Gloom in the Suburbs

Press, Volume L, Issue 14916, 14 March 1914, Page 10

Gloom in the Suburbs

Wo have remarked before that Mr Bernard Shaw lias achieved the noteworthy feat of living many years among Englishmen and never having found a single redeeming trait in their character. If wo are to believe Mr Shaw, the whole stato of English society is absolutely rotten. Now a man who lives in a society which he is convinced is wholly had might be expected to be gloomy, despondent, even morose. But

Mr Shaw is not. Ho is as jolly as a schoolboy, and no on© apparently gets more fun out of life than Mr Shaw, unless it be his fellow social revolutionists, Mr Chesterton and Mr Belloc. Consideration of this point leads the New York "Evening Post" to remark that tho traditional typo of revolutionary must be passing- away. The modern men whoso professed business it is to undermine society—wo are speaking, of course, of the intellectuals only—seem to regard tho undermining business as a huge joke. They write farces, draw absurd caricatures, play the fool, and shout with glee over their escapades. So far from lurking in by-streets with hat-brims turned down and cloaks drawn about their faces, they fly kites in Piccadilly with the recipe for the social revolution blazoned thereon, and are never out of touch with tho Press. British philistinism does not inspire Mr Shaw to savage rhetoric; it makes him write a farce. "The cruelties and stu- " pidities of modern life stimulate Mr "Shaw to tho point where he goes out " and has M. Rodin model a bust of "him. When Mr Chesterton contem- " plates tho unholy alliance between " privilege and finance which makes up " modern government, when he thinks "of the pretentious inaptitudes of " parliamentary oratory, when ho finds "himself encompassed by the schemes " of self-seeking fanatics and reformers, " he feels so depressed that he immed- " iately dashes off a ballad or two in " praise of brown October ale." In the style of paradox which Mr Chesterton can put on as easily as a.man puts on a coat, the world is so full of a number of miserable and reprehensible things "I am sure we should all be aa " happy as kings."

Whilo Mr Shaw and his friends are rolling down an intellectual Ratcliffe road, "drunk and raising Cain," what is the despised suburban Philistine doing? Mr Shaw ha s pictured him to us, wallowing in convention and self-satis-faction, living a life devoted only to the pleasurablo satisfaction of low material wants. But the New York "Evening " Post" declares that this person is the one above all others who has an uncomfortable time of it in these days. While Mr Shaw and Co. aro playing joyous football with society, this supposedly comfortable citizen is worrying over the problems of every-day life, and the Best way to make those wheels go round that carry us all along, Mr Shaw included. "He worries over his duties as "a citizen, over the Poor Law, slums, "child labour, milk, butchers, eugenics, "military training, model dance halls,! " hospitals, model tenements, the de- " clin© of the rural population, the " peril of moving-picture theatres, the "tango, and the slit skirt." It is he who worries over tho infinite detail of local government, without which Mr Shaw's sensitive nose would be insulted by bad smells, and the water which he drinks would be impregnated with typhoid germs. To Mr Shaw all this is very amusing, for, of course, he thinks all reform is humbug, born either of self-interest or an uneasy conscience. Butr—and it is well for the rest of tho community that this is so —tho stupid Philistine goes on worrying. If he only knew it he could make himself perfectly happy' by knocking society down periodically and jumping merrily on tho prostrate body, while continuing to take all the benefits that that longsuffering being has to offer. All this oxplains why the average man never has taken, and never will take, tho merry intellectual revolutionists seriously. He may be very stupid, but he has enough sense to see that the worrying suburbanite is a pillar in the house of life.