3
The Psychology of Jingoism
's Jlnnounccmcnl
Wrecking the Empire.
JOHN M. ROBERTSON. Crown 8vo., doth, 5*.
Patriotism and Empire. By
M. ROBERTSON. Third Edition, crown 8vo., doth, 3*. 6d.
Patriotism and Ethics. By
GOUAKD. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3«.6d.
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•, M.
LONDON: GRANT RICHARDS 9 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C.
**
The
Psychology of Jingoism
•Y
J. A. HOBSON, M.A.
AUTHOR OP 4 JOHN RUSKIN I SOCIAL REFORMER IE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA,' ETC.
London
Grant Richards 1901
TX
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY — JINGOISM: ITS MEANING A'
ORIGIN - i
PART /
THE DIAGNOSIS
I. CREDULITY 17
II. BRUTALITY 39
III. CHRISTIANITY IN KHAKI 41
VAINGLORY AND SHORTSIGH i 63
IPSE OF HUMOUR - 69
HE INEVITABLE" IN POLITICS 79
ARE EDUCATED JINGOES HONEST? - 97
PART 11
THE MANUFACTURE OF JINGOISM
I. THE ABUSE OF THE PRESS - 107
II. PLATFORM AND PULPIT: A RECORD OF LICENCE
SUPPRESSION - 123
Tin
Psychology of Jingoism
INTRODUCTORY
Jingoism : Its Meaning and Origin
iverted patriotism whj
nation is transformed into of anpther nation, and the fierce craving to destroy the indivIHual members of that other ion, is no new thing. Wars have not ays, or perhaps commonly, demanded for i and support the pervasion of such a frenzy among the body of the people. The will of a king, of a statesman, or of a small caste of nobles, soldiers, priests, has often sufficed to breed and to maintain bloody conflicts between ihout any full or fierce participation in the war-spirit by the lay multitude. Only in recent times, and even now over but a small part of the world, he great mass of the
1 B
2 The Psychology of Jingoism
individuals of any nation been placed in such quick touch_with great political events that thcir/oginjonsj) their gassiofy, and (fheir_ will, haveglaved an appreciable' part in originating strife, or in determining by sanction or by criti cism any important turn in the political conduct of a war. In a long-continued war, the passion of a whole people has, even in old times, been gradually inflamed against another people's, with whom, for reasons usually known to few, a state of war existed ; and such martial animus, once roused, has lasted far beyond the limits of the strife, sometimes smouldering for decades or for centuries.
The quick ebullition of national hate termed Jingoism is a particular form of_jhia-primitive passion, modified and intensified -by— certain conditions of modern civilization. One who is curious of etymological origins will find true significance in the mode by which the word Jingo first came into vogue as an expression of popular pugnacity.
The oft-quoted saying of Fletcher of Sal- toun, ' Let me make the ballads of a people, and let who will make the laws/ ever finds fresh illustration. A gradual debasement of popular art attending the new industrial era of congested, ugly, manufacturing towns has raised
: Its Meaning and Origin 3
i^usic-hal|) to be thejmost powerful in- at oTsuch musical and liter. lie people are open to e.y
Among large sections of the middle and labouring classes, the music-hall, and the creative public-house into which it shades off by imperceptible degrees, are a more potent educator than the church, th< < ' 1, th--
\ft*n than t-hft Df^ff I ntO
'lighter self of the city populace the
,tc conveys by song or recitation crude
notions upon morals and politics, appealing
by Coarse humour or exaggerated pathos to
the animal lusts of an audience stimulated by
>hol into appreciative hil ^
In ordinary times politics plays no important
part in these feasts of sensationalism, but the
brute force and an ignorant con-
pt for foreigners are ever-present factors
ch at great political crises make the music-
a very serviceable engine for generating
The art of the music-hall
is the only ^popular' arTof the present day :
its words and^tnelodies' pass by quick magic
from the Empire or lhambra
length and breadth of the land, tg-echoed^in a
isand provincial halls, clubs, and drinking
saloons, until the remotest village is familiar
4 The Psychology of Jingoism
with air and sentiment. By such process of artistic suggestion ffie fervour of Jingoism has been widely fed, and it is worthy of note that the present meaning of the word was fastened upon it by the popularity of a single verse.
Nicer critics may even be disposed to dilate upon the context of this early use of the new political term — the affected modesty of the opening disclaimer, the rapid transition to a tone of bullying braggadocio, with its culmi- nating stress upon the money-bags, and the unconscious humour of an assumption that it is our national duty to defend the Turk.
Indeed, without descending to minute analysis, we may find something instructive in the crude jumble of sentiment and the artistic setting which it finds —
' We don't want to fight,
But, by Jingo, if we do, We've got the men,
We've got the ships, We've got the money too ' —
crowned by the domineering passion blurted out in the concluding line —
1 The Russians shall not have Constantinople.'
How many of the audiences who cheered this sentiment to the echo, and were heated
Jing< Its Meaning and Origin 5
by it almost to enlisting point had, or even red to have, the notion of the
Eastern Question, or even of the grounds of our immediate with Russi
ol" national animus, with a vague as lied u> t at this stage
in tlu: manufacture of Jingo spirit. We s perceive later what detailed definiteness of conviction and assertion Jingoism is able to assume in its more developed forms.
It miijht appear that a sentiment thus born
amid the fumes of the music-hall was unsub-
aml would quickly evaporate. But
rude instrument of public feeling! though
ili
ular passions, does not stand-alone ; its work of suggestion and information is aided by •r instruments of instruction more reputable in appearance, and often more in- sidious in their appeal.
The object of the diagnosis in these chap- to point, by a recent and most con- vincing illustration, the modus operandi of the )us forces of public opinion, which are most active in the making and the ma: ,e of Jingoism, and to investigate the un- d psychology of this powerful popular passion.
6 The Psychology of Jingoism
In order to realize the nature of present-clay Jingoism, as distinguished from the national war-spirit in earlier times, attention must be given to a complex of new industrial and social conditions which favour the growth of the passion. Foremost among these is the rapid and multifarious intercommunication of ideas
rendered possible by modern methods of
transport. The mechanical facilities for cheap, quick carriage of persons, goods, and news, signify that each average man or woman of to-day is habitually susceptible to the direct influence of a thousand times as many other persons as were their ancestors before the of steam and electricity. That people move about more freely and quickly, and are brought into personal intercourse with many more individuals, and of much more varied sorts, is perhaps the least important of these changes from the psychological standpoint. More im- portant is the internal nature of the large^town life which absorbs the large majority of the population of the most advanced industrial countries of to-day. The physical and mental conditions of this town-life, for the majority of its population, are such as to destroy strong individuality of thought and desire. The crowdingof large masses of work-people in
Jingoism: Irs M^ id Origin 7
industrial operatjonsjregul a
-• injurious congestion in trition of a superficial
int< -rvoursi: in work or leisure with great numbers of persons subject to me en-
nment — these conditions are apt to destroy or impair independence of char without
substituting any sound, rational sociality such as iv. m in a city which has come into
being primarily for good life, and not for cheap work. The bad conditions of town life in our great industrial centres, lowering the vitalityof the inhabitants, operate with peculiar ton . :i their nervous organization. 1 the
cerebral stimulus of town life has its ^ains, and in certain instances may feed true individuality. But normally it educates a surface smartness,
alertness of manipulation of ideas within a narrow area of interest and experience ; and
he environment is largely similar for larger
numbers, a similarity of character and life is
bred in it. . Moreover, the strain of adaptation
to the many complex changes of external en-
mient is, for those absorbed in the constant
^gle for a livelihood, so grave as tc impose a nervous wear and tear which is quite ap- parent in the features of a town population, and which marks them out with tolerable
8 The Psychology of Jingoism
distinctness from country folk. In every nation which has proceeded far in modernjmlust rial ism the prevalence of neurotic diseases attests tint general nervous strain to which the popula- tion is subjected. This condition of the national life is fraught with two results. The resistance of the individual mind or will to sug- gestions from a neighbouring mind is weaker, and the common routine of city life to which all alike are subjected affords a common basis of appeal from mind to mind. Whatever, therefore, be the mode by which mind is conceived as operating upon mind, by argu- ment, persuasion, or suggestion, every facility for effective acceptance is provided. The neurotic temperament^ generated by town lOejseeks natural relief in stormy sensational appeals, and the crowded life of the streets, or other public gatherings, gives the best medium for communicating them. This is the very atmosphere of Jingoism. A coarse patriotism, fed by the wildest rumours and the n violent appeals to hate and the animal lust of blood, passes by quick contagion through the crowded life of cities, and recommends itself everywhere by the satisfaction it affords to sensational cnftvings.y It is less the savage yearning for personal participation in the fray
ism: Its Meaning and Origin 9
the feeding of a neurotic imagination
:oism. The actual rage of the
nd a more lual
r. jingoism is the passion of the spectator,
IRe backer, not of the fighter ; it is
a collective or mob passion which, in as far as
it prevails, makes the individual mind sul>
i control that joins him irresistibly to his
A'Sy
This possession is facilitated by the sort of education which prevails among such peoples as our own. A little knowledge is most
^erous when it supplies the material and the instrument of unreason. A large popula- tion, singularly destitute of intellectual curiosity, th a low valuation for things of the mind, has during the last few decades been
ructed in the art of reading printed words,
lout acquiring any adequate supply of in- formation or any training of the reasoning i such as would enable them to give a proper value to the words they read. A huge press has come into being for the purpose of supplying to this uneducated people such printed matter as they can be induced to buy. Most of this matter consists of statements, true or false, designed to give passing satisfac-
i to some simple form of curiosity, some
io The Psychology of Jingoism
low sense of humour, or some lust of animalism. Some of it, however, is designed to induce a conviction or to rouse a feeling which may affect conduct The simplest form is thejrade advertisement, whereby one, who is known to be an interested party, recommends his own goods and, by continually repeated suggestions, produces a belief which induces the public to ^purchase His wares. If the vendor stood in the market and recommended his goods viv& voce, his spoken word would carry far less weight. The appearance of hard truth im- parted by the mechanical rigidity of print possesses a degree of credit which, when the statement is repeated with sufficient frequency, becomes well-nigh absolute. No evidence is essential : the bare dogmatic statement, though emanating from an admittedly interested source, produces conviction and moves to action. How great a power is here placed in the confirol O^j^qinmefcTal clique or a political party, or any body of rich, able, and energetic men desirous to impose a general belief and a general policy upon the mass of the people ! This power of Suggestion through print acts mainly upon the individual when it is intended to convey some simple sort of information as shall influence private conduct. But where
: It Meaning and Origin i i
appeal is primarily to the passions, and ments are • pu! in nnl.-r to
iniluence public conduct, the power of the press attains its /mith. Any slight tendency of more reasonable folk to question the accuracy of sensational matter obviously designed to inila general mind is overborne by the
common pulse of passion which sways them as members of a crowd. Th . dogmatic,
:ied, and unverifiable cablegram is the most potent form of this emotional explosive : it purports to place the mind of the million in mediate and associated contact with the nit sensational event in such wise as to quench all cavil or question ; its meaning, heightened and expanded through the sound- ing board of the press, settles down irresistibly upon the public mind. This is the ideal mode of suggestion — a short, sharp voice of ious
lority acting simultaneously upon millions of minds whose interaction of passionate sympathy gives it speedy vogue in common talk, and implants it in the small stock of recently 1 impressions. Consideration of this process explains how a dramatic fiction thus implanted is able to survive the most complete exposure, even when the contradiction is conveyed through the same channel as the
1 2 The Psychology of Jingoism
falsehood. Further analysis of mass-psycho-
logy, disclosing the inhibition of comparison and
pro™rg<Wi Tri11 Tvp1o;" how
the most contrary suggestions of fact or feeling
be held simultaneously l>y the same persons,
who have yielded their individual judgment to
the sway of a common passion thus prompted
and informed.
National hate finding sensational expression through war is the best emotional material for the operation of these forces, and the posses- sion by the passion of Jingoism of the mass- mind of a people intellectually disposed like that of Great Britain presents a subject of incomparable interest for psychological study.
One word in conclusion of these introductory remarks. I have distinguished the spectatorial passion of Jingoism from the cruder craving for personal participation in bloodshed which seizes most savage peoples when the war- spirit is in the air. Jingoism is essentially a product of 'civilized * communities, though deriving its necessary food from the survival of nature: it presents therefore a number of more complex moral and intellectual pro- blems for consideration. Its force^dependent, as we have seen, upon the submission of the individual will and judgment to collective
jingoism: Its Meaning and Origin 13
suggestion, will v.iry with the resistance offered
ied rea 1 firmly rooted indivi
convictions applicable to ues concerned
in the suggestion.
The rapid __and numerous changes in the external structure of moil ilization have
been accompanied by grrave unsettlement of the inner life ; a breaking up of time-honoured dogmas, a collapse of principles in politics. religion andjnorality have sensibly reduced the power of resistance to strong passionate sug- gestions in the individuals of all classes. Hence the" common paraddX that an age of univt scepticism may also be an age of multifarious superstitions. li.Jitly acquired and briefly held, but dangerous for character and conduct while they hold their sway. Amon ed peoples,
those of Western Europe and of the United States are at the present time, perhaps to a greater extent than ever before, destitute of fixed and clearly defindd convictions upon root- issues of ethics and politics. Their education has, among the better educated classes, been il largely in producing scepticism fluctuating dil sm, while among the
masses it has produced a low curiosity and indiscriminate receptivity. This general un- settlement of habits and principles implit
14 The Psychology of Jingoism
individuals a collapse of standards of thought and feeling, a weakening of individual respon- sibility in the formation of opinions, and a correspondingly increased susceptibility to Jingoism and other popular passions in the several shapes which they from time to time assume.
PART I The Diagnosis
CHAPTER I
CREDU1
A RECENT French writer, discoursing on the nature of 'a crowd/ attributes to it a character and conduct which is lower, intellectually and morally, than the character and conduct of its
rage member. Even when the crowd is little other than a fortuitous concourse, and not an organized gathering of persons already assimilated by some common feeling or idea, a sort of common mind is temporarily set up, which often seems to dominate, or even to supersede, the normal mind of the
vidual. A sensational rumour, a sudden unusual spectacle, the powerful appeal of a mob
or, so agitates the mass of individuals, hitherto related by mere propinquity, as to raise, by a largely unconscious interaction of personalities, a quick ferment of thought and feeling which impels individuals to take part
17 c
1 8 The Psychology of Jingoism
in a common action that is not their mere individual choice. (^This passion of the mob, implying an (^dbciildOnfHeTfFSr^^tPcontrt >1 by the individual, is a fact too well .ized to
require proof. But its nature and origin are both obscure and interesting. This war in South Africa casts a powerful searchlight upon the nature of the large, and in some ways highly-organized, crowd which we call the British nation. The suddenness, the size, and the manifold sensationalism of the occur- rence are the precise conditions requisite for testing the mass-mind of the people. What the orator does for his audience the press has done for the nation ; it has injected notions and feelings which, instead of lying in the separate minds of their recipients, have bubbled up into enthusiastic sympathy, and inducedjicommunity of thought, language, and action wKIcIT~was hitherto unknown] The conditions of the case do not ailow~iis~to regard this common conduct as a mature fruit of the reason of the nation ; it must evidently be regarded as an instinctive display of some common factors of national character which lie outside reason, and belong, in ordinary times, to the province of the sub- conscious. Whatever qualities of deliberation and calculation may have been present in the
Credulity 19
conduct nanciers, and jour-
nalists who were the direct conscious agents in bringing about the \s ir appr
of, ami asm for, the war were not roused
by any ratiocinative processes. The nation became a great crowd, and exposed crowd-mind to the suggestions of the press ; these suggestions, taking form simultaneously in a million separate minds, gathered a force of consentaneous passion by private and public intrrcourse, and by degrees this crowd, or mind, was possessed by a body of vague, but strongly-worded, doctrine about the war, and a powerful spirit of loyalty and animosity.
Our French psychologist described the mob- mind as reverting to the type of the savage or the child in intellect and mor able
to ( y rules of reason, more prone to
sudden, uncontrollable gusts of passion, than onstitucnt units. Whether it be that the >yncrasies in a crowd cancel one another, and so the operative character is composed of common fundamental or race factors, or whet the superstructure which centuries of civilization imposed upon the ordinary mind and con- duct of the individual gives way before some len wave of ancient savage nature roused from its sub-conscious depths, need not cone
2O The Psychology of Jingoism
us here. Nor need we accept the view that the standard of feeling and reason of the crowd is always lower than that of its individuals ; there is some evidence to indicate that it may some- times be higher — at any rate, so far as feelings are concerned. Much will probably depend upon the character and motive of the sugges- tion, and something on the circumstances of the recipient crowd.
