[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I read Mr. Massingham's
first article with admiration of his political perspicuity. I share his belief that the Liberal Party, with which I was in sympathy during a great part of my life, is "at an end," though I diagnose the causes some- what differently. The "physician has been tried. And he happens to have very nearly killed the patient ; " but I think this medicine man administered the coup de grace. Mr. Massingham says that the Conservative Party "possesses, on the whole, a livelier, younger intelligence than its old Liberal rival." This is a generous admission, implying that he understands that the Party does not now consist of hide- bound Tories or of irresponsible Diehards. The latter, in fact, disappeared as soon as they had succeeded in evicting Mr. Lloyd George, whom Mr. Massingham aptly describes as an "unscrupulous scene-painter."
Where I regret to be unable to agree is that what this sorely distressed old country now needs is "a new dynamic force." I should have thought, though this may be only the illusion of old age, that what we most urgently require is a period of comparative political peace permitting time for deliberate consideration of our problems—time for the passions raised by the storm of war to subside and for the return of sober sense.
The second article, however, fills me with shocked amaze- ment. Mr. Massingham quotes with approval the saying of "Mark Rutherford" that because Socialism "is an idea" it is "therefore in the line of progress." Surely a more flagrant assumption could not be conceived. The Gunpowder Plot was a great idea. Was it "in the line" of national progress ? The South Sea Bubble was based on an idea and proved plainly disastrous. The Protocols embody a stu- pendous idea ; but I cannot think that Mr. Massingham would accept an autocratic Jewish super-government of the world as "progress," and such illustrations can be indefinitely multiplied. Surely the only possible test by which an idea can be judged as progressive or dangerously reactionary is whether or not its practical application will benefit mankind. Whether Socialism would prove sound or economically ruinous I cannot argue. I leave Mr. Massingham to refute Mr. Matlock and a dozen other thinkers who have dissected the Socialistic idea—possibly the vaguest idea yet presented for serious consideration.
I must, however, protest most strongly against the assertion
that "it is a religious idea." Christ gave to the world simply a guide of conduct, which if it had been universally followed would have averted many human ills. In so far as it has prevailed, it has produced what the Spectator happily calls " voluntary Socialism," which in this country is engaged in mitigating those ills, and which Socialism as a political system would wholly destroy. Christ never attempted to enter the sphere of economics, and two thousand years ago the conditions were so different that the Socialistic " idea" as now adumbrated could not have presented itself. The " idea " is nevertheless very old, and wherever adopted it has been associated with blatant irreligion. Robert Owen is sometimes called the "Father of British Socialism," though he borrowed even his formulas from earlier prophets, under whose inspiration he announced that "the religions of the world are horrid monsters and real demons of humanity which swallow up all its rationality and happiness."—I am, [We deal with the letters of " Vindex" and Lord Sydenham in our leading columns.—En. Spectator.]