Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
The Psychology of J ingo ism
yubiisbet'
s Jimnmment
Wreck ing the Empire. ByJoanM. Roumon. Crown 8m.
Patriotismand Empire. ByJoanM. Rom-mow. ThirdEdition,
crown Bvc . , cloth. 3s. 6d.
Patriotismand Eth ics. ByJ . G . Gonn a) . Crown 8vo.
, cloth,
Drifting. Crown 8vo ., cloth,
LONDON : Cam RiCBARDS
9 Henrietta Street. CoventGarden, W.C.
Psycho logy of Jingo ism
j . A. HOBSON,M.A.
5011103 or‘
joaN mam : aocun. umnu zn '
“rue wax msom u n ca, ’
Lo nd o n
Grant Richards190 1
[V .
VI.
V“.
II.
CONTENTS
JINGOISMrts ummcON GlN
PART I
THE DIAGNOSIS
VAINGLORY AND SHOR'
I‘
SiGHT
ran scumop moon
"ranmmu w ” mm90141108mmou rn moonsmum?
PART 11
THEMAN! FACT! RE OF JINGOISMTEEMSB OFmmPLATFORMAND P! LP” : Am an 0? u nmetAND f ION
rm
Psychology of Jingoism
INTROD! CTORY
J ingo ism : Its Mean ing and Origin
TH
the ual members of that o thernation , is no new th ing. Wars have not
always, or perhaps commonly, demanded fortheir orig in and support the pervas ion of sucha frenzy among the body of the people . Thewill of a king, of a statesman , or of a small casteof nobles, sold iers, pries ts, has often sufficed tobreed and to maintain bloody confl icts be tweennations, without any ful l or fierce participationi n the war-spiri t by the lay multitude . Onlyin recent times , and even nowover but a smal lpart of the world , has the great mass of the
B
2 The Psycho logy of J i ngo ismindiv iduals of any nat ion been placed i n suchqu ick touc th great tical events that
or i n determin ing by sanct ion or by eri t i~cismany important turn in the pol i t ical conductof a war. I n a long- continued war, the passionof a whole people has, even i n old t imes, beengradual ly inflamed against another people ’s ,with whom ,
for reasons usual ly known to few ,
a state ofwar existed and such martial an imus,
once roused , has lasted far beyond the l imits ofthe stri fe, sometimes smou ldering for decadesor for centuries.The qu ick ebull ition of national hate termed
ve
passmn, mod ified and intens i taincond itions
-
oi modern civ il izat ion . One who i sW etymological
-
Brigmwill find trues ign ificance in the mode by which the wordj ingo first came into vogue as an expression ofpopular pugnac i ty .
The oft-quoted saying of Fletcher of Saltoun, Let me make the ballads of a people,and let who wil l make the laws,’ ever findsfresh il lustration . A radual debasement of
popular art attendingthe new industrimofcongested
,ugly, manufacturing towns has ra ised
J ingo ism : ItsMean ing and O rigi n 3
up the to be the most powerful instrume music and l iterary cultureas the people are Open to receive.
,
Among large sections of the middle and thelabouring classes, the music-hall, and the re
creative publ ic-house into which it shades offby imperceptible degrees, are a more potenteducator than the churc
th is ‘ l ighter self ’ of the city populace theart iste conveys by song or recitation crudenotions upon morals and pol it ics, appeal ingby coarse humour or exaggerated pathos tothe animal lusts of an audience stimulated byalcohol i nto appreciative h ilari ty,I n ordinary times pol it ics plays no important
part i n these feasts of sensational ism, but theglorification of brute force and an tgn
’
orant con
he music-hal lis the onl present dayits words pass by quick magicfrom the Empire or the Alham er thelength and breadth of the land, i n athousand provincial hal ls, clubs, and dri nk ing
4. The Psycho logy of J ingo ismwith air and sentiment . By such process of
art istic suggestiot hg fervour of J ingo ism hasbeen widely fed , and it is worthy of note thatthe present mean ing of the word was fastenedupon i t by the popularity of a single verse .
N icer cri tics may even be disposed to d ilateupon the contex t of th is early use of the newpol itical term— the affected modesty of theopen ing disclaimer, the rapid transition to atone of bullyi ng braggadocio, with its culminating stress upon the money-bags, and theunconscious humour of an assumption that itis our national duty to defend the Turk .
I ndeed , without descending to minuteanalys is
,we may find something instructive in
the crude jumble of sentiment and the art isticsett ing wh ich it finds
We don ’twantto fight,But, by J ingo, ifwe do,We
’ve gotthemen,We
’ve gotthe ships,We
’ve gotthe money too
crowned by the domineeri ng passion blurtedout i n the concluding l i ne
The Russians shall nothave Constantinople.
’
How many of the audiences who cheeredth is sentiment to the echo, and were heated
J ingo ism : ItsMeaning and O rigin 5
by it almost to enl is ting po in t had , or evendesired to have, the faintest not ion of theEastern Question , or even of the grounds of
our immediate quarrel with Russiation of national an imus
,with a vague assertion
attached to it j s quite sufficient at_this stagei n the manufacture of J ingo spiri t. We shal lperceive later what detailed definiteness of
conviction and assertion J ingoi smi s able to
assume in its more developed forms.I t might appear that a sentiment thus born
amid the fumes of the music-hal l was unsub
stantial, and would quickly evaporate. Butth is rude instrument of ublic feelin th hrepresenw w wpop—ill! ; assions, does not stand alone ; i t s
worm ed bymany other i nstruments of instruction morereputable in appearance, and often more insidious i n their appeal .The object of the d iagnosis i n these chap
ters i s to po in t, by a recent and most convincing i l lustration , the modus operand? of thevarious forces of publ ic opin ion, which are
most active in the making and the maintenance of J ingo ism, and to i nvestigate the un
explored psychology of th is powerful popularpassion.
6 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismI n order to real ize the nature of present-day
J ingo ism , as distinguished from the nationalwar-spiri t i n earl ier t imes, attention must begiven to a complex of new industrial and socialcond i t ions which favour the growth of thepass ion . Foremost among these is the rapidand mult ifarious intercommunication of ideasrendered poss ible by modern methods ofm ,
carriage of persons, goods, and news,sign i fy that eaCW fito-day is habitual ly suscept ible to the directo o w —I
‘
influence of a thousand t imes as many otherfl fl
pmonaaswere the ageoL steamand electric ity . That people moveabout more freely and qu ickly, and are broughtinto personal intercourse with many moreindividuals
,and of much more varied sorts,
i s perhaps the least important of these changesfrom the psychological standpo i nt . More important is the internal nature of thel ife whichpopulation of the most advanced industrialcountries 0 sical and mental
town-l ife , for the majori ty ofits population , are such as to destroy strongind iv idual ity of thought and desire. The
j ingo ism : ItsMeaning and O rigi n 7
in‘
d‘
ustrial—eperatiqns regulated by mechan icalroutine, an even more inj urious inhome l ife, the constant attri t ion of a superficiali ntercourse in work or leisure with greatnumbers of persons subject to the same en
vironment— these conditions are apt to destroyor impair i ndependence of character, withoutsubstituting any sound, rational social ity suchas may ari se in a city which has come intobeing primari ly for good l i fe, and not for cheapwork. The bad conditions of town l ife i n our
I t is true that thetown l ife has its gains, and
i n certain instances may feed true ind iv idual ity .
But normally i t educates a surface smartness,an alertness of manipulation of ideas withina narrow area of i nterest and experience ; andas the environment is largely s imilar for largernumbers, a similari ty of character and l i fe isbred in i t . Moreover, the strain of adaptationto the many complex changes of external environment is, for those absorbed in the constantstruggle for a l ivel ihood, so grave as to imposea nervous wear and tear which is quite apparent in the features of a town populat ion ,and which marks them out
,with tolerable
8 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismd istinctness from country fo lk. I n every nationwhich has proceeded far in modern industrial ismthe prevalence of neurot ic (W it-fists thegeneral nervous strain to wh ich the pOpulat ion is subjected . Th is condition of thenational l i fe is fraught with two results . Theresistance of the i nd ividual mind or will to suggest ions from a neighbouring mind is weaker,and the common routine of c ity l i fe to whichal l al ike are subjected affords a common basi sof appeal from mind to mind Whatever,therefore, be the mode by which mind isconceived as operating upon mind
,by argu
ment, persuasion , or suggestion , every facil ityfor effective acceptance is prov ided . fil ls.neurotic tern town
ap peals, and the crowded l i fe of the streets, orc u.
v .
o ther public gatherings, gives théb e
'
st'medium
for communicatinguttlfiam.”
THEME; ‘
Veryatmosphere of J ingo ism . A coarse patriotism ,
fed by the wildest rumours and the mostv iolent appeals to hate and the an imal lust ofblood, p asses by quick contagion through thecrowded l i fe of cit ies, and recommends itsel feverywhere “
by the satisfaction it affords to
sensational cravings?I t is less the savage
yearning for persona part ic ipation in the fray
J ingo ism : ItsMeaning and O rigin 9than the feeding of a neurotic imaginationthat marks j ingo ism . The actual rage of thecombat is of a different and a more ind ividualorder.
/J ingo i sm is the assion of the s ectator,
the inciter, e acker, notof thej glltsr ; i t isa col lective ormob passion which , i n as far asit prevails, makes the individual mind subjectto a control that jo ins h im irres ist ibly to h isfellows .This possession is facil i tated by the sort ofeducation which prevails among such peoplesas our own. A l ittle knowledge is mostdangerous when it suppl ies the material andthe instrument of unreason. A large populat ion , singularly desti tute of intel lectual curiosi ty,and with a low valuation for th ings of themind, has during the last few decades beeninstructed in the art of reading printed words,without acquiri ng any adequate supply of in
formation or any trai n ing of the reasoningfacul ties such as would enable them to g ive aproper value to the words they read. A hugepress has come into being for the purpose of
supplying to this uneducated people suchpri nted matter as they can be induced to buy.
Most of th is matter consists of statements,true or fal se, designed to give pass ing satisfac
tion to some simple form of curiosity, some
I O The Psycho logy of J ingo ismlow sense of humour, or some lust of an imal ism .
Some of i t, however, i s designed to i nduce aconv iction or to rouse a feel ing which mayaffect conduct. The sim est form is the tradeadvertisement, one, who
be an interested party, recommends h is own
goods and, by continually repeated suggestions,produces a bel ief which induces the ublic to
purchase ar— f — “ fi — ‘ g ‘ fi
W i nthe market and recommended h is goods viz/(iwee, h is spoken word would carry far lessweight. The appearance of hard truth imparted by the mechan ical rigidity of printpossesses a degree of credit wh ich , when thestatement i s repeated with sufficient frequency,becomes wel l-n igh abso lute. No evidence isessential : the bare dogmatic s tatement, thoughemanating from an admittedly interested source ,produces convict ion and moves to action .
H ow great a power is here ced i n the
party, or any body of ri ch, able, and energ etic~V _men des1rous to 1mpose a general bel ief and
a general pol icy upon—
h e mass of the peOple !
TW Wer W OW OTJW actsmainly upon the individual when it is intendedto convey some simple sort of i n format ion asshal l influence private conduct . But where
1 2 The Psycho logy of J ingo ism
falsehood . Further analys is of mass-p sychology, disclos on andnor n howthemost contrary‘
s‘uggestions of fact or feel ing
can beheld s imul taneouslyw iser-me persons ,
who havey ielded theirj ndiyidnalj udgment tothe sway of a common passion thus promptedwi de n edNational hate finding sensational expression
through war is the best emotional material forthe Operation of these forces, and the possess ion by the passion of J ingo ism of the massmind of a people i ntel lectually disposed l ikethat of Great Brita in presents a subject of
i ncomparable i nterest for psychological study.
One word in conclusion of these introductoryremarks . I have dist inguished the spectatorialpassion of J ingo ism from the cruder cravingfor personal participation in bloodshed whichse izes most savage peoples when the warSpirit is in the air. J ingo ism is essential ly aproduct of ‘ civil i zed ’ communities, though
essary food from the survival ofit
i
prm
esents therefore a numberof more complex moral and intel lectual prohlems for considerat ion . I ts force
zdependent,
as we have seen,upon the submission __the
ind iv idual wil l and judgment to co l lective
Jingo i sm : ItsMeaning and Origin 13
suggestion , wil l vary with the resistance offeredby trained reason and firmly rooted ind iv idualconvictions appl icable to the issues concernedi n the suggestion .
The rapid and numerous changes in theexternal structure of modern c ivil ization havebeen accompan ied y grave uns of
the inner l i fe ; a break ing up of time-honoureddogmas , a col lag e of principlgs i n mlitics,religm' n,and moral i tyhave sensibly reduced thepower of res1stance to stron ass1onate suggm .
theMuniversal
sceptic ism may also be an age of multifarioussuperst it ions, l ightly acquired and briefly held ,but dangerous for character and conduct whilethey hold their sway. Among civil ized peoples ,those of Western Europe and of the UnitedStates are at the present time, perhaps to agreater extent than ver before, destitute of
fixed and clearly defingd convict ions upon roo tissues of ethics and pol it ics. Their educationhas , among the better educated classes, beeninstrumental largely i n producing scepticismand fluctuating dilettantism , while among themasses i t has produced a low curiosi ty andi ndiscriminate receptivi ty. This general un
settlement of hab i ts and principles impl ies i n
14. The Psycho logy of J ingo ismi ndividuals a col lapse of standards of thoughtand feel ing, a weaken ing of i nd iv idual responsibility in the formation of opin ions, and acorrespondingly increased susceptibi l ity to
j ingo ism and o ther popular passions i n theseveral shapes wh ich they from time to t imeassume .