For purposes of the present study, however, the hypothesis of reversion to a savage type of nature is distinctly profitable. The war-spirit, as displayed in the non-combatant mass-mind, is composed of just those qualities which differ- entiate savage from civilized man.
One of the most universal characteristics of
the savage mind is ^re^ulflfv ince credulity, or willingness to believe upon no evidence or insufficient' Evidence, belongs to all untrained minds, it may be thought that the majority of people, even in a so-called civilized nation, may or must remain credulous. But there are degrees of credulity. The average man or woman in modern England has a mind highly trained in reasoning, as compared with most savage peoples, and there is a minority of educated persons expert in following trains of thought and weighing evidence.
Credulity
Now, the most astonishing phenomenon of
ie credulity displayed by the
educated class. -s. It is, of course, true that
nary education is so curiously defective in
country that not one in fifty persons c< have correctly named the capital of the Orange Free btate at the beginning ot iti^Q. i education might have been expected to teach caution in the acceptance and assimilation of
ilood of information which poured through the press during the last two years. Our educated classes are usually scornful of the man who believes everything he reads in the newspapers, and who pronounces quick dog-
ic judgments upon delicate and intri< points of politics or economics. Yet the majority of these cultured persons have sub- mitted their intelligence to the dominion of popular prejudice and passion as subserviently
the man in the st: horn they despise.
The canons of reasoning which they habitually apply in their business or profession, and in
;ments they form of events and characters, are superseded by the sudden fervour of this nalgam of race feeling, animal pug- nac; sporting zest, which t
. by the name of patriotism. No one would think of accepting in any
22 The Psychology of Jingoism
ordinary private matter of importance the testi- mony of interested parties, unchecked and incapable of cross-examination, as sufficient evidence to warrant the spending of his mom y and the risking of his life. Yet the testimony to^ the Outlander grievances and the Dutch conspiracy given as the justification of this war is almost entirely of this order. The allegation that the press of South Africa, which has fur- nished information to the press and people of this country, is owned and controlled by a small, known and named body of mining capi- talists and speculators who have openly avowed the gains they hoped to make by this war, is not seriously disputed. Yet persons fully aware of this allow their minds to be swayed by the unanimity of the British testimony from South Africa, as presented by this press and by the politicians who have got their informa- tion from the same factory of falsehood.
These same persons close their minds to th e remnant of the so-called * pro- Boer * press in this country, and to the entire continental press, upon the plea that this press has been bought by Transvaal money — a plea which has no other origin than the statement of the above- named Rhodesian press.
Educated men and women, accustomed to
Credulity 23
wei. -ncc from both sides, accept as final
pro< : il>ricated unanimity of British South
African opinion, refusing all consideration to
South African opinion, which equally unanimous in the opposite sense. This iey aflfo yjh&authority
of Sir Alfred Milner. But why should they
or the authority of this man, who had been tv. > ;. .irs in the country, had never set foot in the Transvaal, and had be«-n • ': ;ualified by his official position from tercourse with
the colonist mous auth-
I.K.] nhnur iqmlljf nf and Uutcii ulooci, men oorn and ured
If the former had dri
home his case of Outlander grievances and Dutch conspiracy by good and sufficient evi- dence, we might, indeed, discard the meagre- ness of his personal authority, and rely upon the merits of this evidence. But no trained English lawyer, reading the Edgar incident and other test grievances in the light of the admitted bias of the Johannesburg press and the South African League, the two c1 sources of Sir Alfred Milner's testimony, and
ing regard to the nature of a new mining settlement, could possibly consider the more serious charges ig to life and property to
24 The Psychology of Jingoism
be proved. As for the still graver charges launched againstthe Cape Dutch of conspiring
with the ' Republics to destroy the British supremacy and to establish a Dutch South African Republic, belief in them still rests on the bare word of Sir A. Milner, unsupported by any valid shred of evidence. It is a very
vc scandal that he. has allowed this language, uttered nearly two years ago, to operate upon the mind of the British nation without adducing any evidence of his charges against ' a certain section of the press ' in the Colony and ' a large number of our Dutch fellow-colonists/ That the actual rising of a number of Dutch Colonists from sympathy with what they regarded as an unwarranted attack on the Republics should be taken as proof of the charges made by the High Commissioner is but one more signal instance of the corrupted intelligence of the patriot.
Charges of treason against the Afrikander Bond, of an avowed policy to ' drive the British into the sea/ and armed preparations dating far back into the eighties, have been so persistently repeated from so many quarters as to win a half-conscious acceptance among many who distrusted the sources of the original accu- sations. It may therefore be well to invite any
Credulity 25
who still desire to have a reasonable faith to turn thrir best practical i <:nce upon
sort of evidence of the conspiracy furnished 1>\ such a work t which the Times has
humorously The History of the Boer
How unsatisfactory this ice still
may be judged by the ingenuous admission in the Preface that it is ' largely cumulative.'
The theory « ngS? con-
in a pretence that fifty pieces^ of bad evidence proceeding ffolft a common tainted
evjdence. When any one admits that his case
uulative evidence' it may be
understood that he knows its falsity, and trusts
to the corrupted intelligence of his readers for such acceptance as it may win.
But the most remarkable example of i corruption is afforded by the adoption of members of the mine-owning confraternity as authoritative advisers on the nature of the and its settlement. Mr. Fitzpatrick, whose book, 'The Transvaal from Within,' is cepted as if it were the unbiassed statement of
1 historian who happened to residt the Tr a member of the-Ecfcs
i (the local branch of Wernher, Beit, and
26 The Psychology of Jingoism
Co.), and was one of the leaders in the Johan- Surg insurrection of 1895; Mr- Lionel Philipps, whose recommendations on settle- ment were fully reported in the Times, is a partner in the same firm ; Mr. Hoskcn, another widely-read authority, is an importer of mining machinery, an ex-director of the Dynamite Company, and a director of the Transvaal Leader, a newspaper started in the spring of 1899 to bring matters to the test of battle ; while Messrs. Rudd, Hayes, Hammond, Robinson, Farrar, and other men, whose voices resound throughthe British press, are directors and employes of those leading Rand com- panies, which have calculated the millions they hope to make from the results of the war. It asonable that these men should be heard, but it is not reasonable that their statements of fact and views of policy should be taken as authoritative, while the facts and views set forth, not merely by Dutch Colonists, but by British travellers like Mr. Bryce and Mr. Selous, are treated with contempt.
The unanimous support of the Christian Churches in South Africa is similarly raised into authority by leaving out of account the Dutch Christian Churches, which are, of course, equally unanimous in denouncing the war. It
Credulity 27
iideed, curious that men and women with
any knowledge of history should adduce the
blessing of the Churches as testimony to the
ice of any cause. Where have the priests
failed to bles supported by autho-
and popular passion ? »VLr*< C«v^V**c
The consensus of general opinion among the
in South Africa and in this country, the
authority of British politicians and of interested
cicrs, backed by a special British rendering
of South African history contained in countless
books issued by the British press, could carry
no conviction to the minds of men accustomed
to weigh evidence, unless these men had
previously handed over their judgment to be
ven by mob-passion.
The credulity regarding root-issues, thus in- duced, carries with i : ulity regarding details
h is even more astonishing in its charac
U r worth while to remind readers
that every British account of Boer atrocities in
f wounded, looting, white flag,ltM
.Ilcled by Uutch
similar disrftflfiflrd of csmom nf pviocnc' the history of the Franco-German, and indeed cry other war, has been riddled by similar stori But while the ' intelligent ' public
28 The Psychology of Jingoism
knows enough of history to be aware th;ii this is true of all wars in the past, it pretends that this war is . ption, and so each man feeds
his passion from the common sc\v«-r. draining the poisonous vapours which degrade his intel- lect and inflame the latent lusts of animalism, and repeating idle patter about 'a just and necessary war for the furtherance of liberty and the protection of the British empire,' for which it has precisely the same sort of evidence as for the belief that Colman's is the best mustard, or Branson's extract of coffee is perfection.
CHAPTER II
BRUTALITY
modern newspaper is a Roman arena, a I Spanish bull-ring, and an English prize-fight
1 into one. The popularization of the power to read has made the press the chief
ument of brutal For a halfpenny
every man, woman, or child can stimulate and feed those lusts of blood -.: . ; \ ,:cal cruelty
government to repress, and which, in their l.y modern spcciaii/.uion to : ::--:-s, butchers,
ss man, t; er, the clerk, the
clergyman, the shop assistant, can no longer
hese savage cravings, either in personal
activity or in direct spectacular display; but
irt of reading print enables them to indulge
ad libitum in ghoulish gloating over scenes of
human suffering, outrage, and destruction.
29
30 The Psychology of Jingoism
Blended with the root-passion of sheer brutality are certain other feelings, more complex in origin and composition — admiration of courage and adroitness, the zest of sport, curiosity, the I in swift change and the unusual : all these serve to conceal and decorate the domi- nant force of brutality, that Yahoo passion which revels in material disorder and destruc- tion, with carnage for its centre-piece. That this passion, like other phases of the war fc is of social origin, and grows by swift, unseen contagion and communication, is made evident by the character and behaviour of its victims. Mild and aged clergymen ; gently bred, refined English ladies ; quiet, sober, unimaginative Business men, long to point a rifle at the JSoers, and to dabble their fingers in the carnage. The basic character of the passion is disci* by the fact that death and destruction by fire- arms do not satisfy; it is the cold steel and the twist of the British bayonet in the body of the now defenceless foe that brings the keenest thrill of exultation. Many will deny this sub- jection to sheer animalism — in some cases a revulsion of pity, or some better human feeling, hides it ; but, wherever the dissecting-knife is honestly applied, the essential brutality which underlies the glow of patriotic triumph in
Brutal 31
:ory ' iible.
i to the voice of your id when he rolls over his tongue some tasty morsel of his favourite war C( spondent, or retai! itest sensation of the
cablegram. Sex, age, nurture, education, re- irroundings, arc of little avail to resist, or even modify, the pulsation of the primitive lust which exults in the downfall and the suffer- of an enemy; the patriotic publican or kbroker may show more honesty in ex- pression of his triumph ; but the same animal eness, and bloodthirstiness, lurks in the mildest-mannered patriot, and surpr him by its occasional outburst Such passion
>i leveller, disclosing human nature in common character, and teaching an equality eh is no flattering ideal, but a convincing testimony to the descent of man. The demo- cratic saturnalia of Ladysmith and V.
ys are generally admitted to be a revelation
*of hitherto unknown British character ; and
the sociality of brutish revelry upon these
days was but a faint, spluttering expression of
Ktual feelings which boiled over into this
flag-waving, drunkenness, and maniacal shout-
At all times the mob-nature has seized
the coarser and more reckless elements in the
32 The Psychology of Jingoism
community, and impelled them to similar scenes of riot ; the distinctive feature of 'Mafeking' was the wide prevalence of a sudden fury which broke down for the nonce the most sacred distinction of classes, and fused the most antagonistic elements of London life for a brief moment into anarchic fraternity.
Under the force of this passion collapse all those qualities upon which Englishmen, in their normal life, most plume themselves. The true John Bull, whether he be farmer, merchant, shopkeeper, or artisan, is an orderly man, a respecter of persons and property, a lover of fair play, a hater of unnecessary pain and cruelty : such are the solid foundations of his respectability and success in life.
A florilegium of newspaper cuttings illustra- tive of the deeds and words to which these respectable men and women have committed themselves during the last twelve months would, by their quantity and their intensity, suffice to ruin this traditional national character in history. The few examples which I here insert are not selected for extremity or for rarity, for all readers will be able to equal or surpass them from personal observation ; they merely serve to mark the nature of the national hysteria.
itality 33
The craving for blood was first brought home to me in South Africa by the talk of certain shopkeepers from Bloemfontcin, upon whom race lust had gained so strong a hold they openly expressed their fears lest the Boers should give in before a sufficient num- ber of them had been shot This has remained throughout the prevalent tone of the British in South Africa ; but of this passion there seemed some sufficient explanation from rec
>ry and race contact But that English
i and women should of a sudden exhibit a fanatical desire to pierce and tear and hack the bodies of men whom they had never seen, and whose very name they hardly knew a year ago, is indeed an experience calculated to stagger any confidence one might have held in
i as a rational and moral being. The
4 comic spirit,' in its most sardonic mood, could
no more curiously suggestive material than
the record of the pranks of British patriotism
under the strain of this experience. Here, for
mce, is an august person, the Lord Lieu- tenant of a county, addressing a body of moral and high-minded English gentlemen and ladies : —
Neither you nor I believe in these perpetual appeals to i the wrong place and at the wrong time.
D
34 The Psychology of Jingoism
Neither do we believe in these continual quotations ; Scripture. \Vc do not believe, either you or I or anybody else here, in the man who holds the Bible in one hand and the Mauser rifle in the other. (Cheers). And another bit of advice I should like to give you is this — if you meet a gentleman, a somewhat aged gentleman, whose name begins with a K, anywhere down Pretoria way, I ask you to make him sing Psalms out of the wrong side of his mouth — (cheers) — and as to his cant, drive it down his throat with a dose of lyddite — (cheers) — and three inches of bayonet to keep it there. (Prolonged cheers.)
This has been the common language of English gentlemen in first-class carriages, in club smoke-rooms, and in all other haunts of free conversation ; and English ladies have done their best to assert the doctrine of sex equality in sentiment and language.
The maker of headlines has displayed a masterly knowledge of the temper of the beast he feeds, and ' Cronje withered in a hell of fire1 remains in my memory as one of many graphic phrases.
The experience of this war thoroughly ex- plodes the old ideal of John Bull as a blunt, frank man who loves a fair fight with a foeman whose courage and prowess he is ready to admit. The black slime of his malice has been hardly less characteristic of his Jingoism than the animal brutality with which it is associated ; it
Brutality 35
has joyed him to tear with his tongue the cha- racter of his enemy as well as to dig steel into
Ixxly. The war-makers in South Africa are keen-wittrd enough to perceive this, and are goading the maddened Bull into slaking his thirst for revenge by a settlement which shall r business sagacity. To burn farms, shoot unarmed foes, confiscate stock, disenfran- aiul imprison tluir political enemies, are requirements of the political situation, and these men, aided by their false prophets, would use the British madness for these ends. History will find the crucial instances of British brutality in this policy of vengeance exacted from the foemen whom we call 'rebels/ The 1 J. 1 > . I ogan, M.L.C., perhaps offers an extr instance of this feeling, but the publication of
following paragraph has hardly elicited a word of condemnation in this country : —
MATJESFONTEIN, May 23rd.— (From our Correspon- dent)— Before the Dukes left here for the front Mr. Logan armed them with a Maxim, with the following result : ' From Colonel Spence Douglas to Hon. Logan, Matjesfontcin. — May a and.— Your Maxim was in action yesterday, and did excellent work. Much obliged to you for all your kindness to me and the regiment Hope all well with you.' This brought the following reply from Mr. Logan : * Exceedingly glad that gun has been of use. Pound for every rebel per cent, for
36 The Psychology of Jingoism
Two years ago most Englishmen would have asserted confidently that England, though en- gaged in a war to break down 'a corrupt oligarchy ' in the Transvaal, had so much nobility of nature that she could admire the stubborn resistance of a handful of farmers fighting for the independence of their country, and that even in the act of war our sympathies would have flowed in the direction of a generous treatment of such a foe. What do we find ? When the policy of wholesale devastation carried out by British troops over large districts, the burning of farms, looting of »9attle, cutting down of fruit trees, and break- ing of dams is announced to the nation, it awakes in the"" mob-mind no other feeling' than one of ^rim_ satisfaction, expressed by" the usual comment, ' Serve them right ; they shouldn't have begun the war ! * No shame whatever is felt for the wanton and futile brutality of such a course, for the flagrant breaches of the very canons of ' civilized war- fare ' which we as a nation had imposed upon the Conferences of the Powers — nothing but a chuckle of savage satisfaction in the common man, a brief irrelevant, ' Yes, war is brutal ! ' in the more 'civilized1 Jingo!
How far brutality is capable of carrying the
lity 37
ion is perhaps best illustrated in the open and frequent proposals to shoot Boer prisoners
'rebels.' The ordinary Jingo is quite satisfied that we have a 'right' to do so, since we have annexed the Republics ; and he has never ceased to advocate the policy, undeterred by the reflection that reciprocity in such an outrage would cost us at least as many lives as we should take. Nor is this merely the loose talk of the drinking-bar or the club smoke- room. One of the most respectable organs of public opinion — the Standard — in its issue of October i6th, used language which has no other meaning than as a direct incitation to the massacre of prisoners.
