Essays in Rebellion Part 15

It is an advance. As history counts time it is a rapid advance. Now that Russia is reducing Finland to a state of entire subjection without even a pretext of right or the shadow of a pretence at improved civilisation, a general feeling of shame and loss pervades Europe. The governments do not move, but here and there the peoples raise a protest. Not even the most thorough-going champions of Imperialism, such as the _Times_, have ventured to defend the action. They have contented themselves with Cain's excuse that the murder was no affair of ours. A century and a half ago they would not have needed an excuse. No protest would have been raised, for it did not matter what nationality was enslaved. There is an advance, and we have now to extend it. In regard to races already subject, we have but to act up to the pleadings of our own hypocrisy; we have to maintain among them equal justice, equal rights and equal consideration as members of one great community, instead of depriving them of their manhood and kicking them out of their own railway carriages. We have to train them on the way to self-government, instead of clapping them into prison if they mention the subject.

And in regard to nationalities that still retain their freedom, we must bring our governments up into line with the leading thought of the day.

We must show them that the destruction of a free people like Finland or Persia is not a local or distant disaster only, but affects the whole community of nations and spreads like a poison, blighting the growth of freedom in every land and encouraging all the black forces of tyranny, darkness, and suppression. Rapidly growing among us, there is already a certain solidarity between free States, and the problem of the immediate future is how to make their common action effective on the side of liberty. When I saw Tolstoy during the Russian revolution of 1905 he said to me:

"The present movement in Russia is not a riot; it is not even a revolution; it is the end of an age. The age that is ending is the age of Empires--the collection of smaller States under one large State. There is no true community of heart or thought between Russia, Finland, Poland, the Caucasus and all our other States and races. And what has Hungary, Bohemia, Syria, or the Tyrol to do with Austria? No more than Canada, Australia, India, or Ireland has to do with England. People are now beginning to see the absurdity of these things, and in the end people are reasonable. That is why the age of Empires is pa.s.sing away."

It was a bold prophecy, but it contains the root of the whole matter.

Only where there is community of heart and thought is national or personal life possible in any worthy sense. Unless that community exists between the various nationalities within an Empire, we may be sure the Empire is moribund. It is dying, as Napoleon said, of indigestion, and that other community of the world which is slowly taking shape among free and reasonable peoples will demand its dissolution. Our hope is that the other community will further proceed to demand that these disastrous experiments in the overthrow and subjection of free nationalities shall no longer be tolerated by the combined forces of liberty.

XXII

BLACK AND WHITE

One night Mr. Clarkson, of the Education Office, was rather late in leaving the Savile Club. He always makes a point of selecting the best articles in the _Nineteenth Century_, the _Fortnightly_, and the _Contemporary_ on the first Monday of every month, and, owing to a suspension of political activity in the House of Commons, he had lately spent more time than usual over the daily papers as well, since they could now afford greater s.p.a.ce for subjects of interest. He noticed with some regret that it was half-past eleven as he came up Piccadilly and admired, as he never failed to admire, that urbane aspect of nature's charm presented by the Green Park.

It was late, but the evening was cool and dry. He wished to follow up a train of thought suggested by the question: "Should Aristotle be left out?" but, to preserve his mind from exclusiveness, he now and then considered it advantageous to plunge into what he called the full tide of humanity at Charing Cross. So that night, instead of making his way by the shortest route to his rooms in Westminster, he strolled, with a pleasurable sense of sympathetic abandonment, through the usual crowds that were hurrying home from theatres or supper-room.

But he soon perceived that all the crowds were not usual. Some were not hurrying; they were stationary. They were nearly all men, unrelieved by that subdued feminine radiance which Mr. Clarkson so much valued in the colour scheme of London. They were mainly silent. They appeared to be waiting for something.

"Is the King returning from the Opera?" he asked a policeman near King Charles's statue. But the policeman regarded him with a silent pity so profound that he suddenly remembered a King's recent death and the mourning in which the country was still partially immersed. No, it could not be royalty, and, feeling for the first time like a stranger in the centre of existence, Mr. Clarkson hurriedly crossed the road.

Between the top of Northumberland Avenue and Charing Cross Station he observed another crowd of the same character, but in thicker numbers still. Unwilling to eschew any emotion that thus stirred his fellow citizens, he approached the outskirts and waited, in hopes of gathering information without further inquiry. But the crowd was doggedly silent.

Nearly all were reading the evening papers, and the few s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation that Mr. Clarkson caught appeared to be meaningless. At last he ventured to accost a harmless-looking, pale-faced youth in a straw hat, who was reading the latest _Star_, and asked him what he was waiting for.

The youth looked him up and down from head to foot, and then slowly uttered the words: "I don't think!"

"I'm so very sorry for that," said Mr. Clarkson, a little irritated, but, as he turned hastily away he reflected with a smile that, after all, one should be grateful to find imbecility so frankly acknowledged.

Next time he was more diplomatic. Standing quietly for a while beside a good-tempered-looking man, who was evidently an out-of-work cab-driver, he yawned two or three times, and said at last: "How long shall we have to wait, do you think?"

