England Part 9

A very interesting political club in England is that secret organisation known as "the Confederacy," a very advanced and extreme Unionist body, which has a marked influence on political life, and which is proud of that testimonial of its usefulness based on the declaration of one of its opponents that it is an a.s.sociation of "political Jack-the-Rippers."

Who are the Confederates? The names, of course, cannot be disclosed. It is allowed for any member to declare himself to be a Confederate if he so chooses. But few care to do so. The strictest secrecy must be maintained as to his fellow-members, and no report or record is allowed to be taken of any proceedings of the Confederacy; not even a balance-sheet is ever disclosed. There is a small inner circle of them--known as "the Allies"--who manage the finances and administer the affairs of the Confederacy generally, taking their instructions from the ma.s.s of the members, who meet monthly in a strictly-guarded room of a private club, or at the house of one of their number, from which all servants are excluded as soon as the dinner (which ushers in all meetings) is over. The aim is that no one shall be indictable in the camp of the enemy as a "Confederate"

except on his own confession.

"Who are the Confederates?" cannot therefore be answered with any list of names. As a cla.s.s, they represent the young bloods of the Tariff Reform Party, the forward spirits who believe that in politics one should be strenuous as well as politic. They have raised among themselves a big fighting fund. They have at their command a list of speakers (who, however, are not always allowed to know under what prompting they are sent out into the political firing line), and they command by various means a great newspaper influence.

The professed object of secrecy is to secure the greatest possible efficiency. It is the Unknown that is terrible. A "Jack-the-Ripper" who openly declared himself would have nothing like the power of one working in the dark. These political "Jack-the-Rippers" recognise that fact, and do not in the least object to the savage epithet which they earn by their secrecy.

A meeting of the Confederacy is always preluded by a dinner. Thus, to the outer world, and to the servants of the club or of the private house which is chosen as a meeting-place, it is just a gathering of men to dine together. After dinner, with the port and the coffee and the cigars, the doors being barred against the intrusion of servants, business begins.

Every member is entrusted with the duty of observing some phase of the political fight and reporting thereon. The chances in various electorates are discussed. Funds are voted, when that is necessary, to a.s.sist candidates "on the right side." Flights of orators are despatched to points where they are needed. The newspaper side of the campaign is canva.s.sed. Executive action on all the points raised is left to the three "Allies."

There is no Liberal a.n.a.logue--so far as I know--to the Confederacy. But one might exist without any one knowing of it except the actual members.

Certainly there are secret groups in all the political parties. Sometimes the secrecy is dictated by real motives of expediency. Sometimes it is just a device to give zest to a jaded political palate, and is comparable with the elaborate make-believe of children.

Women are not banished from the political life of England. Almost every party organisation has a separate branch for women, and the influence of these women's organisations is very great. Indeed, some believe that the drawing-room is more powerful than the platform in English public life. But women do not confine their efforts to the drawing-room. They invade the platform also and are sometimes very effective speakers indeed. Lately the agitation for giving women the Parliamentary vote has brought a fresh incursion of feminine workers into the political field, and some of them have shown a remarkable originality in educational work. To raise false alarms of fire so that the Fire Brigades may have useless trouble, to destroy letters in postal pillar-boxes with corrosives, to break windows, and to inflict mild a.s.saults on public men--these are some of the recent methods of political life in England introduced by the agitators for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women.

It is curious to note with what relative patience such political methods are received. If any one attacked the people's letters for some motive not political, the public indignation would know no bounds, and the sternest punishment would be insisted upon. But "politics" explains most things, condones most things. The English have a phrase, "politically speaking,"

which in effect means "not really." They have two great games, cricket and politics. In cricket you must observe all the rules of fair play with most scrupulous nicety. In politics there is practically but one rule--to stick to your side. To say that something is "not cricket" is to signify that it is within the law, but transgresses some delicate tradition of justice, and therefore is reprehensible. To say that something is "politics" means that it must be condoned, unfair though it may seem, because it has a political motive.

In this chat about the political life of England I have sought to be impartial and "non-party"; and that is, by the way, the one really serious political misdeed. Every one must have a label of some sort, or otherwise be accounted somewhat in the category of an unregistered dog.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DEFENCE OF ENGLAND

To keep this England secure, what are the means? A glance at that question at once makes it necessary to tell of Britain rather than of England. There is no English Army, no English Navy. In each case it is a British force, and in the case of the Navy it is being rapidly developed into an Imperial force representing the strength not merely of England and of Britain, but also of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the other Dominions. Yet no picture of England could pa.s.s without some reference to the Navy, which is the supreme maritime force of the world, and the Army, which, though it is a very thin line these days compared with the great continental ma.s.ses, is probably prepared to uphold in the future the great traditions of the past.