In every rebellion a point is reached at which the services of the Provost Marshal become more effective than those of the strategist The prompt and ruthless ;shment of every insurgent burgher caught in delicto is required. We cannot keep a troop of horse outside each Boer farm, but we can show its occupant that he risks something more than his freedom, or even his property, when he takes op arms against the Crown.
Military opinion in the Transvaal capital urges that a Proclamation should be issued, declaring that any Boer found with arms in his hand, and without uniform, shall b€ treated as a rebel, rather than as a prisoner of war. Perhaps the time has arrived for even more drastic measures.
In interpreting this infamous suggestion, it
38 The Psychology of Jingoisrr
must be borne in mind that the entire body of the Boer army is 'without uniform/ with the exception of such as have taken khaki uniform from captured British soldiers. The finishing touch of brutality is therefore set upon our policy by an order, issued by Lord Roberts just before his departure from South Africa, to the effect that all Boer prisoners wearing khaki were to be shot at once.
If the Standard may be taken to represent the mob-mind of the well-to-do Conservative classes, the following passage from the Daily Telegraph of October i;th may be taken to set forth the cruder brutality of the commercial classes of the metropolis : —
It will probably be found that these sullen malcontents will go on fighting so long as they have a bullet in their bandoliers, on the off-chance of slaying one of their conquerors, unless the British authorities make it clear that all caught with arms in their hands will be shot without mercy. The Germans had no compunction in so dealing with the Francs-Tireurs, and their severity did much to shorten the war. We shall hope to see the same measures adopted in South Africa unless the various forces now patrolling the two conquered territories meet with immediate success. A few such engagements as that which is reported near Vryheid, in which Bethune's Mounted Infantry are said to have killed sixty of the enemy, would speedily dishearten the marauders, and the proclamation of a specific date after which every armed
39
her should be treated as a rebel and shot would be productive of nothing but good.
It is not the cruelty or the palpable injustice
of these measures that concern us in our
present analysis, but the complacent and even
ceptance of them by the mob-mind
of the Jingo public here at home. Rightly
understood, these passages from the Standard
and the Daily Telegraph are the most damning
mony to the degradation of British character
that has yet been given.
Those who know the means adopted to inflame the Imperial sentiment in our colonies and dependencies will, however, not be sur- <:d to learn that in definite brutality the Jingoism even of the Standard and the Tele- graph is outdone. A recent issue of the Indian Planters' Gazette contains the following : —
Not only should the Boer be slain, but slain with the same ruthlessness that they slay a plague-infected rat Exeter Hall may shriek, but blood there will be and plenty and the more the better. The Boer resistance will further this plan, and enable us to find the excuse that Imperial Great Britain is fiercely anxious for — the excuse to blot the Boers out as a nation, to turn their land into a vast shambles, and remove their name from the muster-roll of South Africa.
It will be vehemently denied that such a
4-O The Psychology of Jingoism
sentiment occupies the British mind. But this denial will be false. Our press, our politicians indeed make no such honest avowal. But the Indian Planters Gazette has dared to put into print the true craving of Jingoism which in this country has everywhere pervaded private conversation in the railway carriage, the drawing-room, the tap-room, and has occasionally risen to the publicity of the music hall. Kipling's 'Good killing at Paardeburg, the first satisfactory killing of the war/ and the phrase 'exterminate the vermin* which, in spite of official disclaimers, did actually voice the general sentiment of the British of Natal at the outbreak of hostilities, express honestly the savage passion of the mob-mind in this country. The public has throughout the war been prepared to accept and approve any measure adopted by the military to crush ' the rebellion,' the bloodier the better. This is the naked truth of the matter, and it is best to face it.
A twelvemonth's debauch in these ancient and^abandoned stews of savage lust has set back the dial of civilization more points than we^care to contemplate. All that the popular education of half a century has done, and vastly more, is lost in this single bout of the war-fever.
CHAPTER III
CHRISTIANITY IN KHAKI
RE are some to whom the political support given to this war by the Christian Churches has been a sudden revelation and a shock. This ought not to have been the case. When a Christian nation ever entered on a war which has not been regarded by the official
priesthood *>Q ^^>^Hiw^r> In England the
State Church has never permitted the spirit of the Prince of Peace to interfere when states- men and soldiers appealed to the passions of :-lust, conquest, and revenge. Wars, the most insane in origin, the most barbarous in execution, the most fruitless in results, have never failed to get the sanction of the Christian Churches.* No one now defends the justice or
• Contrast the attitude of the Buddhist Churches in Burmah which preached the duty of non-resistance, and denied the sanction of religion to the patriots who sought to defend their native land against the invasion of British troops.— C£ Fielding, 'The Soul of a People,1 \
41 V
42 The Psychology of Jingoism
necessity of the Crimean War ; yet the pulpits resounded with the same military blare, bishops, priests, and deacons vying in loud approbation, and prophesying with single consent, ' Go up to Ramoth-Gilead, for the Lord shall deliver it into the kind's hands.' The Nonconformist Churches and their congregations were seriously divided; the wealthier and more respectable among them followed the secular authorities, as is their wont. None of the Churches or their representatives would now think of de- fending the Crimean War, but they have learnt nothing from their error, least of all repentance : neither the teaching of history nor the spirit of religion has spoiled the free-hearted enthusiasm with which they have incited our soldiers to kill, and burn, and plunder in South Africa. Imperialist statesmen boast that this con- federacy in bloodshed has annealed the colonies to the mother country : in similar fashion we may find the long-talked-of union of Christian Churches, not in any common acceptance of theology or in co-operation for charitable works, but in the common acceptance of a propaganda of bloody deeds in the name of civilization. To those who best understand the social and financial structure of the Churches and the capacity of self-deceit which self-interest is
litv in Khaki 4;
able to develo; will seem no wild word
of cynical exaggeration.
I n order to understa; t has occurred, we
member that the ethics of the Hebrew
illy taken root in the
I •: > not mean that
we have always /ailed to live up to our ideal, but that the r'.hrifljan gthififl fl8 CTlriflBC^ m the Sermon on the Mount and the New Com- m.iiulinrnt has never really furnished an ideal for us. The Hebrew ethics taken over with the religion of Christianity is not a natural product of British thought, it does not express our national attitnflfi inwards J'fe FTTs more possible to transplant thr ethics of an Mas tern nation into the tar West than to trans- plant their most delicate flora ^nd fauna. The soul of a people is not portable. The moral hing of Jesus has always languished, as an exotic, in this country. It matters not whether we test the matter by reference to the Old or the New Testament Neither the privative morality of the former nor the active charitable ideals of the latter have ever thriven in the English people. Just as we are not for peace any price/ so we are not for the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount 1 at any price.' We try to represent our lapses
44 The Psychology of Jingoism
as justified by changes in modern conditions of life, etc., but this is only a shallow sophistry which fails even to deceive us while we utter it.
In fact, these teachings have never furnished us with vital veritable ideals. We have had a standard of desirable conduct, ideals of our own, sometimes good and elevated, standards of good manners, honour, and chivalry, but they have never been moulded or dominated by Christianity.
Test the motive by applying the maxim which is held to be most typical of Christianity, 1 ILnye. your enemies. ' Not merely have Englishmen never acted on this principle, but they have never really held it a duty to do so.
The real standard of good conduct for English people has always run upon some such lines as these : ' Love your friends and hate your enemies ; look after your family^ and -et for them all you can ; abstain from petty theft and all unlawful deeds; work for a living if you cannot lawfully compel some one else^to work for you ; help a neighbour in distress ; live a peaceful, orderly life, with only occasionally t- bursts of animation ; abhor certain sorts of meanness and cheating ; be prepared at any
Christianity in Khaki 45
to fight for home and country without inquiring into any " merits of the case.
If we would know the real ideals which represent the best standard of conduct for the
>n, we must turn not to works of pi but to the life of the nation as mirrored in its re and its history.
icss of the notion that the
ideal of the age of chivalry was formed by
Christian ethics is apparent by taking the
icter of that pattern knight, Sir Lancelot,
as it is faithfully rendered on his death by Sir
or, and reported by Malory.
Ah, Lancelot, thou wcrt head of all Christian knights ! And now — there thou liest, that thou were never matched of earthly knights1 hands; and thou wert the courtliest knight that ever bare shield; and thou wert the truest friend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse; and thou -were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman ; and thou were the kindest man that ever strake with sword ; and thou were the goodliest person ever came among press of knights ; and thou were the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies ; and thou were the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest.
Let Spenser testify for England's ideals in 4 the spacious days of great Elizabeth,' when English character was nost openly displayed. The English 'hero1 wis not then a meek,
46 The Psychology of Jingoism
self-denying, charitable, and forgiving man ; he was a man of powerful, aggressive, self-willed personality, with violent passions, generous, brutal, laborious, and domineering, with an undisguised contempt for the sixth, seventh, eighth, and tenth commandments, and no deep concern for the other six.
The flimsy objection, 'We don't admire their morals,' may be brushed aside at once. We have a whole-hearted admiration for these men, there is no pigeon-holing of one little set of qualities labelled ' morals ; ' we admire the men, character and conduct, as set forth in life. Our true national heroes nearly all belong to this stamp. We have no regard whatever for the Christian characters of holy George Herbert, pious John Wesley, saintly Hannah More, that we can compare for one moment with the enthusiasm which encircles the names of Sidney, Raleigh, Hampden, Warren Hastings, Charles James Fox, Nelson, and Wellington. Drive it down to an honest test, and ' morality/ in the narrower senses of the word, hardly counts, so large is the dispensation in Christian virtues which we lavish on our great men. We require of them neither sexual morality, nor common honesty, nor any regard for the lives of people who are not their own countrymen.
:unity in Khaki 47
These remarks are needed as a preface to
>le us to understand the attitude of the so-called Cl Churches towards th
furnish a
fSKWIW
stimulus of f.m.uiciMii in war, by representing it as a sacred duly to risk life in trying to
and WHOM: land and other pr :i\ ! \ ri.;ht U-l n^ to us.
It has been often claimed for Christianity
distinctive ethical char :ics are
.ace upon love as the power
which makes for righteousness, alike in its
influence as an external agent of reform, and
in its purifying and ennobling reactions upon
those from whom it issues; secondly, the
expansion given to this play of inner forces
by transcending all limits of caste, race, or
and asserting the doctrine of human
brotherhood in its widest sense.
The tribal God, the special race mission, the inion of hate and forcible revenge, — these t»J^A
particular notes of the crude religions
.1 Christianity has claimed to supersede.
Yet these are the most distinctive notes of
the Christianity of our leading Churches, the
The Psychology of Jingoism
Christianity d la mode. Those who have followed the records of the pulpits as repor in the religious press, and have read the editorial comments of that press, will be astonished by the consentaneity of voices. Amid the clash of creeds, the angry disputa- tions upon ritual and Church government, the scornful refusal to join hands in any common work of human charity, there has resounded one clear, harmonious, passionate note, repre- senting the oft-dreamed Union of the Churches — a note of loud fanatical encouragement to armed Britain to go forth in Jesus' name to slay their fellows and to take their land.
From the conception of England as a country with a special mission to ' civilize ' the world with blood and iron, to the conception of * England's God ' as a tribal God of battles who shall fight with our big battalions and help us to crush our enemies, is a step taken with ease and confidence by most of our Churches.
Scotch evangelicism (save the mark !) strikes the note most loudly. Here is the whole philo- sophy of the business from Dr. Watson (Ian Maclaren) : — ' Why should we not recognize in our England the modern Israel, called of God, and set apart by God for a special mission ? ' That ' mission ' is based upon a
Christianity in Khaki 49
'The Lord thy God has chosen to be a special people unto Himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth.' 1 Take heed unto yourselves lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you/ 'Speak ye home to the heart of England, for the covenant stands between God and England.
How do we know that this covenant exists ? Dr. Watson assigns a curious reason : —
Are any man's eyes so blind that he cannot see the ;land? ... I do not, when I strike so high a note, forget England's sins. Does our sin break the covenant which the Eternal made with oar fathers? No people ever sinned against God like Israel Between the sin of Israel and the sin of England there is a similarity which arises from a sense of being in the same position.
Our ' peculiar ' sins are, then, the ' semeia ' of
our ' covenant ' and our ' mission/ But what
•'.ie nature of this mission? Dr. Watson
ks it out in no uncertain language when he
says, ' We have found out who are our friends
in the world and who are our enemies, and we
not going to forget them.' Presumably
England's God is to be of special service to
in her mission of ' not forgetting ' her
For a fuller revelation of this covenant and mission we may turn, not inappropriately, to
I
50 The Psychology of Jingoism
the words of a military chaplain, who may be entitled to rank as a specialist
Here is the utterance of the Rev. Armstrong Black in a sermon to the Toronto garrison, re- ported in the British Weekly (Dec. 7, 1899) :—
Wrath was God's. The war was God's lightning flash and thunder clap among the affairs of men ; the flash of God's eye was there, and the voice of God's words. It was God saying, and putting emphasis into the words, ' Sit thou at My right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.' It was the Divine warrant given of old to the unique King- priest who in every age * in righteousness maketh war,' and it is meant to put iron into that blood, and grit into the grip, of the Church in all ages. And there is not another Psalm more closely fitted and attached to Jesus Christ in the New Testament than this one is.
^ Here also is the Rev. Armstrong Black's par- ticular application to ' the business in hand ' :—
And if any nation lays itself right athwart the path of true human progress, and, using the very means with which British industry has supplied it, makes itself bristle with arms, not for defence, but defiance ; and thus not only blocks but menaces the way of advancing and Christianizing civilization — be it in South Africa or elsewhere — Britain's sword should then flash with a Divine commission as swiftly as when heaven's own lightning leaps from the cloud. Seldem does God place a quite clear and definite issue before either a man or a nation.
This recognition of our mission is accom- panied by a general laudation of the influence
Cl -lity in Khaki 5 i
of war as a school of discipline and an instru- ment of beneficent rule.
It might occur to some that these doctrines are too distinctive of Old Testament bel and manners, and conflict with the New Tes- tament and its gospel of love.
There is something particularly instructive in the calm audacity with which any such dis- tinction is repudiated. Here is Canon Car- hael, of the Protestant Church of Ireland :—
The Bible hardly seems to see any evil in war at all. The Lord Jesus never says a word against war. John the Baptist gives advice to soldiers, but never condemns their profession. SL Paul revels in military phrases. The :y of the world is full of wars, thus must war be con- genial to the mind of God in His evolution of huma Jf tat dots God care for death J What does God care for pain 1
-rw s v. iTH *>******
Assuredly we must DC, in a peculiar sense, ' His children/ for we do His work with such good heart!
There is, of course, nothing new in this. The press during the Crimean War furnishes :ty of similar convenient doctrine, which may be summarized in the following passage from a sermon of Charles Kingsley in support of that 'ju : —
the Lord Jesus Christ is not only the Print* of
Peace. He is the Prince of War too. He is the Lord of
-, the God of Armies ; and whosoever fights in a just
52 The Psychology of Jingoism
war against tyrants and oppressors, he is fighting on Christ's side, and Christ is fighting on his side ; Christ is his Captain and his Leader, and he can be in no better service. Be sure of it, for the Bible tells you so.
Will Kingsley's confident assumption that the Crimean was 'a just war against tyrants and oppressors ' (as indeed all our wars have ever been !) cause any to reflect upon the similar confidence which they repose upon those who have assured them of the justice of this war ?
Canon Newbolt and Dean Farrar have been foremost among English Churchmen in their enforcement of the Divine nature of war, and the acceptance of the doctrine that ' car- nage is His daughter.1 But the spirit of this British Christianity is most aptly rendered in the glowing words of * a most venerable and excellent prelate,' the Archbishop of Armagh, with which Dean Farrar concludes his glori- fication of the hell which is being enacted in South Africa : —
And, as I note how nobly natures form
Under the war's red rain, I deem it true , fy \ *°
That He who made the earthquake and the storm
Perhaps makes battles too. . Thus as the heaven's many coloured flames
At sunset are but dust in rich disguise, The ascending earthquake-dust of battle frames
God's picture in the skies."
