THE COMIC REVOLUTION

New Zealand Tablet, 23 June 1921, Page 9

THE COMIC REVOLUTION

(By G. K. Chesterton, in the New Witness.)

"Can you believe," a friend asked us, after reading what we had to say last week on the Lockout, "that a Prime Minister of England would precipitate a great industrial quarrel in order to win an election?" Our reply need not be chronicled, but our friend agreed that the fjate of Ireland during the last century was a staring example. Since then Mr. George has gone on from strength to strength. "My God! what a showman the man is!" C. B. Cochran may have remarked. He opened in a tender mood, with tears for the pit ponies. Shoot if you must his old grey head, but spare the pit ponies. . The pit ponies were spared, and his old grey (or shall we call it his "hoary old?") head was not shot at. Nevertheless the soldiers were moved into Hyde Park. And at that a shudder went through the country. There was no knowing what those dreadful miners would be up to. We, on this paper, and most of the people we talk to enjoyed the stroke; it was so funny. The miners had been extraordinarily well behaved. There had been nothing like so much violence as there would be if from 50 to 25 per cent, were the fees of the lawyers or the salaries of the Government officials. The strike would bo over in a few days.. But the incomparable trickster had frightened the country. There would be tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of votes fewer cast .for Labor at the next General Election than would otherwise have been cast for it. It was wicked statesmanship, but it' was glorious comic opera. The little Welsh producer was not content with his coup, however. He called the nation to the defence of something or other which had not been, attacked. He waved flags, he blew bugles, he struck an heroic attitude with the Royal Standard clutched to his side. Recruits poured in. Aged staff officers, chanting the ribald lyrics of G.H.Q., joined the ranks, bank clerks threw down the tools, unemployed benefit men deserted the Labor Exchanges, and an eminent financier offered his second-best Rolls-Royce ' to the nation. On all the hoardings there were posters, neat, not gaudy, telling the people what was -their duty and how they were to do it in this great national emergency which had not arrived. "Old Sweats," in want of a new suit, joined the special constables, and went to work in the blue trousers. In all the picture papers there were photos of mixed recruits carrying camp dixies. The enthusiasm, said one fervid journalist, reminded us of the great days of August, 1914. / i There was a touch of blasphemy in thatnot to be avoided perhaps in so stupendous a comic revolution. For" a revolution there was— anyhow, one half of it; though the revolutionaries had not yet been spotted. It was at this stage of the production, however, that we began to wonder if the producer had gone, a little bit too far. We did not begrudge him the mirth he must have felt at the woes of the pit ponies, still less his roars of laughter over the Hyde Park stunt. But surely that was enough to win an election. He had made the unattached atoms regard the miners and all appertaining thereto as terrible men. Was not that enough? Need he go on Did he not fear that the denouement of his comic opera might be written by another hand and in ink of another color? At this stage, anyhow, we began to grow uneasy, and the patient workmen began to grow . riled. . At first the railway and the transport workers, while believing absolutely in the justice of the miners' resistance to the masters' demands, were quite patently striving to avoid a general stoppage. They were even praised for their moderation by the capitalist press— to their own disgust. But with Mr. George's increasing vehemence and his flag-waving and his bugle-blowing, not their tactics, but their temper began to change. They were still striving 4or peace, but with the grim reservation: "If they want a fight they can have it." And now, as we write, the beginning* of the strike - has been announced. The last scene of the comic opera

has yet to be written; but the Alliance leaders - have already, taken up the pen. - We fear, we greatly fear, that Mr. George is even more frivolous than he looks, and that he would still regard it as a comic opera revolution if the Trades Unions were persuaded to face the guns. His first business in this little disturbance was to make his earthly election sure; but his second business may be to polish off those confounded workmen once and for all. It is not enough to prevent Labor winning at the polls, Trade Unionism must be prevented from winning at the bench, the Labor movement must be broken for ever. And the sooner the better! As we have mentioned several times before, the employers regard a violent revolution as inevitable —nay now ! they regard it as necessary. They are afraid that, if the social structure be changed (as it must be, since it is falling into ruins) without violence, the Slave State may not result. We are not so optimistic, but that is their opinion. The real apostles of violent revolution, then, are the employers and the Government; and they want the violent revolution to happen now. But they regard the prospect with equanimity. All the cards are in their hands. They have the guns, the aeroplanes, the press, they have the middle classes neatly organised as a Defence Corps, and they have a certain section of the unemployed unwilling to lose their dole. They have, above all else, the aura of Loyalism. .These strikers are low, unpatriotic chaps, not unlike the Huns, with evil designs on the Ten Commandments and the British Constitution. Have at the rogues! It ought to be dead easy. It won't be —not even as easy as the destruction of Ireland, for there are more Trade Unionists in England than there are Irish in Ireland; and the/men who work the guns of the capitalists are the brothers of the men they will be asked to slay. Moreover, it is possible, we believe, probable, we hope, that out of the tumult a new cause will arise more vital than the one which the miners appear to espouse. If a violent revolution does come we hope to see created a revolutionary party pledged to fight for freedom, for the freedom of England, the freedom of Englishmen. But this we do not insist upon; this is an aspiration, not a fact. The fact is. that the capitalist lightly courts the battle, sure of the result, thinking it will be a comic opera stunt like one of Denikin's victories. The fact is that the capitalist is mistaken. He will not last as long as Denikin lasted; the English workman is made of sterner stuff than the Russian Bolshevik. It is even possible that the patience of the English workman may endure this new. onslaught upon it, and that the violence hoped for by the Government will not occur. The great strike has begun, and no man can see the end of it, least of all the shameless tricksters waving their comic-opera swords. Capitalist prophets insist on the approaching end of all things, by which they mean the end of a capitalistic world. We have considerable hopes of such a consummation, but no certainty. We do not moreover believe in the threatened destruction. The public, thanks to Mr. George, is in a panicky mood. There is no need for perturbation. Let us take a recent analogy. While the ■ eclipse was on, the streets presented a strange sight. All classes, conditions, and ages, men, women, and children, were looking through smoked glasses at the sun. Messenger boys had jagged fragments blackened over a gas flame and superior persons had a framed affair from an optician. There was in fact, little to' be seen. As a spectacle, the peep-show of. our youth (Waterloo in four colors', Wellington's nose dominating the landscape) beat it hollow. But the sun-gazers seemed contented. Thev F n W something which looked like the diagram printed in the newspapers; and it is seldom that the press is confirmed by the facts of nature. It was, as a taxi-man (formerly a hansom driver) graphically put it, like a sanguinary' shadow' creeping over the sun. [But nature forbore the climax which nobody expected, and everybody deserved. The sun was at no time completely obscured, * and gradually the moon withdrew.* A large and increasing number of people are looking tip

at the sun just now through smoked glasses and blue \y *.spectacles,' and their hair is-rising in l,„..„«„ at that lnnor- \ y speuuauitjs, ana onen nun i» in mjuwi «u uncu iunai shadow which is more and more obscuring it. Then have not the firm faith of the other sky-gazers, and tell us, amid, shrieks for the police (and quite illogically for the • fire brigade) that as soon as that sanguinary shadow, Labor masquerading as Bolshevism, gets over the sun, darkness will settle upon England, not. to 'lift again. The capitalistic light of day will be put out and chaos only remain. We retain our belief in the fundamental sanity of; the English people. They may rise in their strength against the evil conditions of our present social system, but they will not seek to "destroy the England they fought to save. The shadow will pass, the sun may shine on a new earth, but it will still be the same sun.