CYNICISM IN POLITICS.

New Zealand Mail, 27 August 1902, Page 49 (Supplement)

CYNICISM IN POLITICS.

(“Spectator.”) There is scarcely any’ adjective that seems, when applied to a politician, to it more popular condemnation than cynical.” To call a man dishonest or self-seeking is far less injurious. There as a iurkiug feeling in the minds of a wmfia + UUll m el ', • 0± P e °P ]e that no man r 9. u^ e himself about politics unless he hoped to get something by it, and nerfo q ( Ue i Ut y is ‘ use l efi s to expect perfect honesty from politicians. If they have the virtue at all, -they must, w.. ' ,■• have it with a difference. The political conscience, like the trade conscience, is governed by laws of its’own. Hut cynicism is taken to imply the contemplation of dishonesty apafct from the censure of it. The cynical statesman Pierces through the pretences under which his contemporaries veil their faults, hut his keenness of insight is unaccompanied by moral blame. "What he sees gives him only amusement. He expected nothing, and the fact that he has got nothing else e “ l , es M most a pleased appreciation of the accuracy of bis forecast. It is the entire absence of anything like delusion , makes cynicism so generally’ disused. Our neighbour’ sins are too like our own to_ make us anxious to subject tneni to microscopic investigation, and: linen we meet with a politician who derives positive pleasure from such a process, we. set him down as worse than the actual sinners.

.This is not, however, an accurate diagnosis of the part that cynicism plays m pohtics. The intellectual pleasure winch the cynic enjoys is really neither £ lol ; al EPF immoral, it is purely intelleotual . This does not mean that the cynic denies the existence of moral considerations hut simply that he puts them on. one side. If challenged he would, it may be. condemn the subordination of public ends to nriva.te advancement as severely, an “ ® s sincerely as any one. But this is not the aspect in which the question presents itself. Of the quality of the act con. ’•adered he takes no notice, and nxes his attention on the incongruity he Uncovers between the act and the nreten•sions of the actor. He sees a colleague 01 ' ai l opponent deceiving others or himself, he compares his professions with hig practice, and his sense of humour ig aroused .when he finds that the two have nothing rn common. But this discovery, does not affect his political conduct. If the_ man whose inconsistencies are thus evident to him is a friend, he does not refuse the offer of his services; if he ig an opponent, he does not deny him the courtesies of political warfare. He only feels that he knows more about his con-' temporaries than the rest of the world know and that this knowledge is pleasant after a fashion now and is likely to b® useful hereafter. It may he objected that it is mst this faculty of being amused by the faults of others that makes cynicism hateful Yet m view of the part that a incongruity plays in all humour it is difficult, to maintain this position, it is not in great crimes that cynicism finds occasion for its exercise; and when, we have to do with lesser offences, perhaps only with weaknesses, it is rather matter for congratulation that there are oeorde who can see the lighter side of them, lie have to live among and with those who are constantly committing them, and if only the darker side presented itself life would he a-harder business than it is. . Cynicism is not Christian charm-, hut it is sometimes a good imitation of it. Tf n tiling has two aspects why may not we look by preference at one rather than at the other? And if the one at which we are naturally inclined to , ook hanpens to he the less grave of the ■wo, how is the world any the worse?

We may go further, and claim for the cynical temperament an element of positive usefulness -in public life For cynicism implies, among other things, a certain detachment, a certain faculty of looking all round a subject, and of getting underneath the conventions in which it is often wrapped up. The opposite of cynicism is uncritical enthusiasm, and of the two the latter does by far the more harm. The enthusiast has strength of will and fixedness of purpose. He gets a firm grasp of his subject, he despises obstacles, he makes straight for, his end. But his knowledge of what that end is may be extremely imperfect, and he may I ? th a „ Va ? e *y of attractions which do not really belong to it The result of this possibly is that he never realises that it i s that he is working for., and dies in the conviction that he has served mankind • when he has really harmed them. He has not. it is true ever derived amusement from the follies or inconsistencies of his friends: thev have am ™ atters of grave disafiPKna! and denunciation. But, on the ° her hand, lie has never com©. anvwhere near to understanding what he does not shore; whereas the cynic, from the very fact, that he has looked by choice at the less serious side of thiugs, ha s learned tolerance, and never dreams of repaying tne entiiusiast in his own coin. On the contrary, he recognises that he can be nsetul, arid sometimes manages to make him ??• , -Y, e ma y oveil convince him, if not that there are weak places in his own enthusiasm. at least that the enthusiasms of others are not equally free from reproacn. Who can say how many unwilling conversions may not have been effected by those illuminating little speeches in which Lord Salisbury occasionally lays bare the weakness of much proposed legislation. Tlie pleasure that the demonstration obviously gives its author aoes not in the least lessen its truth or itsvalue, and even among those whom it most irritates there mnv be some who will never again yield quite the old reverence to the old idol.