IS ENGLAND A NATION OF SNOBS?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17832, 28 April 1926, Page 4

IS ENGLAND A NATION OF SNOBS?

CASTE SYSTEM HAS OFTEN RAISED RE. BUT BARRIERS HAVE MOSTLY BROKEN DOWN. F oreigners—including Americans—have long been convinced that the English are a nation of snobs. Sometimes they are amused, but more often irritated, by what they consider to be the essential snobbishness of the English mind. They suspect us—or at least the tradition still persists—of a national arrogance towards all people, customs, and fashions outside our own small island, a contempt for all foreigners hardly disguised by a certain cold civility, and within our own social ranks a caste system based on educated snobbishness which reaches right through the structure of our social life. The titled aristocrat is supposed to consider himself of quite different clay from the ►common herd. The university man is supposed to regard himself as the intellectual superior of the selfeducated student who has swotted in his back room. No self-made man, however great his fortune, is ever allowed to mention his humble origin without a shudder passing. it is said, among those who live on inherited wealth or in privileged* professions untainted by the stigma of trade. TWO QUESTIONS. But these social distinctions are not reserved for the very rich or the highly exalted, according to the pre vailing ideas of English snobbishness. The hank clerk or the Civil servant considers himself a cut above the prosperous shopkeeper or the commercial traveller. Any man who wears a black coat and a white collar looks down upon any man who toils in his shirt sleeves and wears a scarf round his neck. There is no marriage or giving in marriage between the son of a sec-ond-class clerk and the daughter of a greengrocer. Mrs Smith, whose children go to a private kindergarten, will not let her little ones make friends with the children of Mrs Brown who go to the free elementary school. In every instinct of our minds., say some of our foreign critics, we are ingrained with srfebbishness. Is there any truth in all this? And if so. is it a bad thing, anyhow? I think we must plead guilty to the charge, on the whole, though I believe that during the last few years-,a social and mental revolution has been going on with the effects of breaking down this caste system in English life and curing us a little, if not completely, of this curse of snobbishness. It was due partly to facts of history Our medieval life was founded upon clear-cut distinctions of rank and ser-

When the middle class grew numerous and powerful, they, too were divided into well-defined ranks. Merchants and craftsmen belonged to various guilds, and wore the liveries of their companies.

It was this medieval tradition of accepted classes and ranks which formed our social habits of mind and persisted long after the system had been broken up or modified. ARROGANCE. The eighteenth century English gentleman was certainly the most arrogant human being in the whole world. When he made the 44 Grand Tour through Europe he left a trail of hatred behind him because of his haughty manner, and his contempt for the language, fashions, religion and manners of all the foreigners he encountered. His attitude of mind was reflected in the coarse abuse of foreigners among the lowest classes of English life. They cursed the French as “frog-eaters,” and firmly believed that Napoleon drank j babies’ blood for breakfast. They were convinced that one Englishmen could whip three Frenchman with one hand tied behind his back. Until quite recent days the ordinary ignorant fellow, of high rank or low, still called the Italians 44 ice-cream merchants.” the French “ froggies.” and j every kind of foreigner by the general term of 44 dagoes.” J Have we quite cured ourselves of • that national self-conceit? The war ought to have taught us a wholesome lesson in that respect, and I think it did, among those who understood the immense heroism of the French people and the general standard of courage and sacrifice in all nations. BROADENED VIEWS. The war has done other things to broaden oxi/t views of life. It has broken do(vn the frontiers of caste within our own ranks. Our snobbish ness is not so armour-plated. All classes are drawing a little closer together, and fine distinctions of rank and profession are. bejing lost. I notice it very much in London. You never know whether a shop girl behind the counter is not a “lady of qualitv” or at least the daughter of a good old English .family. Young men from public schools and universities are going into big stores and learning their jobs in the carpet department or the haberdashery. • The daughters of the aristocracy and the old country gentry whose families have been pretty hard hit by taxa- ! tion and death duties are going in for dressmaking, setting up milliners’ shops, teaching dancing, learning short- , hand and typewriting, serving in little tea shops and restaurants. Ex-officers, heartbroken after the war by vain attempts to find jobs, have turned their hand to any kind of work in town or country, without caring a jot about caste or class. A blind officer I know is mine host of an old-fashioned inn on the Bath Road, and many other ex-officers, in eluding a commander “axed” out of the Navy, are managing public-houses in rural England. Sons of old families who half a century ago would have fainted at the j thought of going into “trade,” are glad ! to get jobs as commercial travellers | on a small commission basis, or to find J a stool in a merchant’s office. SOCIAL REVOLUTION. ! All that kind of thing is breaking ! up snobdom. The younger generation does not care tuppence what sort of ! work one of their set is doing, pre- ! vided he keeps his sense of humour j and talks their kind of language, j The last strongholds of the caste j idea fell with a crash when the Labour j Party took office, and when railway I clerks, ex-miners, elementary school j masters, and men of the humblest origin became Cabinet Ministers, high officers of the State, and Court officials. The idea of caste—that is to say, of a privileged class set apart by birth, fashion and social conditions from the rest of mankind —has shifted a good

deal from one end of society to the other. ' The aristocracy know that the game is up. They are no longer exclusive, haughty, or snobbish, except in clinging to a few' remnants of their old pride of birth and elegance of manIt is the Labour crowd, especially the political extremists, who believe in the caste system. They cannot abide fellow's who wear black coats and white collars. They have a haughty contempt for men who speak in a different accent from themselves —the unfortunate accent of gentility. They want to bar out from all power and place the intellectuals and the hated bourgeoisie, reserving all good jobs for men and women of their own social kind. Their trade unions arc close corporations. No gentleman need apply. They are terribly snobbish. OUT OF DATE. Our public school system seems to me a little out of date. I mean those great public schools like Eton, Harrow, Rugby and Winchester. In the old days they were certainly breeding grounds of snobbishness. To be fair, they were also great training schools of character and. fine manners among boys who, by birth and fortune and social privileges, were destined to be the leaders of the nation in every department of life. But the old Scottish system of education was better, I think, on the whole. The laird’s son sat on the same bench as the butcher’s boy, and they punched each other’s heads and came to know each other with mutual respect. The Scots were never such snobs as 'the English, though it is an English man who writes that, and for this reason, partly, they took all the best jobs from us, and take them still. There will always be a certain amount of snobbishness as long as human nature remains unchanged. It is not wholly a, vice, but sometimes a loyalty, and oHen a method of self-de-fence. But where snobbishness is a curse is where it despises merit because of the accident of birth or fortune, and builds up barriers of privileges behind which ignorance and inefficiency resent the intrusion of hard workers and hard thinkers. 0 That in the past was the vice of English society. To-day it is the vice of certain extremists in the political world who would like to see Labour protected both from hard work and honest thought.

Otherwise we are getting rid of it as a national characteristic.