Читать книгу The King's Grace - John Buchan - Страница 11

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No epoch in the life of a nation is exactly outlined by a sovereign's reign. The Victorian Era contained many different stages, and the so-called Edwardian Age was not a self-contained period, exactly definable. In so far as it represented the breakdown of nineteenth century security it began long before the Queen's death, while certain vital changes in the position of affairs and in the temper of the people did not show themselves till after King Edward had been several years on the throne. What may fairly be said is that various forces moved in the reign to a crescendo, and that what had hitherto been conjecture was revealed as fact.

The nineteenth century began as an era of hope, and till near its close was in Britain an era of confidence. After its fashion it was an age of faith. There is a passage in Mr. Gladstone's diary, under the date January 19th 1834, which startles the reader. At the age of twenty-five he returned for a week-end to Oxford—almost his first visit to the place since he had gone down. He had just entered Parliament, and was already marked out as a rising man. On such a visit the ordinary young politician might be expected to spend his hours in conviviality, perhaps a little in sentimental recollection, in friendly talk, in the natural ruffling of a distinguished stranger. The diary reveals that Mr. Gladstone devoted his time to the reading of "Pickering on Adult Baptism." I have no doubt that the book was dull, I suspect that it may have been futile, but the very name of it moves me like a spell. I see it, preposterous and yet magnificent, the symbol of a lost security of soul which was long ago dropped by the wayside.

The simpler Victorian confessions were assailed by the sceptical influence of a fast-developing physical science, and the iconoclast was at first as passionate in his faith as the orthodox. But about the nineties a certain languor set in in all belief. Most of the famous creeds, orthodox and heterodox alike, were shaken in popular esteem. They had either lost their votaries, having become disconsidered commonplaces, or a newer dialectic was questioning the authority even of the novelties. The nineteenth century had carried a full load of dogma; the twentieth was sceptical of its predecessor's gods, and had not yet found those of its own which could awake the same serious fervour. The prevalent mood was in all things opportunist, and the bold reconstructions of earlier thinkers were out of fashion. The Victorian scepticism, which had led to strong anti-orthodox faiths, was replaced by a failure of intellectual vitality, and a mood which could be at once sceptical and credulous. In religion, in politics, in social science there was everywhere a tendency to exalt emotion and to appeal to the heart rather than to the head. When creeds were thus in solution, and there were few boundaries left fixed, the way was opened to those vague and potent eruptions of the human spirit which, like the inroads of the Barbarians on the Roman Empire, make a sharp breach with the past, and destroy what they could not have created.

This weakening of intellectual foundations was accompanied by an apparent loosening of civilisation's cement, which is a reverence for law and order and a general good-will. A more violent, a less equable temper was growing up in the world. Mr. Churchill, so far as Britain was concerned, dates it, probably with truth, from the Jameson Raid in 1896. Thereafter politics became more feverish and party feeling more extreme. This was true of all nations, which seemed to be possessed by new ambitions and new fears. Elsewhere it might be explained by a dawning sense of insecurity; in Britain the temper was due largely perhaps to a wounded pride. In the Victorian hey-day she had been the leader of Europe, with her liberal institutions an acknowledged model for her neighbours. That glory had passed, but in the nineties it was replaced by a new vision of Empire. Her possessions, acquired at random, were suddenly seen as the material of a world-wide polity, which offered illimitable opportunities to her youth. Her poets sang of it with an Elizabethan passion, no statesman omitted it from his perorations, and Mr. Chamberlain was recognised as its business manager.

The ill-contrived South African War was like a douche of icy water on this national confidence, and it left a sobered but somewhat ill-tempered people. The party game grew embittered. Liberals complained of the tactics of the Khaki election of 1901; the tariff reform controversy was conducted with surprising heat; Conservatives in turn made a grievance of the dear food and Chinese slavery cries; and the Liberal Government entered upon power in 1906 with popular enthusiasm behind it, but with its opponents in a temper which did not promise an easy course. "We see," Mr. Churchill has written, "a succession of partisan actions continuing without intermission for nearly twenty years, each injury repeated with interest, each oscillation more violent, each risk more grave, until at last it seemed that the sabre itself must be invoked to cool the blood and the passions that were rife." In her politics Britain seemed to have lost that common measure of agreement between parties which had been one of the secrets of her strength. In home affairs, as in the world at large, the former conventions and decencies were slipping out of public affairs.

In one respect the new century was the child of the old. The great discoveries of physical science had borne fruit in a vast increase of wealth and its wider diffusion. There was everywhere on the globe a feverish hunt for riches and a craze for luxury. If one form of self-confidence had weakened, another had been enlarged—a belief in the omnipotence of the huge scientific and social machine which had been created. If men were shy in the face of dogmas, they were confident about certain facts, and that manly humility which theology calls the fear of God was not a common mood. The power of plutocracies was everywhere in the ascendant, and the aristocracies, even the most ancient and reputable, found their prestige dwindling. In Britain the great families were still in the governing class, and the great houses were still maintained, but they counted for less. The catholic tastes of King Edward had opened fashionable society to many who a generation before would have knocked in vain at its doors. Much of this change was for the good, since it broke down old foolish barriers and did much to kill a false gentility. But it had also its malign effects, for it meant that the chief asset of the rich, their wealth, came to set the standard of life, and it tended to coarsen and vulgarise the public temper.

The increasing parade of luxury involved the growing discontent of the poor. It was a prosperous time; unemployment, judged by later canons, was a small thing; the standard of living and the conditions of labour among the working classes had been vastly improved. But the spread of education had made the worker ask questions, and the spectacle of wealth, which new facilities of transport and the popular press thrust under his notice, sharpened his interrogatories. Antagonism towards those in possession and a new class-consciousness were growing up among the dispossessed. Social democracy aimed at a revolution and a new world, and, following the example of its opponents, its aims were largely material. It sought rather to master the world's wealth than to regenerate the world's spirit. This aim, combined with the large share which the people had won in the government of most lands, led to an intense nationalism in practice, whatever might be the theory. The workers of one country, controlling the administration of that country, were prepared to set up any barrier that would secure the wealth which they sought to share from being pilfered by strangers. The consequence was that, while men were little disposed to contend for ideals as these used to be understood, they were very willing to struggle for material good things. The old romantic nationalism had decayed, and in its place had come a new nationalism of the pocket. Europe was moving towards materialism and the self-contained and jealous state.

It was a world which was still in the main good-humoured, being comfortable, and there was much goodwill about and much philanthropic experiment. But it was a world without a strong common faith and purpose, fumbling with ill-understood novelties, already half the servant of the intricate machine it had devised. It was a world self-satisfied without contentment, a world in which prosperity was no index to happiness. Mankind was drifting into jealous cliques, while every day its economic bonds became more subtly interlinked. Yet few recognised the danger signals. Only here and there a disconsidered prophet foretold that such a situation could not endure, and that sooner or later must come the thunderstroke to rend the lordly pleasure-house.

In such a difficult "climate of opinion" the new reign began.