Christianity in Khaki 53
Such meaty doctrine is perhaps too definite for archiepiscopal expression in this country. But the heads of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church give their assent to the peculiar mission of England, and ap- prove war as a righteous instrument. The Archbishop of Canterbury expresses ' the con- viction that this call, which is made to all the world which has heard the name of Ch; is yet made specially to us, because, of all nations on the face of the earth, there is none that has the same opportunities of teaching every other land the truth. There is no other nation that can stand by the side of England and the Church of England in the demand that is being made by God upon the exertion of all our energies in this cause.1
This episcopal announcement of the special
call of England is officially endorsed by the
Prime Minister, who holds that 'the course
of events, which I should prefer to call the
acts of Providence, have called this country to
exercise an influence over the character and
progress of the world such as has never been
exercised in any empire before,' a doctrine
:^h is more explicitly set forth in a recent
ress given by the saintliest of his sons.*
* Hon. H. Cecil (Annual Meeting S.P.C, Church
54 The Psychology of Jingoism
4 It is impossible not to feel that there was a providential scheme in these things ; and that the English people were called in quite a special manner to undertake what was a universal Christian duty/ An interesting commentary upon the providential nature of the scheme and the speciality of manner is afforded by some ingenious admissions by which Lord H. Cecil qualifies his commenda- tion of the new Imperialism. 'A great many people were most anxious to go with their whole hearts with what might be called the Imperial movement of the day, but had, as it were, a certain uneasiness of conscience whether, after all, this movement was quite as unpolluted with earthly considerations as they would desire it to be.' Is it possible that Lord H. Cecil has been dipping into the reports of the Chartered Company or the Consolidated Goldfields ? But a still more instructive sentence follows : 'He thought that by making prominent to our own minds the importance of missionary work, we should to some extent sanctify the spirit of Imperial- ism/
If this means anything, it means that foreign missions are to float Imperialism. It is inter- esting to consider the proposal in conjunction
Chri>ti.mitv in Khaki 55
the related proposal to use mission order to float foreign trade.
The following passages from a recent Report of the British Consul at Canton states with admirable lucidity the advantages of this 'com- .' ' Immense services might be rendered to our commercial interests, if only the members of t ;ious missions in China would co-
operate with our Consuls in the exploitation of the country and the introduction of com- mercial as well as of purely theological ideas to the Chinese intelligent Which is to float which, is clearly indicated in the following comment : ' To the sceptical Chinese the in- terest manifested by a missionary in business affairs would go far towards dispelling the sus- picions which now attach to the presence in r midst of men whose motives they are unable to appreciate, and therefore condemn as unholy ' — a sentence which, for completeness of analysis, leaves nothing to be desired. This scheme of utilizing the ' commercial instinct * for missionary purposes is quite the most ingenious scheme for reconciling God and mammon-worship that has been produced.
From the Christianity of the Archbishops we are led through the Imperial Christianity of Lord H. Cecil and the strictly business
56 The Psychology of Jingoism
Christianity of the China Consul, until we have not many steps to take to reach the Christianity of the sleek gentleman in Tennyson's Sea Dreams —
Who, never naming God except for gain, So never took that useful name in vain ; Made Him his catspaw, and the Cross his tool, And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool
Remembering that the Boers are also owners of a tribal God and a particular Providence, to which they have adhered with more vigour and consistency than we, it seems only reasonable to impute some of the fervour which our priests and politicians are displaying to the competitive spirit which operates more powerfully just now when we can make such a good use of God for our special national ends. To displace the 'pious Boer' in the good books of the Al- mighty, to outbid him by offers of active mis- sionary work, to display the superior attractions of our up-to-date New-Testament Christianity as compared with the narrow, antiquated, Old- Testament religion of the Boers, has been the task of innumerable pulpiteers during the last eighteen months. The boldest attack in this effort to dislodge the Boer from the seat of Divine favour has not been a frontal one : it has consisted in a charge of hypocrisy against
Cl nitv in Khaki 57
Mr. Kruger and his burghers, who, we ass
Almighty, do not mean the pious words they say, and whose inconsistent and unholy conduct we invite Him to reprobate. The complete self-confidence implied in these im- putations, our free, careless handling of this nd recoiling charge, have in them a depth of sardonic humour which will give his finest material to the historian of the Imperial episode.
This claim to a monopoly, by right, of the Divine favour is reasserted in all our public acts of worship. We do not appeal to the Almighty to determine the justice of our cause as a judge, rather we instruct Him as a counsel, begging Him to accept an assurance of the justice of our cause from us, who know the facts. The gross impudence of this official posture swallowed up by its humour, which reaches perhaps its zenith in the pra\ >mmended
by the Archbishops before the General Election, h endorsed the policy of Mr. Chamberlain in South Africa, with its pious request that ' all things may be so ordered and settled that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion ami piety may be established among us for all generations/
The effect of these high pronouncements of
58 The Psychology of Jingoism
the rectitude of British policy and the corre- sponding wickedness of our enemies upon thr untutored mind of the lesser clergy of the land might have been anticipated by those familiar with the parson in his character of politician. The stream of ignorant malice which has poured weekly from the pulpits defies chemical analysis and may perhaps be indicated best by the following quotations, whose terse mendacity requires no comment.
Here is the famous Edgar case, as presented in writing by the Rev. E. K. Elliott, the Vicar of Broad water : —
I may mention that a year ago a Mr. Edgar, when standing at his door, was shot dead by a Boer who hap- pened to be passing, simply because he recognized him to be an Englishman.
The same cleric is responsible for the following story of Cronje : —
To-day a gentleman called upon me who, eight years ago, was in the Transvaal, and, what is more, a guest of Cronje during part of his sojourn in that country. Whilst with Cronje he saw him shoot two old Kaffir women because (as he said) they were too old for work I
The Rev. John Alsopp, who claims personal experience in South Africa, is accredited with the following : —
Christianity in Khaki 59
Paul Kniger had been charged with wedging a young
girl between two pieces of wood and sawing both wood and
hrough the middle because she refused to divulge the
try secrets of her own tribe. That charge had not
been denied.
It is, however, not only by the priests that Jesus has been hailed as a ' Prince of War.1 Our generals have not been slow to utilize the religious sentiment for military purposes, and every soldier going to the front has been fur- nished with a talisman in the form of a New Testament decorated on the front with the Union Jack, accompanied by texts about 'the blood/ well attuned both to the occasion and the habitual language of Tommy Atkins.
To this khaki Bible a brief preface by Lord \\ <>lseley is appended, recommending the book in the following terms : ' In my opinion, there could be nothing more suitable for the spiritual comfort of a soldier on active service than this Testament.' A caviller might be disposed to smile at the italics of Lord Wolseley, which seem to imply that an army on a peace footing gets its spiritual comfort from some other source. But the patronage thus extended by the late Commander-in-Chief to the New Testa- ment suggests a more serious question. Does not Lord Wolseley presume too much upon
60 The Psychology of Jingoism
the ethical obtuseness of a Tommy when h<* invites him to peruse, I will not say the elevated doctrine of the Sermon on the Mount, but the maxims of common honesty and truth contained within the pages of the book ? Does he not fear that these maxims may conflict with soldierly duty and corrupt the military efficiency of the army ? What are the ethics of the soldier ? The following succinct state- ment affords a sufficient answer : —
As a nation we are brought up to feel it a disgrace to succeed by falsehood ; the word ' spy ' conveys in it some- thing as repulsive as slave. We will keep hammering away with the conviction that honesty is the best policy, and that truth always wins in the long run. These pretty little sentences do well for a child's copy-book, but the man who acts upon them in war had better sheathe his sword for ever.
This passage from the ' Soldier's Pocket- book/ by Sir Garnet Wolseley, I commend to the notice of the distinguished patron of the New Testament, and to the bishops and clergy who are so impressed by the 'cleansing/ ' bracing/ ' fortifying' influences of war.
Christianity in Khaki 61
APPENDIX
• following letter, culled from the pages of the Man- duster Guardian, deserves a more permanent attention as an example of serviceable satire :—
THK CHURCH AND WAR
'4- Editor of the ' Manchtsttr Guardian:
, — I see that 'the Church's duty in regard to war1 is to be discussed at the Church Congress. That is right For a year the heads of our Church have been telling us what war is and does— that it is a school of character, that it sobers men, cleans them, strengthens them, knits their hearts, makes them brave, patient, humble, tender, prone to self-sacrifice. Watered by ' war's red rain,1 one bishop tells us, virtue grows; a cannonade, he points out, is an * oratorio ' — almost a form of worship. True ; and to the Church men look for help to save their souls from starving for lack of this good school, this kindly rain, this sacred music Congresses are apt to lose themselves in wastes of words. This one must not — surely cannot, so straight is the way to the goal It has simply to draft and submit a new Collect, for war in our time, and to call for the reverent but firm emendation, in the spirit of the best modern thought, of those passages in Bible and Prayer-book by which even the truest of Christians and the best of men have at times been blinded to the duty of seeking war and ensuing it
Still, man's moral nature cannot, I admit, live by war alone. Nor do I say, with some, that peace is wholly bad. Even amid the horrors of peace you will find little shoots of character fed by the gentle and timely rains of plague and famine, tempest and fire ; simple lessons of patience and courage conned in the schools of typhus, gout, and stone ; not oratorios, perhaps, but homely anthems and rude hymns
62 The Psychology of Jingoism
played on knife and gun, in the long winter nights. from me to 'sin our mercies,' or to call mere twilight dark. Yet dark it may become. For remember that even these poor makeshift schools of character, these second-bests, these halting substitutes for war — remember that the efficiency of every one of them, be it hunger, accident, ignorance, sickness, or pain, is menaced by the intolerable strain of its struggle with secular doctors, plumbers, inven- tors, schoolmasters, and policemen. Every year thousands who would once have been braced and steeled by manly tussles with small-pox or diphtheria are robbed of that blessing by the great changes made in our drains. Every year thousands of women and children must go their way bereft of the rich spiritual experience of the widow and the orphan. I try not to despond, but when I think of all that Latimer owed to the fire, Regulus to a spiked barrel, Socrates to prison, Job to destitution and disease — when I think of these things and then think how many of my poor fellow- creatures in our modern world are robbed daily of the priceless discipline of danger, want, and torture, then I ask myself — I cannot help asking myself — whether we are not walking into a very slough of moral and spiritual squalor.
Once more, I am no alarmist. As long as we have wars to stay our souls upon, the moral evil will not be grave; and, to do the Ministry justice, I see no risk of their drifting into any long or serious peace. But weak or vicious men may come after them, and it is now, in the time of our strength, of quickened insight and deepened devotion, that we must take thought for the leaner years when there may be no killing of multitudes of Englishmen, no breaking up of English homes, no chastening blows to English trade, no making, by thousands, of English widows, orphans, and cripples — when the school may be shut, and the rain a drought, and the oratorio dumb. — Yours, &c.,
A PATRIOT.
August$o, 1900.
CHAPTER IV
VAINGLORY AND SHORT-K.HI
NGLOR^ i* a Tlianrfmriirtit ^h'ch a Jingo-
with the
len peoplf p*hihits fa common wit child and the savage. The naive braggadocio ol the latter, expressed in boastful claims and (where imagination is strong) in detailed inven-
i of dangers and difficulties overcome rightly regarded as a note of irrationality rather th^t> of immnrality. Even Falstaffwith his -J men in buckram half credits
story as he tells it : sheer self-assertion drives the mind of the savagejorjdie child to multiply s and (exaggenufr their size ; the delusions are genuine, and telling them to others feeds and strengthens them. Confront such a child or savage with plain fact or figure, ancfhe will in-tray a most extraordinary cunnin- in avoiding it, so as to
which pampers that pride of personality which is the roftt <*F t*i*fhftQ$ So with a people
64 The Psychology of Jingoism
which falls back on its barbaric nature and gives it temporary dominion. Its loss of per- spective, inability to test evidence, reversal" of normal standards of value, make it a prey to the crudest dupery and bring- it to a stat mind which is as humorous as it is pitiful.
Tlu-rc is no plainer evidence of the denation- alizing power of the war-spirit than the infantile vanity which it sustains in contradiction of most certain facts. Let me illustrate. A little before the outbreak of war, when it was desirable to show that the Boers were but a small minority of the population in the Transvaal, they were commonly set down at some sixty thousand men, women, and children : the smallncss of this number served to enhance the enormity of the tyranny they were held to exercise, while it stimulated interference by making coercion seem easy. After the outbreak, whpn thing* went badly with us, the same mob-mind _which had swallowed the earlier figures found no difficulty whatever in believing that these Boers, with the Free Staters and rebels, had a force in the field amounting to eighty thousand, or even a hundred thousand adult males. In point of fact, history Is likelyto arrive at the conclusion that we despatched nearly a quarter of a million men against a foe which never
ml Sliortsight 65
is much as forty thgusand all told.
indeed, no one who took the best available
s of the population of the Republics
of the 'ilMoya! Colony
could reach a higher figure. In view of :
icre not an exquisite humour in l>eal
made by the Dean of Canterbury in a send-off
sed to the East Kent Yeomanry,
rounding off an eloquent period by quoting
caulay's famous lines : —
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his lathers
And the temples of his gods ?
The psychological puzzle is a most interesting one. Here is a people, the great majority of whom know quite well that our forces are vastly superior in numbers to the Boers (their indignation at the insolence of the ultimatum being based chiefly on the smallness of the people), that our soldiers are mostly profes- sionals, thrirs amateurs ; that our control of the material resources which ultimately decide a war are incomparably greater ; and yet they are capable of feeling the same sort of mental elation when the tide of victory turns t«>\\\irJs
US as if \VC hail SlU-Crssful!)
66 The Psychology of Jingoism
or Russia. Instead of being astonished or ashamed that our armjes_take^ so longl in executing (most imperfectly as now appears) a job the small size of which was plainly recognized at the outset, and of visiting the blame upon the Government or the generals, the mind of thepeople is swollen with agenuine pride~at our achievement, which seems^quite capable of leading her, upon some slight pro- vocation, into conflict with some strong Con- tinental power. This exultation does not arise from any consideration of the real difficulties involved in such a campaign, conducted at so great a distance from the base, but is simply a savage burst of triumph such as carries men to all absurdities or enormities in an hour of victory.
This vainglory is even likely to lose us the gain which might issue from our disastrous experience. It is true that its presence does not prohibit a sense of uneasiness, which clamours for a radical reform of our military system and a great increase of our army and our navy — the logical contradiction involved in this demand does not cause any difficulty. But our childish self-esteem is such that the most instructive criticism of our conduct of the cam- paign, issuing, as it must, from Continental
V inglnrv ;uul Sliortsight 67
soldiers serving with the enemy, is lik< -ly not so much to fall unheeded on our ears as to awa a perverse resentment, which will prevent us from accepting just those strictures which it most important that we should accept Close 1 il with this vainglory is a com-
plete cancelment of all sane, normal grasp of the laws of moral causation ; as the one rests on a distortion of vision, the other rests upon a shortening of vision. The child and the savage live in and for the present So does the Jingo. This is the real explanation of his view of 'settlement* — a short, sharp display of physical force stamping out ' rebellion/ and nded by an administration of 'good govern- ment' under autocratic rule. This 'settle- ment* is no result of reflection; it ignores all the moral or ' sentimental ' factors which practically direct history ; it is simply the hot- headed resentment of a victorious foe eager to quit the field of conflict and retire to rest or revelry. A formal settlement, a superficial pacification, can be effected by such means; but to speak of ' finality ' in connection with a settlement which feeds every root of hostility in the conquered people, and merely prevents cling from finding vent in violent conduct, is simply to turn our back upon the plainest
68 The Psychology of Jingoism
lessons of all history. It is to substitute a formal settlement adjusted to a five years* fnrns for a rea) settlement of a permanent character. Such shortsight, c<> with a
< mviction that a reign of force will bring peace and contentment, is not really to be dignified by the name ' policy ; ' it simply wraps up in empty phrases about ' good government ' and ' equal rights ' the primi- tive savage lust of the victor in stamping on a fallen foe, and dragging him in chains at the back of his triumphal car. A lingo-ridden people looks neither before nor
in and for the preg^nt P1n"^i like fither-hniles.
CHAPTER V
THE ECLIPSE OF HUMOUR
WITH the abandonment of a sane, constant, >nal judgment the jingo loses all true sense oihumour, and thus exhibits one more dis- tinctive sign ol savagery] A tool public that
the recently-detected liars of the press, that will belaud with adulation the very generals who have been officially discredited, that will commend the perfection of themilitary com- missariat and hospitals upon The interested
: 'nrmy *tf frh* w>ry officials whoSC Conduct
is calledin question, while they ignore" the Jc tailed, unprejudiced evidence of tKeFr own liaTTstarved and neglected relatives at the ftuiil, lhat will abuse the courage and the prmyess of their fog, at the very time they are lierly ualities of those who fail to conquer them —a
jo The Psychology of Jingoism
and stands half-indignant, half-incredulous, when it is exhibited as a laughing-stock to the civilized peoples of the world, could surely afford no more convincing proof of its mental collapse.
