FEASTING AND FASTING IN UTOPIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 76, 28 March 1908, Page 11

FEASTING AND FASTING IN UTOPIA.

An entertaining controversy has been gbing on in the "New Age" between foul brilliant men of letters—Hilaire Belloc, M.P., G. K. Chesterton, H. G. Wells, and Bernard Shaw. All four agree that the present state of society, with its handful of very rich and its millions of poor, is disgusting and intolerable; but they take sides over tEe question of remedies. Mr. Belloc began by repudiating Socialism on the ground that it was opposed to TvEat he regarded as a fundamental instinct in human nature —the sense of personal possession. Mr. Chesterton backed him up, and wrote a good deal of brilliant froth on the abolition of the time-nonoured custom of "standing drinks" under Socialism—a prospect which he -professed to view with distaste and alarm. Mr. Wells forthwith challenged him to show how he really does want the world to be arranged under the existing conditions of human nature and physical geography. Both Belloc and Chesterton condemn the Socialistic scheme -without indicating how otherwise the forces making for. poverty-are to. be counteracted. step* -gsUa- wta4h^^o^Qßßrs^.crcit]t."a

six-column article in defence of .iWells, and pulverises the "Chesterbelloc" monster—"a very amusing pantomime ele-. ; phant, the front legs being that very; exceptional and Hilaire Belloc, and the hind legs thafe extravagant freak of French, jnature, G. K. Chesterton." Mr. Shaw declares that it is tbe greatest mistake in the world, ifco suppose that people disapprove of Social-, ism because they are not convinced by. its economic or political arguments. The anti-Socialists, ho says, all have a secret dread that Socialism will interfere with, their darling vices. The lazy man fears that it will make him -work; the industrious man, that it ■will impose compulsory sports; the drunkard, "that" it; will close the public houses; the miser, that it will abolish money —and so' on; And Chesterton and Belloc, lie contends, share one failing—addiction to the pleasures of the table. "Vegetarianism, and teetotalism are abhorrent to them,. aa they are to most Frenchmen. The onlyj thing in Wells' earnest and (weighty ap* peal to Chesterton that moved him waar an incidental disparagement of the cus< torn of standing drinks and the theory; that the battle of Waterloo-was-won atf the public-house counter." Chesterton, and Belloc object to the Socialist Utopia because it does not promise them "a good blow-out." Mr. Shaw then proceeds to "save Chesterton's soul" by a confession. He, too, has his craving" fori stimulants, but they are not narcotic, or alcoholic: "True excess does not make a man fat; it wastes him. Falstaff wast not an overworked man; he was an un-der-worked one. If ever there -was a' man wasted by excess, I am. that. man. The Chesterbelloc, ministered to by waiters and drinking wretched narcotics .out of bottles, does not know what a real stimulant is. What does-it know of my temptations, my backslidings, my orgies t How can it, timidly munching beefsteaks and apple tart, conceive the spiritstruggles of a young man who kneiw that; Bach is good for his soul, and yet turned to Beethoven, and from him fell to Berlioz and Liszt from mere love of excitement, luxury, savagery, -and drunkenness? Has Chesterton ever spent his last half-crown on an "opera by Meyerbeer or Verdi, and sat down at a crazy pianefe to roar it and .thrash it through, with ani execution of a dray-horse ajid a scanty, octave and a-half of mongrel baritone voice? Has he ever lodged underneath a; debauchee who was diaboßcally possessed with the finale of the .Seventh Symphony, or the Walkurenritt, whilst decent citizens were quietly drinking themselves, to sjeep with, ■whisky—and diluted whisky at that?,

"Far from Eeing an abstinent man, I am the worst drunkard of a rather ex.* ceptionally drunken family; for they were content with, alcohol, whereas I want something so much- stronger that I would as soon drink paraffin oil as brandy. Cowards drink alcohol toqnje<f their craving-Tor real stimulants; I> avoid it to keep my palate keen forthem. And I am a pitiable example oj something much worse than the drink craze, to wit, th<? work craze;- Bo not forget .Herbert Spencer's autobiography," with its cry.of warning against work. $ get miserably unhappy if my work is cut off. T get liidebus headaches aften each bout. .X make resolutions to break myself of it, never to work' after lunch, to do only two hours a day;: butjn vain. Every day brings its opportunity and its temptation; the cravinwmasters mc every time; and I dread a> holiday as I dread nothing else on earth. Let Chesterton take heart, then. It is he who is the ascetic and I the voluptuary. Socialism is far more likely t« force mc to eat meat and drink akohol than to force him to take overdoses of Wagner and' Strauss, and write plays irr his spare time." -