PART I
The Diagno si s
CHAPTER I
CRED! LITY
A RECENT French wri ter, discoursing on thenature of ‘ a crowd,’ attributes to i t a characterand conduct which is lower
,i ntel lectual ly and
moral ly, than the character and conduct of i tsaverage member. Even when the crowd isl ittle other than a fortu itous concourse, andnot an organized gathering of persons alreadyass imilated by some common feel ing or idea,a sort of common mind is temporari ly setup, which often seems to dominate, or
even to supersede, the normal mind of thei ndividual . A sensational rumour, a suddenunusual spectacle, the powerful appeal of amoborator, so agitates the mass of i nd ividuals
,
hi therto related by mere propinquity, as to
raise , by a largely unconscious i nteraction of
personal i ties, a quick ferment of thought andfeeling which impels ind ividuals to take part
r7 C
18 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismi n a common action that is not their mere
_q
individual cho ice . on of the mob,implyingthe ind iv idual , i s a fact too we recogn ized to
require proof. But i ts nature and origin are
both obscure and interesting . This war i nSouth Afri ca casts a powerful searchl ightupon
"fli
'
e
'
i'
1
'
ature of the large,and i n some
ways h ighly-organ ized, crowd wh ich we cal lthe Bri t ish nation . The suddenness, the size,and the manifo ld sensational ism of the occurrence are the precise conditions requisite fortest ing the mass-mind of the people . Whatthe orator does for h is audience the press hasdone for the nat ion it has injected notions andfeel ings wh ich, instead of lying in the separatem inds of their recip ients, have bubbled up intoenthusiastic sympathy, and induced a commun ityof thought, language,Meatsh itherto unknown . e conditions of the casedo notal low us to regard this common conductas a mature fruit of the reason of the nation i tmust ev idently be regarded as an instinctived isplay of some common factors of nationalcharacter wh ich l ie outside reason , and be long,i n ordinary times, to the prov ince of the subconscious . Whatever qual ities of del iberationand calculation may have been present in the
2 0 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismus here . Nor need we accept the v iew that thestandard of feel ing and reason of the crowd isalways lower than that of i ts i nd ividuals ; thereis some evidence to indicate that i t may somet imes be higher— at any rate
,so far as feel ings
are concerned . Much will probably dependupon the character and mot ive of the sugges
t ion, and something on the circumstances of
the rec ipient crowd .
For purposes of the present study, however,the hypo thes is of reversion to a savage type ofnature is d ist inctly profitable . The war-spirit,as d isplayed in the non-combatant mass-mind,is composed ofjust thosequal i tieswh ich d ifferentiate savage from civ il ized man .
One of the most un iversal characteristics of
cc or
to all untra inedMaybe thought that the majori ty ofpeople, even in a so-cal led civ i l ized nat ion ,may or must rema in credulous . But there aredegrees of credul ity. The average man or
woman in modern England has a mind h ighlytra ined in reason ing, as compared w i th mostsavage peoples, and there is a minority of
educate persons expert i n fo l lowing trains ofthought and weigh ing evidence.
Credul ity 2 1
Now, the most aston ish ing phenomenon of
th is war-fever i s the credul ity d isplayed by theeducated classes. I t is, of course , true thatordinasyeducation is so curiously defect ive i nthis country that not one i n fifty persons couldhave correctly named the capital of the OrangeFree State at the Be mm of 1893 . Bute ucatton m1g t ve been expected to teachcaution in the acceptance and assimilat ion of
the flood of i nformation which poured throughthe press during the last two years. Our
educated classes are usual ly scornful of theman who bel ieves everything he reads in thenewspapers, and who pronounces quick dogmatic j udgments upon del icate and intri catepo ints of pol i t ics or economics. Yet themajority of these cultured persons have submitted their i ntel l igence to the domin ion of
popular prejudice and passion as subserv ientlyas the man in the street, whom they desp ise .
The canons of reason ing which they hab ituallyapply i n their business or profession, and in thejudgments they form of events and characters,are superseded by the sudden fervour of th isstrange amalgam of race feel ing, an imal pugnacity, rapacity, and sport ing zest, which theydign ify by the name of patriotism .
No one would th ink of accepting in any
2 2 The Psycho logy of J ingo i smordinary private matter of importance the test imony of i nterested parties, unchecked andincapable of cross-examination, as sufficientevidence to warrant the spending of his moneyand the risking of h is l i fe . XQLthe testimonyto the Outlander rievances and the Dutchcons s the ustificatiopp f thiswar
almost The allegationthat the press of South Africa, which has furnished i nformat ion to the press and people of
th is country, is owned and contro l led by asmall, known and named body of mining capitalists and speculators who have openly avowedthe gains they hoped to make by th is war, i snot seriously d isputed . Yet persons fullyaware of th is allow their minds to be swayedby the unan imity of the Bri t ish test imony fromSouth Africa, as presented by th is press andby the po l iticians who have got their informat ion from the same factory of falsehood .
These same ersons close the ir m inds to theremnant of the so cal led ‘
pro-
’Boer press i nth is country, and to the entire contmentalpress,upon
.
the plea that this press has been boughtby Transvaal money— a plea which has no
other origin than the statement of the abovenamed Rhodes ian press.Educated men and women , accustomed to
Credul ity 2 3
weigh evidence from both sides, accept as finalproof th is fabricated unanimity of Bri tish SouthA frican opin ion , refusing all consideration tothe Dutch South Afri can opin ion, which isequal ly unanimous in the opposite sense . Thisevidence they by the anthontyof Sir Alfred M ilner. But__t 511m“préfer the amof th is man , who had been
11
the Transvaal,_and had be'
e
'
fi'
disqi1al1fied byh is offi cial posit ion from free intercourse with
lage‘
c e
hMinisn-y, composed aboueecpiallgp f
British and Dutch blood , men born and bredi nMAfrica ? ~
If the former had drivenhome h is case of Outlander grievances andDutch conspiracy by good and suffi cient ev idence, we might, i ndeed, discard the meagreness of his personal authori ty, and rely uponthe merits of this evidence. But no trainedEngl ish lawyer, reading the Edgar i ncidentand o ther test grievances i n the l ight of theadmitted bias of the Johannesburg press andthe South African League, the two chiefsources of Sir Alfred M ilner’s testimony, andhaving regard to the nature of a new min ingsettlement, could possibly consider the moreserious charges relating to l i fe and property to
24. The Psycho logy of J ingo ismbe proved . As for the sti l l graver chargeslaunched against the Cape utch of conspiring
hsupremacy and t h SouthAfrican Republ ic, bel ief in themst i l l rests on
the b are word of Sir A .Mi lner, unsupported_by anywalid shred 6f evidence . I t is a verygrave scandal thatmamwed this language,uttered nearly two years ago, to operate uponthe mind of the Bri t ish nat ion without adducingany ev idence of his charges against ‘ a certai nsection of the press ’ i n the Co lony and ‘ alarge number of our Dutch fel low-colon ists . ’
That the actual rising of a number of DutchCo lon ists from sympathy wi th what theyregarded as an unwarranted attack on theRepubl ics should be taken as proof of the
charges made by the H igh Commissioner i sbut one more signal instance of the corruptedintel l igence of the patriot .Charges of treason against the AfrikanderBond , of an avowed pol icy to
‘ drive theBri t ish into the sea,’ and armed preparationsdating far back i nto the e ighties, have been so
pers istently repeated from so many quarters asto win a hal f-conscious acceptance among manywho distrusted the sources of the original accusations. I t may therefore be well to i nv ite any
C redul ity 25
who st il l desire to have a reasonable faith to
turn their best practical intel l igence upon thesort of evidence of the conspiracy furnished bysuch a work as that which the T!mes hashumorously entitled , The H istory of the BoerWar.
’
How unsatisfactory th is evidence stil lremains may be judged by the ingenuousadmission in the Preface that i t is ‘ largelycumulative. ’
con
sists i n a pretence that fifty p ieces of badevidence proc a common tainted
such acceptance as it_maywin .
But the most remarkable example of th iscorruption is afforded by the adoption of
members of the mine-owning confratern ity asauthoritat ive advisers on the nature of the warand its settlement. Mr. Fitzpatrick , whosebook, ‘ The Transvaal from Within ,’ is ac
cepted as i f i t were the unbiassed statement ofa skil led historian who happened to reside i nthe Transvaal , i s a member of the -Ecksteig
firm( the local branch of Wernher, Beit, and
26 The Psycho logy of J ingo ism
go) , and was one of the leaders i n the Johannesburg i nsurrection of 1895;Mr. LionelPhil ipps, whose recommendations on settlement were fully reported in the Times, is apartner i n the same firm;Mr. H osken,
another widely-read authori ty, i s an importerof m in ing machinery, an ex -director of theDynamite Company, and a director of theTransvaal L eader
, a newspaper started in the
spring of 1899 to bring matters to the test ofbattle ; while Messrs . Rudd, Hayes, Hammond,Robinson
,Farrar, and other men , whose vo ices
resound th press, are directors__Rand
"com
panies, which thehope_to make from the resu lts of the war. I tis reasonable that these men should
'
be-
heard,
but i t is not reasonable that their statementsof fact and views of po l icy should be taken asauthori tative, while the facts and v iews setforth, not merely by Dutch Co lon ists
,but by
Bri tish travellers l ikeMr. Bryce andMr. Selous,are treated with contempt .The unan imous support of the Christ ianChurches in South Africa is s imi larly raisedinto authority by leaving out of account theDutch Christ ian Churches, which are, of course ,equal ly unan imous in denouncing the war. I t
2 8 The Psycho logy of J ingo i smknows enough of h istory to be aware that thisis true of all wars i n the past
,i t rep etends that
th is war is an exception , and so each man feedsh1sMcommon sewer, dra in ingthe po isonous vapours wh ich degrade h is intellect and inflame the latent lusts of animal ism ,
and repeating idle patter about ‘ a just andnecessary war for the furtherance offi enyand
w
flit of the Brit ish emp jre,’
for
which it has precisely the same sort of evidenceas for the bel ief that Colman’s is the bestmustard, or Branson ’s extract of coffee isperfect ion .
CHAPTER I I
BR ! TALITY
THE modern newspaper is a Roman arena, a ‘Spanish bull-ring, and an Engl ish pri ze-fightrolled into one . The populari zation of thepower to read has made the press the chiefinstrument of brutal i ty. For a halfpennyevery man , woman , or ch ild
government to repress!and which
,in their
l i teral modes of real ization, have been assigpedm
by modern Specialization to sold iers, butchers,5pmThe business man,the weaver, the cleclergyman , the shop assistant, can no longersatisfy these savage cravings, either in personalactiv ity or i n direct spectacular display ; butthe artof reading print enables them to i ndulgead i n ghoul ish gloating over scenes of
human sufferi ng, outrage, and destruction .29
30 The Psycho logy of J ingo i smBlended with the root-pass ion of sheer brutal i tyare certain other feel ings
,more complex in
origin and composit ion— admiration of courageand adro itness, the zest of sport, curios i ty, theinterest in swift change and the unusual . al lthese serve to concm ecorate the dom1narit force
."
ofW’
V—
h oo passionwh ich revels 1n mmd1sorder and destruct ion , with carnage for its centre-p iece . Thatth is passion , l ike other phases of the war fever,i s of soc ial origin, and grows by swift, unseencontagion and commun icat ion , i s made evidentby the character and behav iour of i ts v ict ims .
Engl ish ladies ; qu ie t, sober, un imaginativebus iness men
,ong to pomt a Eiflé’ ét the
” Boers,Mi the,
carnage .
The bas ic character of the passion is d isclosedby the fact that death and destruct ion by firearms do not sat isfy ; i t is the co ld stee l and thetw ist of the Bri t ish bayonet in the body of thenow defence less foe that brings the keenestthri l l of exultation . Many w i l l deny th is subjection to sheer an imal ism— in some cases a
revulsion of pity, or some better human feel ing,h ides i t ; but, wherever the d issect ing-knife ishonestly appl ied, the essential brutal i ty whichunderl ies the glow of patriot ic triumph in
Brutality 3 1
‘ another British v ictory ’ is discern ible .
Watch the features, l isten to the vo ice of yourJ ingo friend when he rol ls over h is tonguesome tasty morsel of h is favouri te war correspondent, or retails the latest sensation of thecablegram. Sex , age, nurture, education , re
fined surroundings, are of l ittle avai l to resist,or even mod i fy, the pulsation of the primit ivelust wh ich exul ts i n the downfal l and the suffering of an enemy ; the patriotic publ ican or
stockbroker may show more honesty i n express ion of h is tri umph ; but the same animalJ ute , v indictiveness, and bloodth irstiness, lurksin the mildest-mannered patriot, and surprisesh im by i ts occas ional outburst. Such passionis a level ler, disclosing human nature in itscommon character, and teach ing an equal itywhich is no flattering ideal, but a convinc ingtestimony to the descent of man . The democrati c saturnal ia of Ladysmith and MafekingDays are generally admitted to be a revelat ion“of hitherto unknown British character ; andyet the soc ial i ty of brutish revelry upon thesedays was but a faint, spluttering expression of
the actual feel ings which bo i led over into thisflag-waving, drunkenness , and maniacal shouting. At al l times the mob-nature has seizedthe coarser and more reckless elements in the
32 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismcommunity, and impelled them to s imilarscenes of rio t ; the distinctive feature of‘ Mafeking ’
was the wide prevalence of asudden fury which broke down for the noncethe most sacred d istinction of classes , and fusedthe most antagon istic elements of London l i fefor a brief moment i nto anarch ic fratern i ty.
Under the force of th is passion collapse al lthose qual i ties upon which Engl ishmen, i ntheir normal l ife, most plume themselves . Thetrue John Bull , whether he be farmer, merchant,shopkeeper, or art isan, i s an orderly man, arespecter of persons and property, a lover of
fair play, a hater of unnecessary pain andcruelty : such are the sol id foundations of h isrespectab i l i ty and success in l ife .
Aflorilegiumof newspaper cuttings il lustrative of the deeds and words to which theserespectable men and women have committedthemselves during the last twelve monthswould , by the ir quant ity and the ir i ntensi ty,suffice to rui n th is traditional national characteri n h istory. The few examples which I herei nsert are not selected for extremity or for
rari ty, for al l readers wil l be able to equal orsurpass them from personal observation ; theymerely serve to mark the nature of the nationalhysteria.
Brutal ity 33
The craving for blood was first broughthome to me in South Afri ca by the talk of
certa in shopkeepers from Bloemfontein , uponwhom race lust had gained so strong a ho ldthat they openly expressed their fears les t theBoers should g ive i n before a suffi cient number of them had been shot. This has remainedthroughout the prevalent tone of the Bri ti shi n South Africa ; but of th is passion thereseemed some sufficient explanation from recenthistory and race contact. But that Engl ishmen and women should of a sudden exhibit afanatical des ire to pierce and tear and hack thebod ies of men whom they had never seen, andwhose very name they hardly knew a yearago, i s indeed an experience calculated to
stagger any confidence one might have held i nman as a rational and moral be ing. Thecomic Spirit, ’ in i ts most sardon ic mood , could
find no more curiously suggestive material thanthe record of the pranks of British patriotismunder the strai n of this experience Here, fori nstance, i s an august person, the Lord Lieutenant of a county, addressing a body of moraland h igh-minded Engl ish gentlemen andlad iesNeither you nor I be lieve in these perpetual appeals toProvidence in the wrong place and at the wrong time.
D
34. The Psycho logy of J ingo ismNeither do we bel ieve in these continual quotations fromScripture. We do not bel ieve , e ither you or I or anybodyelse here
,in theman who holds the Bible in one hand and
the Mauser rifle i n the other. (Cheers) . And another hitof advice I should l ike to give you i s this— if you meeta gentleman
, a somewhat aged gentleman , whose namebeg ins with a K, anywhere down Pretoriaway, I ask youto make him sing Psalms out of the wrong side of hismouth— (cheers)— and as to his cant, drive it down histhroat with a dose of lyddite —(cheers)— and three inchesof bayonetto keep itthere. (Prolonged cheers .)