And Navy and Army, though not wholly English, are in the main representative of the senior partner in the British firm.

The problem of the defence of England is a great deal complicated by the fact that the British power has spread itself so much over the globe.

Outside of Europe it possesses nearly one half of North America, a great share of the East Indies, the West Indies, and the islands of the Pacific, the whole of Australia and New Zealand, the best parts of Africa and of Asia. In past days there have been some astonishing cases of a wide range of power from a small focus: the Roman Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Mohammedan Empire, for examples. But in no case was the comparison between the mother-country and the actual stretch of real dominion so astonishing as in the case of Britain and her Empire. In most of those cases, too, the Empire was short-lived, and soon broke up into its const.i.tuent parts. But the British Empire remains incredibly vast, and seemingly permanent.

The position is that the parent country of that Empire has to face a far greater task than the securing of her own safety. History shows that part of the price of Empire to be paid by Britain is a mutual jealousy and hostility between her and the next greatest Power in Europe. British foreign policy, more or less consciously, has had to be always founded on that basis. She has in the past fought down Spain, Holland, France. After the Napoleonic Era, when Russia seemed to be the paramount power of Europe, she inevitably set herself to thwarting and checking Russia. When Russian power lessened and Germany became the first Power of Europe, she likewise stepped into the place of the Power which is doomed to be in antagonism to Great Britain. Were German might to fade away, the nation that took Germany's place as the most powerful in Europe would also take her place as the feared rival. The British Empire has taken up so much of the limited room "in the sun" that it must tempt to attack an aspiring Power; and it must face with a nervous dread the growing strength of the paramount Power for the time being in Europe.

In the old struggles to maintain the British Empire, we relied successfully on a policy of "splendid isolation." Without making permanent alliances we held aloof and when a struggle came threw in our weight with one set of Powers or the other and usually secured thus a victory. For many reasons that policy is not the "official" policy of England to-day, though it still has many warm advocates. But, as under that policy for a century a supreme Navy was considered to be necessary for Britain, so to-day that need still survives, and the Navy is the senior defence force of the country. The reliance on naval strength is so complete that the Army is kept to very small dimensions, comparatively speaking, and none of the great cities are fortified. The naval ports have fortifications, but one looks in vain for fortresses around London, Birmingham, and Manchester. England is committed to float or sink on the Navy. As Campbell proudly put it:

Britannia needs no bulwarks, No towers along the steep; Her march is o'er the mountain waves, Her home is on the deep.

With thunders from her native oak She quells the floods below, As they roar on the sh.o.r.e When the stormy winds do blow; When the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy winds do blow.

The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn, Till danger's troubled night depart, And the star of peace return.

This Navy, which has such a great responsibility, has its present headquarters at Portsmouth and Plymouth on the south coast--great naval ports since the days of the Armada and the Napoleonic wars, and very handy in case of war with Spain or France, and in case of expeditions to the Mediterranean, the West Indies, or the Pacific. But its striking force is now rapidly being based on new headquarters facing the North Sea, such as Rosyth in Scotland.

My first view of the British Fleet in the ma.s.s was at the great review held for the Imperial Press Conference delegates in June 1909. It singled that day out from life as great events of pride or of dread mark days. Out from grey and reverend London, settling to the tasks and pleasures of day with quiet confidence, past the villages and fields of the beautiful English country-side smiling in sweet security, we journeyed to Portsmouth to see the ramparts of the Empire. The very train, gliding with unruffled speed, seemed to have a sense of sure stability as it ate up the miles between the chief citadel of our race and its guardian walls.

The sea was dull and leaden, reflecting a dull and leaden sky, as we steamed out past the old _Victory_--significant reminder of great danger of the past greatly overcome--to the Solent, lined like a busy street with great dull, leaden-hued ships. It seemed fitting so, more fitting to the spectacle than a bright heaven and dancing water; for the Fleet had little suggestion of gaiety as it stretched line upon line out to the horizon where sea and sky met. It told rather of a grim resolve to meet menace with menace. So dominant was the note of sternness that the colours of the bright bunting flaunted by the ships faded out of the eye, and one only saw the vast bulk of brooding power.

