks, together with representatives of the industrial trusts,

the

Stock

panies.

Exchange,

and

insurance

com-

The city should be asked to set up

the machinery of selection for itself.

As the city is represented, so should the

great captains of industry be selected from bodies of the employers represented in numbers roughly double those of the financiers, For the producer is more important.

There again the machinery of selection might be the employers’ own with the reservation

that the ground to be covered by represent-

atives be the widest possible. As the employers are represented so must

the men be, but in numbers double that of the employers because the men will acquire confidence in the House of Lords as they see

[31]

C

I

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H

they are properly represented. Here, too, the machinery of selection, probably through the Unions, must cover the widest possible ground.

For instance,

building,

chemistry

and engineering are essential to be represented for national prosperity.

Through

all the selection of tempora

members of the House of Lords a double principle should run: the representation of

the best of every part of national life and

continuity of representation. And of this the farmer and land worker should have their full share. Sata | : Thus while the net spreads as widely as possible, continuity of leadership should be

secured not only by a mixture of hereditary aristocracy but by having the temporary

members (except serving members of the Forces) selected for at least ten or fifteen years at a time and retiring in rotation and not

en masse,

‘These should be re-eligible.

A House of Lords so constituted should

have the ability and, therefore, be given the

full power not only to correct the follies of the

universal

franchise

best kinds of legislation,

but

to initiate the

The ideas mentioned above are not new, nor are they arbitrary. If we are to have 4

[32]

MACHINERY

FOR

NATIONALITY

reform from democracy, elected territorially on a universal franchise, then an aristocracy

of the best in the nation is the one alternative.

An aristocracy such as I have outlined above

would have the true principle of permanence by the self selection of the best of its heredit-

ary members, and many-sided excellence by the selection of the nation’s leaders who have risen by outstanding merit. The training of future hereditary peers and the most stringent care in the Crown’s bestowal of new pecrages, should give aristocracy the chance to vindicate itself.

There has been

no discriminate aristocracy in England since the beginning of the eighteenth century. For the rest, temporary or life members of the Upper House are no new conceptions. So often have they been mooted by national

leaders that they are almost in the apostolic succession,

The Lords of Appeal in ordinary, though

they are primarily in the Upper House for appellate purposes, nevertheless can sit and vote as life peers. And while the Bishops

used to represent the Church estates, they

HOW represent the Church. The contention that, once one admits a break in the

Principle of hereditary seats in the Upper

c

[33]

Ic

H

DiIEN

House the whole principle will

disappear,

and a Senate and a President will replace the Lords and the Crown, is unlikely now to be Englishmen do not follow things to true.

: j

| | |

|

|

Moreover, conclusions. logical their democracy is becoming far too discredited to be able to push the democratic senate system to its conclusion against the strength that such a reformed House of Lords should show. The present territorial basis of hereditary peerage is by itself too narrow in an industrial world. It has yet to be proved that industry

Hence the leaders from can have roots. industry and finance must be selected by virtue of their office rather than their birth,

until some generations later, when we may

judge how deep industry can thrust enduring

os roots. of the country together This industrialising

with the spread of empiric education, cheap

print, and swift transport are what

it so necessary

to plan

machinery

makes

which

will at least make it harder for the rot t° spread. It may be contended that such a house of

functions historically should be placed in the It is better to adapt history than Commons, to pour new events into strictly antique

[ 34]

MACHINERY

FOR

NATIONALITY

moulds. [he Lords, once the territorial estate among the three estates of the realm, now derive their virtue from the mingling of

the remains of aristocracy by birth with a Wise expert partial aristocracy of function. decision and the clear unhurried view should

come from them. Such virtue as a popularly elected Commons can hold should be to teach responsibility before granting power, to cohere the local districts by central representation and to guard the individual when the bureaucracy is overweening ; i.¢., all the work of badgering departments by letter and question and ‘The speech about abuses and shortcomings.

Commons should then cease to try to reform

the nation by legislative interference for every minor ailment of the body politic. The Commons should be at once the guardians of local interests, the mirror of current Opinions, and

the safety valve for passions,

which the present days of press and wireless and transport can so easily engender. If there be but one chamber like the Lords, then

popular passion might so work, in difficult years when the pendulum swings back

towards democracy, as utterly to wipe away

the House of Lords,

Thus the danger of @ [35]

I

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DIEN

H

single chamber elected by a flat universal vote might again become reality. _ At present the obstructive habits of the

House of Commons form the only barrier to ‘Thus when revolution; and to progress.

the Lords are strong once more, there must

be a scraping off of the barnacles from the

keel of procedure in government which makes such little way. A small Cabinet of

ministers, each in control of two or three co-ordinated departments, should be in the

Upper

House together with one

Minister

without portfolio to lead the Lower House.

For the rest, Under Secretaries of State for

the sub-departments should be in the Com-

mons to answer for their departments.

The

Cabinet Ministers might speak in the two Houses as in France, but by virtue of being in the House of Lords they would be relieved

of nearly all the pettifogging trouble to which

the Prime Minister and his heutenants are

now exposed. ‘They would be able to give their whole time to initiating and directing

the large policies, while the Under Secretaries would

charge,

be the

immediate

factors in

A Cabinet so formed would need and be

able to use the services of a thinking secre-

[ 36]

MACHINERY

tariat.

FOR

At present

NATIONALITY

Ministers

are absorbed

in day-to-day routine, and their Civil Servants

are likewise rutted in the tracks of administration.

As

the

great

rulers

in

the past

Over

such

were patrons of intelligence (Machiavelli and the Medicis are a classic example), so now the State has need to be served by an independent intelligence department to plan the future. Only thus may we avoid mere muddling through, and be able to see the wood

as well

as the

trees.

a

House of Lords and a Cabinet so formed the Crown might once again become the active agent towards which the purpose and the loyalty of the nation’s leaders might permanently turn.

But if we are to assure that the House of

Lords is the best vehicle must also assure that Empire have the best government, together

appreciate

for the kind with

government, people of of servants the ability

the life that should

we the in to

be theirs.

Beyond legislation lies the Civil Service as its administrative. Beyond that are the

people for whom each exist. The education of the people is as much the machinery of future government as the Legislature and Executive.

[37]

DIEN

tcuH

For years as things became meaner in outlook for those who remained in England,

and as the chances of service dwindled, so the best went to the perimeters of the world.

Thus the great statesmen of the Victorian

age, which wasted the health of England at home, pushed out and consolidated the

frontiers of the greatest empire in the world’s

history. Did this drain our resources and weaken the centre? The Tory thinks not. Because the meaner the concentration of

industrialism and money

became at home,

the more the outlet was needed for the best

of British

hardihood

service,

and

lest,

loyalty

cramped

would

at home,

have

died

altogether. | | But it came about that Liberalism, which indirectly created the Empire, was careless

of the Empire. For the

little England of

vested interest meant more. The Empire developed without purpose and with no cohesion. The Liberal disregards it, the Socialist distrusts it, and governs it from

Whitehall, when not giving the disruptive elements best. The sole thing that has preserved it was the flame of service amongst

those who worked for it in miserable climates,

in solitude and often in danger,

[38]

‘ These

MACHINERY

FOR

NATIONALITY

English,” says an old Frenchwoman

in one

of Seton Merriman’s novels, “ scatter their dead about the world like cigar ends.” English

imperial

services

knew

and_

The

still

know no safety first, but they live dangerously

because by doing so they serve the Crown.

And for it all little pay and small pension. There

is something

in this record that we

must not lose if we are to keep the Empire.

To-day examinations have been substituted

for character, and the telegraph office for It ought not to be impossible responsibility. to devolve responsibility to those on the spot and to make excellence in the examination

room only one of many qualifications.

When the machinery of administration has been separated from the correlation of information, research and imperial thinking, many types of brain will be needed. Nor should it be impossible

to give

definite coherent purpose to the improvement

a

of the Empire in those parts of it where we

still have a free hand.

‘There is already an

impetus on the way, but it even now needs directing with a final end in view.