This has been the common language of
Engl ish gentlemen i n first-class carriages,i n
club smoke-rooms, and i n al l o ther haunts offree conversation ; and Engl ish ladies havedone their best to assert the doctrine of sexequal ity in sentiment and language .
The maker of headl i nes has displayed amasterly knowledge of the temper of the beasthe feeds
,and ‘ Cronje withered in a hel l of
fire’
remains in my memory as one of manygraphic phrases.The experience of th is war thoroughly ex
plodes the old ideal of John Bull as a blunt,frank man who loves a fair fight with a foemanwhose courage and prowess he is ready to admit .The black sl ime of his mal ice has been hardlyless characteristic of h is J ingo ism than thean imal brutal i ty with which i t is assoc iated ; i t
36 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismTwo years ago most Engl ishmen would have
asserted confidently that England,though en
gaged in a war to break down ‘ a corruptol igarchy ’ in the Transvaal , had so muchnobi l i ty of nature that she could admire thestubborn resistance of a handful of farmersfighting for the independence of their country
,
and that even in the act ofwar our sympathieswould have flowed in the d irection ofa generoustreatment of such a foe. What do we find ?When the pol icy of wholesale devastationcarried ouf By Br1t1sB troops over larged1str1cts, the Burnmg of farms, looting of
gattle, cutting down of fruit trees, and break! ing of dams is announced to the natign,
i tawakes i n the mob-mind no ot er feeling
‘
than one of grim satisfaction, expreéééd b‘
y'
r
’ T
the usual comment, ‘ Serve them Lihfi yshouldn ’t have begun the war ! ’ No shamewhatever is felt for the wanton and fut i lebrutal ity of such a course, for the flagrantbreaches of the very canons of ‘ civi l i zed warfare ’ which we as a nation had imposed uponthe Conferences of the Powers— noth ing buta chuckle of savage satisfaction in the commonman, a brief irrelevant, Yes, war i s brutal l i nthe more ‘ civ i l ized J ingo !How far brutal i ty is capable of carrying the
Brutal ity 37
nation is perhaps best i l lustrated in the openand frequent proposals to shoot Boer prisoners
V as‘rebels . ’ The ordinary J ingo i s quite
satisfied that we have a ‘right ’ to do so , s ince
we have annexed the Republ i cs ; and he hasnever ceased to advocate the pol icy, undeterredby the reflection that reciproc ity in such anoutrage would cost us at least as many l ives aswe should take. Nor is th is merely the loosetalk of the drinking-bar or the club smokeroom . One of the most respectab le organs of
publ ic opin ion — the Standard — in i ts issueof October 16th, used language which has noother meaning than as a direct incitation to
the massacre of pri soners .
In every rebellion a point is reached at which the
services of the Provost Marshal become more effectivethan those of the strategist. The prompt and ruthlesspunishment of every insurgent burgher caught in dd x
'
d o
is required . We cannot keep a troop of horse outs ideeach Boer farm , butwe can show its occupant thathe riskssomething more than his freedom, or even his property,when he takes up arms againstthe Crown.
M i l itary Opinion in the Transvaal capital urges that aProclamation should be issued, declaring that any Boerfound with arms in hi s hand, and withoutuniform, shall betreated as a rebel, rather than asa pri sonerofwar. Perhapsthe time has arrived for even more drastic measures.
In i nterpreting th is infamous suggestion , i t
38 The Psycho logy of J ingo i smmust be borne in mind that the entire body ofthe Boer army is ‘ without un iform,
’ with theexception of such as have taken khaki uni formfrom captured Bri t ish so ld iers . The finish ingtouch of brutal i ty is therefore set upon our
pol icy by an order, i ssued by Lord Robertsj ust before h is departure from South Africa,to the effect that all Boer prisoners wearingkhak i were to be shot at once .
I f the Standard may be taken to representthe mob-mind of the we l l-to-do Conservativeclasses, the fol lowing passage from the Daily
Telegrap/z of Octob er 17th may be taken to
set forth the cruder brutal ity of the commercialclasses of the metropol is
Itwill probably be found that these sullen malcontentswi ll go on fighting so long as they have a bullet in theirbandol iers, on the off-chance of slay ing one of theirconquerors, unless the British authorities make it clearthat all caught with arms in their hands will be shotwithout mercy. The Germans had no compunction inso deal ing with the Francs-T ireurs, and the ir severitydid much to shorten the war. We shal l hope to see
the same measures adopted in South Afri ca unless thevarious forces nowpatroll ing the two conquered territoriesmeetwith immediate success. A fewsuch engagements asthat which is reported near V ryheid, i n which Bethune’sMounted Infantry are said to have killed sixty of the
enemy, would speedi ly dishearten the marauders, and the
proclamation of a specific date after which every armed
Brutal ity 39
burgher should be treated as a rebel and shot would beproductive ofnothing butgood .
I t is notthe cruelty or the palpable injusticeof these measures that concern us in our
present analysis, but the complacent and evenexul tant acceptance of them by the mob-mindof the J ingo publ ic here at home . Rightlyunderstood, these passages from the Standardand the Daily Telegraph are the most damningtestimony to the degradation ofBri tish characterthat has yet been given .
Those who know the means adopted to
i nflame the Imperial sentiment in our coloniesand dependencies will , however, not be sur
pri sed to learn that in definite brutal ity theJ ingo ism even of the Standard and the Telegrap/z is outdone. A recent issue of the IndianPlanters
'
Gazette contains the following
Not only should the Boer be slain , but slain with thesame ruthlessness that they slay a plague-infected rat.
Exeter Hal lmay shriek, butblood there will be and plentyof it, and the more the better. The Boer resistance willfurther th is plan , and enable us to find the excuse thatImperial GreatBritain is fiercely anxious for— the excuse toblot the Boers out as a nation, to turn their land into a
vast shambles, and remove their name from the muster-rollofSouth Afri ca.
I t will be vehemently den ied that such a
40 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismsentiment occupies the Bri tish mind . Butth is den ial will be false . Our press
, our
pol iticians indeed make no such honest avowal .But the Indian Planters’ Gazette has dared to
put into print the true craving of j ingo ismwhich in this country has everywhere pervadedprivate conversation in the rai lway carriage,the drawing-room, the tap -room , and hasoccas ionally risen to the publ icity of the musichall . K ipl ing’s ‘ Good kill ing at Paardeburg,
the first satisfactory kil l i ng of the war,
’ andthe phrase ‘ ex term inate the vermin ’ which
,in
sp i te of offic ial d isclaimers, did actual ly vo icethe general sentiment of the Bri t ish of Natalat the outbreak of hosti l ities, express honestlythe savage passion of the mob-mind in thiscountry . The publ ic has throughout the warbeen prepared to accept and approve anymeasure adopted by the mil itary to crush ‘ therebell ion ,’ the bloodier the better This i sthe naked truth of the matter, and i t is best toface it .A twelvemonth’s debauch in hese ancient
andMe lust has t_pomts than
p j gte . All that the populareducat ion of half a century has done, and vastlymore , is lost in th is s ingle bout of the war-fever.
CHAPTER I I I
CHR ISTIAN ITY IN KHAKI
THERE are some to whom the pol i t ical supportgiven to th is war by the Christian Churches hasbeen a sudden revelation and a shock. Thisought notto have been the case. Wha. Chri stian nation ever entered on a war
England thehas never permitted the spirit of
the Pri nce of Peace to i nterfere when statesmen and sold iers appealed to the pass ions ofrace -lust, conquest, and revenge. Wars, themost insane in origi n , the most barbarous inexecution , the most fru itless i n resul ts, havenever failed to get the sanct ion of the ChristianChurches . ’ No one nowdefends the j ust ice or
Contrast the attitude of the Buddhist Churches inBurmah which preached the duty of non-resistance, anddenied the sanction of religion to the patriots who soughtto defend the ir native land against the invasion of Britishtr00ps.— CC Fielding, The Soul ofa People. ’
4x
The Psycho logy of J ingo ism
necess ity of the Crimean War ; yet the pulpitsresounded with the same mil i tary blare, bishops,priests, and deacons vying in loud approbation ,and prophesying with single consent, fi oflgp‘to Ramoth -G ilead
kfori he Lord shall del iver
i t into the king’s hands .’
W ,
o 0Churches and the ir congregat ions were seriouslydiv ided ; the wealth ier and more respectableamong them fo l lowed the secular authorit ies,as is their wont. None of the Churches or
the ir representat ives would now th ink of defend ing the Crimean War
,but they have learnt
nothing from their error, least of all repentancene i ther the teaching of h istory nor the sp irit ofrel ig ion has spo i led the free -hearted enthusiasmwith wh ich they have inc ited our soldiers toki l l
,and burn, and plunder i n South Afri ca .
erialist statesmen boast that th is con
federacy in bloodshed has annealed the colon iesto the mother country : i n s im i lar fashion wemay find the long- talked-of union of ChristianChurches, not in any common acceptance of
theo logy or i n co -operation for charitable works,but i n the common acceptance of a propagandaof bloody deeds i n the name of c iv i l izat ion .
To those who best understand the social andfinancial structure of the Churches and thecapacity of self-deceit which se lf- interest is
The Psycho logy of J ingo ismas justified by changes in modern cond itionsof l i fe , etc. , but this is only a shal low sophistrywhich fails even to deceive us while we utterIt.
I n fact, these teach ings have never furnishedus with v ital veritable ideals . We have hada standard of desirable conduct, ideals of ourown, sometimes good and elevated, standardsof good manners, honour, and chivalry, butthey have never been moulded or dominatedby Christian ity.
Test the motive by applying the max imwhich 15 held to be most typical of Chri stianity
,
Not merely haveEngl ishmen never acted on th is pri nciple ,but they have never real ly held it a duty to
do so .
The real standard of good conduct forEngl ish people has always run upon somesuch l ines as these ‘ Love your friends andhate your enem ies ; look a teryour fami y, andget or t em a ou can ; abstain from pettythe t an al l unlawful deeds , _
work for a l ivingel some one e lse tour in d istress ; l ive
h only occas ional outbursts of _an imation ; abhor certain sorts of
N.meanness and cheatm be re aréd
'
at an8 P PN
Y
Chri stianity in Khakitime to fight for home and coun withouti nmm an whichrepresent the best standard of conduct for thenation, we must turn not to works of piety,but to the l i fe of the nation as mirrored in i tsl i terature and its history .
The utter falseness of the notion that theideal of the age of ch ivalry was formed byChrist ian eth ics i s apparent by taking thecharacter of that pattern knight, Sir Lancelot,as i t is fa ithfully rendered on his death by SirEctor, and reported by Malory.
Ah , Lancelot, thou wert head of all Christian knights !And now— there thou liest, that thou were never matchedof earthly kn ights’ hands ; and thou wert the courtliestkn ight that ever bare sh ield ; and thou wert the truestfriend to thy lover that ever bestrode horse ; and thouwere the truest lover of a sinful man that ever lovedwoman and thou were the kindestman that ever strakewith sword ; and thou were the goodl iest person ever cameamong press of knights ; and thou were the meekestmanand the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies ; andthou were the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that everput spear in the rest.
Let Spenser testify for England ’s ideals i n‘ the spacious days of great E l izabeth ,
’ whenEngl ish character was most Openly displayed .
The English ‘ hero ’ was not then a meek,
46 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismsel f-deny ing, charitable, and forg iving man ; hewas a man of powerful , aggressive, self-willedpersonal ity, with v io lent passions, generous,brutal, laborious, and domineering, with anund isguised contempt for the s ixth , seventh,e ighth , and tenth c ommandments , and no deepconcern for the other s ix .
The fl imsy objection, ‘We don ’t admire theirmorals,’ may be brushed as ide at once . Wehave a who le-hearted admiration for these men ,there is no pigeon-hol ing of one l ittle set of
qual ities label led morals we admire the men,character and conduct, as set forth in l ife . Our
true national heroes nearly all belong to th isstamp. We have no regard whatever for theChristian characters of ho ly George Herbert,p ious j ohn Wesley
,saintly Hannah More, that
we can Compare for one moment w i th theenthusiasm which encircles the names of
S idney,Raleigh, Hampden , Warren Hastings,
Charles James Fox ,Nelson , and Well ington .
Drive i t down to an honest test, and ‘ moralty,’
i n the narrower sensei n he a wordL haLdJycounts, so large is the dispensation i n Christianv irtu'es w wg laflsh o n o ur greatmen . We
require of them ne i ther sexual moral ity, nor
common honesty, nor any regard for the l ivesof people who are nottheir own countrymen .
Ch ristianity in KhakiThese remarks are needed as a preface to
enable us to understand the attitude of theso-called Christian Churches towards this war.
n has been tilize
r .“
pun ish ofi fi opTQ W Zr? either h eathenor W icked peoples, who have deservecf
'
to die,
and/ whose 1553 363 3155 property by right
I t has been often claimed for Christian itythat its disti nctive ethical characteristics are
two : first, i ts rel iance upon love as the powerwhich makes for righteousness, al ike in i tsinfluence as an external agent of reform , andin i ts puri fy ing and ennobl ing reactions uponthose from whom it i ssues ; secondly, theexpansion given to this play of i nner forcesby transcending all l imits of caste, race, or
national ity, and asserting the doctrine of humanbrotherhood in its widest sense.The tribal God, the special race mission, th
dominion of hate and forc ible revenge, —thare the particular no tes of the crude rel igionswhich Christian i ty has claimed to supersede .
Yet these are the most d istinctive notes of
the Chri stian ity of our lead ing Churches, the
48 The Psycho logy of J ingo i smChri stian ity a
’
la mode. Those who havefol lowed the records of the pulp its as reportedin the re l igious press, and have read theeditorial comments of that press
,w i l l be
astonished by the consentaneity of vo ices.Amid the clash of creeds, the angry disputations upon ri tual and Church government, thescornful refusal to jo in hands i n any commonwork of human charity, there has resoundedone clear, harmon ious, passionate note, repre
sent ing the oft-dreamed Union of the Churches— a note of loud fanatical encouragement toarmed Brita in to go forth in jesus
’ name toslay their fellows and to take their land .
