So Far As
One Can Come At Things In The Present Fog, Every Form Of Unfitness,
General Or Specialised, Born Or Created, During The Last Generation Has
Combined In One Big Trust - A Majority Of All The Minorities - To Play The
Game Of Government.
Now that the game ceases to amuse, nine-tenths of
the English who set these folk in power are crying, 'If we had only
known what they were going to do we should never have voted for them!'
Yet, as the rest of the Empire perceived at the time, these men were
always perfectly explicit as to their emotions and intentions. They said
first, and drove it home by large pictures, that no possible advantage
to the Empire outweighed the cruelty and injustice of charging the
British working man twopence halfpenny a week on some of his provisions.
Incidentally they explained, so that all Earth except England heard it,
that the Army was wicked; much of the Navy unnecessary; that half the
population of one of the Colonies practised slavery, with torture, for
the sake of private gain, and that the mere name of Empire wearied and
sickened them. On these grounds they stood to save England; on these
grounds they were elected, with what seemed like clear orders to destroy
the blood-stained fetish of Empire as soon as possible. The present
mellow condition of Ireland, Egypt, India, and South Africa is proof of
their honesty and obedience. Over and above this, their mere presence in
office produced all along our lines the same moral effect as the
presence of an incompetent master in a classroom. Paper pellets, books,
and ink began to fly; desks were thumped; dirty pens were jabbed into
those trying to work; rats and mice were set free amid squeals of
exaggerated fear; and, as usual, the least desirable characters in the
forms were loudest to profess noble sentiments, and most eloquent grief
at being misjudged. Still, the English are not happy, and the unrest and
slackness increase.
On the other hand, which is to our advantage, the isolation of the unfit
in one political party has thrown up the extremists in what the Babu
called 'all their naked cui bono.' These last are after satisfying the
two chief desires of primitive man by the very latest gadgets in
scientific legislation. But how to get free food, and free - shall we
say - love? within the four corners of an Act of Parliament without
giving the game away too grossly, worries them a little. It is easy
enough to laugh at this, but we are all so knit together nowadays that a
rot at what is called 'headquarters' may spread like bubonic, with every
steamer. I went across to Canada the other day, for a few weeks, mainly
to escape the Blight, and also to see what our Eldest Sister was doing.
Have you ever noticed that Canada has to deal in the lump with most of
the problems that afflict us others severally? For example, she has the
Double-Language, Double-Law, Double-Politics drawback in a worse form
than South Africa, because, unlike our Dutch, her French cannot well
marry outside their religion, and they take their orders from
Italy - less central, sometimes, than Pretoria or Stellenbosch. She has,
too, something of Australia's labour fuss, minus Australia's isolation,
but plus the open and secret influence of 'Labour' entrenched, with
arms, and high explosives on neighbouring soil. To complete the
parallel, she keeps, tucked away behind mountains, a trifle of land
called British Columbia, which resembles New Zealand; and New Zealanders
who do not find much scope for young enterprise in their own country are
drifting up to British Columbia already.
Canada has in her time known calamity more serious than floods, frost,
drought, and fire - and has macadamized some stretches of her road toward
nationhood with the broken hearts of two generations. That is why one
can discuss with Canadians of the old stock matters which an Australian
or New Zealander could no more understand than a wealthy child
understands death. Truly we are an odd Family! Australia and New Zealand
(the Maori War not counted) got everything for nothing. South Africa
gave everything and got less than nothing. Canada has given and taken
all along the line for nigh on three hundred years, and in some respects
is the wisest, as she should be the happiest, of us all. She seems to be
curiously unconscious of her position in the Empire, perhaps because she
has lately been talked at, or down to, by her neighbours. You know how
at any gathering of our men from all quarters it is tacitly conceded
that Canada takes the lead in the Imperial game. To put it roughly, she
saw the goal more than ten years ago, and has been working the ball
toward it ever since. That is why her inaction at the last Imperial
Conference made people who were interested in the play wonder why she,
of all of us, chose to brigade herself with General Botha and to block
the forward rush. I, too, asked that question of many. The answer was
something like this: 'We saw that England wasn't taking anything just
then. Why should we have laid ourselves open to be snubbed worse than we
were? We sat still.' Quite reasonable - almost too convincing. There was
really no need that Canada should have done other than she did - except
that she was the Eldest Sister, and more was expected of her. She is a
little too modest.
We discussed this, first of all, under the lee of a wet deck-house in
mid-Atlantic; man after man cutting in and out of the talk as he sucked
at his damp tobacco. The passengers were nearly all unmixed Canadian,
mostly born in the Maritime Provinces, where their fathers speak of
'Canada' as Sussex speaks of 'England,' but scattered about their
businesses throughout the wide Dominion.
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