When we charge the Boers with the very illegalities and outrages of which we ourselves are guilty, Europe flings in our la<& flic-net unnatural taunt of ' hypocrisy,' and the virtuous scorn which we exhibit in contemning the taunt affords convincing proof to our critics. For all that, ' hypocrisy ' fails to hit the mark ; ' hypocrisy' implies judgment and calculation, and these are just the qualities which arc eminently lacking ; ' hypocrisy ' ignores the true humour of the psychology of Jingoi An illustration will serve to make clear my meaning. We are quite genuine in the in- dignation we display against the Boers for shooting our soldiers with 'explosive' bullets; it is, we quite believe, a barbarous practice such as \ve ourselves would not adopt. Now, even in the midst of this indignation we are aware that the so-called * explosive ' bullets qjrc» nor"Ex* plosive, but expansive, and that there is no evidence at all of any use of explosive bullets. Somewhere in the background of our mind we retain an uneasy recollection that the expansive
The Eclipse of Humour
bullet is a British invention, and that in i
ie Hague, in spite of the remonstrances ol all the other Powers (except America), we
JnsisUul upon the ri-ht to use it. Most of u> have failed to forget that, at the beginning of the war, these expansive bullets were served out to the troops sent out for active service. Although the Hague Conference, by a decisive vote on June 22nd, 1899, faacl condemned the use of those bullets known k IV., Mr.
G. Wyndham, Under Secretary ol State for War, in answer to a question in the House of Commons, July nth, replied: 'Mark IV. has been the service bullet for the TfiitMi Army since February, 1898. ami as such h : issued to our troops in South Africa.' It is true ocT March 23rd of
1900, Mr. Wyndham said: 'Mark IV. was the regulation bullet, and the original garrison in South Africa had it ; but it was recalled, and
.or been issued in this campaign.'
Now, from the evidence of British officers,
we know that these bullets were not actually
recalled from use until January ;th — i.e. three
months after the beginning of the war — and
that General Baden-Powell, having no other
ammunition left, continued to use them after-
\ls in Mafeking. Many British troops were
72 The Psychology of Jingoism
captured during the early weeks of the war, and much of our ammunition was taken by the Boers. The latter have asserted that such ansive bullets as they have used consist of our captured ammunition, and it is known that the ordinary Mauser ammunition served out at the beginning of the war to the commandoes was neither explosive nor expansive. When Lord Roberts, on March nth, addressed to the President of the two Republics his protest against the use of 'explosive* bullets, con- demning them as a 'disgrace to any civilized Power/ he must have known (i) that Mr. Treves and other eminent surgeons had not only denied the use of ' explosive ' bullets, but had reported : ' It is evident from their [i.e. the Boers'] wounds that the Lee-Metford is not so merciful as the Mauser;' (2) that Mark IV. or Dum-dum bullets had been in use by our troops when their ammunition had been taken, and (3) that the Webley expansive revolver-bullet had been in general use at Elandslaagte and elsewhere until a War Office order was issued, dated March 28th, prohibit- ing its use ' until further orders.'
All the available evidence tends to show that we invented and used expansive bullets against the Boers, and that such expansive
The Eclipse of Humour 73
bullets as they used were taken from us. In face of such evidence we charge the enemy with explosive bullets, and are righteously
indignant at his doing so.
Yet this is not rightly styled hypocrisy ; it is m< ntal collapse, accompanied by an absence of common sense of humour which, in normal minds, aids reason in detecting palpable incon- sistencies or absurdities.
Were it worth while, we might adduce an almost infinite variety of inst of this
mental confusion exhibiting itself in grotesque reasoning. Had our personal feelings been disengaged, no people would have been quicker tlun ourselves to recognize the heroic courage of two such nations standing up in bold challenge for their rights against the largest •ire of the world. At the opening of the however, it was the smallness of the people that particularly roused our indignation at the insolence ; it seemed to us that confidence of bearing and audacity of language were rights appertaining only to ' Great Power It
might seem reasonable that the success of the Boers, not merely in resistance, but in attack, should tend to reduce our sense of their insolence. Not so, however; we continue to harp upon the smallness of their numbers as a
74 The Psychology of Jingoism
grievance. Just as so small a people had no right to issue such an ultimatum, so now armies so small have no claim to be treated as armies, but only as bands of marauders, guerillas, etc. Considering our difficulty in tackling our tiny adversary, it might appear somewhat mean, as well as irrelevant, to abuse him for his small- ness ; but such meanness and irrelevance belong to the Jingo spirit, and furnish to bystanders its most exquisite humour. To call it * hypocrisy ' is to spoil. its flavour. It is the genuineness of our conviction that * rights' go T)y"siz'yi> which makes the essence^ rtlfl gflfe. « Small people have small rights,' is to us just now a quite self-evident proposition. The humour which other people see in our charges of cowardice against the Boers because they won't stand on the sky-line and let us shoot at them, or come out and mass on the open within range of our guns ; the various allegations of unfair fighting we bring against them ; the Times with its deprecation of our excessive 'leniency1 and 'humanity;' the 'bogus' plots against Lord Roberts ; the entire detailed procedure of ' a war undertaken in the cause of justice and civilization ' — the lambent humour of all this is unfortunately lost to us in our dull ferocity ; but it is there, and others see it.
The Eclipse of Humour 75
It is precisely in these detailed follies, and not in the l.ir^n .vork, that history re-
peats itself. There is a full page of the Bigelow
/>*rs bearing on the Mexican War which study for its minute exposure of the sort of humour which our conduct is just now providing for the gaiety of nations : —
Afore I came away from home I had a strong persuasion That Mexicans worn't human beans, an ourang-outang
nation,
A sort of folks a chap could kill an' never dream on't arter, No more'n a fellowM dream o* pigs that he hed bed to
alarter.
I'd an idee that they were built arter the darkee fashion all, An' kickin' colored folks about, you know, 's a kind o'
nation But wen I jined I worn't so wise ex that air Queen o'
Shecby, , come to look at 'em, they ain't much diff'rent from
what we be,
here we air ascrougin' 'em out o' their own dominions, Ashcltcrin' 'em, as Caleb sez, under our eagle's pinions,
i means to take a feller up jest by the slack o' 's
trowsis,
walk him Spanish clean right out o' all his homes an*
houses; Wai, it does seem a curus way, but then hooraw fer
Jackson 1
It must be right, fcr Caleb sez it's regular Anglo-Saxon. The Mexicans don't fight fair, they say, they pU'n all the
water,
da amazin* lots 'o things that isn't wat they oughter ;
7 6 The Psychology of Jingoism
Bein' they haint no led, they make their bullets out of copper
An' shoot the darned things at us, which Caleb sez ain't proper;
He sez they'd ougK to start right up an' let us pop 'em fairly
(Guess when he ketches 'em at thet, he'll hev to git up airly).
Thet our nations bigger 'n theirn art so its rights air bigger^
An' thet if s all to make 'em free that we air pullirt trigger.
Thet Anglo-Saxondom's idee's abreakin' 'em to pieces,
An' thet idee's thet every man does just wat he damn pleases ;
Ef I don't make his meanin' clear, perhaps in some respex I can,
I know thet * every man' don't mean a nigger or a Mexi- can.
Read Dutchman for Mexican, and the senti- ments of Hosea Bigelow are seen to be identical with those of our own Yellow Press and of 1 British South Africa/
The bankruptcy of national humour is, how- ever, best exhibited in two convictions obsti- nately planted in the Jingo mind. The first is a general belief in the 'badness' of the Boer, of such sort that, when an inventive press produces any new specific but unsup- ported charge, as of shooting prisoners, poison- ing wells, firing on ambulances, we know that it is true, because it is just the sort of thing ' the wicked Boer would do/
The Eclipse of Humour 77
1 Never forget to slander those you have This self-protective instinct in a nation which has reached a :\ sta^e in
the evolution of morals is aptly illustrated by Mr Gilbert Murray in the following fabler- Consider the fowls of the air. A very pretty small bird, the great Tit, when hungry, will lift up its beak, split open its brother's head, and proceed to eat his brains. It might t>e satisfied, think you ? Not at all ! It has a moral : c, you must please to remember, which demands to be satisfied as well as the physical. When it has finished its brother's brains, it first gets very angry and pecks the dead body ; then it flies off to a tree and exults. What is it angry with, and why docs it exult ? It is angry with the profound wickedness of that brother, in consequence of which it was obliged to kill him ; it exults in the thought of its own courage, firmness, justice, moderation, generosity, and domestic sweetness.0
Depend upon it, the comedy thus provided is not lost upon our Continental neighbours, and it helps to swell the humour of another of our Jingo attitudes — our claim that the achieve- ments of our arms in South Africa redound to the military prestige of the Empire. 'See how all our Colonies rally round us, how brave and enduring are our soldiers, how skilful our commissariat, how scientific our generalship, how firm and successful our career of conquest." Our neighbours are convinced that we are * International Journal cf Ethics, October, 1900.
7 8 The Psychology of Jingoism
fully conscious of our real defects, and that we are assuming this bold, triumphant pose in order to brave it out ; and, being thus con- vinced, they miss the full humour of the pro- ceeding. For we are quite genuine in our quaint persuasion that we are heaping glory on ourselves, and are establishing a splendid prestige in the eyes of the world : the contempt of European nations is, we feel certain, a mere affectation bred of jealousy, while their un- concealed hostility is proof of the real respect which our prowess has produced.
The psychical root-cause of this collapse of humour, with the extraordinary misjudgments to which it lends itself, is the total eclipse of sympathetic imagination involved in the self- absorption of the fray. The Jingo spirit is a blind fury, which disables a nationfrom fl-ettinft outside itself or recognizing the im-
p«i*ml nprv-fnfr>r [p annf-Vi^r Here IS tHe
quintessence of savagery, a complete absorp- tion in the present details of a sanguinary struggle inhibiting the mental faculties of imagi- nation and forethought which are the only safeguards of a policy.
CHAPTER VI
THE INEVITABLE IN POLH
THE crude form of religious superstition, the
reversion to belief in ' England's God/ a
>arian tribal deity who fights with and for
our big battalions, has already been sufficiently
described. It remains, however, to direct
ntion to a quasi-philosophic superstition
>ked to aid and abet our aggressive policy.
The doctrine of ' the inevitable ' is not new,
nor is it confined to the larger issues of public
animating its responsibility for success and fa'Uure, imputing to itself1 as fl persopal m/>n'f apYthlPtf tt&F turns out well. ejcplt>'"'"pr a
by reference to the
inherent * cussedness ' of external thin-s. What teacher'is not familiar with thr naive ; action, " I got this sum right, but the other one would come wrong ' ? The same sense of marked by an utter repudiation of per- sonal responsibility, is illustrated by the theory
79
8o The Psychology of Jingoism
of the total depravity of inanimate objects, which most domestic servants embody in the familiar phrase, ' It came to pieces in my 'and'
No one can follow up the various forms assumed by this doctrine, as illustrated in private life, without perceiving its one-sided application. The things that we ' cannot help* are always the things that go wron^T Now, this 'heads I win, tails you lose1 philo^ sophy is not conclusive to reflecting persons, even where their private affairs form the subject-matter. In^ politics jt is noteworthy that the 'inevitable* is alwavsevoked to defend a primd facie bad case. The doctrine is as old, far older, than ' politics ' itself ; early thinkers gave it concrete support from ' astro- logy,' imputing * disasters ' of a very human origin to the malign conjunctions of heavenly bodies, or locating 'the inevitable1 in the mischievous will of some offended deity, or in some fateful power transcending even the divine. In recent times it comes up with a new garb, a new pomp of phraseology. New England Puritanism seems largely responsible for the language of the latest revival, the stern lu-ic of Calvinism tending to transmutfijjjoyi- dcncc into, a harder... sort of destiny. At any rate, it is significant that the doctrine of
The Inevitable in Politics
^Klanilcst DestinyJ defined not inaptly by the humourist Josh Billings, asj the science of going to the devil before you yet there/ first assumed prominence ^s 3t condgfnnflrioD of one nf ft* tpost indefeqgible acts of American
lory — the Mexican War.
A pseudo-scientific view of history has been used to support this new predestinarianism in
politics. In pre-scientific days nations and
m.livifliialQ qmting the lands of other people — for example, the buccaneers and advei of the great Tudor age— did not prate of mani- ^lestiny, or seriously plead * the mission of quite recent times history showed little else than the lusts and interests of individuals, classes, nations, working naked and unashamed in a world of chances; the 1 reign of law ' was little recognized in the affairs of men. Even nowadays the actual men who play so important a part in poll; as diplomatists, administrators, concession- mongers, are quite aware that the events which most concern them are anything but ^inevitable ' — that it is a very ' touch and go ' affair whether they get What they waflt or not, a matter of carfeftllly balancSTmovesjind counter-moves, plotting ana contriving ; though some of these are discreet enough in their
G
82 The Psychology of Jingoism
public utterances to^employ the phraseology of sham-scientific history, and talk oTThe of civilization/ imputing to ' movements,1 pendencies/ and ' forces' the events which arc actually clue to the conscious will of indi- vidual ir
Much of the vogue of 'the inevitable' is attributable to the sloppy thinking of popular historians, who, instead of applying modern conceptions of causation to enforce hnman responsibility, as they rightly do, use them to to exclude both individual and collective wilt as operative causes from the sphere of politics. Even writers of the well-earned reputation of Sir John Seeley and Mr. C. H. Pearson have sometimes lent their authority to a view of history which sees it composed of great tidal movements of economic or racial forces making for a partition of the earth which shall give such and such dominion to Russia or to Anglo- Saxondom, or marking out for China or the Negroid races certain portions of the globe as their predestined heritage.
This view of history lends itself to dramatic treatment and literary men are apt to play with it. A good illustration is the description which Victor Hugo gives of the actual working of events in the French Revolution, in his book ' Ninety-three ' :—
I IK- IIK \ u.ilik- in Politics 83
.s was a miracle- working wind. To be a member of
'onvention was to be a wave of the ocean. This was ^eatest. The force of impulsion came
on high. .1 in the Convention which
was that of all, and yet not that of any one person. This
was an Idea, an idea indomitable and immeasurable, which swept from the summit of heaven into the darkness below. We call this Revolution. \v.. :» that Idea passed, it beat down one and raised up another ; it scattered this man into foam, and dashed that one upon the reefs. This Idea knew whither it was going, and drove the whirlwind before it. To ascribe the Revolution to men is to ascribe the tide to the waves. The Revolution is a word of the unknown. Call it good or bad, according as you yearn
•ds the future or the past, but leave it to the power which caused it. It seems the joint work of grand events and grand individualities mingled, but it is in reality the result of events. Events dispense, men suffer. Events dispense, men sign— Desmoulins, Danton, Murat, Grcgoire, and Robespierre are mere scribes. The great and mys- terious writer of these grand pages has a name — God ; and a mask Destiny. The Revolution is a form of the eternal phenomenon which presses upon us from every quarter, and which we call Necc
This striking and instructive passage dis- closes the very heart of the fallacy. In the earlier sentences Hugo comes near to a t
explanation of the ar^nal phf»nnmpnnn-~yiy_ a
rfliirgg frf fVPnfg, which y^ms jp transcc ;jnl'v"llinl conscious direction, suggesting the t r "•• *»aiic*», *he opgrationjofa general or cdlec-
tjvn will, which he iu [ i:;iv, ;.r!\ , ..!:; > 1
84 The Psychology of Jingoism
But carried away by a dramatic frenzy, and wishing to emphasize the compulsion of this sway upon the individual, Tie places the motive power outside the will alike of individual and collective man, and so plunges into the doctrine of the Inevitable.
But surely, it will be said, a sound scientific view of conduct does legitimize the doctrine of ' the inevitable ; ' there are * laws ' and 1 forces ' of which philosophic historians must rightly take account. And this is true. The mistake consists in regarding the Maws' and 'forces' as powers external to the mind of man. The only direct efficient forces in history are human motives. How, then, arises this inhuman, or suprahuman, conception of 'the inevitable'? It arises in the following way: A number of different persons, groups, or classes — princes, politicians, soldiers, etc. — each seeking some particular end, form, by co-opera- tion and interaction, a complicated plan of policy, the whole of which is not visible or conscious to any one of the participants. The historian, seeing the resultant line of action, and the clear-cut pattern which it takes, abstracts this design, and, knowing that it does not proceed from the full conscious agree- ment of the agents, places it wholly outside
Tin- IiK-vituMe in Politics 85
r wills, and calls it 'inevitable9 or •destiny.'
The stress of party politics makes this view
a highly serviceable weapon of defence. When
nan asks, in some concrete case of
public conduct, ' Is it right to lie, steal, kill ? '
and wishes to press home some commonly
accepted rule of right or wrong, praise of
doctrine of ' the inevitable ' is cast
in his face ; he is told that it is idle to enter
minutely into the morals of a 'policy* which
.} accordance with the natural evolution of
events, or to scrutinize closely the pain, cm
and individual injustice which are involved in
:e historic workings.
