The Future of England
ONCE a year at least the Spectator turns its eyes particularly towards the future, seeking to assess the prospects of the varied endeavours which men are exercising everywhere for the betterment of the lot of humanity, spiritual, intellectual and physical. There is some disadvantage in giving the survey too wide a sweep. Men as a whole understand best what is nearest to them, and although in this generation more than in any before it international questions are matters of daily discussion in almost every circle, our own country and its fortunes come rightly first. By the chance of our birth we happen to be Englishmen— more accurately perhaps, if less euphoniously, Britons. We owe to our English heritage most of what we are, and few of us would readily exchange our citizenship for any other. But what, if we turn from our casual uncon- sciousness to a moment's self-questioning, do we most want and hope for this country ? Patriotism is a word that needs re-defining in these clays. There was never much ground for Dr. Johnson's caustic characterization of it, but for some Englishmen in every age, and for most of them in some, patriotism meant primarily a resolve to see this country powerful. The patriot and Imperialist were merged and England's greatness was measured by the acreage of the lands she ruled, and grew with every new possession she acquired. We have travelled some • way since then. The scope for new annexations is small and the inclination for them smaller. Our main concern is to school the peoples we have ruled to rule themselves. If greatness consisted in the exercise of arbitrary sway, the greatness of Great Britain would be lessening year by year. We have passed from that to the conviction that it is a greater thing to give people freedom than to impose government on them, even though it be a better govern- ment than any they are likely to institute themselves.
But since our hopes for England do not lie that way, where do they lie ? What are the attributes of pat- riotism to-day ? Certainly there need not be taken from it the element of wholesome emulation. We measure ourselves with other countries, not out of any hollow pride but to satisfy ourselves that we are not behind in any race Worth winning. Not only is the desire to make England a country better worth living in than any other legitimate and right, but there would be something wrong with Englishmen if the desire were absent. Patriotism, to pursue its analysis a little further, spells a resolve that England shall be a place where the people as a Whole arc better housed, the children are better taught, the rela- tions between different classes and sections of the popula- tion are more harmonious, the physically or mentally or economically disabled are better cared for, the spirit of public service is stronger, and the individual has a fuller opportunity of developing his innate possibilities, than any- where else where conditions are comparable. That ambi- tion raises searching questions. How far, in each of those fields, and in others that it would be 'easy to mention, do the tendencies visible to-day promise steady progress towards the desired goal ? It is fourteen years now since the Great War ended. After that vast dislocation new Starts had to be made almost everywhere, and it is with the Armistice or a few months later that any survey of the inunediate past would naturally begin. It is well worth while to consider at this moment what the past fourteen years may seem to forebode for the next fourteen.
Much there is, no doubt, on which we can justly con- gratulate ourselves. It is no small thing to be able to say that, so far as public organization can achieve it, pro- vision has been made that enables every man and woman and child to maintain their households free from the danger of starvation, and mainly on the basis of at least partial self-help, for contributions by the worker during his working life are the foundation of the system. But to keep the lowest ranges of the population from starvation is little enough. Man needs to be housed as well as fed, and we have to confess that the housing conditions sur- viving in London and other great cities are a disgrace to the civilization of to-day. Much has been accomplished since the War. Some 1,700,000 new houses have been built. But the measure here is not what has been done already but what remains undone still. When it can be officially stated in London that 2,000 families of from six to ten persons are occupying each a single room the Englishman's patriotism must turn from reasoned pride to shamed resolve. The scandal of the slums must he wiped out—which means not only abolishing the old ones but preventing the growth of new ones—before the name and reputation of England can be cleared.
Education is a field where the path ahead is less clearly marked. Much progress has been made. To have reformed our educational system in wartime, as the Fisher Act of 1918 did, was an immense achievement. The fourteen years that have elapsed since then have taught us something regarding education as regarding much else. There is still some clash of opinion regarding the ultimate aim to be pursued. The carriere ouverte aux talents is common ground. No one would. destroy the ladder from the elementary school to the Univrsity. But what part definitely technical instruction—what may be termed ad hoc education—should play at every stage, is still to some extent an open question. A boy or girl is to be kept full time at school, till when ? And given a further part-time education, till when ? Are the Univer- sities to prepare more consciously and deliberately for business careers than they do ? And if so, the older Uni- versities as well ? Or should that 'function be entrusted specifically to the newer ?
These are a few of the questions among ninny that present themselves to the Englishman caring enough for his country to care deeply that she should be all she might be. Much of the England of tradition has passed away for ever. Feudal England has gone, and so far as there has gone with it blind and sometimes sycophantic de- pendency and the atrophy of self-development, we may Well be satisfied to have it so. But there has gone too, indisputably, much that leaves us the poorer, a sense of responsibility, a Philanthropy not necessarily patronizing, a spirit of public service which must find other expression to-day.. To sonic extent it is finding it, and so far as it does not find it, it is less because the readiness for service is absent than because, in the complexities of modern life, the avenues for indi- vidual service are far from obvious. But the challenging appeals of the Prince of Wales arc still in our cars, and there are organizations at work ready to receive offers from any quarter and .plate the volunteer in the spot Where work that he can do is waiting for him. Of what this country can do by her initiative and her example in the international field we have said nothing. No good end is served by overcrowding the canvas. And it is true fundamentally that what England is qualifies her, beyond any pledges and professions of her spokesmen, to make her influence felt in a world where to-day no nation can live to itself alone. William Pitt was right. It is only as she saves herself by her exertions that England Can hope to save Europe, and more of the world than Europe' by her example.
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