The

German people fought the last war for the end of imposing their culture in which they believed

upon

the

world,

[39]

The

English

I

C

DI

H

EN

people fought it (the “world safe for democracy ” was camouflaging verbiage) to keep the English civilisation for themselves. We did not propose to inflict it on the world. But curiously enough, tolerant as we are,

there lurked the inherent Puritanical conviction that the ideals, the self-determination

and committees

of Balham

and

Croydon

should be the model for backward countries. By peaceful persuasion the ethics of Manches-

ter and The New Statesman have become all In some cases the harm is too successful.

done.

Just as we are beginning to discover

that the model is almost as imperfect as its

not too flattering imitations, we struggle with a hybrid India of our own creation. But

we are learning to teach the tribes of West

Africa and elsewhere to develop their own civilisation under our protection. The necessity, for the English purpose, of an empire will be discussed in a later chapter, but granting the necessity, then the machinery for keeping it healthy and contented is all gion

he problem follows to produce the new generations capable of response to loyalty, service and danger, and fit to oversee

an empire,

In a word, education that w!

[ 40J

MACHINERY

FOR

NATIONALITY

translate the best of English tradition into reasoned action. It has to begin at home. The way lies in teaching the girls not so much how

to

vote

or

pronounce

“ quite”

as

‘‘quaite,” but how to make the best of the

homes which they may set up.

The girl who

can cook is better for the nation than the girl who is prenticed with a tin opener. It is as wrong to eliminate household cares as it is right to eliminate household drudgery. As the work of the man in winning his wages becomes more a matter of mechanical tedium,

so should the effort be made to mitigate this by the woman making the home and her children the chief and absorbing care.

No one can blind himself to the progress of feminism, or to the fact that we have 2,000,000 women in excess of men. But at the same time if the feminist movement is, as the writer believes, a symptom

of future

decadence, then the treatment and occupation of 2,000,000 and more enforced spinsters

should be an especial problem rather than the excuse for universal sex equality. When

women work through their men their power for national good is unlimited, but generally speaking, when they work themselves as men’s equals, then they only emphasise the

[40]

IC

H

DIEN

neuter sex in which degraded nations immerse their manhood. The equality of the sexes in occupation

is the greatest danger

has to face to-day.

our race

‘Thus the science of house-

hold economy in every aspect of English

tradition is the

first thing which

should

be

taught, and the principal thing, to all but the

most exceptional girls,

The boys need to be taught vocationally in so far as their book learning is applied. But where the girl needs to be taught for the home, the boys need everything which can

be devised to toughen their bodies and quicken their spirit in service and danger. Cunning should be made to flow into their gers as much

often

modern

as their

brains.

industrialists

Far

too’

mstance quickness in noting the mistake for readings of gh-pressure

ship.

boilers for skilled craftsman-

This is pure mental training in which

years of apprenticeship and national instinct do not enter,

An emasculate ability com-

pared to craftsmanship,

Wherever

possible

boys should learn a Certain contact with the land, and better still with the sea, The ideals of clerkship should

be

reserved for the clerks in spirit, Discipline, health and selfFespect are more than any quantity of three

(42

MACHINERY

FOR

NATIONALITY

R’s in educating a nation. Their last year at school, assuming the age is raised to 1 5, should be for the general development ; for

from

the

classroom

point

of view

the two

years following puberty are mostly a fallow period when children’s bodies must catch up with their minds. A system of camps and training ships for at least a month or two of their last school years would be worth straining our resources for. The Tory purpose is not to develop a

whole nation of exceptional children, which

would result in eunuchs’ minds in eunuchs’ bodies, but to give the exceptional child and the average

child

in their respective ways

the fullest opportunity to earn their living

by serving the nation to the best of their

ability. The teaching profession should be among

the most honourable and well paid in the Civil Service, and its standards set above the

aims of mild labour respectability. It should be drawn from the best of our classes. The teachers, if more than any other body, should be leaders of English tradition, In their

mouths, as in the mouths of the peers and the Civil Servants, the words of Tiberius still hold good,

[43]

a

DIEN

1c H

I am a s, er th Fa t ip cr ns Co , lf se my or “F [am confined to the functions n.

mortal ma of human nature, and

if I well

supply

the

me, I principal place among you it suffices solemnly assure you, and I would have posterity remember it. They will render enough to my memory if they believe me to

have been worthy of my ancestors, watchful of your interests, unmoved in perils and in defence of the public weal, fearless of private enmities.”’

C44]

III

CHAPTER THE TORY MEANING

OF PROTECTION

Tuus far we have tried to describe the ideals

of Toryism and to prescribe the framework within which those ideals might most useFrom fully be made to serve the Crown. now on we must consider the means for the fulfilment of our nationhood in its present

| OC distresses. The real reason for protection, for which Toryism has fought during the last hundred years, is not as the free trader asserts in order

to bolster up inefficiency in place of nationalisation or rationalisation according to the free trader’s politics, Nor is it at heart for the sounder Conservative reason which says behind a tariff wall one may build up such a powerful industry that it can flood the world’s markets, Neither is eking out industrial inefficiency, nor waging economic warfare, the ultimate reason, but this: because

[45]

national r ou ve li we n ca with protection only

>

+s little use to have cheap food, brought

from the world’s edge, if at the same kill our source of English

life on the

' we

land.

in the name of Nor is it of use to those who of free trade receive cheap food, yet because

free trade cannot afford to buy

it.

The

Treaty callow nationalities set up after the

of Trianon are not so much wrong in their self-protection by their absurd tariff barriers, but that behind the barriers they try to imitate the industrialism of the foreigner. There is many a roadless Balkan country, where there is still a civilisation and national life, the fullness of which Henry Ford never dreamed.

Once we have established about ourselves,

and as much of the Empire as we can persuade

to join us, a barrier against Asiatic labour and orden

yeuttures

we can set our house

in

see: ther our Th then concern ourselves to and that it | abour is efficiently organised well enough paid and housed is i t keep English a home tra anddition’ bri up a| healthy family into the ion maton of how you bring about proor only in that it must be effective, Tariff “Fuy OF Tot

. 4

]

embargo or licence

TORY

MEANING

OF

PROTECTION

are means to be applied as they fit. The uestion, as we solve each individual problem,

to be asked is—will this enable better wages

to be paid to the producer, so that he may live

his own life in his own way so far as modern

industrialism can make this possible? Hence we become confronted with a double problem. While free trade has bred 46 million ill-fed, ill-housed persons on to this

island, it has also produced the worst features of the industrial system in the employment of labour. We cannot feed more than 25 million of our people. But even if we could find work

for them,

as we

cannot

at this

moment, much of the work is no real occupa-

tion for an Englishman. 46 million, whom

we

The presence of

cannot feed on more

than half-rations, makes our Empire indis-

pensable for belly reasons alone.

For one’s

system of protection falls to the ground if it

§ to be pierced from within and without respectively by necessary imports and thereOre necessary exports, An empire, selfsufficient and possessing the same purpose

and standard of life, is the only remedy.

The other problem is psychological.

Produced

the Industrial

Revolution,

We

which

Prooted half the traditions of nine centuries,

[47]

1c

Hu

DIEN

loped the ve de a ic er Am of es at St The United shionably

1s fa Industrial Revolution by what duction, and own as rationalised mass-pro kn has destroyed

or threatens to

destroy

We . remaining half of our traditions —

the

sent

ead of missionaries to preach loincloths inst The nakedness, and Manchester prospered. United States of America, together with ourselves, exported east and south the machinery and methods by which even an aborigine can turn industrial. Those for whom Manchester preached and then wove clothing can now flood Manchester with cheaper cloth. We can and should rightly keep out this last. But we are faced still by the problem that tending much modern machinery is fitted best to natives, so automatic has it become. Were at once the

realms of politics

are left.

But by education

8c; multiple forms of service, by setting our

tentists to make rationalisation correspond,

ssable satisfaction to a pausing y, hl ug ro r ve we ho the land and of the eternal itch and by

may yet succeed in keene Our women, we for Satan from finding mischief idle hand veiled . The Garden of Eden is no allego sal story of unocewy 3 it is the univer Here protection offers energy. pied

[48]

TORY

MEANING

OF

a small but direct remedy.

