Freedom In Service Part 6

The individual apart from society is a mere abstraction, like the "economic man" of the old economists.

What, then, are these so-called "personal liberties" which the individual is supposed to possess in virtue of his humanity and independently of any authority external to himself? If it is said that they are freedom of thought, freedom of emotion, and freedom of will, the criticism is that these are not "liberties" at all, but merely movements of the mind which no power whatsoever external to the individual can possibly control, and with which no political authority in the country would ever dream of attempting to interfere. If, however, it is said that they include further such things as freedom of speech, freedom of writing, freedom of public meeting, freedom to act generally as conscience dictates, the criticism is that such liberties as these are not "personal" merely, or even primarily: they are liberties that profoundly affect the community. Regarded from the communal point of view, in fact, they are not "personal liberties" at all, if by that term is meant individual rights. They are rights derived from the community; they are concessions to be granted or withheld according to the requirements of public policy; they are matters of regulation by the common will. Society does not, and cannot, recognize the existence, independent of its own consent, of any such so-called "personal liberties." It does not, and cannot, admit the possession by individuals of any rights, inherent and indefeasible, to do as they like in matters that concern the interests of the community generally. Still less can the State be expected to protect individuals in the exercise of activities which it regards as detrimental, or in the neglect of duties which it regards as essential, to the general well-being. It cannot restrain anyone's conscience; but it must control everyone's conduct.

All this, of course, is the commonplace of political theory, and it is curious that at this late day one should have to repeat Burke's destructive criticism of metaphysic liberties, or Bentham's d.a.m.ning exposure of the "anarchic fallacy" of the Rights of Man, or Mr. D. L.

Ritchie's quite recent dissipation of the errors underlying the idea of Natural Rights. But it is still more curious that many of the men who revive against the modern democratic State this long-laid ghost of eighteenth-century individualism call themselves Socialists, and invoke the State (when it suits them to do so) to embark on all manner of anti-individualistic enterprises. This anomaly, however, is merely one among many flagrant instances of that ignorance of precedent which revives long-buried heresies, that incapacity for thought which seems unaware of inconsistencies, or that shameless perversity which seeks out and proclaims any sort of general principle which happens to suit the exigencies of the moment.

A second rival to the State is Political Party. At the present juncture there are four important political parties in existence in the British Isles, viz., Liberal, Conservative, Nationalist, Labour, beside various incipient ones. The two old parties, Liberal and Conservative, stand for more or less clearly defined and sharply opposed general principles.

Hallam has described them as the party of progress and the party of order respectively; and he (followed by Macaulay and other writers) has devoted a good deal of care to the elucidation of the fundamental differences between them. These old parties are by far the most vital and powerful political ent.i.ties in the United Kingdom. They have deep-rooted traditions, efficient organizations, large funds secretly raised and administered, formulated programmes, and all the paraphernalia of habitations, catchwords, and badges calculated to excite loyalty and stimulate zeal. They secure in alternation the control of the State, and administer in the name of the nation as a whole the vast affairs of the British Empire. It may be at once admitted that parties such as these are inevitable in any system of representative government. For so long as fundamental differences of opinion exist among electors, it is only by means of organizations based on the primary opposing principles that any working const.i.tution can be framed. To attack party-government as such is vain and even absurd.

Nevertheless, party has become the rival of the State; and its rivalry is all the more dangerous and insidious because it always professes to act in the interests of the State and on behalf of the nation as a whole. Its professions, however, have become false and hypocritical. In the name of the People it seeks its own gain. It has ceased to be a means to good democratic government, and has grown to be an end in itself. In its rivalry to other parties, in its struggle for power, in its scramble for the spoils of office, in its eagerness to secure votes, it has debased political ideals, it has corrupted citizenship, it has abandoned truth, it has proclaimed smooth lies, it has betrayed the State, it has almost destroyed the nation. Happy indeed will it be if this war, which is revealing to us the hideousness and deadliness of the party-spirit, enables us to reduce the old parties to their proper place of subordination to the State.

