TOPICS OF THE DAY.
GENERAL SLANDERS AND HOW TO MEET THEM.
THERE is a very sound rule that no man, high or low, should ever answer, or even deny, a general accusation brought against his character,—a rule which ought to apply not only to himself, but quite as much to his friends or to those who know him from a distance, no matter how indignant they may be at the folly, the cruelty, or the utter absurdity of the accusation in question. Not only is no man obliged to deal with general accusations that he is a murderer, an evil liver, a drunkard, or a bigamist, but he owes it as a duty not only to his own self-respect but to the good of society as a whole not to notice any such general slanders. By his silence, even though it may be galling to him to keep silent, he helps to form the necessary rampart against the wickedness, or perhaps we should say rather the ridiculousness and futility, of lying tongues. But for the observance of the rule we have laid down the world would be literally overwhelmed with torrents of squalid slander, and prominent men would spend their lives in denying that they were assassins, profligates, perjurers, or thieves. The wise man and the man of honour and his friends should never give the impression that they have even heard of general slanders,—slanders which can only be met by a general, and therefore empty, assertion of abstract virtue. Specific charges made by specific indi- viduals are of course different If A B will under- take to say that C D murdered a particular man on a particular day in the year, ran away with a specified man's wife, committed bigamy with a named person on a certain date, or was drunk on a particular occasion or set of occasions, then no doubt the wise man and his friends should deal with the accusation. They have something to answer, something to disprove, and will not be confined to mere general, and therefore, as we have said, futile, asseverations of morality and good conduct,—asseverations which, however true they may be in fact, are always open to the retort: " Oh, of course you say so because you are his friend," or, " You think it fair to support him right or wrong," or what not. Only answer what is answer- able. Let mere wild second-hand hearsay and gossip perish, as they certainly will, from their own want of substance. The purveyors of such hearsay no doubt deserve the con- temptuous condemnation that should descend on all tale- bearers and purveyors of tittle-tattle, but they are never worth " further and better " consideration.
If these rules apply, as they most distinctly do, to private individuals, how much more so to Kings, Rulers, and Princes. Kings and Princes are the natural and predestined subjects of gossip. People are bound to talk about them, to speculate about them and tell stories about them, and therefore it is inevitable that the world should be full of stories both to their credit and discredit. A moment's reflection will show that, however great the temptation and however great the injustice done them, they must never themselves break the rule against contradicting or denying scandalous and malicious stories of a general character. If once they did so, they would be over- whelmed by an avalanche of slander. Not only would they have to open a bureau for the general contradiction of general accusations, but if their bureau relaxed its efforts for a moment, or became slack in the pursuit of obloquy, the world would resound with the gigantic whisper that this last story at any rate must be true. " In the future no one will be able to deny that the King drank six bottles of champagne at dinner last Sunday, and that the Queen threw a pair of boots and a, riding-whip at her dresser and marked her for life, for these statements have never been contradicted." Speaking widely, the same rule must apply to the friends and well-wishers of Kings and Queens when they find the world full of vague and lying rumours. Even though they may have evidence that for the time such rumours are doing a certain amount of real harm, they must keep silence. The only possible exception to this rule, though for ourselves we are by no means sure that it is an exception, is the case of the accession to the Throne of a new Sovereign, and one who has hitherto been comparatively little known to the wider public. It is perhaps arguable that on this occasion those who know the facts may for once, and for once only, give vent to their indigna- tion, and let people understand what a cruel wrong is being done by the purveying of general accusations,—or, as we should prefer to say, for we do not find it possible to take the matter en tragique, what fools and dolts are those who give entertainment to such balderdash. We note that the Dean of Norwich, Dr. Russell Wake- field, takes the view as to the duty of good citizens at the accession of a new King described in the last sentence. In addressing a congregation of Friendly Society members near Norwich last Sunday, he thought it his duty to deal with certain preposterous rumours which had been circu- lated in regard to the present King. The Daily Clircnicie of Monday contains an account of his sermon, which runs as follows :- " We have now upon the Throne a King who, to my personal knowledge, is a man of intense self-sacrifice and high character. Against him one has heard brought two accusations, brought, as I think, by that part of society which is no society at all ; but these things percolate down, and it is just as well that when speaking before a mass of people one should give the lie to those two accusa- tions. In the first place, the King is sometimes accused of insobriety. You may take it from me, on undoubted authority, that that is a libel. As far as his close friends have noticed him, he has never been intemperate throughout his life, but, on th•a contrary, is a man who, even from the point of view of health, has to be abstemious, and who has no desire to be anything else. I want you generous-hearted men, when you hear some light, stupid talk with regard to this irreverence to our King, to say with absolute confidence that there is not a more sober, temperate, quiet-living man in this country than King George. The other accusation is still more unworthy. It is that before his marriage ho had what is called a secret morganatic marriage. That is absolutely, root and branch, an untruth. King George is a man who, with a wife of like disposition to himself, has been wont, during his leisure, to sit in his garden with his young children round him, just as any one of us might do in our own patch of garden. He has now undertaken the greatest responsibilities which any man can undertake, and I ask for him justice, fair dealing, confidence, loyalty, and love in his task."