PROTECTION

The lesser

industries, such as watch-making, lens grifine nding and a host of Others, hav e abroad because of cheaper lab migrated our there. Free trade let these die. This skilled work, done in small centres where personal touch in the relati there is still a man, could revive, Many ons of master to old rural industries, too, could be foreign labour are reborn. Machines and always tempting us to Th in which leadersh ere are two other ways ip might be a direct help. Summer camps or th e e q u i v a l ent on wa could mak

ter e a deal of di fference to in dustrial]

| |:

i

, ;

1c to occupy

see field

psychological

attain,

‘nherent

and

in

This

D1IEN H the twilight cultivating his 19 perhaps | as

satisfaction

even the

then

as

industry

the | satisfaction

habit

allied

to

near

and

not

can

is

in

industry itself. ‘The soggy English climate will render this method more difficult, but it should be extended fully. But if the real solution lies outside our political reach the problem of making labour

saving correspond with the increase absorbing capacity by the people must

of be

solved. If we are not going to run after false gods and seek easy, blind-alley ways out of our troubles, there must be a scientific ratio between wages taken from industry and the money taken by capital or put to reserve. One fundamental root of American economic

ills

is

that

the

Americans

have

rationalised everything but this problem. If athenmachin e doe s th the work of fourteen men, capabl Of L © man

who

tends

it must

be

the service of the thirteen ies disol men other ithuce *) sO that they may find work in

full

dtecean

‘Thus, when we have our

the ccovent of » wuonalisation must be made So it m

of employment, and not its bogy. ay be that we must call a halt in

[50]

TORY

PROTECTION

OF

MEANING

‘avention and go forward on each step as we see the way clear. Here there will be a

constant veloping

pull-devil-pull-baker between dethe national life and the vested

‘nterests of money

trying to breed money

without service. But it will be easier to check the unpatriotic if we have full pro-

tection, and

within

so can judge,

our own

boundaries, the effects of any individual action.

For if your market is the world and not the

Empire, it becomes less a problem of paying wages to fit the people, than of getting there

ast

to the starvation of the last.

are

Economic

brings out all the evil and none of

the noble qualities of war. It is better frankly to fight for markets in the manner of our ancestors than to dump for them in the manner of the Soviets. The one could

produce a race of heroes,

produce a race of slaves.

_

the other does

_ Now while it is possible under protec-

fon, because of its greater benefit to the producer thato n the exchanger, to control

also poeeih i interests & from’ accumulrreg eviate

=

an it is e ' s coming

is obvious that credit at g are sinkining are notnot it and bank evil ag such, but they are only evil when

C51]

cy

M

they

command

render none.

‘s better than

A

EN

DI

H

C

1

services

poor

for

they

which

but healthy

a rich and decadent

nation

people.

While money

The reason is very simple.

‘s the token of the fair exchange of actual services it lubricates the wheels of inWhen

dustry.

it becomes

token

the

of

exchange divorced from service it chokes the cylinders. Money, by itself, is indigestible as food and useless as clothing. Where wealth has accumulated in the hands of a few,

it represents credit for the future kept as a result of services long since consumed. Joseph, when he collected the corn of Egypt for seven years, bought at a low price

and

sold

at

a

much

higher

one

than his service in organisation and warehousing warranted. He insisted for genera-

tions after the famine in taking the full value of his money

credit,

had the land of Goschen.

while the Jews

It is hardly

surprising to find that, when there arose a Pharaoh that knew not Joseph, the Egyptians had taken their revenge ; and that

the Jews, as a consequence of ruining the

Egyptians, were turned out of Egypt.

The

same healthy instinct drove our ancestors to

practise

medieval

dentistry [52]

on

medieval

TORY

N

PROTECTIO

OF

MEANING

Usury is precisely what we The money from to-day. shells war bonds representing

moneylenders. are suffering of

credit

g a service blown into the blue, is demandin Our banking which it no longer gives. a licy of deflation to conform with shrinking gold supply 1s causing much ngof It is no use maki our unemployment. money purchase more if you do not distribute it as purchasing power to the potential purchasers. This effort in deflation has been made so that England can be the entrepit of the world, but it were better if she became the factory of the British Empire.

Again,

because

we

have

accumu-

ated credit in foreign countries, we shrink om applying a tariff lest these investments Yet these investments should cease to pay.

ie —.

These. inn

largely in those ventures which indirectly

flood

our

markets.

ete envestments represent international it, but they do not put Englishmen into

te eae

most they do is to pay part of

oe rif, and its cousins such as quota,

would

ack

te

prohibition,

scientifically

used,

nus from a nation of middlemen 4 nation of producers. Production

[53]

1c

H

D1IEN

properly rewarded as service is the Tory

ideal.

Protection makes

for service.

it possible to pay

Because not only is the nation’s

weal put before foreign investments, but the nation trading within its boundaries need

use

no gold.

Thus

we

get

a mild

but limited gold inflation, which would probably reduce the purchasing value of

war bonds and fixed interest securities, now

unduly enhanced in value. Moreover, if we develop our Empire trade and at the

same time dispense with the

use of gold

inside the Empire, we can carry our benefit

to the producer still further, the ideal would be international

Naturally action at

Geneva on the gold question. But England first and then the Empire is a good Tory

beginning,

Finally there is this corollary in protection, which is obvious but too often forgotten. The dole paid or wages paid in a free trade Country like ours to-day do not go to buy steel rails or even Nottingham

lace,

to buy foreign food and often fore but they go ign clothing, foreign tobacco and foreign high wages or high doles do movies ; thus little for our home trade, depression.

Now

But

depression

ay

54]

high

deepens

wages

by

when

PROTECTION OF G N I N A E M toRY his own in th wi es ad tr n workma the e result th d an , le rc ci al ri pe home and im s from ‘s immediate

whom

to

he buys.

all

the

Then

[55]

producer

prosperity

would

CHAPTER FINANCE,

IV

EMPLOYMENT AND THE SIDE OF INDUSTRY

HUMAN

In the last chapter on protection the psycho-

logical aspect of industrialism from the Tory view, production, employment and exports within the Empire, and the position of banking, have all accumulated as problems for solution. Some aspects have already been dealt with. But it might not be amiss to go further into those problems in the light of the Tory view of protection as a means of living our own national life, instead, as we must under free trade, of seeking equality with the lowest scale of world industrialism. If the banking business in the country is to serve _ production, it must not only conserve and regulate the gold supply, it must organise the resources of credit for the steady expansion of British industry—the two lines of action are linked together.

to the quantity

Thus

gold in relation

of currency

[56 )

needs

to be

INDUSTRY

OF

SIDE

HUMAN

of reserve based not on an arbitrary margin in relation to the potential capacity °

hut

imperial absorption © protected imperia industry’s output. Currency should stan in relation to production, as a mortgage should ‘n relation to an individual plant or firm. That is to say, that the same care should be taken

in assessing

character,

the

capacity,

market and margin of safety in allowing the quantity of currency in use against production as in allowing the amount of a mortgage. This (admittedly managed currency, as are all modern currencies) should contract us out of world currency difficulties, as protection should contract us out of world economic standards.

‘The writer frankly admits

that

lack of knowledge and experience makes it unsuitable for him, with any propriety, to advocate the particular machinery necessary

to bring this about.

Nor is he any more fitted

a indicate the machinery which will turn the

h ee eae

servants of production.

But

these iesnee om a Tory standpoint that both It hee are worth trying for, | fashioned othe

en

said

that

our

old-

in the last ten years,

Yet

nance has saved us from the alarums, i oreign cou er: isasters and excursions of 6" Countries

[57]

I

C

H

DIEN

a we believe that our innate sense of proportion could

British commonhave saved that.

- ay No English businessmen would have started or believed in a Florida boom, for example.