In addition to the two old parties, however, there are two comparatively new ones which occupy places of importance in the world of politics. These are the Nationalist and the Labour parties. Neither of these professes to make the interests of the State its prime concern.

The one concentrates its energies upon a struggle to advance the cause of a single nation from among the four that const.i.tute the United Kingdom; the other devotes itself to the affairs of a single social cla.s.s. The existence of these powerful sectional organizations is a disastrous portent. They stand, not as the old parties do for divergent views concerning the interests of the State as a whole, but for mortal schism in the body politic. Never can there be a full return to healthy national life until means have been found for reabsorbing these and other incipient schismatic organizations into the unity of the Great Society.

A third rival to the State has recently come into prominence in the shape of a number of various non-political corporations which claim to possess an organic existence independent of, and co-ordinate with, the State, and thus deny the right of the State to intrude within the spheres of their operations. The most important are the Syndicalists, who proclaim the autonomy of the industrial union or guild, and the Ecclesiastics, who a.s.sert the autonomy of the denationalized church.

Both agree in repudiating political control, and in abjuring the use of political instruments. They rely upon "direct action" of their own, the one employing the terrors of the general strike to overawe the community, the other the horrors of h.e.l.l. Now it may be freely granted that one of the most notable advances in modern political theory has been the recognition of the fact that men naturally organize themselves into groups--families, clans, tribes; sects, societies, churches; guilds, trade unions, clubs, and so on--and that the State is rather a federation of groups than an a.s.sociation of isolated individuals. It may be granted, secondly, that some of these organizations are anterior to the State in point of time, and that they deal with matters that are not appropriate for direct State control. Finally, it may be granted that the State will be well advised to leave some or all of them in possession of large powers of self-administration. Nevertheless, when once the Great Society has come into existence, and has organized itself as the National State, they must, if anarchy is to be avoided, all take their places as const.i.tuent members of the community, and recognize that they exercise such autonomous powers as they possess in virtue of the permission of the general will. The State, however prudently it may employ its powers, must be, and must be universally admitted to be, in all causes, civil or ecclesiastical, throughout all its dominions, in the last resort, supreme. In the interests of the common good it cannot tolerate any rivals.

FOOTNOTES:

[48] Reported in _Daily Chronicle_, January 4th, 1916.

[49] McKechnie. _The State and the Individual_, p. 3.

[50] Barker. _Political Thought from Spencer to the Present-Day_, p.

108.

III. WHAT THE STATE IS AND DOES

In the purification and exaltation of the Democratic National State rests the one hope of the salvation of Britain and the Empire. In a federation of Democratic National States resides the best prospect of the future peaceful and well-ordered government of the world. The individualism of Dr. Clifford leads straight to anarchy; the unchecked development of the party-system means the corrupt tyranny of the caucus; the triumph of Syndicalism would involve the tragedy of cla.s.s war; the dream of the reunion of humanity in the bosom of a cosmopolitan church is a vain revival of a mediaeval illusion. The individual must be brought to recognize that politically he has no separate existence, and must learn to limit his operations to his proper share in the const.i.tution and determination of the general will; party must be remorselessly reduced to its legitimate subordination to the interests of the community as a whole; syndicates and trade unions must be prevented from cutting themselves loose from the body of the nation, must be compelled to recognize the supremacy of the law of the land, and must be deprived of any inequitable privileges which they may have secured; ecclesiastics of all orders must be persuaded to rest content with such autonomy as the general will may grant them, and must strive to become, not a separate corporation, but the indwelling and directing conscience of the people. The State must be supreme.

What is the State which is thus exalted above all rivals? Let Mr.