There was an Armada of one hundred, and again almost half a hundred vessels, ranging from the great fortress of the _Dreadnought_ type to the viperish destroyers, bringing danger with their speed, and the uncanny submarines, stealing under the water, invisible to the ships they threaten except for a little staff, slender as the antenna of an insect, serving as an eye to the brain below, for offence or defence. Yet practically all those 144 vessels were the fruit of the previous ten years' work; and there was melancholy proof in the row of big ships sulking in the far background--apparently stern, vigorous, and great in strength, but excluded from this parade as useless--of how quickly Time, bringing new inventions, destroys the usefulness of the sea-fighting machine. How vast the task of maintaining a power so hard to bring to life, so quick to decline! The monstrous strength of the elephant comes only of slow growth; once attained, it is slow to decay and fall. But the unit of sea-power seems almost shorter of life than of gestation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BATTLESHIPS MANOEUVRING]

Past the serried lines of destroyers, we were carried to cross the stern of the _Dreadnought_, noting best thus its wide bulk, and turned down a long lane of water lined with battleships. With happy symbolism, the right edge of sea-guardians represented the nations of the Empire--_Africa_, the _Commonwealth_, _New Zealand_, the _Dominion_, _Hindustan_, _Hibernia_, _Britannia_, with _King Edward VII._ at their head. It was good to be represented, if only by a name, in such a Fleet. Then to the submarines, swimming like a school of killer-whales on the surface of the sea; then again to the big cruisers to see the _Invincible_, the _Inflexible_, the _Indomitable_, proudly flaunting their justly insolent names; then to note, with a throb of grateful memory, a new _Temeraire_ of deadliest might riding beside a ship bearing Nelson's name; and, finally, to be received in welcome on the giant deck of the _Dreadnought_, noting the linked lines of bluejackets, the oldest element of British naval supremacy, and the spider-webs of the wireless telegraphs, the newest sign of British resolve to keep that supremacy.

Before the _Dreadnought_ there paraded then the submarines, some showing their decks awash, others betraying their route only by their periscopes, yet others diving to disappear completely. Next, a herd of black destroyers rushed by with vindictive speed, discharging unloaded torpedoes at the _Dreadnought_, whose sides were protected by nets. Each torpedo found the mark; many, their driving force far from expended, searched and spluttered at the nets, foaming up the water, spitting out fire and smoke. It was significant of the perfect confidence in the Navy that no one of the onlookers crowding the sides of the _Dreadnought_, within a few feet of the nets, flinched. Yet had one of those torpedoes by mistake been loaded, it would have sprinkled death far around. But no one thought of danger. It was "the Navy," which does not often make mistakes.

That was my first view of the British Navy. I had many opportunities afterwards of studying its ships, its men, its system. I saw, on a day of grey fog blurring the features of England and hiding its defending sea, such a day as might make this island fortress open to attack, the _Neptune_ (an improvement even on the _Dreadnought_) take the water. This, the latest addition to the ramparts of Empire, seemed as if eager to get into her element, anxious to hurry to the fighting line. The first steps towards letting her to the sea were taken some while before the appointed time, and the _Neptune_ glided so swiftly down the ways that she was afloat before the moment announced for her naming. The water fled back from the onrush of her vast bulk, then, returning, took the _Neptune_ to its bosom, and she floated easily and confidently. The launching could not have testified better to that perfection of calculation and arrangement which Britain expects of her naval men. One moment the ship pushed a monstrous form high up on to the land, the flowers bedecking her prow accentuating rather than relieving the impression of uncouthness; the next moment she was swimming bravely on the water, a mere hulk of a ship as yet, but in all her lines telling clearly of vast power and swiftness in defence or in attack.

The simple religious service with which the launching was prefaced came harmoniously into the spirit of the occasion. There was no bl.u.s.ter of threat, no echo of the fierce war hymns of the Old Testament; but a humble, and yet confident invocation to the Supreme Power for guardianship and safety. It might have been taken as a declaration that this handiwork of man, terrible engine of battle as it was, had for its aim and end no desire of rapine or aggression, but that of peace and conservation.

Since the _Neptune_ I have seen many other warships launched, including the Australian vessels, which are to help the Empire to hold the Pacific marches; and the Armada seems ever to grow, and yet ever to be thought insufficient for its grave responsibility.

The influence of the Navy is very great on English public life. It draws away for its service a considerable proportion of the best young manhood of the country, and subjects them to a special training and discipline. The habit of thought and of action that they acquire thus gives a tinge to the whole life of England, for, after naval training, these men come back to civil life. In all ranks of life ex-naval men may be found doing good service, from governors down to grooms. An unfortunate fact is that there is a p.r.o.nounced leakage of British naval men to foreign service, attracted by the pay and the chances of promotion.

Linked up with the Navy is the British Mercantile Marine, the best of the _personnel_ of which is organised into a naval reserve. At the back of both are the fishing fleets of England, which were the first nurseries of the Navy, and are still a valuable school for sea-craft. Calculating together the Navy, the Mercantile Marine, and the fishing fleets, a large percentage of England has its home, more or less constantly, on the sea; that sea which serves England "in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house," and which established thus its claim on her blood.