But it is not difficult to see that in the last ten years we have had orthodox finance (till recently) backing free trade, but not greatly

facilitating the reorganisation

of industry,

which less orthodox finance among our foreign competitors was straining every nerve to do. We alone in the last ten years have

suffered the continued dead weight of unem-

ployment which has sometimes increased but never slackened. The difficulties of Ger-

many on the other hand have not been that

she ruined her own middle class, but that she had to pay reparations. We, too, have had to

pay £200,000,000 for foreign debt which never be recovered from anyone. ‘That can is pay 3n services for something which gives noto Service in return, The Industria] Mortgage Corporation has already been for med to ae help lamer dogs over

have begun with the most ms of necessary help which Canriesgive to production, Moribund basic we indust may partially revive, but new industries are the future of imperial produc-

[58]

HUMAN

OF

SIDE

INDUSTRY

If we are going to keep our own share tion. in world and imperial trade we must be It is abreast and even ahead of the times.

no use lamenting that Europe has to a large degree forsaken British coal for oil and water-

power. We must replace the old coal export trade with young, active industries. The coal trade flourished once because it was first

in the field, so will the new trades, which our

energy can build up and foster until they have served their turn. ‘Thus the banks should (greatly daring) forsake the well-worn paths of dead service to become the pioneers in aid of new production. If they cannot devise the machinery to do this they fail in the Tory purpose of service to national life. Nor should industry be their only care. Behind the work of production lies an undeveloped English agriculture undreamed of to-day. Credit, because of high risks and slow turnover, is harder for the farmer to come by than

for any other producer,

It is as necessary

for him to have it as it is for any industry in

the country. It may be that the State will have to supply machinery for agricultural credit far wider and more flexible than tt supplies to-day. But if the banks are to be harnessed to

C59]

production the Tory policy must look steadily fo where this leads and to the principles Thus underlying a policy of production. to-day the great group of exporting industries are called in the same breath the basic :ndustries and the depressed industries. ‘The Like the coal reason is not far to seek.

industry, which is a part of the group, they

grew up under free trade witha world lead due largely to an earlier protection. From before

Edward IV until 1830 the Crown policy was continually to stimulate employment by protecting industry. ‘To-day the depressed industries fight alone and unprotected in a mass production world with a lag instead of a lead. It is not at bottom because of the War. The lag is due to too much looking back, to over-capitalisation, and the vested interests

of over-capitalisation, to over-rigidity in trade union terms of employment, and the vested interest of trade union outlook. But above all it is due to the failure to realise that

others attend to their own wants with their own

cheap

export nothing

labour,

and

that

much

of our

trade is gone for ever. ‘There is So precarious in national life as our

expor trade.

As time goes on it will tend,

mass production, to get less and less, and

[ 60]

HUMAN

SIDE

OF

INDUSTRY

such trade as there is will be in competition

with goods produced under Asiatic standards

of life.

Over

the last four years a monthly

average of roughly 694,000! unemployed in these islands, came from the basic in-

dustries of coal, iron, steel, engineering, shipbuilding, cotton and textiles generally. Now if we take the total foreign imports of the Empire? (excluding our own), over an average of four years, we find a sum Broadly annum of over £530,000,000.? speaking, out of the total employment which this £ 530,000,000 now gives to the foreigner,

employment for one million might be ours by cultivating our imperial markets wherever possible, to the foreigner’s exclusion. We have probably lost already most of our perdurable foreign markets. A home and imperial policy may decrease by a small amount our foreign export trade ; but this is doubtful, especially if we concentrate our efforts rather

On the finer work required in much

new

industry than in competing for the overseas

Cotton trade with Japan.

The growing size

; Figures taken from the Ministry of Labour Gasetie.

8 including the Mandated Territories.

.

of Trade Statistical

Board n Trade and Industry Foreig °s relating to British and (1924~30),

Tabl gures taken

from

the

[ 61 ]

of our electrical export trade is a sound

Our workmanship is the best in instance. It is better to use our engineers the world.

to produce, say, aero engines, which for quality no one can better, than to seek to

bolster up the old industries where the export By continually concentrating trade is dying. on foreign exports we are putting our own workmen to the risks of the uncertainty and

low payment of world conditions. It is trying to amass wealth instead of ensuring well-being. oe We retain imports of £350,000,000 of manufactured goods. At least two-thirds of these we might make ourselves. That would remove nearly a million men from dole to work. An imperial policy for persuading the Empire to take their imports from us instead of the foreigner, by giving to the Empire the market for the food and raw material which

kee ie ompott should, as we have seen, toptther nearly another million. This,

ith re-employment of persons on the land by a proper home a ri cultural polic as we shall see later, co uld ultimate ly fired new ae for two and a ha lf million persons. nemployment under the Tory meth od would in time

become a nightmare of the past.

[ 62 ]

OF

SIDE

HUMAN

INDUSTRY

Thus if we make our industries fit home and imperial needs and if we continually further new and skilled industries our export trade,

outside the Empire, will take care of itself,

At present under free trade one of the largest vested interests (which is a tax on all

our production for exports) is the high wages and high charges of the sheltered industries. Our port charges and our railway charges are out of all proportion to the wages and prices in other countries competing against us. The borough dustman’s wages are double the pitman’s and the agricultural labourer’s. ‘The milk roundsman with his “ pickings,’ whose job is sheltered, draws If the 50 per cent. more than the cowman. state of present affairs is allowed to drift, the

sheltered industries, like high taxation, will

put more and more men on the dole. Thus sooner or later they would have to be sacrificed and their wages and their charges come re for their down. They are commandingothemo r industries, services than, in relation to But if by contractthey give to the nation. ing out of world standards to live our own

life we

can

pay

the

unsheltered

for

their

tered industries, SETVICes as highly as the shel al adjustment,

there will be no need for fin [ 63]

1c

ough

there

Oe metment

H

may

Dp

have

r

EN

to be

temporary

In the until we find our feet. e Tory otected England, th

survey of a pr e that industry se to be l il st st mu cy li po is encouraged and rewarded

every kind

e nation. roportion as it serves th

of

.

in

hological We should not shirk the psyc culture ri roblem which industry and age. The returned to prosperity will producmporarily necessities of depression have tent paths turned us aside from the permante for the where we may find contentmen Industrial ennui was spoken of in people. the preceding chapter. Industrial fatigue, which is its twin brother, must be solved by

[ 64]

cage a RRB SROAM Kingst

vetailed with its fedillatowes shoud righcetltoy thbee do nation, but its imme

.

businessmen and our scientists as we get the tal prosperity to spend on the fundamen humanaspects of industry. Similarly theinde ising of industry by gigantic comb ations edof capital and trade unions needs to be revers . ency. But ci fi ef in le tt li s an me ze si re Me while the Empire is free to develop in its it needs a guiding unity oe in eevery way,mple mentary effort. Thus os purpos and co ould our reorganisation of industry be applied. _ The individual firm’s larger policy

HUMAN

SIDE

OF

INDUSTRY

organisation and relation to its workpeople

should be as small and as intimate as it can be

with efficiency. Finally the whole problem of giving the

man who serves the country a stake in the country 1s essentially a Tory one. The vote

is no stake.

The dole is no stake, nor is free

education and the widow’s pension. Simi- — larly foreign investments owned through some

savings trust are far too impersonal, and are in the end likely to make men look upon

money as a source of wealth divorced from

service. ‘The share of those who work for a business in their own firm is the most obvious and simple means. The company

and the men then stand or fall together, but it is liable to make the sectional interests of the worker override everything else. Those

companies who do share profits or capital with their workpeople will probably do best. Yet it is no complete

solution.

One of the

best ways to help people to a realisation of

their stake in the nation is the ownership of

real property,

It cannot melt in the night,

and is always there against an evil day. There should be every opportunity for the thrifty person to invest in A

State

®

extension

of

land or building.

credit

[65]

to

popularly

1c

D1EN

H

owned trusts for developing national forestry is one suggestion.

Forestry unlike farming

‘s not so suited to the short-lived management

of an

individual.