From the conception of England as a countrywith a special mission to
‘ civ il ize ’
the worldw ith blood and iron , to the conception of‘ England ’s God ’ as a tribal G od of battleswho shal l fight with our big battal ions and helpus to crush our enemies, is a step taken withease and confidence by most of our Churches .Scotch evange l ic ism (save the mark ! ) strikes
the note most loudly . Here is the whole ph i loSophy of the bus iness from Dr. Watson ( I anMaclaren) Why should we not recogn izein our England the modern I srael, cal led of
G od, and set apart by God for a spec ialmission i ’ That ‘ mission ’ is based upon a
Ch r istianity in Khaki 49‘ covenant. ’ ‘ The Lord thy God has chosenthee to be a spec ial people unto H imself aboveal l people that are upon the face of the earth .
’
Take heed unto yourselves les t ye forget thecovenant of the Lord your God which He madewith you.
’ ‘ Speak ye home to the heart ofEngland, for the covenant stands between Godand England .
’
How do we know that th is covenant existsDr. Watson assigns a curious reasonAre any man's eyes so bl ind that he cannot see the
mission of England ? I do not, when I strike so higha note, forget England’s sins. Does our sin break thecovenant which the Eternal made with our fathers ? No
people ever sinned againstGod l ike Israel. Between the
sin of Israel and the sin of England there is a similaritywhich arises from a sense of being in the same position.Our pecul iar s ins are , then, the semeia ’
of
our‘ covenant ’ and our
‘ mission. ’ But whatis the nature of this mission ? Dr. Watsonmarks it out i n no uncertain language when hesays, We have found outwho are our friendsin the world and who are our enemies , and weare not go ing to forget them .
’ PresumablyEngland’s God i s to be of spec ial service toher i n her m iss ion of ‘
not forgetting ’ herenemies .For a fuller revelation of th is covenant and
miss ion we may turn, not i nappropriately, toa
50 The Psycho logy of J ingo ism
the words of a mil i tary chaplain , who may beenti tled to rank as a special ist.Here is the utterance of the Rev. Armstrong
Black in a sermon to the Toronto garrison , reported in the Brz'tz's/z Weekly (Dec. 7, 1899)
Wrath was God’s . The war was God’s lightningflashand thunder clap among the affairs ofmen ; theflash of
God’s eye was there, and the vo ice ofGod’s words. Itwas
God say ing, and putting emphasis into the words, SitthouatMy righthand until I make thine enem ies thy footstool . ’Itwas the D ivine warrantgiven of old to the unique Kingpriestwho i n every age ‘ i n righteousness maketh war,’ andit is meant to put iron into that blood, and grit i nto the
grip,of the Church in all ages . And there is not another
Psalm more closely fitted and attached to Jesus Christ inthe NewTestamentthan this one is .Here also is the Rev . Armstrong Black’s par
o o 0 0
ti cular appl icat ion to the busmess 1n handAnd if any nation lays itself right athwart the path of
true human progress, and, using the very means with whichBritish industry has suppl ied it, makes itselfbristle with arms,notfor defence, butdefiance ; and thus notonly blocks butmenaces the wayof advancing and Christianiz ing civil ization— be itin South Africa or elsewhere— Britain ’s sword shouldthenflash_
with a Divine commission as swiftly as whenheaven’s own l ightn ing leaps from the cloud. Seldom doesGod place a quite clear and definite i ssue before either aman or a nation.
This recognition of our mission is aecompanied by a general laudation of the influence
52 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismwar againsttyrants and Oppressors, he is fighting on Christ’sside, and Christ is fighting on his side Christ i s hisCaptain and his Leader, and he can be in no better service.
Be sure of it, for the Bible tells you so .
Will K ingsley’s confident assumption that theCrimean was ‘ a just war against tyrants andOppressors ’
(as i ndeed all our wars have everbeen !) cause any to reflect upon the similarconfidence which they repose upon those whohave assured them of the justice of th is war ?Canon Newbolt and Dean Farrar have
been foremost among Engl ish Churchmen intheir enforcement of the D iv ine nature ofwar,and the acceptance of the doctri ne that ‘
car
nage is H is daughter.
’ But the spiri t of thi sBrit ish Christ ian ity is most aptly rendered inthe glow ing words of a most venerable andexcellent pre late, ’ the Archbishop of Armagh
,
w i th which Dean Farrar concludes h is glorification of the hel l which is being enacted inSouth Africa :And
, as I note hownobly natures form! nder the war’s red rain, I deem ittrueThatH e who made the earthquake and the stormPerhaps makes battles too.
Thus as the heaven’s many colouredflamesAt sunsetare butdust in rich disguise,
The ascending earthquake-dustof battle framesGod’s picture in the skies.”
Christianity in Khaki 53
Such meaty doctrine is perhaps too definitefor arch iepiscopal expression in this country .
But the heads of the Church of England andthe Roman Cathol ic Church give their assentto the pecul iar mission of England, and ap
prove war as a righteous instrument. TheArchbishop of Canterbury expresses the con
viction that th is call , which is made to al l theworld which has heard the name of Christ,is yet made spec ially to us, because , of al lnations on the face of the earth, there is nonethat has the same opportun ities of teach ingevery o ther land the truth . There is no othernation that can stand by the side of Englandand the Church of England i n the demandthat is be ing made by God upon the exertionof al l our energies in th is cause. ’
This episcopal announcementof the specialcal l of England is officially endorsed by thePrime M in ister, who ho lds that ‘ the courseof events , which I should prefer to cal l theacts of Providence, have cal led th is country toexercise an influence over the character andprogress of the world such as has never beenexercised in any empire before,’ a doctri newhich is more expl ici tly set forth i n a recentaddress given by the saintl iest of his sons . '
Hon. H. Cecil (Annual Meeting Chart/l Times,May4)
54 The Psycho logy of J ingo ism‘ I t is impossible not to feel that there was aprovident ial scheme i n these th ings ; and thatthe Engl ish people were cal led in qu ite aspecial manner to undertake what was aun iversal Christian duty.
’ An interestingcommentary upon the prov idential nature of
the scheme and the special i ty of manner isafforded by some ingen ious admissions bywh ich Lord H . Ceci l qual ifies h is commendat ion of the new Imperial ism .
‘A great manypeople were most anxious to go w ith theirwho le hearts w ith what might be cal led theImperial movement of the day, but had, asi t were, a certain uneasiness of consciencewhether, after all, th is movement was qu i teas unpo l luted with earthly considerat ions asthey would desire it to be .
’ I s i t possible thatLord H . Cecil has been dipp ing into thereports of the Chartered Company or theConso l idated Goldfields ? But a st i l l moreinstruct ive sentence fol lows : He thoughtthat by making prom inent to our own mindsthe importance of m issionary work, we shouldto some extent sancti fy the spiri t of Imperialism .
’
If th is means anyth ing,i t means that foreign
m issions are to float Imperial ism . I t is interest ing to consider the proposal in conjunction
Ch ri stian ity in Khaki 55
with the related proposal to use missions inorder to float foreign trade .
The fol lowing passages from a recent Reportof the Bri tish Consul at Canton states withadmirable lucid ity the advantages of th is ‘
comb ine. ’ ‘ Immense services might be renderedto our commercial interests, i f only the membersof the various missions in China would co
operate with our Consuls i n the explo itationof the country and the introduction of commercial as wel l as of purely theological ideasto the Chinese intel l igence. ’ Which is to
float which, is clearly i ndicated i n the fol lowingcomment : ‘ To the sceptical Chinese the interest manifested by a missionary in businessaffairs would go far towards dispell ing the suspicions which now attach to the presence i ntheir midst of men whose motives they are
unable to appreciate, and therefore condemnas unholy — a sentence wh ich, for completenessof analysis, leaves noth ing to be des ired . Thisscheme of util iz ing the ‘ commercial insti nct ’
for missionary purposes is qu ite the mosti ngenious scheme for reconci l ing God andmammon-worship that has been produced .
From the Christian ity of the Archbishopswe are led through the Imperi al Chri stian ityof Lord H . Ceci l and the strictly bus iness
56 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismChristian ity of the Ch ina Consul , until we havenotmany steps to take to reach the Chri st ian i tyof the sleek gentleman in Tennyson ’s Sea
Who, never nam ing God exceptfor gain
,
80 never took thatuseful name in vain ;Made H im his catspaw
,and the Cross his tool,
And Christthe baitto trap his dupe and fool.Rememberi ng that the Boers are also owners
of a tribal God and a particular Providence, towhich they have adhered with more v igour andconsistency than we, it seems only reasonableto impute some of the fervour which our priestsand pol it ic ians are d isplay ing to the competi tiveSpiri t wh ich operates more powerful ly just nowwhen we can make such a good use of G od for
our special national ends. To displace thepious Boer ’ i n the good books of the Almighty, to outbid him by offers of active missionarywork, to display the superior attractionsof our up
-to-date New-Testament Chri stian ityas compared with the narrow, ant iquated, OldTestament rel igion of the Boers , has been thetask of innumerable pulpiteers during the laste ighteen months. The bo ldest attack in th iseffort to dislodge the Boer from the seat of
D iv ine favour has not been a frontal one : i thas consisted in a charge of hypocrisy against
Chri stianity in Khak i 57Mr. Kruger and h is burghers, who, we assurethe Almighty, do not mean the pious wordsthey say, and whose incons istent and unholyconduct we invite H im to reprobate. Thecomplete self-confidence impl ied in th ese imputations, our free, careless handl ing of th isexplosive and reco il ing charge, have i n thema depth of sardon ic humour which wil l giveh is finest materi al to the historian of theImperial episode.This claim to a monopoly, by right, of the
D iv ine favour i s reasserted in al l our publ ic actsofworsh ip . We do not appeal to the Almightyto determine the j ustice of our cause as a j udge,rather we instruct H im as a counsel , beggingH im to accept an assurance of the j ustice of
our cause from us, who know the facts. Thegross impudence of th is official posture isswallowed up by its humour, which reachesperhaps i ts zen ith i n the prayer recommendedby the Archb ishops before the General Election ,which endorsed the pol i cy ofMr. Chamberlai nin South Africa, with i ts pious request that‘ all th ings may be so ordered and settled thatpeace and happiness, truth and justice, rel igionand piety may be establ ished among us for allgenerations . ’
The effect of these high pronouncements of
58 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismthe rect itude of Bri t ish pol icy and the corresponding w ickedness of our enemies upon theuntutored mind of the lesser clergy of the landm ight have been anticipated by those famil iarwith the parson in h is character of pol it ician .
The stream of ignorant mal ice wh ich has pouredweekly from the pulpits defies chemical analysisand may perhaps be indicated best by thefo l low ing quotations, whose terse mendacityrequires no comment.Here is the famous Edgar case, as presented
in wri ting by the Rev. E . K . Ell iott, the Vicarof Broadwater z
I may mention that a year ago aMr. Edgar, whenstanding at his door, was shot dead by a Boer who happened to be passing
,simply because he recognized him to
be an Engl ishman.
The same cleric is responsible for the fol lowingstory of Cronje
To day a gentleman called uponme who, eightyears ago,was i n the Transvaal
,and, what is more, a guest of Cronje
during part of his sojourn in that country. Whilst withCronje he sawhim shoot two old Kaffir women because(as he said) they were too old for work !
The Rev . John Alsopp, who claims personalexperience in South Africa, is accredited withthe fol lowing
60 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismthe eth ical obtuseness of a Tommy when heinvites h im to peruse, I wil l not say the
elevated doctri ne of the Sermon on the Mount,
but the maxims of common honesty and truthcontained with in the pages of the book Doeshe not fear that these maxims may confl ictwith so ldierly duty and corrupt the mil i taryefficiency of the army ? What are the ethicsof the soldier ! The fol lowing succinct statement affords a sufficient answerAs a nation we are broughtup to feel it a disgrace tosucceed by falsehood ; the word spy conveys in it something as repulsive as slave. We will keep hammering awaywith the conviction that honesty is the best policy, and
thattruth always wins in the long run. These pretty littlesentences do wel l for a child’s copy-book, buttheman whoacts upon them i n war had better sheathe his sword forever.
This passage from the ‘ Sold ier’s Pocketbook ,’ by Sir Garnet Wo lseley, I commend to
the not ice of the d istinguished patron of theNew Testament, and to the bishops and clergywho are so impressed by the ‘ cleans ing
,
’
bracing, ’ ‘ fort ifying ’ influences ofwar.
Ch r istian ity in Khaki 6 1
APPENDIXThe following letter, culled from the pages of theMan
d ate-r Guardian, deserves a more permanent attention asan example of serviceable satire
THE CH ! RCH AND WAR
Sin— I see that ‘the Church’s duty in regard to war ’ is
to be discussed at the Church Congress. That i s right.For a year the heads of our Church have been telling uswhatwar is and does— that it i s a school of character, thatit sobers men, cleans them, strengthen s them, knits theirhearts, makes them brave, patient, humble, tender, proneto self-sacrifice. Watered by ‘ war’s red rain,’ one b ishoptells us, virtue grows ; a cannonade, he po ints out, is an‘oratorio ’— almost a form of worship. True ; and to the
Churchmen look for help to save the ir souls from starvingfor lack of this good school, this kindly rain, this sacredmusic. Congresses are apt to lose themselves in wastes ofwords. This one must not— surely cannot, so straight i sthe wayto the goal. It has simply to draftand submit anewCollect, forwar in our time, and to call for the reverentbutfirmemendation, in the spiritof the bestmodern thought,of those passages i n Bible and Prayer-book by which eventhe truestof Christians and the bestofmen have at timesbeen blinded to the duty of seeking war and ensuing it.Still, man’s moral nature cannot, I admit, l ive by war
alone. Nor do I say, with some, that peace is wholly bad.
Even amid the horrors ofpeace you will find little shoots ofcharacter fed by the gentle and timely rains of plague and
famine, tempest and fire ; simple lessons of patience and
courage conned in the schools of typhus, gout, and stonenotoratorios, perhaps, buthomely anthems and rude hymns
6 2 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismplayed on kni fe and gun, in the long winter nights. Far
from me to sin our mercies,’ or to cal l mere twilightdark.Yetdark itmaybecome. For remember that even thesepoor makeshift schools of character, these second-bests,these halting substitutes for war— remember that the
efficiency of every one of them, be it hunger,accident,
ignorance, sickness, or pain, is menaced by the intolerablestrain of its struggle with secular doctors, plumbers, inventors
,schoolmasters, and pol icemen . Every year thousands
who would once have been braced and steeled by manlytussles with smal l-pox or diphtheria are robbed of thatblessing by the great changes made in our drains. Everyyear thousands of women and children mustgo their waybereftof the rich spiritual experience of the widow and theorphan . I trynotto despond, butwhen I think of all thatLatimer owed to the fire, Regulus to a spiked barre], Socratesto prison
, Job to destitution and disease— when I think of
these things and then think howmany of my poor fellowcreatures in our modern world are robbed daily of the
pri celess discipl ine of danger, want, and torture, then I askmyselfL—I cannot help asking myself— whether we are not
walking into a very slough ofmoral and spiritual squalor.Once more, I amno alarm ist. As long as we have wars
to stay our souls upon, the moral evi l will not be grave ;and, to do the M inistry justice, I see no risk of their driftinginto any long or serious peace. Butweak or vicious menmay come after them, aud it is now, in the time of our
strength , of quickened insightand deepened devotion, thatwe must take thought for the leaner years when theremaybe no kill ing of multitudes of Englishmen, no breaking upof English homes, no chastening blows to English trade, nomaking, by thousands, of English widows, orphans
,and
cripples—when the school may be shut, and the rain a
drought, and the oratorio dumb — Yours, &c.,A Parmor .