The Army of Britain has had for a century all its work to do abroad, and it might without exaggeration be said that its chief station now is in India.

But, setting on one side for the moment the garrisons of India, Egypt, and other parts of the Empire which are peopled by subject races (the free Dominions are not garrisoned, but defend their own territories with their own troops; there is one temporary exception, South Africa, but the British garrison will leave that station shortly), the Regular Army in England has its chief camp at Aldershot on the road between London and Portsmouth. It is organised on an expeditionary basis, and is always spoken of as an expeditionary force. The idea is that, in case of war, it should go abroad to India or Egypt if an attack were threatened there, to the European continent if that were the theatre of operations. Meanwhile the supremacy of the Navy would ensure that no enemy should be able to land a large army in England. The defence of English territory against such a raiding force as might elude the Navy is entrusted to the "Territorial troops "--enlisted on a volunteer basis.

Perhaps the English Army system will be best made clear by tracing it from its beginnings with the schoolboy age. In the first place, it has to be noted that there is no compulsory military service in England. Until quite recently it was possible to recruit for the militia (though not for the Regular Army) by a ballot, _i.e._ by the drawing of a lot to determine a certain number of recruits who were forced to join whether they liked it or not (this system is still in force in the Channel Islands). Now there is absolutely no compulsion in England to undertake any form of military service. It is not even compulsory that schoolboys should undertake cadet drill. The English boy can altogether neglect any training for the defence of his country if that is his wish and the wish of his parents. In the majority of cases he takes full advantage of that freedom. If, however, he has some stirring of a desire to equip himself for defence, he may join the Boy Scouts--a non-military, but a disciplined organisation recently set afoot by General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who was a very prominent figure during the last big war that Britain had. If the English boy is of a more marked martial inclination he can, whilst at school, usually join a cadet organisation or the Officer's Training Corps,--a body of cadets recruited from the higher schools. If it is intended that he should seek a career in the army as an officer, he will, as a very young boy, be sent to a preparatory school, and go from that to a military college, and from there, on pa.s.sing his examinations, go into the commissioned ranks of the Army.

So much for the boys. The adults may join the Territorial Force, a civilian army which makes slight demands on their leisure and does not interfere with them following civilian a.s.sociations; or they may join the Regular Army. In every other great country of the world (except the United States) a certain proportion of adult men have to join the Regular Army for a term whether they wish to or not; in some countries almost every able-bodied man is thus pa.s.sed through the military organisation. But in England the Army is recruited on a voluntary basis. It is sought to get men by offers of good pay and good conditions of service. Naturally this makes the British Army a far more expensive affair, regiment for regiment, than any other army of the world (again except the United States). Its friends claim, however, that this extra cost is compensated for by extra quality, and that the willing recruit will be a more "willing" fighter than any conscript soldier.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHANGING THE GUARD, ST. JAMES'S PALACE]

Though the English are a naval rather than a military nation, their battlefield record is a particularly proud one. The English character in battle shows the stubborn, dogged traits of the people from whom the soldiers are drawn; and since in any British army there is always a great admixture of Irish and Scottish soldiers to give dash and _elan_, the net result usually proves to be an ideal fighting force.

To turn to less serious things, the British Regular is a very decorative personage. It has cost a good deal of money to turn him out, and the military authorities insist that he should show that money's worth. This is partly from pride in the force, partly from a desire to encourage recruiting for the Army by the parading in the streets of these well-set-up, gorgeously uniformed men. The regiments kept in London barracks are "show" regiments, and a very fine note of pageantry they bring to the old grey city. The ceremony of changing the guard at the palaces draws a crowd of spectators daily; and he is an unlucky wight indeed who does not find often his glimpse of London park or road brightened suddenly by the pa.s.sage of a troop of cavalry, plumes nodding, cuira.s.ses gleaming, spirited horses pannading.

The populace love the soldiers. Yet there is no abatement of the old English jealousy against encroachments by standing armies. The military power is kept strictly subservient to the civil power, as a hundred and one regulations and customs constantly remind. The civilian people are resolved that their defenders shall never become aggressors against their liberties.

To the visitor from the European continent, where the soldier is supreme, the position of the military force in England seems strange, even undignified. But it is a jealously guarded survival of the days of old strifes, when there was real danger of a king using the army to destroy the liberties of the common people. There is little or no reason for the survival now; but the sentiment of it is good.

With that I may well conclude these notes on England; for, after the green fields and the dear homes of England, the strongest trait of the country's character is the tender guardianship of old forms and symbols and customs.

England does not lag behind in the work of present-day modern civilisation.

But as she goes forward she takes the Past affectionately along with her.