Nor

ment be in Britain alone.

this

should

invest-

should have

We

the machinery ready for our people to purchase real property in all parts of the Empire. There could be recognised trusts to safeguard their interests. "This widespread ownership of property abroad in the Empire would serve two purposes. It would turn the people

to an imperial outlook and imperial interests,

it would make emigration that much easier. The habit of thinking imperially and treating the Empire as a common home is the first rider to protection. We have seen in the preceding pages that protection, because it enables us to lead our own lives, automatically brings in its train

higher wages and more employment. what

other immediate

means

help in the burning question

may

st economy leaps to the mind.

By

the State

of, industry! Pensions,

pies, education not representing real value, ‘he cam the Central Government ; rer | sal and boroughs a loosened ef ciency : ncy in all their expenditure. The ac!

est of every penny spent should be—will i [ 66}

HUMAN

INDUSTRY

OF

SIDE

ft the nation to live better?

A wide road in but it

helps

a dock is repaid in time saved many

times

the open country

no one.

is pleasant,

A wide arterial

way opening from

over. Teaching a boy, unfitted for book learning, a book learning which he may never need, is the ideal of equality: it is lost

economy.

But teach

the same

boy

handi-

work in trade, or guard his health, and you are fulfilling national life. Thus there is economy lost to-day in teaching a country

boy to aspire, if he be bright, to black-coated gentility, if he be ordinary, to a yearning for

the town where, in our present state, he will

most likely be apprenticed to the dole ; while the dull and the half-witted sidered as fit for the land.

are only

con-

Yet the dull child

and even the half-wit, if there is no standard-

be shehad Neck ot Young farmer

sing of the three R’s, can be trained to be © to the health jn

mj

gent

education

can

hor.

Wise backward child. dand body of an other

| ©0 mu 3 ch of o ur economy is lost in cure ° inet Prevention , We ‘ons with cretins, Yet have glutted to all intents

ra

fies Pee Main Posess the village idiot who is uncertifree to fulfil his abnormal [67]

Ic

undity. fropection

DIEN

H

ed of There would be less ne unfit in the home if the mentally

kes family? Ju e Th . ed is il er st re we d ee br to of what a -, America is the classic instance e nation policy of cure by itself may cost to th if the prevention is shirked.

The difficulty of economy is that a good case can always be made to spend. Yet a sum should only stand for spending if it can be made out as necessary because it must be done and not otherwise. It may be argued, as socialists do, that the third leg of the State helps a man

efi-

more

to walk

ciently. Man is a biped and wants no third prop in his stride. It cannot be forgotten that national expenditure is a veiled excise It is a food tax duty on all that we produce. as much as a direct impost. Probably the only way to limit government and local expenditure is to ration it. Yet this leaves out most

services, since you cannot

of the social

ration doles of

pensions, and the health services are perhaps

the only ones which might repay in full the a

citer

render

collected

education

half the

for

them,

of girls

present

Even

at school

unpleasant

* See The Jukes, by Dugdale,

(68s)...

188

so,

the

should

health

HUMAN

SIDE

OF

unnecessary,

inspectorate

must take

place

obvious.

in

INDUSTRY

times

That

poor

relief

of distress is

Doles and pensions then become a matter They must suit the Tory purof method. ose and must be economically administered. That a man who has ceased to draw any bene-

ft to which he is actuarially entitled should continue to do so as a right is opposite to Tory principles. Yet this happens every day of the year, and the dole is drawn by over 1,000,000

persons who

actuarial right to do so.

have no shadow of

It must be plainly

realised that unemployment pay, when the actuarially permissible hinemployment benefit is exhausted,

is another and indiscriminate

form of outdoor relief by public assistance. Calling this type of dole “ unemployment insurance benefit ”’ 1s merely a euphemism

which blinds the recipient and the country to the true state of affairs. ‘The first task 1s to replace this insurance on an actuarial basis and to keep

it there,

Its purpose

should

be

to help a worker across a gap in times of his Changing employment, and so to prevent a eating into his savings or mortgaging Dis 0¢ ‘i the we: savings. As times become riter feels that no good will come to the

[ 69]

Ic

:

H

DI

ompulsory

EN

insurance, and that

as nee the way seems clear we should return (except for employers’ liability) to the old system of voluntary friendly societies,

There is no reason why the State should not

ease matters generally by a grant scaling down to the societies over a period of years. This cannot be done unless industry is in a position to pay the high wages that will make a man independent and enable him to afford to invest in personal insurance against loss of lite, old age, ill health and temporary unemployment. This is the sound Tory doctrine of personal

independence.

In periods of unemployment, as soon as the in sured person’s weeks of actuarial benefit are exhausted he should then be paid in kind. Not the least of this problem is the deterioration of physique of the unemployed man. A peey for uate SUPP les of food and warm cio hing ns

etimselfonand anhis indiscriminate family would probably distribution

of dee

It would certainly keep up body fit to work.

his It

would also make the work-shy man the ner for a job, if he shou ld get no ready cash. It might

be cult to organise, but it would be no mone diffi difficult than rationing

7°|

HUMAN

INDUSTRY

OF

SIDE

the Army. Payment in kind in this way should be used by the State to purchase only home-grown and Empire produce. The fillip to trade and agricultural organisation of the feeding and clothin of 1,500,000 men

and their Fmilies would As we

try to rebuild

be incalculable. our

character

and

foster our national health so we should resist the often unconscious efforts of moneyed

interest to destroy it. Hire purchase is a present help to stimulate consumption. But in most cases it ties the future service of a It man to what he has already consumed. is a veiled form of usury destructive to the character of the individual, and precarious to the credit of the nation. The instalment system means a card-house prosperity. So, too, in the preservation of health. The pall of smoke across our skies lowers darker It is no solution as our cities grow larger. of the slum problem to spread slums wider, Duilding only slightly improved accommodation and allowing each suburban flue to loose - quota of soot in a sooty sky.

A better

eee be found than patching a rotten whole systern only css rotten ot shoul ‘ keep all ch m of rehousing, while | e individuality of the home that ts

C70]

ossible, must be a part of national even more planning.

ional

a" the problem of oor relief the question of women’s employment continually arises,

The present Minister of Labour admits that there are many women since their marriage,

dole who,

have

herself on the never

been employed, and in every quarter of the House of Commons the women members ask what is to be done with the women out of

work.

Here

we

come

to

a

crucial

point

where Toryism must make a stand. Equal rights of occupation between the sexes is hurting the unborn generations and sapping the vitality of the men of this. Naturally there are many jobs, domestic service, secretarial and clerical posts, as well filled by women as men, and these should absorb

the surplus spinsters of the nation. But here we come to the position that just as modern

machinery fits the least ship to be an industrial woman, © way out much f 2 work the do and schoo]

skilled in craftsmanworker, so it fits the is hard. ‘There 1s unmarried girl may

So fill in the time

this Wns

becoming a wife,

between

leaving

Over and above

e ewan part femal € . mig shou intsensive policy of ratldion hav ren of the Empire 72]

,uUMAN

SIDE

OF

INDUSTRY

where males largely predominate.

couraging women

in Government

By dis-

employ-

ment by refusing them some parts of State ‘nsurance as distinct from relief in kind you may do something. By employers drawing a line through their own organisations you may do more, by the trade unions themselves seeing the danger you may go farther still. But the only real solution is to ensure that the male worker is so well paid that he can afford to keep his women at home to look after his home. In general the man must be the breadwinner. ‘The sexes are not equal, but equally important in a different way. So should their occupations be.

[73]

V

CHAPTER AND

AGRICULTURE

SEA

FISHERY

So far we have dealt only in general with methods for bringing about prosperity to the

nation and for relieving the present distress. But before we turn from our own position to that of the Empire there are two essential occupations the full use of which must be part of Tory practice. ‘There are only three

fundamental

trades

by

which

we

live.

Mining, fishing and working the land. They stand in inverse order of their importance. Mining, which is the foundation of industry, perhaps we over-emphasise because we have been too long divorced from reality. Mining will revive as industry revives. Industry

will revive

as agriculture

revives.