On the whole, we think that the Dean of Norwich would have been better advised to keep silence, in spite of the very natural indignation which mastered him ; but we are sure that he spoke with the very best possible intentions, and we admit that the point is one difficult to determine. As, however, he—following in this respect a letter and editorial note in last Saturday's Nation— has spoken out, and a good deal of publicity has attached to his words, we should like to make one or two brief comments. In doing so let us say, first, that we think the prevalence of these lying rumours has probably been exaggerated. To speak as if they were believed, or even repeated, by anything but a small section of the population would be absurd. Next, let us say that not the slightest hint or shade of a shadow of official intimation has been made to us that our comments would be deemed useful. On the contrary, we feel pretty sure, so strong is the instinct of Royal personages never to deny evil gossip, that what we have said and are about to say is far more likely to be disliked than to be liked by the entourage of the King. In our opinion, nevertheless, this is a matter where a newspaper must j udge for itself, and, however unwilling to give any cause for annoyance to the King or his personal friends, should take its own course. On the balance of evils, then, we have come to the conclusion that, as the matter has been discussed in public, we had better speak out. There is, of course, not the slightest ground what- ever for either of the accusations mentioned by the Dean of Norwich. They are not only utterly false, but ludicrously so, and, as we have said above, we refuse altogether to take such balderdash in a tragic spirit, or to go into heroics over the matter. Even the language of irony and contempt is too strong for such nonsense. All we want to do is to ask people who are tempted to pass on these slanders with some such fatuoas remark as " Can this possibly be true I) " or to indulge in a shudder at the dreadful things people will say, to consider for a moment what idiots they are making of themselves by entertaining these suggestions. A very little reflection must knock the whole fabric to pieces. They are most of them aware that King George is among the very best game shots not only in England but in the world. They must know also that this means that the hand and eye act in unison and under a nervous and muscular control which has to be almost instantaneous. Have they ever heard of a man given to insobriety who was able to do such things habitually, and to be far oftener " on his day " than the majority of shooters ? If the King could shoot as he does, and yet the gossip about him to which the Dean of Norwich refers be true, he would be a veritable physical and psycho- logical miracle. If this is not enough, we would ask the repeaters of this silly gossip to consider whether the first phenomenon in regard to an intemperate man is not that he is constantly, and for sudden and mysterious reasons, unable to keep engagements or to make promised appear- ances in public, and then. to remember that the King as Prince of Wales, whether in this country, in Australia, in Canada, or in India, kept his time-table of engagements as if he were an express train on a first-class line. The other story, though more vague, is of course equally fallacious, and must equally yield. to a little reflection. It is obviously impossible to do more than deny that which has never existed. But in truth one is humiliated by even mentioning such mendacious twaddle.
We feel that by saying even as much as this we are laying ourselves open to the very criticisms which we set forth at the beginning of this article, criticisms of the absolute truth of which we are perfectly convinced. Therefore let us say once more that even if we have seemed. for a moment to break the rule, the rule is obligatory,—namely, that a good citizen should not, either for himself or for those whose honour he holds dear, abandon the sound principle that vague general accusations must never be denied. Denials must be kept for the only cases in which they can be of any avail,—for specific accusations. Otherwise we should all, from the highest to the lowest, be forced to go about the world with placards on our backs : " Please believe that I am not a murderer, a drunkard, a profligate, a thief, a coward, and a liar." Such a reductio ad absurdum must, in truth, be the result of any attempt to give denials to general accusations.
Previous page