Let us test this doctrine as it has been applied to the South African War. The par- ticular merits of the diplomacy of 1899, whether Ch^berhunT6r"_Kruger was the more dishonest or, i invalidity of the particular
ices which Uutlanders were said to suffer, the genuin. :-.-• ; ;!;•• >!• ::: i ! : : :
JJutch
conspiracy — these, it is contend.- !. : :. : •
jgajly vital issues ; they do not furnish a real
expjanation or justification for the waf^ * The
iggle between two opposed ideals, twcTTn"-
riKIe systems, Wa5 MUhd to come soonct
86 The Psychology of Jingoism
or later; the racial and economic antagonisms between" Boer and Briton were irreconcilable ; the affair is rightly regarded in the lar of a conllict of races, in which the race of louver social efficiency must yield place to the race of higher social efficiency. Nineteenth-century civilization was destined to destroy the obso- lescent civilization of the sixteenth century.'
Such is the jargon which ' sociologists ' offer as a screen for the naked iniquities of aggressive war. A condensed statement of this 'philo- sophy ' is comprised in the following sentences of the little volume in which M. Demolins dis- cusses the question, ' Boers or English : Who are in the Right ? ' —
When one race shows itself superior to another in the various externals of domestic life, it inevitably, in the long
run, gets the upper hand in public life, and cstablishes~~lts predominance. Whether this predominance is asserted' by peaceful means or feats of arms, it is none the less, when the proper time comes, officially established, and afterwards universally acknowledged I have said that this law is the only thing which accounts for the history of the human race and the revolution of empires, and that, moreover, it explains and justifies the appropriation by Europeans of territories in Asia, Africa, and Oceana, and the whole of our culunial
M. Demolins concludes that 'the present struggle between the Boers and the English is
The IiK-vitiNc in Politics 87
rely a ir ition of this law ' — a formula
which relieves him of the necessity of even
single page any of the at concrete issues that have arisen between the Transvaal and Great Britain. England hap- pens, through her colony, to be the nearest neighbour of the Transvaal, and, since neigh- bourhood of nations implies conflict, England was bound to measure her strength against the Tiflflfivaal and to assert her predominance; being of superior social efficiency, she is abl conquer, and has the right to do so. It matters nothing, according to M. Demolins, whether the particular quarrel which the nation of superior social efficiency picks with its weaker neighbour is justifiable or not; the law of competition among nations rises superior to such details. Some one objects, and seeks to raise questions such as, * What is the standard of social effi-
cy according To which you prdnSUTTCe I1- -I:' :i . iviT: it! >:) :i; «V->r t . " r : >:' Iv • conditions of life in tin: Transvaal ? What right has Britain to determine in her own cause tiie relative social superiority ? Will the socially superior nation retain this superiority intac she spreads it over an unlimited area of terri- tory taken forcibly from other peoples whom she is bound to rule by force?1 But to M.
88 The Psychology of Jingoism
Demolins and his sort all such questions are as irrelevant as is the question of the honesty of the avowed motive for such «i conflict. For the patinn pf superior social ^Hiciency 'inevi- tably gets the upper hand.' — from whiclTTie and his fellow-thinkers argue backwards that when you see a nation getting the upper hand of another, 'by peaceful means or feats of arms ' (a matter of perfect indifference which method is adopted !), you are aware that that nation is endowed with superior social efficiency and is fulfilling an inevitable law, is ' in the right/ according to the only sense that phrase can bear.
I give M. Demolins's argument this promi- nence, not merely because the book is advertised as * British Colonial Policy scientifically vindi- cated by a prominent Frenchman/ but because the argument does really formulate the feeling by which many Englishmen have been induced to brush aside the doubts and qualms arising in connection with the conduct of the Colonial policy of the British Empire by pushful states- men. The ' inevitable ' is a complete sedative of the old conscience, and, when convenient phrasemongers can identify it with ' the right,' it may even ' run ' a new conscience of its own.
The I' !>k- in Politics 89
Let me conclude by a brief statement of more salient falsehoods which underlie the argument of M. Demolins in its application to the South African v, ir. I n the first place, there no antagonism or fundamental mrojpjatr, bTTIty of races, ideglg| or gvftfrmQ ^>H>f^>n the olonies and Boer Republics. I )utch and British settlers \vm- divided I»y tin: MUM lines of cttstmctiveTv ^fiongrmc cTeavagfe in the Republics as in the Colonies — the Dutch, rural population, cultivating the soil ; the dwellers in the towns, concerned with the peaceful competition of snrial iH«yig :oms, languages, which was rapidly assi mi la- y^gflift^g£inffln1e<iT^^^(^olonies, had already made a^defiiiitebegiijiniiigLiiLthef Republics ; the cesses of silent assimilation were going on with satisfactory rapidity, until menaces and open violence interrupted them. The Dutch and British races have, as might be expected from their origin, fused easily and advan- tageously in England, in the United States, and, until lately, in Cape Colony ; the social and other divergencies were not those of the jenth and the nineteenth centuries, but merely of the mushroom civilization of the industrial town and the simpler, ruder conditions of cat tie -farm ing in a land where
go The Psychology of Jingoism
large farms and consequent social isolation were necessary. The differences of political and legal system between Colonies and Re- publics, of which so much has been made, were very slight in comparison with wh.u they held in common — the common impress of Roman Dutch law upon the administration of justice and its embodiment in similar statutes, the common system of local government, etc. Until the friction of the last few years occurred, the process of fusion was continuous and visible everywhere, slower in the Transvaal than in the Free State, in the Free State than in the Colony, but everywhere proceeding at an accelerated pace as railway and other com- munications gave more mobility to the popula- tion, and brought home a genuine identity of interests and the need of growing federation of States, for economic and social, if not for definitely political, purposes. The alleged 'inevitability* of conflict from rooted anta- gonism of systems is a mere piece of verbiage, the falsity of which was brought home to me most powerfully during my investigation of the political situation on the spot in the months preceding the war. The situation, with its approaching catastrophe, visibly resolved itself, not into externally compelling forces, but
The Inevitable in Politics 91
into certain moral factors of individuals, and groups of individuals, chiefly con of
ignorance, greed, and person mosity.
The inevitable was not responsibl the
misconduct Of Shifty
and Kruger, or for
under the Convention, the r« jection by our
•0MM^^toMMMMM^BflV^^^l>IIHTll*T^Vl^*^^'^BHHIIIIIB**|l^n^**H /" 1
statcsp.v n <>i arbitration di ;i means of settle-
t upon crnnnHs ef nanrev themselves a proper subject for a Court Arbitration. There was nothing 'inevitable^ in thf> ^t>ricatinn nf defa>"pfl falseb|Q^jfl by which British and Dutch colonists alike were incited to hostility, and by whirh tfo^ public it Rrjfain wsM? manipulated in the interests of men who were calculating
the 'profits1 they stood to make l,y war. The warlike preparations made on either side, the voting of supplies, the sending out of troops accompanied by Jingo trumpeting— these specific acts which made for war were none of them inevitable. The only point where I was brought into direct experience of anything which bore the semblance of ' in- ibility ' was in the tone and demeanour of
92 The Psychology of Jingoism
Sir Alfred Milner, who spoke, wrote, and acted if he recognized himself the chosen instru- ment of a plan to force a crisis in South Africa.
The only display of destiny was in the per- verse will of niSii ; eveiy tiling which, to the idle sprctal« ••-. ;ned to indicate the 'inevitable,' resolved itself into human motives.
Aswe were told war was inevitable. JSQ we are told annexation js inevitable. In the name of inevitability we are invited to banish justice and reason, whose protests are silenced by the false finality implied in the term. The distinc- tion between true and false laws of causation, as applied to national conduct, is here made manifest. Politicians invoke ' the inevitable ' for some brief expediency or some convenient emergency ; summoned in order to bless the lust of the moment, it remains to curse. The true laws of the Inevitable are not seen in short bursts of passion and the conduct they impel, but in the long rhythms and compen- sations of reason and justice. That abuse, which is nothing less than the impudent negation of international morality, a quasi- scientific sanction of collective theft, does not impair by one jot or one tittle the literal validity of the true law.
The great masterpieces of literature have
The IiK-vitaMc- in Polit 93
rpreted the real nature of the Inevitable as it shows in history. This conception
I the Greek dramatists under the form of Nemesis, the law of life whereby the past misconduct of a man, or its foot-
steps to its final fall. How powerfully do they, and with them the father of history, Herodotus, convey the lesson of the Hybris of Imperialism in the case of Persia ! The following words of Sophocles surely deserve the consideration of Mr. Chamberlain and his big Englanders : 4 Insolent infatuation begets the Tyrant. In- solence, if it be idly overfed with unseasonable and excessive food, ascending to a heady pro- montory, plunges into the sheer abyss of the Inevitable ( Anagki) where it can find no footing wherewith to walk/
Such laws of the Inevitable, of which the Greeks had prophetic glimpses, we can see governing the lives of all great empires of the past ; and yet, following the same road, we hope to escape the same fatal goal. This hope is itself the fruit of 'infatuation'; the danger-point of Empire is already reached when Hybris so swells the head and corrupts the intelligence as to suggest that we alone of Empires possess some special skill to dodge the inevitable.
94- The Psychology of Jingoism
Nowhere is this corruption of intelligence more plainly seen than in the short-ran-c finality attributed to annexation as a 'settle- ment/ Seen rightly, the crime called annex- ation is an absolute pledge of permanent unsettlement, by the natural operation of human motives. If the guilt of this war lay mainly with the Boer peoples, who, animated by vain ambitions, had themselves unworthily sought Empire, and the expulsion of British rule from South Africa — if they had planned and plotted for this end, as the financial-poli- ticians and their journalists still assert (without adducing a tittle of sound evidence) some con- sciousness of the justice of their heavy punish- ment would win its way into their hearts and sap their indignation : thus annexation might have become settlement. But this is not the case; the Boers are conscious of no such guilt, nor will they in long years of subjugation *tecognize the justice of their punishment. Annexation is not for them a Nemesis, the retribution of a lustful career, the penalty of an ambition that o'erleapt itself. On the contrary, the passionate sense of injustice will preserve and feed the sentiment of nationality ; and all who know the Boers, as friends or enemies, are agreed, whatever other qualities
The IiuvitaMc in Politics 95
of good or evil they impute to them, that one
stands out pre-emii know how to \v
The Nemesis brings out another
of 'the iiu-vitaMe.' Tragedy teaches
how hard a thing it is to kill a man. History
teaches how much harder it is to kill a nation.
There are two lines hi a doygeiei sun^, idling
the story of a famous martyr in the cause of freedom, the American John Brown, which, by a single stroke of passionate genius, convey the powerful truth : —
John Brown's body lies a-mouldcring in the grave, But his soul goes marching on.
In Shakespeare's tragedy the ghosts of the ms of oppression, the murdered ones, appear on the eve of the catastrophe to con- found, enfeeble, and unnerve the tottering tyrant.
There are those who think yet that, I can shoot down enough flfo'w an<* cftftfcejTie bodies of the others, all will go well ; nationality will thus be slain, the spirit 01 the Republics
it it is no idle rhetoric, it is the clear spinal teaching of history, which assures us that the soul of the nations we are bent on slaying will
96 The Psychology of Jingoism
not die ; that they will dog our footsteps in the dark and tortuous path of our Imperial career; that they will come upon us in an hour of weakness, when, enfeebled by a parasitic life of Empire, we are entangled in the meshes of our world-wide ambitions, and will help to paralyze us by their sudden presence, un- nerving us in the final struggle, and bringing home to us the true meaning of the inevitable in politics.
CHAPTER VII
ARE EDUCATED JINGOES HONEST ?
To many this outbreak of Jingoism has been peculiarly serviceable in revealing the tru<- acter of friends and acquaintances. In some cases the revelation has been peculiarly painful, because it has raised suspicions as to the intellectual honesty of men and women whom they have respected in the past, and to whom they have been attached by many bonds of fellowship. Some, it is true, urge them to put aside such suspicions as ' unworthy/ saying : " Surely you can admit that persons may differ from you, even on a vital issue like this, without imputing dishonourable motives to them. You havejio more right to regard th?ir convictions they have to denounce
Now, this advice is generous ; how far is it just ? The question of intellectual honesty is
97 n
98 The Psychology of Jingoism
a somewhat subtle one, and is not to be deter- mined in an offhand way. It does not arise in any real shape in the Jingoism of the ' masses,' which no one seriously pretends is based upon any information or understanding of the actual issues. The ebullition of passion there is merely temperamental violence, without any real substratum of intellectual conviction. ' Avenge Majuba.1 stirs^fiercgly the minds of lm^n ™fr^ haw no fcowledge of the historic incident. 'Save the British Empire' provokeT^cweiful.Jjgeling amongTthose who mi^rl "^*J^5n namp - 011r fflfti?r colonies- and know nothing of the danger to which that Empire is or is not exposed. This childish patriotism, untempered by knowledge, is a dangerous force in the hands of unscrupulous politicians, but it contains nothing that can be calleoT dishonest ; the hypnotic influence of certain phrases upon the mob-mind can hardly be dignified by such a term.
But how is it with educated persons who have abandoned themselves to the same passions, and who profess to be ' convinced ' of the justice and inevitability of the war? Are they equally honest in their ' con- victions ' ? Here one distinction must be made upon the threshold of the inquiry.
Are Educated Jingoes H^IK r ? 99
Dishonesty, in the sense of professing to believe what one does not really believe, is very rare at all times ; in this matter it may be safely regarded as undeserving of considera- tion. Those who profess to believe the war to
its.
question. Have they., used such reasonable care in of Hie evidence as
.est judgment f The most respectable case,
made out for those persons who have said : ' I have neither time nor ability to go into the merits of the matter ; but I know that we have had in Sir A. Milner a competent, impartial man upon the spot He has made a thorough investigation, and I accept his judgment. This ^^pUnfie of authority is
^erous, but it implies no dishonesty ;
where it is excessive, it is culpable indiscretion.
4 The man who knew Milner at Oxford,' or
others who have been impressed by the general
approval of his career and talents, are clearly
tied to give some weight to his audio:
t weight, however, is diminished if the
admirer has had the time and opportunity to
read the actual despatches which the High
Commissioner has written, for they bear upon
ioo The Psychology of Jingoism
their face signs of bias and of passion so clear
as rightly to evoke suspicion. The e<
man who falls back upon Sir A. Milner is,
however, indisputably in the strongest position of defence.
But this is not the normal intellectual position of the educated Jingo. He professes to be con- vinced from evidence of the corruption of the Boer oligarchy, the reality of the Outlander grievances, and of the danger to British power in South Africa from a Dutch conspiracy, and of the right these facts gave us to coerce and annex the Republics. Now, here again we may discriminate. The minds of many so- called educated persons arejsojgnsfifriteci tW a conviction simply means that a certain quantity of evidence of some sort or other has been put before them, or merely that a statement has been reiterated many times. Many persons are convinced that tin-re was a Boer conspiracy, and can even tell you what it was and what it aimed at. in. the same manner as they are con- vinced that CuhiKiii's is the best mustard, and Bryant and May's the best matches. The minds o7 such persons area hopeless prey _to political financial intriguers, who can control a sufficient number of newspapers and of other avenues of public information. These persons
Arc Educated Jingoes Honest? 101
get their convictions honestly, though these convictions can hardly be termed inul tual.
The case of others is different. Persons of more ability, accustomed in their business or profession to weigh evidence and to discrimi- nate, have, in many instances, refused to apply these reasonable tests to the evidence submitted to them on this issue. How many of us have had the experience of offering an ir book
or pamphlet to an educated Jingo, and receiving th£ reply : ' This is pro-Boyr. I wil| not read it.' JThe editors of Jingo journals have felt quite safe in continuing to repeat the most audacious falsehoods long after they have been exposed, simply because they knew that their readers, though perfectly aware that journals
:ed which gave another side, would not look at papers which opposed the war. Now,
attitude of mind has been the rule, and not the exception, among the classes which boast
r education and intelligence, and it is an attitude of dishonesty. Many well-informed Jingoes have been perfectly aware that certain business interests in South Africa have a powerful hold upon the press, and upon the kinds of information which reach the people of this country, and yet they have not cared to
102 The Psychology of Jingoism
endeavour to correct their judgment by going to any other source.
All Englishmen capable of the least reflection must have known that, in the nature of the case, they were only hearing one side of the matters at issue, and that some suspension of judgment was reasonable. Every one of the educated persons who are sothoroughly con- vinced o^ the justice of our
that it is likely that the Dutch nation in Holland, drawing nearly all their information from Dutch South African sources, are animated by a bias similar to, though not so strong ours, have received a mass of evidence directly contradictory to ours, and that their intellectual judgment has been formed in a fashion similar to ours.
