# The Future of England/Chapter 1

Layout 2
CHAPTER I
ON TRAITOR'S HILL
There is a hill called Traitor's Hill. Such a name has the flavour of those days when treachery was still afoot. But whatever happened once to justify such a title, that was centuries ago. The hill to-day, however compromised at the bar of time by the verdict of history, has long since got its discharge. It stands forward with a respectable appearance, rising up by a gentle slope, and with an air of innocence, from the levels below. Yet there is something strange about it even now; for immediately round its foot beat the waves and tides of a sea.
Viewed under another aspect, and by a different turn of thought, that which lies at the base of Traitor's Hill is rather an army of incalculable strength. It is an infinite array of buildings, a soldiery of bricks and mortar, rank behind rank, with square upon square, and crescent after crescent interspersed in echelon among the serried files of streets, and all advancing and mustering for the assault of Traitor's Hill. The smoke, drawn backward to the horizon of distant hills, ​shows that the artillery preparation for the attack is over, while, at the bottom of the descent, yonder grim rows of tenements are the forlorn hope of the escalade.
This sea, this army, is London.
It might be thought that a spectator, standing on such a vantage-ground as Traitor's Hill, on the edge of Highgate, would see below him thoroughfares crowded with citizens, and would hear the noise of the millions at his feet. But such is not the case. The busy hum of men does not reach even hither, and the scene of their hurry and their hubbub might as well be a tomb. A silence weighs from coast to coast, while the eye, ranging from horizon to horizon, lights not in that wilderness of man's handiwork, and amid that chaos of roofs, chimneys, spires, and turrets, upon the presence of a single man. So that this incomparable assembly of the living might be one wide sarcophagus of the dead.
But, if the eye, seeking to penetrate into that nether abyss, is thus baffled, the mind knows of course that here are lives in unique abundance. Are they, and all of us together, moving towards a worse or a better fortune? That is what the spectator on Traitor's Hill looks across the dumb and dreary leagues of the living to know.
Such a theme of observation would be less difficult than it is, if the energies of a people were ever concentrated undividedly on one definite ​end. But, in fact, any public object fills only a modified part in the lives of citizens, who are invaded from above and below by two rival interests. From below rise the needs of daily life to distract attention from the common good. From above descends the claim of religion. Those for whom that claim exists look, even though they love their country, towards a commonwealth more august and more enduring yet.
Nevertheless, between these two poles of human interest, nationality, on the equator, is still important. It stands half-way. In that debateable borderland it seeks to erect a middle kingdom, a buffer state, a neutral territory, between the respective frontiers of the spirit and the flesh.
Thus looking over London I tasked myself to find what the national purpose is, and whether it is feasible, and whether it is sufficient.