Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-10-24
WH|TESCORES BRITISH
Declares Ruling Glass is
Grossly Inefficient.
LUXURIOUS DECADENCE
BOER WAR ARoUsEs INTEREST
IN RIFLE PRACTICE.
Coronation Festivities in India At
tract Much Attention in England
London News and Gossip.

Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star.
LONDON, October 10, 1902.
We have no Henry Watterson on this side
of the water, and if we had he would prob
ably be in hot water over libel suits most of
the time, no one is allowed to make
shining mark for moral or any other pur-
poses Of ordinary individuals. The politi-
clan, however, is fair game, and generali-
ties are allowed. l have just been reading
remarkable article from the pen Of Mr..
Arnold White, who perhaps Is the nearest
approach to Mr.. Watterson, If 1 except La
bouchere of Truth. that we have in Eng
land. His article is on the inefficiency and
incapacity of the ruling classes in England,
and it is the strongest thing of its kind
have ever read here. He says the moral
ard intellectual condition of the upper
cle sses in England is the cause of their I'M
fitness to manage the empire. Smart So
ciely in England bears an ominous likeness
to the condition of the upper classes in
Florence in the time Of Lorenzo the Mag
nificent.
Culture of a kind is generally diffused.
Every member of the ruling classes knows,
or affects to know, Latin and Greek. But
their education teaches them to deSpiSe the
principles of business. The luxury of their
lives is unpa ralleled. From childhood to
the grave they are valeted, warmed, driven.
closetted and protected from ugliness and
hardship. They do not know the real con-
ditions of life. Artists, men Of letters,
tors, impreSsarios and newspaper syco-
plants. who cater for their amusement and
minister to their self-esteem, are equally
devoid of public virtue and Indifferent to
moral sense. Mr.. White arraigns the gov
eminent for its incapacity and says that
taxpayers who depend for livelihood on sal
aries and profits of business know that
while the cost of living has increased the
efficient
more expensive than ever.
Likened to Chinese Rulers.
He calls the British rulers western man
darins. Each minister" says he. lis
thinking of something else than the work
in his department. When he is not indulg-
ing in reverie he is playing at golf, or if
he be a civilian war minister he dresses in
khaki, accepts the order Of the Red Eagle
from foreign sovereign. and, prancing on
a borrowed horse. makes himself and his
country ridiculous before the hosts of Ger
many, instead Of sticking to his own job
at home" Mr.. White says that the Duke
of Devonshire Is more interest ed in New
market than in new markets. National de-
Tense, of which he is responsible as chair
man of the cabinet committee. is a bore.
Mismanagement, impolicy, maladministra-
tion, the supremacy of the permanent off,
Gals and petticoat government has led to
bad work in almost every government de-
partment.
He speaks of Mr.. Balfour the prime min
lister as the product and flower of fine uni
versity training, embodying the highest cu1-
ture of the day. He is amiable, courteous
and subtle; he is a master of words and his
faults are negative. He is negligent, how
ever, in the business affairs of the nation,
and has a graceful antipathy to strenuous
action and vigorous organization, and the
country consequently, Is suffering from
heart disease.
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman he sums
up as no better. He is always on the fence,
an attitude undignifed in all adult males,
objectionable in the ruler. Men and women
of the smart set, says Mr.. White, by whom
England is ruled, are without faith of any
kind-civ, religious, moral or philosophical.
Men of that type are not earnest even in
their skepticism; their dominant feeling IS
refined Indifference, indolent, thinly con-
temptuous intellectual lethargy. Enthusi-