We can live without going underground, but we cannot live without food and clothing. The sea gives us food, it is also the highway by which the food comes that we cannot Provide for ourselves. Even without the

[74]

Y AGRICULTURE AND SEA FISHER fshermen we might live. But without the farmer we must die. During the nine centuries of our nationality agriculture has, except for the last century, been the founda-

tion of our life and of our health. That, in its essence, is reason enough for a prosperous agriculture to be a principal Tory aim. Agriculture,

was the

with fishing, hunting and war,

breeding

of our

source

strength.

Hunting in England has become artificial. While fox hunting remains a school of hard1ness and decision, it is mainly, though it should not be, for the rich.

With other field

sports it is becoming increasingly artificial War is no longer an occupaand exclusive. tion, it is the last desperate resort of national

defence.

remain,

Agriculture

Therefore,

if Tory

|

and

policy

alone

fishing

.

1s to revive

agriculture, it must have two ends in view :

the fullest life for those who live on the land

and the maximum of employment, that the landworkers

may

be

the mainstay

reed in quality and numbers.

of

our

It is useless

trying to revive agriculture under free trade.

In Present conditions the family farm comPeting under Asiatic standards of living, OF

with the € factory ranch in some counties

[75]

1c

pDIEN

H

ne may pacceed, minimum of employment Soalowis this must , ely er nev ds goo r you et rk Ma ‘The present Government be the result. in have seen this, accepted it and acted on it, With free the recent Land Utilisation Bill.

r trade they can only make agriculture prospe

by enslaving the family for an ill-rewarded

seven-day week of ten hours’

work a day, as

is the practice of Europe ; or else where they can copy the methods on virgin lands so that the output per man

and not the number of

men per acre is the thing that matters.

If

it be pointed out that the European peasant 1s

happy, the answer is that such a life is his tradition, that he has sun in summer to give

him health and a sure harvest, and that in winter he has the frost and snow to give him his leisure. Our summers are wet and our winters open for work each day.

Thus it is only behind protection that we

. can build up an agriculture fit for the nation

As we cannot produce all the food we need it follows that, so long as we keep the Tory plrpose before us, we must try to produce

quantity amet filial years, a ed to produce, we

L

* we were

new

little

of

of what we ar ; For hundrees °

self-supporting the

[76]

winter

an

feeding

°

¢

AGRICULTURE

AND

SEA

FISHERY

animals, cereals for human food were the heart of our agriculture. Yet for all that we led the world in breeding fine livestock, because of the nature of our temperate, moist climate and the type of most of our soil. ‘To-day we produce perhaps 20 per

cent. of our cereal requirements, but nearly 60 per cent. of our livestock products,

that is, beef, mutton,

pork,

dairy, poultry

This has come about because products. the virgin countries of the world with regular climates and cheap transport can easily outpace us in cereal production. But because of our cool island position and inherited skill in bloodstock we are naturally suited to hold our own in stock production. The obvious plan is, therefore, to go forward with that in which we excel. This fits From the point of with Tory purpose. view of giving work by doubling our wheat acreage, we might employ another 20,000 meén on the land, but by merely producing products we could find “. OUL own pig direct land work br another 68,000 men. Now that 20,000 more men is probably the utmost number that could be absorbed in arable farming of cereals for sale. MoreOver, arable farming has still to be rationalised

[77]

by all sorts of labour-saving

devices if

18

that

the

ro survive at all. But if we were to productse all our own dairy, pig and poultry produc in this country (not counting on an increasing consumption of milk and eggs) we could re-employ directly on the land over 450,000 Moreover,

persons.

assuming

increased dairy herds would be responsible for most of the increased beef production, we would still, on a most conservative estimate, employ another 100,000! in seeing to a self-supporting beef and mutton industry. Hence not only would we employ over 550,000 on the land directly in livestock products, but we would employ in the implement

trade, the transport

dairy and bacon factory and building

trades

at

trade, mill,

abattoir and

another

least

100,000.

These estimated figures are, in fact, so con-

servative that the grand total would in all probability be over 700,000. While the small country towns as traders for a prospe* ous countryside would swing from depression

cial blue books figures are in part taken froms offi of the statistic che 1. part are due to the researrie bra ating be of all a Imperial Chemical Indust s in transl into m ts duc pro ock est liv of s nant; the bulk import ae

and from

i

en

needed

to

replace

animals requ!?

ating the number of the potential enmployment in the care of them.

[78]

imp? to

these

|

SEA

AND

AGRICULTURE

FISHERY

so boom. Nor should we forget that the neat wheat-growing countries of the New turning

World are steadily

absorb

their

surplus

wheat.

to livestock to

We

cannot

afford to lag behind or waste one moment. What of the wages payable and what of those districts where grass cannot profitably be grown for livestock? The arable farm

worker is the poorest paid and has, in most cases, the worst job.

state of unorganised

Even in our present

and

unprotected

lhve-

stock farming, the stockmen (admittedly for longer hours) are paid nearly 25 per cent. But there are more than the ploughmen. districts like the eastern counties where on present methods, because of a low rainfall, the plough alone can be relied upon. A temporary guaranteed price and a permanent

market for wheat by the quota system, together with high protection of cereals used for malting and distilling, should

tile

Soon Anglia over its difficulties. bor, as win as livestock production is really in tull

ives the demand for arable products for will eck, together with arable sheep farnuny, land Store arable farming as well as grass required he area needed for half the ration “d to produce the extra poultry pro

C79]

1c

DI

H

EN

ducts is 675,000 acres of wheat land. To bring this state of self-sufficiency about is possible and presents no insuperable economic difficulty. But it will be a long task, It is so worth while that there can be no turning aside once we have started. It may be asked if it is Tory to protect livestock products but not to protect home-grown In so far as cereals for wheat by tariff. brewing and distilling are needed we should

protect these, as we are practically capable of supplying all we need. Potatoes, nontropical fruit and vegetables, we can also

supply economically and easily in their respective seasons. But we cannot grow at the outside more than one-third of our Arable agriculture requirements of wheat. is subject especially to the law of diminishing

returns, the greater the output the higher the overhead charges, In a factory, and to 2 certain extent in stock-keeping,

the

reverse

is true. ‘Therefore, while we should guar antee a market for the wheat we produces we

—

must

import

the

bulk

of the

people s

So, provided we get it from tht

life the grown under Empire standards . » the cheaper it comes to us the bette

‘oreover, while a given quantity of 1°"

[ 80]

AGRICULTURE

provides

a given

AND

SEA

FISHERY

quantity of finished steel,

a given quantity of wheat seed may vary in quality and quantity of yield by 100 per

cent.

Thus

no

tariff wall

can

be

a pro-

tection against cereal dumping on the one or

hand

a

sufficient

guarantee

of

cereal

production on the other. But a great part of our plan in imperial trade relations would hinge on taking all the wheat that we can get from the Empire by preference or quota, whichever proves the best way. Thus far we have described our ideal to try for in agriculture. The means of doing this is dependent on three things, land, distribution and market. The land is held By freehold, by tenancy and in three ways. Of these freehold is ideal in by the State. that it combines independence and continuity, The larger the area of yeoman farming the better for the stability of the hation, But you cannot create a system of yeoman farmers overnight. A small yeoman ‘1 good times always wants more land. In bad

times he sells his land

misfortunes

of

adverse

to pay for the

seasons.

Thus

yeoman farming does not necessarily produce

Fn tinuity except in long-continued prosperY, where the yeoman’s descendants are

,

[81]

I

C

H

DIEN

prepared to follow him until peasant holding becomes ingrained. As prosperity increases so should (in practice it will matically)

the farmer

be given

happen

auto-

a chance

of

being his own landlord, and the farm worker the chance of becoming a smallholder. But

the method

and which

which

has made

has weathered

for continuity

adversity

is the

landlord tenant system. The landlord is one of the few providers of capital who charges only for what is used, and that at an average rate of about 14 per cent. interest on the capital. Land does not wear out, and buildings have to be repaired. The landlord should be a leader in agriculture. Estate management is a high art. Wellrun large estates are not only a nucleus of continuity but a buffer against disaster for the farmer. Good landlordism is a development of all that was best in feudalism; that is service and lo alty. It has degenerated because under free trade the land has been neglected, and while vested interests in the industrial world were too strong to

be attacked

the landlord

was made

the

scapegoat for the industrial sins of vested

interests. prestige.

