The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1915-07-17
By G.. K. Chesterton
The Famous English Essayish.

\ VERY charming Tory lady happened to
~ say to me the other day. But we shall
never get CONSUMPTION If we don't get
it now" Personally. do not doubt she was
as patriotic as anybody else: but what she said
was. par excellence, the essentially unpatriotia
thing.
1t is as anti-national as the similar sen.i-
ment on the other political 'side." that Total
prohibition should be enforced now. simply be.
cause no sane people would ever dream of
forcing 1t at any other time At this moment
patriot will not wish to get Conscription y
10 get Ieetotalism or to get anything else.
CONSUMPTION will help or hinder US In that -
matter for the authorities: and . very dit.
hcult matter even for them.
II they want It We must give It them, not
because they are the best conceivable people
who could decide. but because they are the
only people who can decide. If are always
whining for a man with "a genius for govern.
ing. We are simply proving ourselves destituts
OF an equally noble gift-a genius for being
governed. If the doctor whom I have asked
leg, 1t must be amputated. But If he enters
with smile and large knife. and says you
r,il never have any amputation if you don't
nave 1t now" my legs will recover their
normal capacity either for kicking him down,
stairs or for running away.
Now amid all the current talk about Con.
scr1ptfon there is one human and historical
fact to be remembered which millionaires of
the hustl1ng type do not remember simply be.
cause they do not know. 1t is always best in
emergency to rely upon habit Custom does
not make people slow; II makes them quick
People called upon suddenly to fight will fight
best In some way that they know, as q man
threatened with the blow of cudgel will
ward 1t on with his arm and not with his
leg.
The English have done as much fighting a.
any people in Europe. but they have always
done 1t in particular way of their own. They
have always been represented by a strong but
comparatively small body which, acting with
allies, has more than once turned the whole
fortune in the European field The position
of the officer towards his men has not the
inhuman superiority of the German, nor the
realistic utilitarianism Of the French.
1t is in its strength and weakness, the ps.
cuar English relation between the gentleman
and the man" The bond between them is NOT
militarism, but rather sport To that relation
a certain insular sense OF freedom is quite
essential. There may be snobbishness In il.
and not little sentimentality: but avowed
and ticketed slavery is against its very nature
Now the great Continental nations do not fesl
that there is any slavery in coercion by the
State, and that for a very simple reason. The
peoples who have great armies for great from.
tiers have again and again defended those
frontiers with universal valour which could
not be enforced, any more than it could bs
purchased. They have. therefore, heroic
memories of conscript armies
But the average English workman would not
understand compulsion if it were called compu
sion; and If 1t came from the correct officials Of
the State he would dislike it all the more. He
does not care about the State. though he cares
a great deal about the country.
To show that the point is purely practical
being concerned with alteration in armies
actually in their full activity, will take it az
affecting ideal of my own. 1 believe that
pure democracy is the manifest government for
men. l think it has proved itself SO in the
places where it has rooted already. Mere re.
dictionaries who say that democracies cannot
govern or fight must explain as best they can
the example of modern France. where prao-
tically nobody is talking nonsense. simply be-
cause the whole French people does not want
any nonsense talked But II the British AZ.
thorities tried to turn Britain into a pure
democracy between the last German cannonais
and the next one should think they had ikea
leave of their senses.
Taken unawares, with all her vugarities ana
generosities. all her living instincts and dead
anomalies upon her. this poor old country OF
ours is fighting with such weapons as she can
handle against something whose sins seem
scarcely human. We need all that history and
socia. habit can give to steady us. The English
must simply be English. until England finds de-
iverance merely because they must be sans
unti: this insane period has passed.
~ ~ EE IN