August30, 1900.
CHAPTER IV
VAINGLORY AND SHORTSIGHT
113910? is a which a
The na1ve braggadoc ioressed i n boastful claims and
(where imag ination is strong) i n detai led invent ion of dangers and d ifficult ies overcome
,is
as a note of irrationali
en Falstafl’ withmen in buckram half credi ts h is
story as he tells i t : sheer self-assertion drivesthe mind of the sa the ch ild to multiplyh is enemies and their s ize ; the
delusions are ge tell ing them to
others feeds and strengthens them.
such a child lain fact
64 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismwhich fal ls back on i ts barbaric nature andgives i t temporary domin ion . W r
spective, i nabil ity to test evidence, reversa of
prey to
stateTSf
“mm15
aliz ing power of the war-spiri t than the infant i levan i ty which i t sustai ns in contrad iction of mostcertain facts . Let me i llustrate . A little beforethe outbreak of war, when it was desirable toMBoers were but a smal l minorityof the population in the Transvaal, they werecommonly set down at some sixty thousandMW : the smallness of
th is number served to enhance the enormityof the tyranny they were he ld to exercise, whi leit st imulated interference by mak ing coercionseem easy. After thewent badly whad swallowed the earlier figures . found_ no
dm r in bel ieving that theseA
Boers, with the Free Staters and rebels, had a
pomt of fact, history 15 ike to arrive at theconclus ion thagwej espmmei nw lyau qmmr
Vainglo ry and Sho rtsight 65
‘W fimmw d
11 cc n one w 0 took the best avai lablestat isti cs of the population of the Republ icsand of the ‘ disloyal ’ districts in the Colonycould reach a higher figure. I n v iew of th is,i s there notan exquisite humour i n the appealmade by the Dean of Canterbury i n a send-offsermon addressed to the East Kent Yeomanry,rounding ofl' an eloquent period by quot ingMacaulay's famous l ines
And howcanman die betterThan facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathersAnd the tw ples ofhis gods ?
The psychologi cal puzzle is a mosti nterestingone . Here is a people, the great majori ty of
whom know quite well that our forces are
vastly superior i n numbers to the Boers (theirind ignation at the insolence of the ultimatumbeing based chiefly on the smallness of thepeople), that our sold iers are mostly professionals, theirs amateurs ; that our control of thematerial resources which ul timately decide awar are incomparably greater ; and yet theyare ca able of feelin the same sort of mentalc ation when he t1de o v1cto v
_
turr1s__
artmv dsus as ifwe had
66 The Psycho logy of J ingo i smor Russia. I nstead of being aston ished or
ashamed that our at mexecuting (most imperfectly as now appcW e small s ize of which was plainlyrecognized at the outset, and of visiting theblame upon the Government or the generals ,the mind of the peo le i s swol len with a genuine
cm leadmg her, upon some sl ight provocat ion, i nto confl ict with some strong Continental power. This exultation does not arisefrom any consideration of the real d ifficultiesinvo lved in such a campaign , conducted at sogreat a distance from the base, but is s imply asavage burst of triumph such as carries mento al l absurdit ies or enormities in an hour of
victory.
This vainglory is even l ikely to lose us thega in wh ich might issue from our d isastrouse xperience . I t is true that i ts presence doesnot proh ibit a sense of uneas iness
,which
clamours for a rad ical reform of our mil itarysystem and a great i ncrease of our army andour navy— the logical contradict ion invo lved inthis demand does not cause any difficul ty. Butour child ish self-esteem is such that the mosti nstructive cri ticism of our conduct of the campaign, i ssu ing, as it must, from Continental
68 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismlessons of all h istory . t is to subst i tute aformal settlement us
ment of aa permanentcharacter. Such shortsight, coupled w ith aconv1ct1on that a reign of force wil l bringpeace and contentment, is not really to bed ign ified by the name ‘ pol icy ; ’ i t simplywraps up in empty phrases about ‘ goodgovernment ’ and ‘ equal rights ’
the primit ive savage lust of the v ictor i n stamping on
a fal len foe , and dragging him in chains atthe back of his triumphal car. A ! ingo -riddenp looks neither before nor
1
CHAPTER V
THE ECLIPSE OF H !MO ! R
will be lau n the very generalswho have been ofl‘icially discredited, that wil lmissariat an ospi 5 upon the interestedtestimon s
. offi cials whose conductis ca ed i n ques tion, wh e ey ignore thedeta i led
,un re udiced ev i ence o e ir own
hal l-starved and neglected relatives at the
70 The Psycho logy of J ingo i smand stands half- i ndignant
,half- i ncredulous,
when it is exhib i ted as a laughing-stock to thecivil ized peoples of the world, could surelyafford no more convincing proof of i ts mentalcol lapse .
When we char e the Boers with the veryi l legal i t ies and outra es of whichwe ourselvesWunnatural taunt of ‘ hypocrisy,’ and the v irtuousscorn which we exhibit in contemning thetaunt affords convincing proof to our crit ics .For al l that, ‘ hypocrisy ’ fails to h i t the mark ;
nt and calculat ion ,a mimics—"W meminently lacking ; ‘ hypocrisy ’ ignores £116true
w
hdmdur'
bf thém
psybhology of Jingoifi“
N
Anmummies”wi make clear mymeaning. We are quite genuine in the in
d ignat ion weW against the Boers for~n nu r ;shoot ing "our so ld iers with‘ ex plosive ’ bullets ;
i t iis, we quite_bel ieve, a barbarous pract ice siichas we ourse ves wou ld notad opt Now, even inWthe m idst of th is indignation we are aware thatthe so called ‘ ex losive ’
bulletsmplosive but expansive, _ and that there is no
ev idence at all of any_use of explosive bums .Sm background of our m ind wereta in an uneasy recol lection that the expansive
The Ec l ipse of Humour 7 1
bullet is a Bri t ish invention, and that i n 18 9,
at the Hague, f the remonstrances of
have failed to forget that, a begi nning of
the war, these expansive bullets were servedout to the troops sent out for active serv ice .Although the onference , by a decisivevote on J une ned theuse of those bullets k
War, i n answer to a question in the House of
Commons, July r i th, repl ied : ‘ Mark IV . has
such hasTieenAtria .
“ I t i smeantime '
fi dmm®
fif§ch 23rd of
1900,Mr. Wyndham said ‘ Mark IV . wasthe regulation bullet, and the original garri sonin South A frica had i t ; but i t was recalled , andhas never been issued in this campaign. ’
Now, from the ev idence of Bri ti sh officers,we know that these bul lets were not actuallyrecal led from use unti l January 7th threemonths after the beginn ing of the war— andthat General Baden-Powell, having no otherammunition left, conti nued to use them afterwards in Mafeking. Many Bri tish n'
oops were
7 2 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismcaptured duri ng the early weeks of the war, andmuch of our ammunit ion was taken b theBoers . The latter have asserted that suchexpansive bul lets as they have used cons ist ofour captured ammunition , and it is known thatthe ord inary Mauser ammun i t ion served out atthe beginning of the war to the commandoeswas neither explosive nor expansive. WhenLord Roberts
, on March 1 1th, addressed to
the President of the two Republ ics h is protestagainst the use of ‘ explosive ’ bullets
, con
demming them as a ‘ d isgrace to any c ivi l izedPower,’ he must have known ( 1) thatMr.
Treves and other eminent surgeons had not
only den ied the use of ‘ explosive ’ bullets,but
had reported : ‘ I t is ev ident from theirthe Boers ’] wounds that the Lee-Metford isnot so merciful as the Mauser (2 ) that MarkIV . or Dum-dum bullets had been in use byour troops when the ir ammun i t ion had beentaken , and (3) that the Webley expans iverevo lver-bullet had been in general use atElandslaagte and elsewhere unt i l a War Officeorder was issued, dated March 28th, prohibiting its use unt i l further orders . ’
All the available evidence tends to showthat we invented and used expansive bulletsagainst the Boers, and that such expansive
The Eclipse of H umour'
7 3
bullets as they used were taken from us. I nface of such evidence we charge the enemywith using explosive bullets , and are righteouslyindignant at h is do i ng so.
Yet th is is not rightly styled hypocrisy ; i t i smental col lapse
,accompan ied by an absence of
that common sense of humour which, i n normalminds , aids reason in detecting palpable inconsistencies or absurdities.Were it worth while, we might adduce an
almost i nfin ite variety of instances of th ismental confusion exhibit ing itsel f i n grotesquereason ing. Had our personal feel ings beend isengaged, no people would have been quickerthan ourselves to recogn ize the hero ic courageof two such nations standing up in bo ldchal lenge for their rights against the largestempire of the world . At the open ing of thewar, however, i t was the smallness of thepeople that particularly roused our ind ignationat the inso lence ; i t seemed to us that confidenceof bearing and audacity of language were rightsapperta in ing only to
‘ Great Powers. ’ I tmight seem reasonable that the success of theBoers, not merely in res istance, but in attack ,should tend to reduce our sense of theirinsolence. Not so, however ; we continue toharp upon the smallness of their numbers as a
74 The Psycho logy of J ingo ism
gr ievance . Just as so small a people had no
right to issue such an ult imatum, so now armies
so smal l have no cla im to be treated as armies,but only as bands of marauders, gueri l las, etc .Considering our difficulty in tackl ing our t inyadversary, i t might appear somewhat mean , aswell as irre levant
, to abuse him for h is smallness but such meanness and irrelevance belongto the J ingo sp iri t, and furn ish to bystanders itsmost exquisite humour.
’
To cal l i t hypocrisyis to spo i l its flavour. I t is the genumeness of
our conviction that ‘rights ’
go y 8 1 h
us just now a quiteself-evident The humour wh ichother people see in our charges of coward iceagainst the Boers because they won’ t stand on
the sky- l ine and let us shoot at them,or come
out and mass on the open within range of our
guns ; the various allegations of unfa ir fightingwe bring against them ; the Times with itsdeprecation of our excessive ‘ len iency ’ and‘ human i ty ; ’ the ‘ bogus ’ plots against LordRoberts ; the ent ire deta i led procedure of ‘ awar undertaken in the cause of j ust ice andciv i l ization — the lambent humour of all th isis unfortunately lost to us in our dull ferocitybut i t is there, and others see i t.
76 The Psycho logy of J i ngo ismBein’ they haint no led, they make their bullets out of
copperAn ’ shoot the darned things at us
,which Caleb sez ain ’t
proper ;H e sez t/zey
’
d eng/z’
to stan’
rig/ztup an’
letuspop'
emfairly(Guess when he ketches ’
emat thet, he’l l hev to git upairly) .
T/zetour nation’
s bigger’
n tneirn an’so its rzglzts air bigger,
An’
t/zetit’s all tomake ’
emfree thatwe air pullz'
n’
trigger
ThetAnglo-Saxondom’s idee’s abreakin’ ’
emto pieces,An’ thet idee’s thet every man does just wat he damnpleases ;
Ef I don’tmake his meanin’ clear,perhaps in some reSpex
I can,I know thet ‘
every man ’ don’t mean a nigger or a Mexi
Read Dutchman for Mexican, and the sentiments of Hosea Bigelow are seen to be identicalwith those of our own Yellow Press and of
Bri tish South Afri ca .
’
The bankruptcy of national humour is, however, best exh ib i ted in two conv ictions obsti
nately planted in the J ingo m ind . The firstis a general bel ief i n the ‘ badness ’
of theBoer, of such sort that, when an inventivepress produces any new specific but unsup
ported charge, as of shooting prisoners, po isoning we l ls, firi ng on ambulances, we know thatit is true
,because it is j ust the sort of th ing
the wicked Boer would do .
’
The Ecl ipse of H umour 7 7‘ Never forget to slander those you have
wronged.
’ This self-pro tective instinct i n anation which has reached a certain stage inthe evolution of morals i s aptly i l lustrated byMr. Gilbert Murray in the fol lowing fableConsider the fowls of the air. A very pretty smal l bird ,
the greatTit, when hungry, will l ift up its beak, split Openits brother’s head, and proceed to eathis brains. It m ightthen be satisfied, th ink you ? Notatall It has a moralnature, you mustplease to remember, which demands to besatisfied as well as the physical . When it has finished itsbrother’s brains, it first gets very angry and peeks the deadbody ; then itflies off to a tree and exults. What is itangry with, and why does it exult? It is angry with theprofound wickedness of that brother, in consequence of
which itwas obliged to kill him itexults in the thoughtofits own courage, firmness, justice, moderation , generos ity,and domestic sweetness .'
Depend upon it, the comedy thus providedis not lost upon our Continental neighbours,and it helps to swell the humour of another ofour J ingo atti tudes— our claim that the achievements of our arms in South Afri ca redound tothe mil itary prestige of the Empire .
‘ Seehow all our Colonies rally round us, how braveand enduring are our sold iers, how sk ilful ourcommissariat, how scientific our generalship,howfirmand successful our career of conquest .”Our neighbours are convinced that we are
International j ournal inEthics, October, 1900 .
7 8 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismful ly conscious of our real defects , and thatweare assuming th is bold , triumphant pose inorder to brave i t out ; and , being thus convinced, they miss the full humour of the proceeding. For we are quite genuine i n our
quaint persuasion that we are heaping glory onourselves, and are establ ish ing a splendidprestige i n the eyes of the world the contemptof European nations is, we feel certain, a mereafl'ectation bred of jealousy, while their un
concealed hostil i ty is proof of the real respectwhich our prowess has produced.
The psychical root-cause of th is col lapse of
humour, with the extraordinary misjudgmentsto which it lends i tself, i s the total ecl ipse of
sympathetic imagination invo lved in the selfabsorption of the fray. The Jingo spiri t is
which disables a nat ion from
quintessence of savagery, a comple te absorpt ion in the present detai ls of a sangu inarystruggle i nhibiti ng the mental faculties of imagination and forethought which are the onlysafeguards of a po l icy.
CHAPTER V l
THE INEVITABLE IN POLITICS
THE crude form of rel ig ious supersti tion , thereversion to bel ief i n England ’s God
,
’ abarbarian tribal deity who fights with and forour big battal ions, has already been suffi cientlydescribed . I t remains, however, to directattention to a quasi-philosophic superstitioninvoked to aid and abet our aggressive pol icy .