"Depends on cable," said the cab-driver. "Got a bit on?"

"Well, no; I haven't exactly got anything on," said Mr. Clarkson, uneasily; "but may I ask what cable you mean?"

"Don't be silly," said the cabman, and spat between his feet.

"Cheer up, long-face!" said another man, who had been listening. "He only means the cable from the States. Perhaps you've never heard of the White Man's Hope?"

Light at last broke upon Mr. Clarkson. "Of course," he said, "it's Independence Day! I've seen the American flag flying from several buildings. It has always appeared a most remarkable thing to me that we English people should thus ungrudgingly accept the celebration of our most disastrous national defeat. Such entire disappearance of racial animosity is, indeed, full of future promise. I suppose, if you liked, you might without exaggeration call it the White Man's Hope?"

"Stow it," said the cabman.

"No doubt the day is being marked in the United States by some special event," Mr. Clarkson continued, "and you are waiting for the account?"

No one answered. An American was reading aloud from a newspaper: "If the Imperturbable Colossus gets knocked out, a general a.s.sault upon all negroes throughout the States may be expected to ensue. The wail that goes up from Reno will be re-echoed from every land where the black problem sits like a nightmare on the chest. It is not too much to say that a new chapter in the world's history will open before our astonished eyes, so adequately is the gigantic struggle between the black and white races prefigured in the persons of their chosen champions."

All listened with attention.

"That's what I call thickened truth," said the American, looking solemnly round. "If that coloured gentleman with a yellow streak worries our battle-hardened veteran and undefeated hero of all time, the negro will grow scarce."

"They've been praying for Jeffries in all the American churches," said one, in the solemn pause that followed this announcement.

"So they have for Johnson in the negro churches," said another, "but he counts most on his mother's prayers. She lives in Chicago."

"It is peculiar in modern and Christianised countries," said Mr.

Clarkson, anxious to show that he now fully understood the point at issue; "it is peculiar that the opposing parties in a war or other contest implore with equal confidence the a.s.sistance of the same deity."

"Millionaires is sleeping three in a bed at Reno. There's a thing!" said the man who was most anxious to impart information.

"The gate comes to 50,000, let alone the pictures," said another. "Each of them's going to get 500 a minute for the time they fight."

"Beats taxis," said the cabman.

"It's hardly fair to criticise the amount," Mr. Clarkson expostulated pleasantly; "the 500 represents prolonged training and practice in the art. As Whistler said, the payment is not for a day's work, but for a lifetime."

"Who are you calling the Whistler?" asked the cabman; "Jim Corbett, or John Sullivan?"

"Jeffries ate five lamb chops to his breakfast this morning," said the man of information, "and Johnson ate a chicken."

"Wish I'd eat both," said the cabman.

"What do you think of the upper-cut?" said the other, turning to Mr.

Clarkson to escape the cabman's frivolity.

"Well, I suppose it's a matter of taste--upper-cut or under-cut," Mr.

Clarkson answered, smiling at his seriousness. "Most people, I think, prefer under-cut."

"Johnson's right upper-cut is described as the piston of an ocean greyhound making twenty-seven knots," said the man, taking no notice of the answer, and speaking in awestruck tones. "Do you know, one paper describes Johnson as the best piece of fighting machinery the world has ever seen!"

"I thought that was the last _Dreadnought_?" said Mr. Clarkson.

"Perhaps you don't study the literature of the Ring," the other answered, with cold superiority.

"Oh, indeed I do!" cried Mr. Clarkson eagerly. "It is rather remarkable what a fascination the art of boxing has frequently exercised upon the masters of literature. Even the Greeks, in spite of their artistic reverence for the human body, practised boxing with extreme severity, and on their statues, you know, we sometimes find a recognised distortion which they called 'the boxer's ear.' It seems to show that they hit round rather than straight from the shoulder. The ancient boxing-gloves were intended, not to diminish, but to increase the severity of the blow, being made of seven or eight strands of cow-hide, heavily weighted with iron and lead. There is that fine description of a prize-fight in Virgil, where the veteran--'the imperturbable colossus'

of his time, I suppose we may call him--almost knocks the life out of the younger man, and sends him from the contest swinging his head to and fro, and spitting out teeth mingled with blood--rather a horrible picture!"

"Ten to six on the boiler-maker," said the cabman; "I'll take ten to six."

"And then, of course," Mr. Clarkson continued, "in recent times there are splendid accounts of the fights in _Lavengro_ and Meredith's _Amazing Marriage_, and Browning once refers to the Tipton Slasher, and we all know Conan Doyle."

"No, we don't," said the cabman.

"It seems rather hard to explain the attraction of prize-fighting," Mr.

Clarkson went on, meditatively; "perhaps it comes simply from the dramatic element of battle. It is a war in brief, a concentrated militancy. Or perhaps it is the more barbaric delight in vicarious pain and endurance; and I think sometimes we ought to include the pleasure of our race in fair play and the just and equal rigour of the game."