The sun., 1919-08-31

is trying to FAX responsibility" for the
first time in her history.
John Bull is groggy. But not too
erogPy to think. His knees still hold.
And he is not imaginative enough to
be afraid.
A London JohnsBull policeman came
to pass the evening with me last week.
There he sat, square shouldered, stolid
unimaginative. He had had three apd
a half years in German salt mine
and hadn't turned a hair-looked as
though he had passed the war period
at Brighton on-Sea- asked him
whether he hadn't been afraid Of the
German taskmasters who had beaten
him to a pulp. Puzzled, he looked at
me through the steam of the teacup
he was raising to his big mustache.
"Afraid?" he said. 81 never thought
OF that"
Celtic Imagination.
The Celtic imagination, for which
thank God, can move mountains-but
1t can see mountains where none
exist For the Saxon, mountains have
no existence. 1t is that which makes
the Englishman so dangerous an an
tagonist. Myopia has its advantages
so has blindness.
The fact is the British Empire is
being born again. Its pangs are birth
pangs. The last people to know this
are the political midwives of the new
society. The empire is being torn be-
tween two sets of ideas.
On the one hand we have an old
hopeless conservatism, which is incap-
able Of learning. On the other the
ferment of labor, which is really the
camoufiaged ferment of the new ideas
that are not moving labor but Europe
The British aristocrat has learned
nothing from the war. The middle
class not much more. But the work.
ingman has.
The war has helped make him "con-
scious," which indeed was the idea be-
hind the war. Conscious Of his power
Conscious of opportunity. Only he is
still in the twilight sleep. Perhaps
Europe has never been out of it.
That is the danger. The empires
labor movements, still lacking pre-
vision, coordination, are taking forms
undreamt either by leader or led. We
have in a sense two governments in
England to-day-the one in the south
and the one in the north-the one at
Westminster. and that Of the Triple
Alliance" - the government by Par
lament and the government by direct
action.
Two Sets of Ideas.
We are evolving two sets of ideas,
the ultimate of which no man can
fonesee. We are witnessing perhaps
the passing of Parliament in its pres
emit form and the coming Of the at
tempt to form the Soviet. The slow,
unimaginative Englishman is the
pioneer of political experiments p,
and extreme.
If England went to the Soviet ex-
treme, OF. which we are hearing more
and more, of that guild socialism
under which the miners would control
the mines, the railway men the rail-
ways. and so on. all for the community,
we should see a fascinating economic
problem of a nationalized country
versus a capitalist-Soviet England
versus capitalist America But We
will not see 1t.
Out Of two opposing forces can
come the middle force of compromise
and 1t is force. The British worker
can be extreme" but he is levelhead-
edness itself
What think we are about to see is
an advance in the principle of nation
alization first applied. halfheartedly.
to mines and coal, then to railways
and all national services. with the
workers sharing control. We shall
see that with the return OF liberal,
collectivist, labor government at the
next election. Then, with the coming
of naturalization and the partial re-
moval of the unemployment DOGGY, we
shall see the reversal of the old Eng
fish trade union system of fighting
the machine and it's replacement by
the American. We shall see the bring
ing in of the machine and with II
high wages and increased production.
We are about to see a campaign Of
international advertising for the first
time-the 'Engrishman has hitherto
feared the advertisement as dry"
America fears the whiskey bottle
perhaps. We are about to see a sys-
tenn of "preventives," exchanged for a
system Of attack on the
American markets. And out Of the
hurly-burly Of the great compromise
we shall see the British Empire take
a new lease of life.
There's life in tho old doc vat,