"Vyilful disregard of these_f^9nsidprat'nns 'm- plies dishonesty. That dishonesty is evinced in, and illustrated by, specific cases of treatment of evidence. An example is the value attached to the interview which Mr. Theo Schreiner alleged that he had with Mr. Reitz, the State Secretary of the Transvaal, in which the latter admitted the plan to work for an independent Dutch republic. Here is a strong partisan, an agitator by profession, who produces from memory a long verbatim account of an
Are Edu Jingoes Honest ? 103
•view which took place eighteen years ago, ami of which no notes were take- time or afterwards. Now, such evidence would cany no weight whatever either in an English court of justice or in any ordinary affair of private business ; on the contrary, the verbatim character of the report would rightly discredit it among reasonable men. Yet this has been generally received as the best evidence for Dutch conspiracy. The application thus implied of a different standard of valuation of evidence to this issue is sheer intellectual dishonesty, for a man accustomed to test evidence cannot apply this different standard and not know that he is doing so. If it is argued that he does not know it, then he has permitted his normal intellect to be disordered by passion, and the 'dishonesty* removed from the specific instance is thrown back upon the process of permitting passion to enter the domain of intellect so as to usurp its functions.
PART II The Manufacture of Jingoism
CHAPTER I
THE ABUSE OF THE PRESS
THK most momentous lesson of the war is its
<>n of the inL-ihods_by which a knot of
men, financiers and politicians, can capture the
mind of iuuilun. arouse its passion, and impose
a policy. It is now seen that freedom of
^Bpch»public meeting, and press not merely
affords no adequate protection against "this
danger, but that it, is" Itself menaced and impaired ; the system of party, which Has
and
genuine scrutiny of every i: ., :!.:.: political proposal, been a strong safeguard against all endeavours of a clique or a class to exploit the commonwealth, nas broken down under the strain of an attack unprecedented in its vigour and in the skiH~bf its direction. It is of the gravest important- t > understand the methods of this manipulation of the public
107
io8 The Psychology of Jingoism
mind, for the combination ofr" industrial and -i>olitical forcea which has operated in this instance will operate a ;ain, and will copy the methods which have been successful once.
The information from South Africa which impressed upon the public mind a conviction of the justice and necessity of war, and which aroused and sustained the passion of Jingoism, did not flow freely into the country through many diverse, unconnected channels, as is commonly supposed. The extraordinary agree- ment of the metropolitan and provincial press, unionist and Liberal, religious and secular, ^in its presentation of leading facts, in its diagnosis of the situation and its pressure of a drastic policy, is doubtless responsible for the un-~ • wavering confidence which the great majority of the nation placed in the policy of the Government at the outset of the war. Such an amount of consentaneity seemed to attest a case of overwhelming strength. When the Government press was joined by the two leading Opposition organs in London, and by the great majority of important Opposition papers throughout the country ; when the non- political press, and, in particular, the most powerful journals of the Churches, urged the necessity of war, the doubts of intellect and
The Abuse of the Press 109
1ms of conscience in many minds were l)Orne by such un.mimity. When to this union of the press was added the voices of a thousand pulpits and ruction of a thousand platforms, where cllcrs, missionaries, politicians, and philan- thropists set forth substantially the same body and drew the, *-uuc murals, th<-
Jbr way nrrmnd un^finiaVl
It is little wonder that people unacquainted
i the structure of the press, and with
hods of educating public opinion, should have been imposed upon by this concurrence of testimony. If the papers which they read, and the speakers to whom they listened, had drawn their facts and their opinions from a
iety of independent sources, the authority they exercised would have been legitimate. But what was the actual case ? Turn first to the press, by far the most potent instrument in the modern manufacture of public opinion. The great majority of provincial newspapers,
1 most of the weeklies, metropolitan or provincial, religious as well as political, derive their ^formation regarding foreign and colonial afikjfj i entirely ffntn the chiet London < dailies/ supplemented, in the case of the more impor- tant organs, oy 'cables ' from the same soi:
no The Psychology of Jingoism
which supply the London * dailies.' Most provincial papers take not only their news but their 'views,' with abject servility, from the London journal which they most admire.
In a very few instances, important pro- vincial papers receive first-hand intelligence from special correspondents of their own by mail, but for all prompt intelligence they are absolutely dependent upon the sources above-mentioned. The otherwise miraculous agreement of the British press is, thus, first resolved into the agreement of a few journals, chiefly in London, and of two or three press agencies. We have next to ask from what sources do these latter get their information ? On this point the case of the South African war is peculiarly instructive. All the leading London papers received their South African intelligence from correspondents who were members of the staff of newspapers in Cape- town and Johannesburg, supplemented in two instances last year by information from special travelling correspondents, who, in their turn, derived most of that information from news- paper officesin South Africa. In particular, the "two t,ondon newspapers which exercised most influence upon the mind of the educated classes in this country, the Times and the
The Abuse- of the Press i i i
Daily News, were instructed, in the former case, bvthe newlv-appointed editor of^ ; Johannesburg Star, in the latter case by the
editor of the C//c- Tinu-s. The two cluef cable
companies also drew most of the Capetown
ligence from the Cape Times and the
Argus Company, while one of them was fed
Transvaal intelligence by a prominent
member of the Executive of the South African
League at Johannesburg.
The press unanimity in Great Britain is thus traced to certain newspaper offices in Capetown and Johannesburg. Now, if these half dozen newspapers had been independent and reliable
md the forcible
r^jf?i
.r»:nfttv
,.
policy they im
and tiic i public rniiiht have rcasonablv
carried weight. But _thcy_ were neither inde- pendent nor reliable ; they are members of a Bought and kept press. The Cape Argus, bought some years ago by Messrs. Rhodes, Barnato, and Eckstein, is now the nucleus of a Company, owning some half dozen papers in South Africa, and among them the Star of Johannesburg, whose editor instructed the readers of the London Times in the necessity of war. Since the capture of the Orange Frc< the Company has strengthened
ii2 The Psychology of Jingoism
resources by obtaining from the British military authorities the sole right to establish a news- paper at Bloemfontein. The newspapers at Kimberley and at Buluwayo are in the same hands, and the Cape Times is financially con- trolled by Mr. Rutherford Harris, a collea of Mr. Rhodes in his several financial ventures. The principal organs of public opinion at all the political pivots in South Africa are thus owned by the little group of men who also own or control the diamond mines at Kimberley, the gold-fields of the Rand, and the government and resources of Rhodesia.
In a country like South Africa newspapers are not in themselves either a safe or* a re- muncrative investment ; and it may be safely asserted that Messrs. Rhodes, Beit, Barnato, and Rutherford Harris put money into tHesT" newspapers for the same reason which induced Messrs. Eckstein to establish last year, at immense expense, the short-lived Tmiisiwal Leader — the desire to control the public mind. The business man in an English manufacturing town, the country vicar, or the college don, who has been convinced by the unanimity of the provincial and the London press in record- ing and endorsing the statement of Outlander outrages, the Dutch conspiracy, the cowardice
The Abuse of the Press i i ;
the treachery of the Boers, etc., might • had less confidence in his final judgn
known that he was reading news which been fashioned for his reading by the editors of Mr. Rhodes and of his business associate, who had, in their capacity of company directors, assessed the business value df a war
o this control of the press by business f business purposes lies at the vef root of 9
iuitc clear. We have traced the in-
n which corrupted the mind of the
ish public to a few South African journals
cd by the men who tried to ' rush ' the
Transvaal by treacherous force five years ago,
i admittedly moved by special business ends,
which they believed could be subserved by a
war conducted at the expense of the British
public. Now, these men do not write, though
they often inspire, the news and the articles of
press they own. The personal instrum< of their educational policy are the editors of their papers. It is by no means necessary to assume these editors are corrupt or dishonest, receiving pay, either from their employers or from outside persons, in order to fabricate or distort news or to write in a sense opposed to
I
H4 T'1C Psychology of Jingoism
their own judgment. That a corrupt and reptile press exists, not only on the Continent, but in great Britain and its colonies, in which false and biassed matter is inserted by means of proprietary compulsion or outside bribery, is indisputable. But it is not necessary to urge any such crude charge against Rhodesian editors. Take the case of Mr. Garrett, editor of the Cape Times, who is clearly entitled to be considered one of the necessary men in bringing about the war, inasmuch as his inflam- matory cablegrams to the Daily News visibly corrupted the policy of that powerful newspaper and seduced to Jingoism a large section of Liberals throughout the country, breaking the party for effective criticism of the Government policy in parliament and in the country. Mr. Garrett is indignant when the impartiality and independence of his position have been called in question : he has had an absolutely free hand and this was a condition of his employment. The same is the case with Mr. Monypenny, taken from the Times office to direct Mr. Rhodes' paper in Johannesburg, and to feed the most important paper in England at a most critical epoch in our history. What is the real worth of the protestations of these gentlemen ? The answer is plain. When these editors \vere
The Abuse of the Press i i 5
appointed, it was ascertained that they fay9ured the policy of the proprietors, and that they *
v.. 11! ! : - lH,i-!\ :•- work \ : ...n.u ,!y ,il •:. ; ;'.<•
desired lines ; if they departed icoi»4liMrtffies the
would write what
out to Capetown or Johannesburg will natural! y get his views and his informatio Ided by ^
• a the
him with 'exclusive infor- mati< >n which he cannot check, an him to m5P w^ gpp : TT> jllf* whflt 4 he
ought to kno\Y^ That the l.K.oil, the money, an J the honour of Great Britain should b< the mercy of talented young journalists floun- dering about on the surface of a turbid sea of politics and finance in a country quite strange to them, is indeed a terrible reflection.
The control of the London press by the Rhodesians is thus perfectly intelligible. It is right to add that for purposes of popular n they were particularly favoured by the efforts of the Daily Mail, which enlarged the bounds of London journalism in the provinces, spreading its yellow light in regions hitherto unapproached. Although the pro- prietors of the Daily MaU haw> hffifl ^
n6 The Psychology of Jingoism
holders in the Chartered Company, and that
. ...
from the same sources as the rest of the great London newspapers, such influences an course, not essential to explain the Jingoism of the cheap sensational press in any country.
In order to get an effective mastery of the press, itjs only necessary for the operators to purchase or control a certain number of in- fluential papers, which shall be used to mark a path of sensational policy and set tlv p.i <• : the self-interest of yellow journalism will do the rest.
It will be objected that too great an influence is here imputed to the South African press. * Surely/ it will be said, ' the facts and opinions thus communicated are corroborated from countless private sources of information. These are not the views of a few newspapers only ; the unanimous testimony of British South Africa endorses them.' And this is true.
But what is the essential worth of these feelings of British South Africans and of the 1 facts ' by which they support them ? Race feeling, since the Raid, has been terribly em- bittered, the minds of British and Dutch alike ( have been kept in a constant strain of hostile receptivity, drinking in each idle story which
The Abuse of tin 1 117
ignorance or malice has invented to stimulate antagonism. The mind of both races has been little else than avast maw of cn-dulity, incapable of testing statements or of w< evidence.
Most of the South Africans whose state- ments have been accepted here as independent first-hand evidence have had a very narrow, purely local, experience in some towns of the Colony or the Republics ; very few have mixed with the Boers, still fewer can speak the Taal. The outlander of Johannesberg, in particular, whose voice- was heard with so much respect as proceeding from the spot, had virtually no vledge of the Boer burgher population ; and even the grievances of which he prated so freely, he had learned from his newspapers and his League. The slightest investigation of the innumerable statements from South Africa discloses the fact that nine-tenths of evidence is the mere reproduction of the paragraphs of those very newspapers which I have named. e saloon, the club, the
train, and other common avenues of conv in thfi york of propaganda :
politics, propagated by short stories and bar tittle-tattle, contained perhaps one part of truth to ten of loose embroidery.
1 1 8 The Psychology of Jingoism
The worth of such evidence, selected and worked up for popular investment by a sensa- tional press, is very small. The Dutch press in the Transvaal, equally reckless and nearly as corrupt, wrought in similar fashion, and an examination of the popular opinion of Holland would disclose a mass of anti-British evidence, derived by methods parallel to those here described. This fact alone might serve to abate the overweening confidence which we have felt in the consensus of 'British South Africa/
Journalism does not exhaust the influence of the press. Magazine articles and volumes in which party politics paracles as History furnish more solid food to. Jingo passion. Here again the authority of 'British South Africa' has been well-nigh absolute. Few magazines have been willing to print a 'pro-Boer' article; and 'it is ho secret that even the genius of Olive Schreiner could not get a hearing for what she most cared to say in any important English magazine. I speak from personal knowledge when I say that the retail book trade, !<•<! by V Messrs. Smith and Son, has done its i
^•VMM«aMMM*H0|V*IPM^a*M
'unpatriotic' literati. Those
familiar with the trade will understand how injurious such obstructions are to the circulation
The Abusi it Press
of a book. 4 11. y you keep books dealing
with both sides of the South African questio a lady asked a London bookseller. ' Madam/ was his reply, ' there is only one side for us — that of our country.' This, the character note of Mr. Chamberlain, the idem :i of
the war with British loyalty, has been firmly stamped upon the press, and so upon the mind of the people.
a free press •'" F"g1antL affording Ml a^i
discussion of the vital issues of
politics.
flow it stands in the Colonies, which have exhibited so great an enthusiasm in the British cause, the following statement from a well- informed correspondent in Melbourne will indicate: —
It is easy to explain Australian sympathy. The financial groups have first secured the South African press, have then secured the English press through its correspondents who are on the staff of the South African press (and by pur- chasing outright some London papers); and, fm.illy, have secured the Australian press, which takes all its cablegrams the Jingo press of London. The newspapers here all take the same cablegrams from the same London corre- spondents, pooling the expenses. The Australian people herefore — and for many years hare been — ultra-Tory and ultra-Jingo in their outside politics, although democratic and progressive in their home politics. This system of
I2O The Psychology of Jingoism
cablegrams brings with it some grave dangers. I cannot help feeling the force of some words of Lowell, written many years ago, on this subject :—
* [The telegraph], by making public opinion simultaneous, is also making it liable to those delusions, panics, and gre- garious impulses which transform otherwise reasonable men into a mob.'
The mischief is much accentuated where, as in Australia, the metropolitan cities are so large in proportion to the population of each colony, and the metropolitan papers are so weighty in influence and so widely circulated. I have just cut to-day, from a daily paper, the enclosed cablegram. It is just of a kind to inflame the sentiments of Irish Catholics, who, but for the cablegrams, would be inclined to suspect the British conduct in forcing the war.
The ' enclosed cablegram ' reads as fol- lows : —
BOER DESECRATION AND BURNING OF CHURCHES.
The Boers in Northern Natal, before evacuating New- castle and Dundee, defiled and desecrated the Catholic churches in those towns, and finally set fire to the buildings.
It only remains to add that the cabled state- ment is absolutely destitute of truth, the product of some lie factory in London or Melbourne.
The 'freedom 6T the press* in New Zealand may be gauged from the case of Mr. G rattan Grey. This gentleman was appointed leader of the official reporting staff in the New Zealand legislature, receiving a lower salary than his
The Abuse of tin Press i 21
predecessor on t ength of a wri:
agreement permitting him to contribute to the press. Not long ago, , as correspon< !
to an American newspaper, Mr. Grey made some criticism regarding the origin of the war and the Jingo feeling of New Zcalaiul. When
paper was brought to the attention of the Premier, the latter asked Mr. Grey to explain
conduct Mr. Grey pointed out that his action was justified by the terms of his agree- ment, but the Government appointed a Com- mittee of conspicuously 'loyal ' members, which recommended the dismissal of Mr. Grey. This recommendation was adopted, and Mr. Grey has lost his post.
The method of manufacturing loyal support in our colonies for the war, or for any rash exploit a British Government might choose to
itute, is particularly simple. The authori-
nformation set before the New Zealand
public, before and during the war — almost the
only information which was allowed to pene-
: their minds — came in the following manner. The Colonial Office in London cabled to Mr. Seddon, the New Zealand premier, whatever
s or opinions Mr. Chamberlain wished to impose upon the colonial mind, and Mr. Seddon communicated the matter thus obtained to all
122 The Psychology of Jingoism
the leading newspapers. What were the facts Mr. Chamberlain would communicate, and what the facts he would withhold, under such circumstances, may be surmised by any one familiar with his statements of the South African issues in this country, where he has been exposed to contradiction and to competi- tion. Well may he glory in the 'loyal spirit' of our colonies — the work of his own hands !