The doctrine of ‘ the inev i table ’ is not new,
nor i s i t confined to the larger i ssues of publ ic
inherent W Mthing .
W hhat teac er is not fam i l iar w i th the nai ved istinction, I got th is sum right, but the otherone would come wrong ’ The same sense ofdestiny, marked by an utter repudiation of personal responsib i l i ty, is i l lustrated by the theor y
79
80 The Psycho logy of J i ngo ismofthe total depravity of i nan imate objects
,wh ich
most domestic servants embody i n the famil iarphrase , I t came to pieces in my ’and .
’
No one can fol low up the various formsassumed by th is doctri ne, as i l lustrated inprivate l ife , without perceiving its one-sidedappl icat ion . The th ings that we ‘ cannothe l are alwaymNow
, th is heads I win , ta i ls you lose’ ph ilo
sophy is not conclusive to reflecting persons,even where their private affa irs form thesubject-matter. IW y
that the ‘ inevitable ’ i s alwa s evoked to
defend a game facie bad case . I lie doctrineis as old, far older, than ‘ pol i tics ’ i tself earlyth inkers gave it concrete support from astrology, ’ imputing ‘ disasters ’
of a very humanorig in to the malign conjunct ions of heavenlybod ies, or locat ing ‘ the inev itable ’ in them isch ievous wi ll of some offended deity
,or in
some fateful power transcend ing even thed iv ine . I n recent times i t comes up with anew garb , a new pomp of phraseology. N_ewEngland Puritan ism seems largely responsibleor t e angua
ge o t e atest rev ival, the stern
10 3 ic o ProviW tiny. At anyrate, i t is significant that the doctri ne of
The Inevitable in Po l itics 8 1
ned not inaptly by
A pse story has beenused to support this new predestinarian ism i npol itics. and
— for example,of the great Tudor age—MMt desti ny, or serious ] I the mission of
on. nti qu ite recent times h istoryshowed l ittle else than the lusts and interestsof i ndividuals, classes, nations, working nakedand unashamed in a world of chances ; the‘reign of law ’ was l ittle recogn ized i n theaffairs of men . Even nowadays the actualmen who play so important a part i n pol i t ics,as diplomatists, administrators, concessionmongers
,are quite aware that the events
which moat concern them are anything butC( inevitable -
3that i t is a very ‘ touch and_ ‘ n —‘J
some of these are discreet enough in their6
8 2 The Psycho logy of J ingo i smpubl ic utterances to employ the phraseology of
sham-scientific h istory, and talk of firem d
movements, ’
are actually_due to the conscious wil l of i ndividualmen .
Much of the vogue of ‘ the inev itable ’ i sattributable to the sloppy th ink ing of popularh istorians, who, i nstead of apply ing modernMe ntor a
Even writers of the weSir John Seeley andMr. C . H . Pearson havesometimes lent their authority to a view of
h istory which sees it composed of great tidalmovements of economic or racial forces makingfor a part i tion of the earth which shal l givesuch and such dominion to Russ ia or to AngloSaxondom,
or mark ing out for China or theNegro id races certa in portions of the globe astheir predestined heri tage .
This v iew of h istory lends itsel f to dramat ictreatment and l iterary men are apt to playwith it . A good illustration is the descript ionwhich Victor Hugo gives of the actual workingof events in the French Revo lution , in h isbook N inety- three ’
84 The Psycho logy of J i ngo ismBut carried away by a dramatic frenzy, and
wish ing to emphasize the compulsion of th is
But surely, i t wil l be said, a sound scientificv iew of conduct does leg itim ize the doctrineof ‘ the inev itable ; ’ there are
‘ laws ’ and‘ forces ’
of which philosoph ic h istorians mustrightly take account. And this is true . Themistake consists in regarding the ‘ laws ’ and‘ forces ’ as powers external to the mind of
man . The only direct efficient forces in h istoryare human mot ives. H ow,
then,arises this
i nhuman , or suprahuman,concept ion of ‘ the
inevitable ’ ? I t arises in the fo l lowing wayA numbe r of d ifferent persons, groups, or
classes— princes, pol itic ians, sold iers, etc .— eachseeking some part icular end, form , by co -operation and interact ion, a compl icated plan of
pol icy, the who le of which is not visible or
conscious to any one of the participants . Theh istorian , see ing the resultant l ine of action,and the clear-cut pattern which i t takes,abstracts this design, and, knowing that i t doesnot proceed from the ful l conscious agreement of the agents, places i t whol ly outs ide
The Inevitable in Po l itics 85
the ir wills, and cal ls i t ‘ i nevi table ’
or
‘ destiny .
’
The stress of party pol itics makes th is v iewa h ighly serviceable weapon of defence. Whenthe plain man asks, i n some concrete case of
publ ic conduct, ‘ I s i t right to l ie, steal , ki l l ?’
and wishes to press home some commonlyaccepted rule of right or wrong, praise of
blame, th is doctri ne of the inevitable ’ is casti n his face ; he is told that i t is idle to enterminutely i nto the morals of a ‘ po l icy ’ whichis in accordance with the natural evolution of
events, or to scruti n ize closely the pain, cruelty,and ind ividual inj ustice which are i nvolved inwide histori c workings .Let us test this doctri ne as i t has been
appl ied to the South African War. Theticularmeri ts of the d iplomacy of 18
86 The Psycho logy of J ingo i smor later ; the racial and economic antagonismsbetwEen Boer and Briton were i rreconcilable ;
l:
r
social efficiengymustN yielda
h igher social efficiency. N ineteenth-centurydestroy the obso
lescent civ il ization of the sixteenth century .
’
Such is the jargon which ‘ socio logists ’
offeras a screen for the naked in iqu i ties of aggress ivewar. A condensed statement of this ‘ philo50phy ’ i s comprised in the fo l lowing sentencesof the l ittle vo lume in which M . Demo l ias discusses the question, Boers or Engl ish : Whoare i n the Right 9
When one race shows itself superior to another in thevarious externals of domesti c life, iti itaoly,
i n the longrun
, gets the u er hand in pub lic lh fi hlfi ih sMminance et er t is !Mm-WW W bypeaceful means or feats ofarms, it is none the less, when theproper time comes, officially establ ished
, and afterwardsuniversally acknowledged. I have said that this law is theonly thing which accounts for the history of the human raceand the revolution of empires, and that
,moreover, it
M. Demolins concludes that ‘ the present
struggle between the Boers and the Engl ish is
The Inevitable i n Po l itics 8 7
merely a manifes tation of th is law — a formulawhich rel ieves him of the necess i ty of eventouching i n a single page any of the actualconcrete issues that have arisen between theTransvaal and Great Bri ta i n . England happens, through her colony, to be the nearestneighbour of the Transvaal , and, since neighbourhood of nations impl ies confl ict, Englandwas bound to measure her str
being of superior socconquer, and has the right to do so. I t mattersnoth ing, according to M . Demolins, whether theparticular quarrel which the nation of superiorsocial effi ciency picks with its weaker neighbouri s j ustifiable or not; the law of competi tionamong nations ri ses superior to such details .Some one objects, and seeks to raise questionssuch as, ‘What is the standard of social efficiency accor ing 0 w 1c you prono eritis c1v1 12a 1011 o oer or e
right has Bri tain to determine in her own cause
t e relative social su riorit Wil l the SOC ! ysuperior nation reta in this superiority in tact i fshe spreads it over an unl imited area of territory taken forcibly from other peoples whomshe is bound to rule by force ? ’ But to M .
8 8 The Psycho logy of J i ngo i smDemolins and his sort al l such questions are as“W Y of
£13 avowed 499 suph a con For
the w erior soc ial e c1enc‘ inera
t z gets the upper hand’— from which he
and his fellow- th inkers argue backwards thatwhen you see a nation getting the upper handof another, ‘ by peaceful means or feats of
arms ’
(a matter of perfect indifference whichmethod is adopted l) , you are aware that thatnation is endowed with superior social efficiencyand is fulfi ll i ng an inevitable law, i s ‘ i n theright,’ according to the only sense that phrasecan bear.
I give M . Demolins’s argument th is prominence , notmerely because the book is advertisedas ‘ Brit ish Colonial Pol icy scientifically v indicated by a prominent Frenchman,’ but becausethe argument does really formulate the feel ingby which many Engl ishmen have been inducedto brush aside the doubts and qualms aris ing inconnection with the conduct of the Co lon ialpol icy of the Brit ish Empire by pushful statesmen . The ‘ i nev itable ’ is a complete sedativeof the old conscience, and, when convenientphrasemongers can identi fy it with ‘ the right
,
’
i t may even ‘run
’ a new conscience of i tsown .
The Inevitable i n Po l itics 89
Let me conclude by a brief statement ofthe more sal ient falsehoods which underl ie theargument ofM . Demolins i n i ts appl ication tothe South African war. In the firs therewas no an
the Republ ics as in the es— the Dutch ,the rural population, cul tivating the so i l ; theBri t ish, dwellers i n the towns, concerned w i th
processes of silent assimilation were go ing on
with satisfactory rapidity, until menaces andopen violence interrupted them . The Dutchand British races have, as might be expectedfrom their origin , fused easi ly and advan
tageously i n England , in the U nited States,and
,until lately, i n Cape Colony ; the soc ial
and other divergencies were not those of thesixteenth and the nineteenth centuries, butmerely of the mushroom civi l ization of thenew industrial town and the simpler, ruderconditions of cattle- farming in a land where
90 The Psycho logy of J ingo ism !
large farms and consequent soc ial iso lat ionwere necessary . The d ifferences of pol it icaland legal systembetween Co lon ies and Re
publ ics,
of wh ich so much has been made ,were very sl ight i n comparison with whatthey held i n common— the common impress ofRoman Dutch law upon the admin istrat ion of
j ustice and its embodiment i n s imilar statutes,
the common system of local government, etc .
Unt i l the frict ion of the last few years occurred ,the process of fusion was continuous and visibleeverywhere, slower i n the Transvaal than inthe Free State, i n the Free State than inthe Co lony, but everywhere proceed ing at anaccelerated pace as rai lway and other communications gave more mobi l ity to the population , and brought home a genu ine ident i ty ofi nterests and the need of growing federationof States, for econom ic and social , i f not for
defin i tely pol i t ical , purposes . The alleged‘ inev itabil i ty ’
of confl ict from rooted antagonismof systems is a mere piece of verbiage,the fals ity of which was brought home to memost powerfully during my invest igation of
the pol itical situation on the spot in themonths preceding the war. The situation, w i thits approach ing catastrophe, v is ibly reso lvedi tself
,not i nto externally compell ing forces, but
92 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismSir Alfred M ilner, who spoke , wrote, and actedas i f he recognized himself the chosen instrument ofa plan to force a cris is in South Africa.
The only display of destiny was in the pere
seeme to i ndicate the ‘ inevitable ,’
resolved itself into human motives.were o n was inevi table, so we
are told annexapion i s i nevitable . I n the nameof 1nev1tabilii ty we are i nv ited to banish j usticeand reason , whose protests are s i lenced by thefalse final i ty impl ied in the term . The distinc
s. here made
W u hamf wmmffi gn Politi c1ans i nvoke ‘ the 1nev1tal5’
l’
e’
for some brief expediency or some conven ientemergency ; summoned i n order to bless thelust of the moment, i t rema ins to curse . Thetrue laws of the I nev itable are not seen inshort bursts of pass ion and the conduct theyimpel
,but in the long rhythms and compen
sations of reason and j usti ce . That abuse,
wh ich is noth ing less than the impudentnegation of international moral i ty, a quas isc ientific sanction of co l lective theft, does not
impair by one jotor one t ittle the l iteral val id i tyof the true law.
The great masterpieces of l i terature have
The Inevitable in Po l itics 93
i nterpreted the real nature of the I nevi tableas i t shows itself i n h istory. This conceptioninspired the Greek dramatists under the formof Nemesis, the law of l ife whereby the pastmisconduct of a man , or a race, dogs i ts footsteps to i ts final fal l . How powerful ly do they,and with them the father of h istory , Herodotus,convey the lesson of the Hybri s of Imperial ismin the case of Pers ia ! The fo l lowing words ofSophocles surely deserve the consideration ofMr. Chamberlai n and his b ig EnglandersI nsolent infatuation begets the Tyrant. I n
solence, i f i t be idly overfed with unseasonableand excess ive food, ascending to a heady promontory, plunges into the sheer abyss of theI nev itable (Anagké ) where i t can find no footingwherewi th to walk .
’
Such laws of the I nevi table, of which theGreeks had prophetic gl impses, we can seegoverning the l ives of al l great empires of thepast ; and yet, fol lowing the same road, wehope to escape the same fatal goal . ThishOpe is i tsel f the fru it of ‘ i nfatuation ’
; thedanger-po i nt of Empire is already reachedwhen Hybris so swells the head and corruptsthe intell igence as to suggest that we alone ofEmpires possess some special ski l l to dodgethe inevitable .
94 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismNowhere is th is corruption of intell igence
more plain ly seen than i n the short-rangefinal ity attributed to annexation as a ‘ settlement . ’ Seen rightly, the crime cal led annexat ion is an abso lute pledge of permanentunsettlement, by the natural operat ion of
human mot ives . I f the gu i lt of th is war layma inly w ith the Boer peoples, who,
an imatedby va in ambitions, had themselves unworth i lysought Empire, and the expulsion of Brit ishrule from South Africa— if they had plannedand plotted for th is end, as the financial-pol iticians and the ir journal ists st i l l assert (withoutadducing a tittle of sound ev idence) some consciousness of the j ustice of their heavy pun ishmen t would w in its way into their hearts andsap the ir ind ignation : thus annexation mighthave become settlement. But th is i s not thecase ; the Boers are conscious of no such gu i l t,nor
W “ W “ .
recogmze the just1ce of the1r pumshment.
retribution of a lustful career, the penaltyof an ambition that o
’
erleapt i tself. On the
contrary, the passionate sense of injustice w i l lpreserve and feed the sent iment of nat ional i ty ;and all who know the Boers, as friends or
enemies, are agreed, whatever other qual ities
96 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismnot die that they w i l l dog our footsteps i n thedark and tortuous path of our Imperial career ;that they wil l come upon us in an hour of
weakness, when , enfeebled by a paras itic l i feof Empire, we are entangled in the meshes ofour world-wide ambitions, and will he lp to
paralyze us by their sudden presence, un
nerving us in the final struggle, and bringinghome to us the true meaning of the inevitablei n po l it ics.
CHAPTER V I I
ARE ED ! CATED JINGOES HONEST ?