Bernard Bosanquet answer. "The State," he says, "is not merely the political fabric. The term 'State' accents indeed the political aspect of the whole, and is opposed to the notion of an anarchic society. But it includes the entire hierarchy of inst.i.tutions by which life is determined, from the family to the trade, and from the trade to the church and the university. It includes all of them, not as the mere collection of the growths of the country, but as the structures which give life and meaning to the political whole, while receiving from it mutual adjustment, and therefore expansion and a more liberal air."[51]

In a similar strain T. H. Green says: "The State is for its members, the society of societies, the society in which all their claims upon each other are mutually adjusted."[52] The keynote of both of these profound utterances is "adjustment." They recognize the fact that the convictions and opinions of individuals differ, that the purposes of parties conflict, that the interests of racial units and social cla.s.ses diverge from one another, that the demands of churches are mutually irreconcilable. They recognize further that unless individuals, parties, races, cla.s.ses, churches agree in acknowledging the adjusting authority of the general will of the community to which all belong, endless struggle and hopeless chaos must supervene. No pretension is made that the State is of supernatural origin; no claim to divine right is advanced. It is admitted that the State at one time did not exist. It is foreseen that a day may come when it will be merged in a still larger community. But for the present it is the only possible organ by means of which the common will can operate in the interests of the common good.

The basis of its claim for obedience rests upon the facts, first, that every individual subject, and every organized group of subjects, owes to the State, and to it alone, the conditions that make existence possible, and secondly, that only as a member of the State can the individual attain to his full development, and only under the protection of the State can the group achieve its purposes. The attainment of the common good, as that good is conceived of by the common intelligence, and by means which the common will determines--such is the ideal of the Democratic National State. Here surely is a sphere in which every man can find the fullness of life.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] Bosanquet. _Philosophical Theory of the State_, p. 150.

[52] Green. _Principles of Political Obligation_, p. 146.

IV. THE SPHERE OF NATIONAL SERVICE

The above statement of the ideal of the Democratic National State brings home to the mind a realization of the magnitude of the sphere which lies open to National Service in the broad sense of the term. Democracy is sovereign; although it is flouted by individuals, deluded and debauched by parties, and challenged by separatist syndicates. It must remain sovereign, and its sovereignty must be made a more real, more conscious, and more effective thing than it has ever been before. Rarely, however, has there been a sovereign less adequately equipped than democracy for its gigantic responsibilities. One of its most enthusiastic modern supporters, Professor John MacCunn, gravely admits that "Democracy, still raw to its work, whether in politics or industry, may blunder--may blunder fatally."[53] Long ago it was pointed out by Plato that democracy is the cult of incompetence. In more recent times Mill has emphasized the possibility that democracy may govern badly and oppressively; Maine has warned us that the dominance of the commonalty may end in the triumph of the mediocre, and a more than Chinese stagnation; Carlyle has denounced democracy as powerful for destruction, but impotent for building up, as helpless in the face of great emergencies, as incapable of choosing good leaders; Lecky has demonstrated the danger of the corruption of the democracy by evil politicians; Belloc has shown how it tends to develop, and then become a slave to, a bureaucracy; Graham Wallas has portrayed the psychological peril of its hypnotization by colours and claptrap. All the dangers thus enumerated are real and formidable. They have, however, to be faced and overcome by men of goodwill: for there is now no alternative to democracy but anarchy. Fortunately they may be faced in confidence and hope. For the British democracy--as the revealing crisis of this great war has shown--is sound at heart, is eager to be delivered from its betrayers, and is longing to learn. It calls pathetically for those who know to teach it, and for those who can to lead it. Here, then, is the sphere of National Service. Who will not come forward to help democracy to become conscious of its power and its dignity; to aid it in establishing its authority over all rebels and rivals; to teach it how to use its omnipotence gently, so as to leave to those beneath its sway the largest possible room for freedom consistent with the common good; to make it aware of its responsibilities for its vast dominions across the seas and their teeming populations; to awaken it to a realization of the extent to which the whole future of the human race rests upon the success of its experiment in government? It is in the service of such a sovereign as this, and in the pursuit of such an ideal, that faithful souls attain that self-realization which is perfect freedom.

FOOTNOTE:

[53] MacCunn. _Six Radical Thinkers_, p. 69.

GARDEN CITY PRESS LTD., LETCHWORTH, ENGLAND