The earliest crop of English lies, the murder of Mr. Lanham 'kicked to death' by brutal Boers,* the lurid picture of the Rand refugees, ' men scourged with long rhinoceros whips ; women struck with rifles, robbed, and reviled with brutal oaths and jeers ; babes snatched from their mothers' arms and flung back with insults,1 f etc., were flourishing in Canada and Australia this year, carefully nurtured by emis- saries of the South African League sent over to feed colonial loyalty.
What these war-makers have done must be distinctly understood. They have passed, through their kept South African journals, upon the press of Great Britain and her colonies, a continuous stream of falsehood, partly distortion of facts, partly fabrication of
* Daily Mail, Oct. 9. t Evening News, Oct. 7.
The Abuse of tlu I
lies, directed to bias the judgment and inflame the passions of the people. These falsehoods could not be corrected by those who knew the truth, because the only avenues of effective correction were the columns of the very press which circulated the falsehoods, and they were closed. Where some slight pretence of ' hear- ing the other side' was maintained, as, for mce, by The Daily News, the familiar methods of editorial footnotes, precluding con- tradiction, or of always awarding a ' last word ' to the Jingo, who used his opportunity to add new falsehood, were persistently employed.
What is. ____
thecredit of r^***'' Even among
dieeducated
tendency to believe pnnted
persons arc far more profo
portance of printed than
As lar^c- new masses of the
>f spoken words. population are brought within the range of the newspaper or the book, the aggregate 'lectual credit of the press has expanded, until it represents a vast sum. This intellectual credit may either be economized and main- tained by careful and accurate use of the press, or it may be squandered The war-press,
124 The Psychology of Jingoism
having this immense fund-of popular confidenqg tn draw upon, has recklessly abused its trust, pouring misstatements into the public mind. The credulity which swallows new lies from the same sources whence issued the old detc lies, the apparent indifference with which each fresh detection is received, must not deceive us. Public confidence buoyed by passion is slow to fall, but the habit of mistrust once established will ^rrow, until the credit of the press sustains a fatal collapse.
Those papers which have lent themselves to this unscrupulous enterprise are debasincrtbe
* L , *' ^^B^^^m^Jm^*
intellectual currency of print — one of the foulest injuries which can be inllicted upon a civil nation.
CHAPTER II
PLATFORM AND PULPIT
A BiASiED, enslaved, and poisoned press has been the cniei engine for manufacturing Jingo-
. It has, however, been accompanied by a corresponding abuse of platform and of pulpit Free speech has been struck off from the roll of British liberties during this wan fiTsc scores of English and Scotch towns "publti meetings, summoned to protest against the war, were iJrotrn up by rowdyism, winked at
>nty; in a score oi ot
towns the police avowed their inability to protect the conveners of a public meeting in the exercise of their legal rights — a virtual admission of a state of anarchy. In hundreds of towns and villages all over the country men and women who were known or believed to entertain opinions unfavourable to the war
c subjected to personal assaults and insults; their property was damaged, and the law gave
125
126 The Psychology of Jingoism
them neither protection nor redress. During this reign of terror the country was flooded with^ Imperialist ' lecturers, agents of the South African League or its English branch, the British South Africa Association, mine- owners from Johannesburg, missionaries from Cape Colon}', who toured the country, i>r<>' in- to lecture on the history of South Al and to set before the audience in some Literary Institute, Chamber of Commerce, chapel, church, or political club, their personal know- ledge of the facts in South Africa.
The condition of the British mind is best gauged by its discriminative treatment of Cape Colonists. A fair-minded England would have desired to give a free and equal hearing to the representatives of both parties in our colony. Instead of doing this, England gave free speech to one section and repressed it in the other. There is no more signal evidence of a damaged intelligence and a corrupted sense of justice than the brutal denial of a hearing to Mr. Cronwright Schriener and to the Colonial Delegates appointed by the People's Congress in the Colony. No more perilous condition can be imagined than that of a people, wielding the power of self-government and determin; issues of peace and war, which is so infatuated
id Pulpit i 27
as jo refuse a hearing to the representatives of
iu SSSEESni
colonies.
As in the press, so on the platform, full licence of expression for one side, contumelious re- pression for the other! In breaking liberty of speech the press worked closely with the mob, and encouraged or excused mob-violence. One example of the coarse brutality employed will suffice — the paper is an unimportant one, but may well serve as a type
Mr. Cronwright Schriener, the pro-Boer agitator, appears to have paid Tunbridge Wells a visit, but of a somewhat clandestine nature. His coming was not heralded as one would have expected for such a notability of the hour; probably his sympathisers in the borough feared that the reception would be a little too patriotic and sincere, and in cordiality eclipse previous demonstrations. His mission was, however, not of a public nature — a drawing-room was sufficiently large for his audience — and the town did not learn of his arrival until he had taken his departure. A man or a cause that relies upon such stealth and secrecy for progression will not get far, and will only bring to advocates, heartache, and may be something more. Mr. Schriener will do well to give Tunbridge Wells a wide berth.
The organization of the platform has been conducted by the same body of men as manipu- lated the press. Paid agents of the South
128 The Psychology of Jingoism
African League have been at work since the beginning" of last year, both in England an9 the colonies, financed by ttfe group of finan-
Thc Hritish South African Association, com- posed of South African investors and politicians committed to a general policy of a ve
imperialism, has faithfully followed the instruc- tions of the League, and has co-operated with the South African Vigilance Committee (the League under another name) for the object of fanning the war-flame and securing the com- plete subjugation of the Dutch. These particu- larist bodies have used the Unionist organization in this country just as the South African organs in the press, controlled by the same men, have worked through the Unionist press, assisted by the sham- Liberal Daily News. It has been necessary to set forth these details in order to show how the fabrication of public opinion is possible and has been achieved. The acme of audacity is reached when the very men, the mine-owners and speculators, who have assessed the gains of war at several million pounds per annum, put forward them- selves and their professional representatives as the impartial instructors and advisers of the British public on its policy of war and
tform and Pulpit
' nt Our educated Jingoes have com- ly taken the trouble to read some books
of war and annexation. Hut who arc the
genllnncn who writ'- t :- v 1 •• - . •!. , .1 . 1 articles, and who imp >•>'• tln-ir ' !:• :«>ry' ..:i i th< : opinions upon the Uritibh i>cople ? They art-, as we have already pointed out, directors, engineers, and lawyer^ of flfcrs. Wemher, Beit, the tLonsolidated Gold Fu
JpjcUninipy r^i]n|^p|^ nt rn»
ii .. -, IJMTS ov.-iu-il l.y Mr. Rhodes and his
islness men
who have been political agitators and Reform prisoners at Johannesburg, such as Mr. Hosken and Dr. Hillier, with a handful of excited
L^'men and philanthropists, such as Mr. Theo. Schriener and the Rev. A. Hofnv
>se political judgment and influence is utterly insignificant in their own country. The British public receives these men who, through
:r league, their Outlander Council, and their mendacious press, had engineered the war, as
most reliable advisers regarding the necessity of war and the mode of settlement
Thesemen deserved a hearing, but so did the leaders ot the r>»f/»fr flfrfcfrndprs in our
130 The Psychology of Jingoism
colonies, loyal British subjects, as they have now been proved. To hear the one and to refuse a hearing tortile oilier la lilt moat elementary injustice ; to take the advice of
cither as authoritative in the direction of o policy is the rankest folly. The man on the spot always knows more, but he is always biassed, and generally cherishes a private interest which does not square with, and is often opposed to, the interest of the commonwealth. The frantic applause with which these mine- owners and their press approve of the conduct of Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Alfred Milner in the war, the settlement, and the treatment of rebels, ought to awaken grave suspicion in all reflecting minds.
But then there is the unanimous testimony of the Churches in South Africa. The cle: and the missionaries have been of unique service in fanning the flames of resentment against the Boers. Is this also an illegitimate manipulation of public opinion? TjUJl"ftrme- owners and politicians should have sue -e v ! in impressing the public mind with the idea of this conflict as a *sacre<j war/ "1'yyu^rtal£eii~In the interests of Christianity and civilization, is their culminating triumph. I do not for one moment impute dishonesty of purpose to the
Platform ami Pulpit i
s, or any consciousness of being tools ;
tools and screens they are, none the less. Tht v of South Africa is full of the feuds
between -h missionaries and the Dutch;
and fnun the former a feud, a latent animosity, has been transmitted to the British ministers is. Missionary and minister have
uedt often in good earnest, to be the friends and protectors of the natives, and have favoured and promoted a policy towards the natives which is opposed by Africander sentiment and conviction. Into the merits of the controv* it is needless to go, though I may remark in passing that a careful reading of the Jingo
i iture issuing from South Africa clearly shows that British Africander sentiment upon the native question favours the Dutch and not the missionary policy. The business men who mostly direct modern politics require a screen ; they find it in the interests of their country, patriotism. Behind this screen they work, thi-ir private gain under the name and
:ext of the commonwealth. Sometimes screen is inadequate, and a second covering is required. This has been the case in the pre- sent business : indiscreet directors 'gave a
the hands of financiers were visible upon the stage of politics moving the figures ;
i 32 The Psychology ot Jingoism
the appeals to vengeance and fear for the Empire showed danger of collapse ; an appeal must be made to sentiments of higher grade and more stability. In the message of the Churches issuing from South Africa there was the same amount and the same sort of spon- taneity as lay behind the Outlanders' petition and the other measures by which the war-spirit was stirred and maintained in England. The conviction of the British clergy and mission^" aries in South Africa that the war wajTiust and
^
necessary was quite genuine (why should it be otherwise ?) ; and their conviction of its utility was enhanced by hopes, the futility of which will presently appear, that the more liberal sentiments of the British Isles towards the natives (dubbed * Exeter Hall* by Dutch and British colonists alike) would prevail in a settlement whereby the Imperial power would be substituted for the power of local parlia- ments in dealing with the natives. The capi- talists who had actually announced their intention of" forcing native labour by hut and labour tic pass laws, and other coercive methods, were glad to utilize the blessing of the Churches ; and their politicians and their
•
press transmitted this clerical approval, and circulated it throughout the length and breadth
rm and Pulpit
ntry, suppressing as far as possible equally earnest and unanimous protestations the Dutch Africander Churches, and ap; priating to themselves the tide of 'Christian
Although there is no record of the clergy
of any Church having failed to bless a popular
, or to find reasons for representing it as
this approval of the Churches has
ranked as independent and powerful testimony
to the justice of our cause; and thot
elevation of the natives played no part what^
lu-un, it has since 1 c • .\\ nt:'.:/- ! so skilfully
w
rhe press and the politicians who forced the pace with Out- lander grievances, suzerainty, or the Dutch conspiracy, have kept it up wjth a. native policy, securing thus that firm co-operation of business and philanthropy which is the tinctivc note of British Imperialism. motives are comffloftly fuse4 in some v: it the necessity of securing to black races ' th«- ili-nitv o! lateur or of
— ^•••i»f^'**^^^""~
134 The Psychology of Jingoism
recur in the books and speeches of the South African clergy who have been introduced to spread light in England, shows how well the notion has been drilled into their minds.
It is idle wholly to ignore the fact that the dependence of the Churches upon the alms of the rich plays a most important part in South Africa, where the rich are very few and more closely united in their businesses, than elsewhere. A very small number of men can make or mar the success of any religious work in the towns of South Africa. Mr. Rhodes, in particular, has been a munificent patron of the Churches, though he is no churchgoer himself; and many a good work thrives upon tHe""p?Ofits^>f De peers aq4 t{ie froldfields, which sets aside every year a substantial sum out of its profits for charitable donations. No reproach attaches to the clergy of these Churches, but it is natural that their feelings should be touched and their judgment blinded by these gifts. So, too, when an English bishop or other Church dignitary visits South Africa in search of health or on a holiday, what more natural than that he should be entertained by Mr. Rhodes at Groote Schuur ; that he should then visit the D ! people at Kimberley, and afterwards \> the company of Mr. Eckstein at Johannesburg-,
Platform and Pulpit
and the Chartered magnates in chargt
iiM fa «"s
Rhodesia J WJiyshniiM fa «"spect that he is not seeing everything, or that his views are
him as hr acs al.«>n th<:
carefully grf»a«»H p*t^ of travel ? He is q
honest, and thos< entertain and inform
him arc quite honest in the expression of their
None the less, the members of the
Hrii tocracy, the big business men, mem-
bers of Parliament^ and eminent divines who
returned from a visit in South Africa to
^hten us upon the racial, political, and
economic problems of that kaleidoscopic
country, have brought with them just that
information and those sentiments which it was
ided they should bring. I do not, of
course, impute to the hospitable British South
icans a fully conscious design of impressing
any special point of view upon visitors :
conscious play was probably very rare, and
even then was blended with the native instinct
of hospitality, so prevalent in these as in other
colonies. It is rather to be regarded as a
necessary incident of the economic situation
the mining capitalists and their financial
friends should have enjoyed these private
individual opportunities of inculc 'ieir
ts and their views upon the minds of
136 The Psychology of Jingoism
influential British visitors. Not all these visitors sucked in their matter with so much avidity, and reproduced it with so much crudity of judgment as Canon Knox Little ; but any reader who chooses to check the statement of the Canon by reference to the history of more
and Hi'griwf Trnperiafafc. will
Hing of thp processes^ Jjjfjvhich the opinions of influential visitors were moulded.
The enumeration of methods of influencing British opinion would be incomplete were I to ignore the direct and conscious work of politicians and their organizations. The South African League may be said to have come into existence in order to enforce and enlarge British power in South Africa ; and when it was decided early in 1899 to precipitate a crisis, its emissaries were active both in South Africa and this country, ably seconding the efforts of Mr. Rhodes' press. The following passage in the report of a speech delivered at Capetown last January by Dr. Darley Hartley, a former President, deserves as much attention for its matter as for its English.
All present who carried their minds back over the three years during which the League had been in existence would find very little difficulty in tracing the present state of things in South Africa [which?] was largely due— one might
Platform and Pulpit
almost say entirely due — to the efforts of the League. He spoke with a full sense of responsibility, but he asked them to reflect how far the present position would have reached if it had not been for the persistent efforts of the South African League in Johannesburg. To illustrate that detailed the history of the famous Johannesburg Ootlanders' petition, which emanated from the League, and could not have been successful unless it had been worked by men versed in every possible technicality of the work. That organization in Johannesburg was the outcome of the organization in Cape Colony, and that showed what their organization had done.
In Cape Colony the League, under the presidency and financial support of Mr. Rhodes, has been the fighting wing of the 'progres- party ; in the Transvaal it was feeble in numbers, and destitute of influence until, in 1899, the leading capitalists, failing to come to terms with the Government, so as to secure r private ends, decided to work for a catas- trophe, and to involve the Imperial power of Gre iin.
Readers of the Blue-books will perceive how powerfully the League was able to impress the mind of the High Commissioner, and to secure his authoritative approval of 'every possible technicality ' which they employed to influence the British Government This same body of men in Capetown and Johannesburg, figuring now as the South African League, now as the
138 The Psychology of Jingoism
Outlander Council, and again as the South African Vigilance Committee, have been in effect the ' British South Africa' Alfred
Milaer's despatches: it was their influence and evidence that ultimately forced us into war, and that is forcing upon us a miscalled f*seitle- ment," fraught with costs and dangers which the future will disclose.
This conjunction of the forces of the press, the platform, and the pulpit, has succeeded in monopolizing the mind of the British public, and in imposing a policy calculated not to secure the interests of the British Empire, But to advance the private, political, and business interests of a small body of men who ha\ exploited the race feeling in South Africa and the Imperialist sentiment of England. They have done this by the simple device of securing all important avenues of intelligence, and of using them to inject into the public mind a continuous stream of false or distorted infor- mation.
It may well be true that public opinion in Holland, and even In other Continental countries, has been similarly poisoned from Dutch Africander sources. The Hollander- press of the Transvaal, Mr. Kruger's secret service, and the influence of the Africander
Platform and Pulpit j 39
Bond may have helped to manufacture the
::imt which prevails
in most Continental countries. But this is
^primarily tfceir cpnccrn. Though we Ally
sulY- are not responsible for it.
are responsible for submitting to the
Dangers incalculably great, must await an
. ::-.; ire who --• i ill. :. >, wh«-n br. >. :.,':[ t > t:i- lonsulcnition of a policy \vhiih nir.iils vast
' flf iJfp a^ fr^Sir^ ar^ ^HlMCJ^! a patient ccjual hearing to both bides, but
mind.
fact and opinions " K'7fa thfy kavfi ffo reason to believe to be impartial and disinterested. Her great tests of a capacity for
empire. Can a body of interested m^ upon the spot, burinssfj TT^n nr
their authority upon the Empire so as to utilize
the imperial riM^^y^yc f^r
In the case of South Africa it has been possible. Will it be possible atiajn ?
THE
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