To many this outbreak of J ingo ism has beenpecul iarly serviceable in reveal ing the truecharacter of friends and acquaintances. I nsome cases the revelation has been pecul iarlypainful , because i t has raised suspicions as tothe intellectual honesty of men and womenwhom they have respected in the past, and to
whom they have been attached by many bondsof fellowship. Some, i t is true, urge them to putaside such suspicions as ‘ unworthy,’ sayi ngSurely you can admit that persons may differfrom you, even on a v ital issue l ike th is, withoutimputing dishonourable mot ives to them . You
have no more right to regard their convictionsthe have to denounce you
as
Now, th is advice is generous ; how far 15 itj ust ? The question of i ntel lectual honesty is
11
98 The Psycho logy of J ingo i sma somewhat subtle one, and is not to be determined in an offhand way. I t does not arise inany real shape i n the j i ngo ism of the masses,’
which no one seriously pretends is based uponany information or understanding of the actualissues. The ebull it ion of passion there ismerely temperamental v io lence, without anyreal substratum of i ntel lectual conv iction .
‘ Avenge Majuba ’ stirs fiercely the mindsofW nowledge of the
C D _ o p —q u ’ _ h
_histori c i nc ident. ‘ Save the W pire’
‘ fi w h
provokes po’
ifi fful feellng amongwtn
hose whow
cou ld not even a name AQmZLmajor colonies, andnow nothtigg‘
of the danger to which”
fi at
Empi re ” ch ildishpatriotism,
untempered by knowledge, is adan erous force in the hands of unscru nlous
oliticians, but i t contains noth ing that can beca e dishonest ; the hypnot ic influence of
certain phrases upon the mob-mind can hardlybe dign ified by such a term .
But how i s i t with educated persons whohave abandoned themselves to the samepassions
,and who profess to be ‘ convinced ’
of the j ustice and inev itabil i ty of the war ?Are they equal ly honest i n their ‘
con
victions’
? Here one distinction must bemade upon the threshold of the inqu iry.
100 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismtheir face signs of bias and of passion so clearas rightly to evoke suspicion . The educatedman who fal ls back u on
however, i ndisputably i n the strongest pos1t10nC ” ~I
of defence.
But th is is not the normal i ntellectual positionof the educated J ingo. He professes to be convinced from evidence of the corruption of theBoer o l igarchy, the real ity of the Outlandergrievances, and of the danger to Bri t ish poweri n South Africa from a Dutch conspiracy, andof the right these facts gave us to coerce andannex the Republ ics . Now, here again wemay discriminate . The minds of many so
called edu ersons are 31mm. . t
a conviction sim 1 means that a certain quantity-w ~_ fl-m
of ev1dence of some sort or other has Been put“ b or . ”M - n u
b'
efore them , or mg elyw thaL a statement as- 'I 0
been re1terated many times . Many personsare convincedthaf the
-
Fewas a Boer conspiracy,and can even te l l you what i t was and what i ta imed at, i n the samemanner as they are conM m, ”
Bryant and_ Mays the bei _m~at
v
ches. Them inds i such persons are a hopeless preyto po l itical financial intri ers
, who can contro la
.
suffiment number of newspapers and ofotheravenues
'
of publ i c information . mm
Are Educated J ingoes Honest? 10 1
get their convictions honestly, though theseconvictions can hardly be termed intellec
tual .The case of others is different. Persons of
more ab il ity, accustomed i n their busi ness orprofession to weigh evidence and to discriminate, have, i n many i nstances, refused to applythese reasonable tests to the ev idence submittedto them on th is issue . Howmany of us havehad the experience of
ed itors of j i ngo journals have fel tquite safe in continuing to repeat the mostaudacious falsehoods long after they have beenexposed, simply because they knew that the irreaders, though perfectly aware that journalsexisted which gave another s ide, would not
look at papers which Opposed the war. Now,
th is atti tude ofmind has been the rule, and not
the exception, among the classes which boasttheir education and intel l igence, and i t is anattitude of dishonesty . Many well- i nformedJ ingoes have been perfectly aware that certai nbusiness interests i n South A frica have apowerful hold upon the press, and upon thekinds of i nformation which reach the people of
th is country, and yet they have not care d to
102 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismendeavour to correct their judgment by go ingto any other source.All Engl ishmen capable of the least reflectionmust have known that
,i n the nature of the
case,they were only heari ng one s ide of the
matters at issue, and that some suspension of
j udgment was reasonable . Every one of theeducated ersons who are so thoroughly con
1118 we mus '
t
that i t is l ikely that the Dutch nation innun -p m m —mm
Ho l land drawingwnearlyg al l the ir informat1ona” ! ox r w.
fr'
5'
mD_u'tchSouthAfrican sourcesg are an imateda!"! "I n w
byafi W
bias similar to,thou h not so str
,ng as,
c ag o -m aflnuo
n - m-mmn a 0-0 .
ours,“
have rece1ved a mass of,
evidence directlycontradictoryv
to _ours,and that the ir intellefitiialjudgment has been formed in a fash ion sihfilarto ours .
pl ies dishonesty. That d ishonesty is ev i ncedin, and il lustrated by, specific cases of treatmentof evidence . An example is the value attachedto the interview whichMr. Theo Schreineralleged that he had withMr. Reitz, the StateSecretary of the Transvaal , i n which the latteradmitted the plan to work for an independentDutch republ ic. Here is a strong partisan ,an agitator by profession, who produces frommemory a long verbatim account of an
PART II
The Manufacture of J ingo i sm
108 The Psycho logy of J ingo i sm
methods wh ich have heen successfuh
éfice .
e 1nformation from out r1oa whichimpressed upon the publ ic mind a convictionof the j ustice and necessity of war, and whicharoused and sustained thepassion of j ingo ism
,
did notflow freely into the country throughmany diverse, unconnected channels, as iscommonly supposed . traordinaryagreement
of a_drastic
for them?waveri
of the nation placed i n the po l icy of, theEf fie
-War. Such55
”
amount offi
hhhsentaneny séEfif'
d‘
tb attesta case of overwhelm ing strength . When theGovernment press was jo i ned by the two
leading Opposi tion organs in London , and bythe great majori ty of important Oppositionpapers throughout the country ; when the nonpol it ical press
,and, i n particular, the most
powerful journals of the Churches, urged thenecessity of war, the doubts of i ntel lect and
The Abuse of the Press 109
qualms of conscience in many minds wereoverborne by such unanimi ty.
When to th is union of the press was addedthe vo ices of a thousand pulpits and the
instruction of a thousand platforms,where
travel lers, missionaries, l iti
I t is l ittle wonder that people unacquaintedwith the structure of the press, and withmethods of educating publ ic opin ion, shouldhave been imposed upon by this concurrenceof testimony. I f the papers which they read ,and the speakers to whom they l istened
,had
drawn their facts and their opin ions from avariety of i ndependent sources, the authoritythey exercised would have been legit imate .
But what was the actual case ? Turn firstto the press, by far the most po tent i nstrumenti n the modern manufacture of publ ic opin ion .
The great majority of provincial newspapers ,and most of the weekl ies, metropol i tan or
provincial , rel igious as wel l as po l itical , derivetheir J
1 10 The Psycho logy of J ingo i smwhich supply the London ‘ dail ies. ’ Mostprovincial papers take not only their news buttheir ‘ v iews,’ with abject servi l i ty, from theLondon journal which they most admire .
I n a very few instances, important provincial papers receive first-hand intell igencefrom special correspondents of their own
by mail , but for al l prompt intell igence theyare absolutely dependent upon the sourcesabove-mentioned. The o therwise miraculousagreement of the Bri t ish press is, thus, firstreso lved into the agreement of a few journals,chiefly in London, and of two or three pressagencies. We have next to ask from whatsources do these latter get their i nformationOn th is po in t the case of the South Africanwar is pecul iarly instructive. All the leadingLondon papers received their South Africanintel l igence from correspondents who weremembers of the staff of newspapers in Capetown and johannesburg, supplemented i n two
i nstances last year by information from specialtravell ing correspondents, who , i n their turn,derived most ioa fromnews
I n part icular,the fi vflondon newspapers which exerc isedmost influence upon the mind of the educatedclasses i n this country, the T!mes and the
1 1 2 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismresources by obtain ing from the Bri tish mil itaryauthorit ies the sole right to establ ish a newspaper at Bloemfontein. The newspapers atK imberley and at Buluwayo are in the samehands
,and the Cape Times i s financially con
trol led byMr. Rutherford Harris, a col leagueofMr. Rhodes i n his several financial ventures .The pri ncipal organs of publ ic opin ion at al lthe pol itical p ivots i n South Africa are thusowned by the l i ttle group of men who alsoown or control the diamond mines at K imberley,the gold-fields of the Rand, and the governmentand resources of Rhodesia.
I n a country l ike South Africa newspapersare not ln themselves e1ther a sa le orT reW 0-1a
munerat1ve 1nvestment; and ‘ gamaya he safely! wa n—u. MasserteT th?t
“Messrs. Rhodes, Beit, Barnato ,
an0 Onewspapers for the same reason wh1ch 1nduced
Messrs . Eckstéih'mt'
o'm
establish“
la‘
st year, atimmense expense; the sEQrt-hved
'm a'
1MLeader— the desire to contro l the publ ic mind .
town , the country vicar, or the co l lege don,
who has been convinced by the unan imi ty of
the provincial and the London press i n recording and endorsing the statement of Outlanderoutrages, the Dutch conspiracy, the cowardice
The Abuse of the Press 1 13
and the treachery of the Boers, etc. , mighthave had less confidence in his final judgmenthad he known that he was reading news whichhad been fash ioned for his reading by theeditors ofMr. Rhodes and of h is business
wmfl’xm mpany
_itfi i‘sfi desirable"to makeWe have traced the in
on which corrupted the mind of theBritish publ ic to a few South African journalsowned by the men who tried to rush ' theTransvaal by treacherous force five years ago ,
men admittedly moved by special business ends,which they bel ieved could be subserved by awar conducted at the expense of the Bri tishpubl ic. Now, these men do notwri te, thoughthey often inspire, the news and the articles of
the press they own. The personal instrumentsof their educational po l icy are the editors oftheirpapers. I t is by no means necessary to assumethat these ed itors are corrupt or dishonest,receiving pay, either from their employers or
from outs ide persons, i n order to fabricate or
distort news or to write in a sense opposed to
1 14 The Psycho logy of J i ngo ismtheir own j udgment . That a corrupt andreptile press exists, not only on the Continent,but in great Bri tai n and its colonies, i n whi chfalse and biassed matter is i nserted by meansof proprietary compulsion or outs ide bribery,i s ind isputable. But i t is not
'
necessary to urgeany such crude charge against Rhodesianeditors . Take the case ofMr. Garrett, editorof the Cape Times, who is clearly entitled to
be considered one of the necessary men inbringing about the war, inasmuch as his inflammatory cablegrams to the DailyN ews v isiblycorrupted the po l icy of that powerful newspaperand seduced to J ingo ism a large section of
Liberals throughout the country, break ing theparty for effective cri ticism of the Governmentpol icy in parl iament and in the country.Mr.
Garrett is ind ignant when the impartial i ty andindependence of his position have been calledi n question he has had an absolutely free handand this was a condition of his employment .The same is the case withMr.Monypenny,taken from the Times office to directMr.
Rhodes’ paper in Johannesburg, and to feedthe most important paper i n England at a mostcrit ical epoch in our history. What is the realworth of the protestations of these gentlemenThe answer is plain . When these editors were
1 16 The Psycho logy of J ingo i smholders in the Chartered Company, and thatpaper outh African mtelligencefrom the same sources as tThe rest of the greatLondon Influences are, of
"a
N
to explaih'
fihejmfiof the cheapsefi
’
satiw
onal pressshi m any country.
‘
15’
order to get an chec ivé Tfiastery’
offi he
p 0
thethe rest .Itwill be obj ected that too great an influence
is here imputed to the South African press .Surely,’ i t wil l be said , ‘ the facts and
op in ions thus communicated are corroboratedfrom countless private sources of i nformation .
These are not the v iews of a few newspapersonly ; the unan imous testimonyo f Brit ish SouthAfri ca endorses them .
’ And this is true.But what is the essential worth of these
feel ings of Brit ish South Africans and of the‘ facts ’ by which they support them ? Racefeel ing, s ince the Raid, has been terribly embittered, the minds of Bri t ish and Dutch al ikehave been kept in a constant stra in of host i lereceptiv ity, dri nk ing in each idle story wh ich
The Abuse of the Press 1 17
ignorance or mal ice has invented to st imulateantagonism . The mind of both races hasbeen l i ttle else than a vast maw of credul i ty,i ncapable of testing statements or ofweigh ingevidence .
Most of the South Africans whose statements have been accepted here as i ndependentfirst-hand evidence have had a very narrow,
purely local , experience in some towns of theCo lony or the Republ ics very few have mixedwith the Boers, sti l l fewer can speak the Taal .The outlander of Johannesberg, i n particular,whose vo ice. was heard wi th so much respectas proceeding from the spot, had v irtually noknowledge of the Boer burgher population ;and even the grievances of which he pratedso freely, he had learned from his newspapersand h is League . The sl ightest investigationof the innumerable statements from SouthAfrica d iscloses the fact that n ine-tenths of
th is evidence is the mere reproduction of theparagraphs of those very newspapers whichI have named . The saloon, the club, thetrain, and o ther ommon avenues o conver
pol itics, propagated by short stories and bart i ttle tattle, contai ned perhaps one part of truthto ten of loose embro idery.
1 18 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismThe worth of such evidence, se lected and
worked up for popular investment by a sensational press, i s very smal l . The D utch pressi n the Transvaal , equally reckless and nearlyas corrupt, wrought i n s imilar fash ion , and anexamination of the popular opin ion of Ho llandwould disclose a mass of anti -Bri t ish evidence,derived by methods parallel to those heredescribed. This fact alone might serve to
abate the overweening confidence which wehave felt in the consensus of ‘ Brit ish SouthAfrica .
’
Journal ism does not exhaust the influence ofthe press . art icles and volumes in
sh11
been well-nigh absolute. LCEW VC
been will ing to andeven t Ol ive
Schre iner could notget a hearing for what shemost cared to say in any important Engl ishmagazine . I speak from personal knowledgewhen I sa that the retail book
w trade , led byMessrs .m 5:135211911; its best to‘hoycot
’
t Thosefamilia'? with the trade will understand how
injurious such obstruct ions are to the circulation
1 20 The Psycho logy of Jingo iscablegrams brings with it some grave dangers . I cannothelp feeling the force of some words of Lowell
,written
many years ago, on this subject:[The telegraph] , by making public opinion simultaneous,
i s also making it liable to those delus ions, panics, and gregarions impulses which transform otherwise reasonablemeninto amob.
