THE ENGLISHMAN

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 107, 2 November 1926, Page 15

THE ENGLISHMAN

CHANGED CHARACTER-

ISTICS

"BRITONS NEVER SHALL BE

SLAVES"

OLD WATCHWORD NOW A

MCKSKERY.

About fifteen, hundred years ago Sidonius Apollinaris. describes our ancestors, the Saxons, as he had seen them, writes the Bey. Daan Inge in the "Sunday Erprcss." Their long hair fell over their foreheadsj their faces were painted blue; they were turbulent and independent, so that "you might imagine that every oarsman was the arch -pirate." Nevertheless, when any important business was on hand, they submitted, to discipline. The Anglo-Saxons made a rather poor show' against the Normans, and for two hundred years submitted to bo treated as a conquered nation; bnt when they asserted themselves again they showed the same characteristics—sturdy independence, stubborn obstinacy, and rather gross habits. « A fourteenth-century writer says that "they, are more prone to gluttony than other men, and more cosjly in meat and drink and clothing." A, Frenchman in the reign of Charles 11. reports that the English may easily be brought to anything, provided you fill their bellies, let them have freedom of speech, and do not bear too hard upon their lazy temper." An Iflalian diplomatist about the same time says that" the English are by nature proud arid phlegmatic. They consider a long time before they come to a, decision, but, having once decided, their resolution is irrevocable, and they maintain their opinion with the greatest obstinacy." Ab for their gluttony, a Bohemian baron was privileged to watch Queen Elizabeth eating her dinner. "Tho women and maids who served her at table knelt as long as she ate, and she ate for nearly thrde hours." Nearly a hundred years before this the Londoners were "magnificently apparalled and extremely proud and overbearing.'' "A yeoman arrayeth himself as a squire, a squire as a knight, a knight as a duke, and a duie as a king." "Englishmen,?' says Froiseart, "are so proud that they set no store by any nation except their own." Even Defoe admits that the English are "the most churlish people alive to foreigners, so that all men think an Englishman the devil." Mark Twain thought that he had observed this pride, and also our vigorous disclaimers oi! it. " The English," he says, "are mentioned in the Bible: the meek shall possess the earth." LOVE OP GAMES." Another old characteristic of the English is their love of games. . In Chamberlayne's "Angliae Notitia" (1660) we read that "The common people will endure long and hard labour, insomuch that after twelve hours' hard wuric they will go in the evening to football, stockball, cricket, prison-base, wrestling, cudgel playing, or some suchlike vehement exercise for their recreation." This Jove of games was apparent before the seventeenth century, but the Government tried to put down these amusements, because they drew the young men away from the archery butts. How many of my readers have noticed the furrows scored on, the walls of our old chnrchesf It was there that our famous English archers used to sharpen their arrows, which could piu a mail-clad knight to his saddle or pierce through helmet and head. But no laws could keep the Englishman from hiJs. games. Cricket has been one of our best instructors in fair play and team-work.

"That ia not cricket" is a saying which means a great deal to an. Englishman; it would hay» been better for the character of Certain of our foreign rivals if they had learned from us to play our national game. All through our history we may trace the idea of a gentleman, that lay religion of the English nation on week days. It has sometimes been partly defaced by class prejudices, and by a fictitious association with heraldry or property in land; but it ia, as a national ideal, quite distinctive, and it has been the root of nearly all that is admirable in the English character. "The English," said Bonar Law, '' are a generous people. I can say this because I am not an Englishman." From all these' testimonies, and from scores of others which might be quoted, there emerges a fairly clear impression of the national character. THE TYPICAL ENGLISHMAN. The typical Englishman is an independent fellow, easy to lead but bad to drive, very tenacious of his rights, pugnacious, but .not at all military, lazy and self-indulgent by nature, but capable of great exertion and pertinacity in pursuit of particular ends, openhanded and generous-—not a good shopkeeper, in spite of what Napoleon and others have said, but a good colonist and pioneer—truthful and honourable, kindly and singularly unvindictive. Perhaps he is too proud of being an Englishman, and sometimes boastful to foreigners, foreign testimonies seem to be unanimous on this point; but now, at any rate, we are modest and humble compared with the Americans. Our habit of self-disparagement, which is also an old characteristic, is much mor in evidence than undue self-compl;u oncy. Is this character changing? Has thu industrial revolution', which seems to have divided the nation into hostile camps, brought into existence a large population who have not learned the national traditions, who have no love for their country and what it stands for, who are in a word un-English hi character? Professor George Santo yana, formerly of Harvard, who hu: lived for several years in England, seo.i ' decided signs of change in the charsic- I tor of the working men. "Their forced unanimity in >action and passion is like that of the ages of faith. Its inspiration comes from a few apostles, perhaps foreign Jews] who at the beginning had visions Of some millennium; cohesion is maintained afterwards by preaching, by custom, by persecution, and by murder.. It is astonishing with what docility masses of Englishmen, supposed to bo jealous of thsir personal liberty, will obey a revolutionary junta which taxes andcommands them, and decrees when they shall starve and when they shall fight." This was written before recent developments, which have shown the terrible truth of the writer's fears. "Britons never shall be slaves" now sounds like a mockery; a largo part of' the population are slaves, and such docile slaves that wo may doubt whether they would protest if Mr. Cook laid a whip across their backs. OMINOUS SYMPTOMS. Equally un-English is the defeatist atmosphere, the feeling of. hopelessnesswhich paralyses the energies of these who love their country and are opposed to revolution. We complimented our selves on our patience and good humour during the general strike. There was a time when the Englishman would have been neither patient nor good-hu-moured under such an outrage, and when strike-mongering would have beeu a dangerous trade for the conspirators.

The attitude of Londoners during that shameful fortnight was painfully suggestive of a drove of sheep. "Elderly people have always talked like that; your children don't agree with you." Well, that is very true; and we .may remember that Wordsworth, who was not elderly in 1802, used much the same language about his country at a time, when, as we now think, it was making a magnificent stand against the greatest general .of all time. "Plain living and high thinking are I no more; the homely beauty of the good v old. cause, is gone; our peace, our.fearful innoeef <-', and pure religion breathing household laws." If Wordsworth, when he wrote these words, forgot the part which England was taking in the Napoleonic War, we ough.t not to ifget what oar countrymen did in the Great War. A really decadent nation would not have survived that ordeal. I repeat these things to myself, but the ominous symptoms still stare me in the face. I do not recognise tho .old English character in my countrymen to-day.