Prosperity should restore

Freedom from death duties shou

[ 82}

4

AGRICULTURE

ive

it

continuity,

AND

but

SEA

direct

FISHERY

penalties

for

neglect by owners of their obligations should defend the system from abuse. For death duties on land mean impoverishing an

estate or selling a part of it, either enforcing bad landlordism or breaking up continuity. Negotiable bonds in industrial concerns make

no difference to whom they belong among members of the general public. Thus while death duties are vicious in any case, they are disastrous on the land. Neglect of land or regarding it as an amenity solely for pleasure should result in immediate retribu-

tion. Care of the land should be one of the most honourable duties in the national life. Moreover, those who work for an

estate generally set the standard of good employment on the land even in our present Under the landlord and the degeneration. farmer alone of all great industries there 18 Personal intimate touch between master and an, State ownership of land is clumsy and in retrograde, slow in action and bad It can only be perpetuating the Principle, Worst rather than the best of the landlord It is un-Tory, uncontinuous, UN stem, Practical and un-English.

[83]

As to the market, the problems of selling B livestock, fruit, and market garden products demand above all else efficient co-operation and the elimination of the dealer. The f

presence of multiple variety, proximate markets, and multiple demands makes this nearly impossible under a voluntary system.

Successful

co-operation

needs

to be treated

as if it were done for an export market. Milk and cream cheese sent to London from Wiltshire are as much exports as if they had come from Holland.

While there must be

elastic exceptions for the small man, a scheme

of compulsory marketing is essential. How can this square with Toryism, which means independence in service? ‘The answer is that the middleman does not serve the nation so much as himself. Since he is generally in his debt the farmer will not voluntarily displace him. ‘The consumer cannot. Yet the gombeen man

the world over is the

type of usurer that chokes the life out of

agriculture. Pogroms in East Europe and measures of marketing in Ireland spring

from the same cause, and have a healthy, underlying instinct, ‘The farmer should be

His

a producer,

not

independence

a

pocket Woolworth.

in producing

[ 84]

would

11

AGRICULTURE

AND

SEA

FisuERy

no way be lost for his service in producing ‘s highly

skilled

and

complicated.

service must deteriorate if he seller. A mines manager who coal at home and abroad might good peddler or a good manager not be both at the same time. farmer.

That

is his own peddled his either be a ; he could So with the

If the consumer is going to have to buy

the products of the farmer he has a right to

expect the most efficient service possible, and organised selling is to the benefit of the nation, as it eliminates waste. The organisations

should

not be run by

the State, but for farmer and consumer alike, by the ablest business men of the day.

There is no space here to enter into details.

It has been

done

in many

countries from

whom we import most of our livestock products,

these To turn to the market itself in which sa le, produced and organised for

B00ds,

It is clear that livemust be consumed. t breed no do , ns ke ic ch d an gs pi ng vi sa Stock, The right stock and the efhicient n a hurry, ng of milk natketing and grading, the starti s 0 nd bacon factories, will take some year would

Produce,

High protection at the start [85]

|

not only hurt the consumer

but cause a

cy should reaction in policy just when the poli . mature. start to

foreign At the outset only a small duty imonposed in livestock products should be icy. conjunction with an imperial trade mepol we But to ensure development at ho should give capital on easy terms to the marketing organisations and a bonus on goods of a definite quality processed by them. ‘Thus the farmer at the beginning

would be able to set his quality high and the organisation provide grades and standards As these infor modern requirements.

creased in quantity and certainty of supply, so should the protection increase and the bonus be lessened until with imperial competition we could be self-supporting save for imperial imports. We should then place an embargo on foreign goods lest by dumping at any cost they try to ruin our prosperity to regain their ancient markets.

By this means

our

imports

should

be

We could then lowered by £200,000,000, be free to pay with services to ourselves for

services by that amount which we used te pay to the foreigner for his labour.

The other traditional occupation of oUF

[ 86]

AND

AGRICULTURE

is deep

manhood

already export dried

sea

FISHERY

SEA

fishing.

fish such

we

Here

as herrings.

But there should be nothing left out which

could help our fishermen to gain a living.

Advertisement, protection where necessary, the best facilities for docking, storage, marketing and dealing with gluts should be provided. The sea is the foundation of our Empire, and England has always been too small to keep us “‘ from going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it.’ We cannot afford to lose our seafaring touch. It is doubtful if the fisheries will

workers,

more

employ

but

we

must

see to it that the living of the fisherman 1s the best and that his numbers and his skill continue. Side by side with the encourage ment of fishing our merchant navy should have preference over foreign ships in all our harbours in the payment of port dues. Nor should it be impossible to accord a small preference to all foreign goods imported

in British bottoms and similarly to grant @

Small extra

carried,

subsidises

The

preference to imperial goods SO

United

her own

own shipping.

States

exports

of

America

through

her ;

The writer has dealt at this length with

[87]

1c

DIEN

H

orehouse of st e th ll sti is it e us ca be the land, s acing our tradition, because of all avenuest by far. to employment this 1s the greate thout a There will be no national prosperity wi

prosperous agriculture, for with it the towns will

react

as

much

as_

the

countryside.

Agriculture keeps its abiding skill other ways of life. It is almost profession where industrial exmui set in as the men’s life still lies occupation. Because last of all,

above all the only does not in their and not

least, the land and the sea are the reservoirs

upon which we draw for health, for pioneers in times of peace, and for men at arms in times of war. |

[88]

CHAPTER THE

USE

AND

VI

DEFENCE

OF

EMPIRE

TyroucHout the foregoing pages, especially

‘, connection with the land and the sea, the Empire has loomed like a vast background

so obvious that it is almost taken for granted. Yet if there is little that we can take for pranted at home, there is less still in the

For the writer it 1s concerns of Empire. an impertinence to try, with his own inadequate knowledge, to cover the four flanks Nevertheless, the of the world with policy. Tory creed cannot stand in England without Taken from it faces the imperial problems. the meanest view Empire is necessary to our fe. Free trade, which concerned itself so little with

imperial

purposes

while we

led

the world in the matter of industry, has bya with _ fostering of over-breeding, left us Wheat "Plus of people who must be fed. with the together people, 35,000,000 feed ‘0Vas De ‘ quantity of other foodstufts, must

[89]

IC

DI

H

EN

aid for in services. If there is nO common bond with those with whom we barter for our food, then our services must be sold in competition with the poorest standard of life, and our standard at home willy nilly must approximate to the standard of the Asiatic clothed in a flimsy length of cotton and living

ona handful of rice. If this 1s not as it is happening at this moment mask of invisible exports, then the of England must be made elastic enough lands whereby we may be

to happen, behind the boundaries to include able to be

self-sufficient in the kindly fruits of the earth. Part, at least, of the Empire must be bound with England, so that we may share in common those services performed for our mutual ability to live the same life. That is the primal belly reason. The next is no less a primal reason, that of elbow room. Forty-two million people are even now far too great a number for the Even were it possible health of Britain, or wise to make England one large city, one thing is certain, that such an over-concentra-

tion of industry must be a grave weakness in economy and warfare,

Sooner or later eggs

Moreover, all in one basket are upset. while the new countries have a tendency ©

[9°]

ust

AND

DEFENCE

or

EMPIRE

show an indigenous increase of population so slow that it amounts almost to stagnation the climate (together with the advances of

science in increasing longevity and lessening ‘nfant mortality) tends to a continuous increase of population at home, This acts in accumulation of liability like compound interest on a debt. Our people must

However

fresh

have

little inclination

pastures.

there

be to go

the

emigrants

abroad, unless a cataclysm in the hive is to force a swarm, a steady emigration must take place. This should happen under the English flag for the

and the enlargement

When

sake

of

of English

purpose.