’
The m ischief is much accentuated where, as in Austral ia,the metropol itan cities are so large in proportion to the
population of each colony, and the metropolitan papers areso weighty i n influence and so widely circulated . I havejustcutto—day, from a dai ly paper
,the enclosed cablegram .
It is just of a kind to inflame the sentiments of IrishCatholics, who, but for the cab legrams, would be inclinedto suspectthe British conduct in forcing the war.
The ‘ enclosed cablegram ’
reads as fol
lows
Bonn Dasncnan on AND B ! RNING or CH! RCHES.
The Boers in Northern Natal , before evacuating Newcastle and Dundee, defiled and desecrated the Catholicchurches in those towns, and finally setfire to the buildings .
I t only remains to add that the cabled statement is abso lutely dest itute of truth, the productof someThe in New dmay be gauged from the case ofMr. GrattanGrey. This gentleman was appo i nted leaderof the official report ing staff in the New Zealandlegislature, receiv ing a lower salary than h is
The Abuse of the Press 12 1
predecessor on the strength of a writtenagreement permitting him to contribute to thepress . Not long ago, wri ting as correspondentto an American newspaper,Mr. Grey madesome cri tic ism regard ing the origi n of the warand the J ingo feel ing of New Zealand. Whenthe paper was brought to the attention of the
Premier. the latter askedMr. Grey to explai nh is conduct.Mr. Grey po inted out that h isaction was j ust ified by the terms of his agreement, but the Government appo i nted a Committee of conspicuously ‘ loyal members, whichrecommended the dismissal ofMr. Grey. Thisrecommendation was adopted, andMr. Greyhas lost h is post .The method of manufacturing loyal supporti n our colon ies for the war, or for any rashexplo i t a Bri t ish Government might choose toi nsti tute, is particularly simple. The authoritative i nformation set before the New Zealandpubl ic, before and during the war— almost theonly i nformat ion which was al lowed to penetrate theirminds— came in the fo l lowing manner.
The Colon ial Office i n London cabled toMr.
Seddon, the New Zealand premier, whateverfacts or opin ionsMr. Chamberlai n wished to
impose upon the colon ial mind, andMr. Seddoncommunicated the matter thus obtained to all
12 2 The Psycho logy of J i ngo i smthe leading newspapers. What were the factsMr. Chamberlain would communicate, andwhat the facts he would withho ld, under suchcircumstances, may be surmised by any one
famil iar with h is statements of the SouthAfrican issues in th is country, where he hasbeen exposed to contradiction and to competit ion . Well may he glory in the ‘ loyal sp iri t ’
of our colon ies— the work of his own hands !The earl iest crop of Engl ish l ies, the murder
ofMr. Lanham ‘ kicked to death ’ by brutalBoers,’ the lurid picture of the Rand refugees,‘ men scourged with long rhinoceros whips ;women struck with rifles, robbed, and rev iledwith brutal oaths and jeers ; babes snatchedfrom their mothers’ arms and flung back withinsults,
’
j‘ etc. , were flourishing in Canada and
Austral ia th is year, careful ly nurtured by emissaries of the South African League sent overto feed co lon ial loyalty.
What these war-makers have done mustbe d ist inctly understood . They have passed,through their kept South African journals ,upon the press of Great Bri ta in and her
colonies, a cont inuous stream of falsehood ,partly distortion of facts, partly fabrication of
DailyMail, Oct. 9.
124 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismhaving this immense
_regldesslya busedemtmsg,pouring misstatements into the publ ic mind.
The credul ity which swal lows new l ies from thesame sources whence issued the old detestedl ies
,the apparent indifference with which each
fresh detection is received, must not deceiveus. Publ ic confidence buo ed b ssion isslow eestabl ished wil l Mg edit of thepress susta i ns aWm a vm”
Those papers wh ich have lent themselves toth is unscrupulous enterprise arg debasing the
tual currenc
CHAPTER I I
PLATFORMAND P! LPIT
A BIASIED , enslaved, and soned ress has
ism . I t has, however, been accompanied by acorresponding abuse of platform and of pulpit.Free speech has been struck off from the rol l
towns e avo
protect the conveners of a publ ic meeting inthe exercise of their legal rights— a v irtualadmission of a state of anarchy. I n hundredsof towns and vil lages al l over the country menand women who were known or bel ieved to
enterta in opinions unfavourable to the warwere subjected to personal assaul ts and insults ;their property was damaged, and the law gave
135
1 26 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismthem neither protection nor redre ss . Duringthis reign of terror the country was floodedwithmm q urers, agents of theSouth African League or i ts Engl ish branch
,
the Brit ish South Afri ca Association, mineowners from Johannesburg, missionaries from
set before_the audience in somaLlIeInsti tute, Chamber of Comm ree
,chapel,
church, or pblitica lnbMtheirfi xp gwrsonal knowledge ofj he facts ia Sout""The condition of the Brit ish mind is best
gauged by its d iscriminative treatment of CapeCo lonists . A fair-minded England would havedesired to give a free and equal hearing to therepresentat ives of both parties i n our co lony .
I nstead of do ing th is, England gave freespeech to one sect ion and repressed it in theother. There is no more signal evidence of adamaged intel l igence and a corrupted sense of
j ustice than the brutal denial of a hearing toMr. Cronwright Schriener and to the Co lon ialDelegates appo i nted by the People’s Congressi n the Colony. No more peri lous condit ion canbe imag ined than that 0 _apeople, _wield ing them mW e
issues of peace and war, which is so i nfatuated
1 2 8 The Psychology of J ingo i smAfrican League have been at work since thebegmn 5 year, both i n ng an an
c1ersThe Association , composed of South African investors and pol itic ianscommitted to a general pol icy of aggress iveimperial ism, has faithfully fol lowed the instruct ions of the League, and has co-operated w i ththe South African V ig i lance Committee (theLeague under another name) for the object offarming the war-flame and securing the complete subjugat ion of the Dutch . These particularist bodies have used the Un ionist organizationin this country j ust as the South African organsin the press, control led by the same men , haveworked through the U nion ist press, ass isted bythe sham-L iberal Daily News. I t has beennecessary to set forth these detai ls in order to
show how the fabrication of publ ic Opin ionis possible and has been achieved . The
acme of audacity is reached when the verymen
,the mine-owners and speculators, who
have assessed the gains of war at severalmi l l ion pounds per annum ,
put forward themselves and the ir profess ional representativesas the impartial instructors and adv isers of
the Bri t ish publ ic on i ts pol icy of war and
P latform and Pulpit 1 29
se ttl ement. Our educated ! ingoes have commouly taken t e trouble to read some books3 110 . C
“o n
of war and annexation . But who are the
om m thaBrMe They are,as we have already po i nted out, direcg rs,enm’geers, and lav
r
/ye
rs g!Messrs . Wernher,Beit, the nso n ated Gold Pie] 5 an 0 er
Garrettr busmess men
who have been po l i ti cal agitators and Reformprisoners at Johannesburg, such asMr. Hosken
and Dr. H ill ier, with a handful of excitedclergymen and ph ilanthropists, such as Mr.Theo. Schriener and the Rev . A . Hofmeyr,whose pol it ical judgment and influence isutterly insign ificant i n their own country. TheBritish publ ic receives these men who, throughtheir league, their Outlander Council, and theirmendacious press , had engi neered the war, asi ts most rel iable advisers regarding the necess ityofwar and the mode of settlement.T ese men deserved a hearin didMW i n our
K
I 30 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismco lonies, loyal Bri t ish subjects, as they havenow been proved . To hear the one and to
re fuse a hearing tom
éblgyflis-
THET'
ahki
ésfm -me”
spotjmw
fimmb ré t but he is alwaysb ias ed, and generally cheri shes a privatei nterest which does not square with , and is oftenopposed to, the interest of the commonweal th .
The frant ic applause w ith wh ich these mineowners and the ir press approve of the conductofMr. Chamberlain and Sir Alfred M ilner i nthe war, the settlement, and the treatment ofrebels, ought to awaken grave suspic ion i n al lreflecting mi nds.But then there is the unan imous testimony of
the Churches i n South Africa. The clergyand the m issionaries have been of uniqueserv ice i n farming the flames of resentmentagainst the Boers . I s th is also an il leg i t imateman ipulation of publTMt and c iv i l i zation , is
fi n “t I do not for one
moment impute dishonesty of purpose to the
132 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismthe appeals to vengeance and fear for theEmp ire showed danger of col lapse ; an appealmust be made to sentiments of higher gradeand more stab il i ty. I n the message of theChurches issu ing from South Africa there wasthe same amount and the same sort of spontaneity as lay beh ind the Outlanders
’ petit ionand the o ther measures by which the war- sp iri twas stirred and ma intained in England . The
Hconviction of the and missmn
o therwise ?) art the1r;mj gggpmof i ts uti l ityflu “
fumitys oLwhich
the more l iberalsentiments of
a1d
be substituted for the power of local parl ia‘ flm a c
t ‘ .'m fi
ments ln deT ng'
W'
th“
the natives.“
The“
capitalistswho hadactiiall '
551103 553 1thg rmom by but_
ag dg lgbgnr
tam “ .
pass laws,and other coercive
methoas wé'i'ézglad to uti lize the blessi ng ofa nu p w i ll—F L? Dmvfl’
the Churches ; ah
nd their po l i t icians and theirpress transmitted this clerical approval , andc irculated it throughout the length and breadth
Platfo rm and Pulpit 133
of th is country, suppressing as far as possiblethe equally earnest and unan imous protestationsof the Dutch Africander Churches , and appropriating to themselves the ti tle of ‘ ChristianSouth Afri ca .
’
Although there is no record of the clergyof anyChurch having failed to bless a popularwar, or to find reasons for representing i t asa crusade, th is approval of the Churches hasranked as independent and powerful testimonyto the justice of our cause ; and though the
that many hthe chThe press and
the polit icians who forced the pace wi th Outlander grievances, suzerainty, or the Dutch
secun ng thus that firm co-operation of
business and ph ilanthropy which is the distinctive note of Bri tish Imperial ism . TMOmotives are co
h ichmesaphrasesx 3
134. The Psycho logy of J ingo ismrecur in the books and speeches of the SouthAfrican clergy who have been introduced to
spread l ight in England, shows how well thenotion has been dri l led i nto their minds .I t is idle whol ly to ignore the fact that the
dependence of the Churches upon the aims of
the rich plays a most important part i n SouthAfrica, where the rich are very few and moreclosely un ited in their businesses, than elsewhere .
A very small number of men can make or marthe success of any rel igious work in the townsof South Africa .Mr. Rhodes, i n part icular,has been a munific
No reproach attachesto the clergy of these Churches, but it is naturalthat their feel ings should be touched and the irjudgment bl inded by these gifts . So, too, when
uth Africa i n search of health or on a1d
te4 ; that he should
people at K imberley, and afterwards pass 1ntothe companyp fMr. Eckstein atjghanggsbur
136 The P sycho logy of J ingo isminfluential British v is itors . Not all thesev isitors sucked in their matter with so muchavidi ty, and reproduced i t wi th so much crudityof judgment as Canon Knox Little ; but anyreader who chooses to check the statement ofe Canon b reference to the Elstory oi more
s
i
de
enand-dlscmeLJmpmw someunda smnding nfli he apmcessgg bX which theop‘
ip ionsg jnfiuentialy isitors were moulded.t i ll -1
The enumeration of methods of i nfluencingBrit ish opin ion would be incomplete were Ito ignore the direct and conscious work of
pol i t icians and their organizations . The SouthAfrican League may be said to have comeinto existence i n order to enforce and enlargeBri t ish power i n South Africa ; and when i twas decided early in 1899 to precip itate a
crisis,i ts emissaries were active both in South
Africa and th is country, ably second ing theefforts ofMr. Rhodes’ press . The fo l lowingpassage in the report of a speech del ivered atCapetown last January by Dr. Darley Hartley,a former Pres ident, deserve s as much attentionfor its matter as for its Engl ish .
All presentwho carried their m inds back over the threeyears during which the League had been in existencewould find very l ittle diffi culty in tracing the present stateofthings in South Africa[which?] was largely due— one might
Platform and Pulpit 137
almostsayentirely due—to the efforts of the League. He
spoke with a ful l sense of responsibil ity, buthe asked themto reflect howfar the present position would have reachedif it had not been for the persistent efforts of the SouthAfrican League in Johannesburg. To illustrate that, hedetailed the history ofthe famous Johannesburg Outlanders’petition, wh ich emanated from the League, and could not
have been successful un less it had been worked by menversed in every possible technical ity of the work. Thatorganization in Johannesburg was the outcome of the
organ ization in Cape Colony, and that showed what theirorganization had done.
I n Cape Colony the League, under the
pres idency and financial support ofMr. Rhodes.has been the fighti ng wing of the ‘
progres
sive ’ party ; i n the Transvaal i t was feeble i nnumbers , and destitute of influence until, i n1899, the leading cap ital ists , fa il ing to come toterms with the Government, so as to securethe ir private ends, decided to work for a catastrophe, and to i nvolve the Imperial power of
Great Bri tain .
Readers of the Blue-books wi l l perceive howpowerful ly the League was able to impress themind of the H igh Commiss ioner, and to secureh is authori tative approval of ‘ every possibletechnicali ty wh ich they employed to i nfluencethe Bri t ish Government. This same body ofmen in Capetown and Johannesburg, figuri ngnow as the South African League, nowas the
1 38 The Psycho logy of J ingo ismOutlander Council , and again as the SouthAfrican Vigilance Committee, have been ineffect the Br1i1sh South Kin ca ’
o i Sir-Alfred
nMilneris dfispaLEhEE-
g
'
i twas their influence andevidepge that ultfi i ely forced us into war,and that is forcing upon us
i
zn
ihis'
é'
am le
ment,fraught with costs and dangers which
the future w i l l d isclose.
and
seen
u advamm l élg Rfllifiical, and businessi nterests .Of a ssmaILb Odyfl‘
Oj menp
fi hb' have
explo i ted the race t
feel‘ing jpmSpfiuth Africa andthe Imperialisb seatimento g fg ngland . Theyhave done th is by the simple dev ice of securingal l important avenues of i nte l l igence, and Ofusing them to inject into the publ ic mind aconti nuous stream of false or distorted information .
I t may wel l be true that publ ic Opin ionin Ho l land, and ContmentalCO
ger’s secretserv ice, and the influence of the Africander
![Chapter 24: The Nation at War, 1900-1920 #2. Toward War Colonel Edward M. House – was sent on a fact-finding mission –“it is jingoism [extreme nationalism]](https://img.pdfslide.us/doc/110x75/56649f575503460f94c7be1f/chapter-24-the-nation-at-war-1900-1920-2-toward-war-colonel-edward-m-house.jpg)
