The sun., 1907-08-18
GENTILITY MUST Be BANISHED
RAD MANNERS NEEDED ron PUB-
LEC LIFE. SAYS q. ~. SHAW.

.sDsela Gable Despatel 10 the sun.

spscin Gable Despaiei 10 the sun
LONDON. Aug. ~. That amateur Social
list. George Bernard Shaw. left for Stuttgart
this afternoon, where he is to act as one Of
the British delegates to the Socialist con-
vention. His latest utterance 10 a lament
over the peculiarly British vice OF gentility.
He pleads that gentility be kept in it's proper
place, the drawing room. and sternly ban
ished from the House Of Commons. He says:
Whether a member be a Conservative.
Liberal, Irish Nationalist, Laborite or Social
ist he will do no good there until he ceases
TO be a gentleman and becomes shameless
ideslst. When the strain becomes too
great he can 90 out on the terrace and be u
gentleman again for half an hour there.
but when he returns to his work he must
become as a little child again. utterly out
spoken, just as when Judge goes on the
bench he must discuss and deal with the
how strongly the prisoner may appeal to
his sense OF decency to have q disgusting
subject dropped.
The House OF Commons has never un-
derstood this. 1t 10 always trying TO live
up TO it's reputation as the best club in Lon
don. That is why il is 30 useless. so futile.
~ OAdcpDIdbuk w any Ofic WIZ WdIbb W Bcb
something done, or at least to hear the truth
about it,"
Mr.. Shaw then gives as his reason for
attacking parliamentary gentilty in a
social organ like the Clarion the fact that
"the class in which the hypocrisies Of gen.
tility are carried to the worst extremes is the
working class" He then proceeds to deal
candidly with his brother Socialists in Par
lament and says
While public bodies consist OF ladies' and
gentlemen. behaving as such, nothing will
ever be done except supervising the routine.
useful work in its way, but not what the
Socialists have organized the Labor party
for and not what they will organize their,
own party for when the Labor men have all
become perfect gentlemen
"All the sristocrats and cerebrocrats
who have done the thinking and leading
of the revolutionary movement have
idealized the proletari riat. They could not
deny that the oppression of the capitalist
had reduced the laborer to a condition in
which he occasionally drank and even
raised his hand to his wife. otherwise than
in the way Of kindness; but it never seems
to have occurred to any OF them that the
laborer could be q snob and a humbug or
that Parliament OF Labor members might
be one in which it would be harder to speak
tine truth than in the Psrliaments of Lords
Melbourne and Palmerston
And yet what Socialist who really knows
the working classes is not appalled, by its
capacity for snobbery and humbug? That
the capacity is not yet realized is no COM
fort to the realist When the Labor party
has secured for the English laborer a mini
mum standard wage of SIS a year he will
become more particular about his clothes
aud skin. he will become more particular
about his language, and. so far as his means
will allow. he will obliterate one by one the
visible distinction between it and plutoc-
rscy. He will call his dinner lunch and his
tea dinner When he entertsins, his wife
will suppress his beer and offer the guest
his choice OF red ink OF vinegar. which she
will call claret and hook.
He will attend place Of worship regl-
lsrly and compel his unfortunate children
TO accompany him. but above all he will
begin 20 pick up the ideals. especially
Tory ideals. for which sentimental so
cialjsm is such excellent training, the
difference indeed being merely a sordid
detail "a to the distribution OF national
income"