one remembers that for the most part

it is the hardy and adventurous who go we

cannot afford that the world, outside the Empire, should leech us of our best blood. Oreover, while we cannot afford to lose Our best, we cannot keep our imperial tradition unless we ourselves people the Mixed immigration threatens to mpire. Thus lose us the Empire in all but name. Or the sake of food supply, of standards of living, of safety and of future development, we must not only have an emp Me uta Strong

imperial migration

Cor]

policy:

1c

DIEN

H

I ill not do to let it drift with chance theor A admit

possumus.

on

blank

a

For

| Dominions cannot absorb our people except in mutual prosperity. But unfortunately as the Empire has grown

up by hazard and unplanned, in the rush of free trade competition, the Empire 1s not homogeneous in government or purpose. India is an estranged land already. Her industrial

changes

threaten

from our best market

cult rival.

into

to

our

turn

most

her

difh-

Australia, egocentric, and Dutch

The South Africa think different ways. States business falls shadow of United across the three thousand mile frontier of

We build railways Canada at every point. for East Africa and docks for West Africa, but we kill the life of the West Indies while we give preferential treatment to Russia. Our policy to-day would seem to be reduced to the ineptitudes of formula which may Satisfy

aspirations

in

self-zovernment,

are impossible to translate purpose in administration. possible to use tact without

yet

for concerted It should be defeatism and

to review every action from a broad imperial angle of imperial motives. At the same

time we

[92]

have

got to reckon

AND

ust

DEFENCE

OF

EMPIRE

with the fact that the Empire falls into three large divisions, each of infinite complexity ‘1 relation to us and each other. That is, India,

he Dominions, t

and the Colonies.

Let us put the problem

divisions to the test of Tory

of these three purpose.

So

the flag they r de un s in ma re h eac as g lon This must supply service to the Crown.

means

most

which

adjustment

advantageous is

consistent

of the

way

with

problems

{to

in the

themselves,

interdependence

. in service with the rest of the Empire ocratic The Indian problem is of dem

making.

‘The certainty that voting is all

millin all, and that the traditions of three education, enniums are less than a western Conference. e bl Ta d un Ro the at us ded lan has

be the Whatever comes of it, there must erve all the des l wil ia Ind t tha on recogniti fullness of her own life that we can give her.

her obligations fil ful urn ret in t mus she Yet forsake Eurasian uld sho She n, ow Cr he tot of an Indian t en pm lo ve de the pa ths for plagiarise our not s doe t tha Civilisation our own urage co en we e il Wh politics, over whom se tho , ves sel our for y Wa onalit There i. rule should keep their culture.there is 1n ions as the cur in half-bred nat

[93]

1

half-bred

C

EN

DI

H

persons.

But

is an

India

as

unfinished obligation of our own creation, and as she is many nations and very defence-

less, she must not secede, nor may we evacuate her even should it profit us. Yet an India within the fiscal system of the Empire is as much a problem as an India in chaos. Gandhi with fine cunning has

found the joint in our armour. The protest against industrialism in his homespun movement is also, by the boycott of foreign cloth, the measure of Lancashire’s danger in losing

her eastern cotton markets. Our business minds have started industrialism in India. We must take the consequence. It is better for Lancashire to lose a part of her Indian markets than for England to risk her whole standard of life by free trading with a massproducing India. The utmost it might accomplish would ising of the East.

iS

be a little more westernThe population of India

320,000,000——-more

the rest of the Empire's The

industrial

than

competition

total

times

three

of the

population.

services

poorly paid and fed of even 20,000,000 out

of

that

320,000,000,

against

the

odd

15,000,000 industrial workers of the rest of the Empire would do incalculable harm-

[94]

AND

ys

EMPIRE

OF

DEFENCE

This danger was not apparent until modern

mass production methods were invented, beery cause without new mass production machin

the Oriental’s work was very inferior. Now this danger is the memento mori at our feasts. ional Thus for our sakes and the mutual nat

of

development

our

respective

countries

we would do best to give up much of the massin production markets which we once held are India, since commercially speaking we entirely self-supporting within an empire that excludes India fiscally. An instance of the danger of Indian standards of life to our

has commercial welfare shows where India m of exported, not her services in the for manufactures, but in the form of direct

the Indo-African labour problem.

labour:

not This does not mean to say that we wouorld that still do enormous trade with her where we are secure we should not have preferences

and

variably treat

trade

agreements

is good

1n-

each other more easily than

We treat the foreigner. merce

and

cement.

The

bond of com-

Gradually

as

the

Indian standards of living increased so we Could drop tariffs or embargoes.| The Wy

ing to les of India are underfed accord ‘The better nourist< standards,

estern

[95]

pIEN

would absorb

320,000,000 persons

of

uch of the m d an s lu rp su mt theit own grain As India began fe import Empire’s as well. our so b a id pa ly gh hi grain produced by to be nd te t n e m y a p 's le would her own peop in the course of time higher. Therefore, ter of the

quar 4 er ov , e r i p m E re ti en the e in trade on be t h g i m , on ti la pu po globe's and fullness of life. s, on the n o i n i m o D e th th wi m e l b o r Our p other

hand,

is the

result

of

our

sins

of

ed because l g n a t n e e ar we a di In In . on omissi our westernof ts ui fr e th en se re fo t no ve ha we t foreno d di s n we o i n i m o D e th In n. ‘satio ve given see the fruits of /aissez-faire. We had capital the Dominions of our best in men san th our and we have policed their sea-wayagewi d em fleet. Steadily we have encour mberlth ain to disregard us. What Joseeph Chsa ago WE could have done twenty-fiv year ice the tw th wi of lf ha e th h s i l p may accom It may be that the formulas an dificulty, y because definitions of 1926 were necessar the direct result t ye r, fa so ne go d ha things r ow’ is that Australia is to appoint he

As the Viceroyalty ™ Governor-General. th the Labow’ India threatened to become wi eralship of n e G r o n r e v o G e th so Party,

[96]

AND

USE

OF

DEFENCE

Australia to the Australian

EMPIRE

democracy

bids

fair to be the spoils of office, instead of the

highest impartial contact between the Crown The Crown is all that holds and the people.

the Empire.

One

by

one

we

sever

the

filaments. If we would use our weight to full advant-

age in the world’s diplomacy we should have one voice for a common purpose. At Geneva we are many integers. We encourage the Dominions to send their own ambassIt is an invalid policy. For adors abroad. all our boast of invisible bonds and blood being thicker than water, it is well to remember that there are no quarrels so hasty or so bitter as family quarrels, espect

ally between step relatives.

So with the Dominions we are reduced to treating as with foreign nations—only wellknowing that any false step will be doub le nigh irretraceable. We have a moment, that" problem, of which, at the re

Empi trade agreements called grandiosely cy pare Economic Unity, is for expedien future an mount. On the other hand, ourconcentric © that of the Dominions must be with al s i h T . y o l p m e e w ulas the 2 action that ncies and form st sende « Fecent separati

°

[97]

DIEN

1c H

must be -; a slow, difficult task. There res ult in no more conferences which will the appanGovernor-Generalships

age

of democracies

becoming

on

based

spoils

the

Frankly and fully we must realise

system.

prethe all or nothing alternatives that our After all Australia, sent position implies. undefended by the Empire or our fleet,

or even

becomes a mouthful for Japanese

6,000,000 whites in Italian colonisation; Australia against 80,000,000 persons at While in the swarming time in Japan. financial world, without our credit, Australia is likely to become a commercial colony for We alone the United States of America. have exacted no conditions for lending The waters of New Zealand, money. like Australia’s, need the defences of a fleet far greater than any for which she can pay: Much as it may be belittled, but for us Canada would

undoubtedly

may yet be by peaceful of the United States of

have

been, and

penetration, a part America. It might

be that Canada would be better off com mercially as part of the United States

America, find

a

but not unless

market

in

Great

her wheat Britain.

coul

South

African problems are not only Anglo-Dutch

[98]

U