MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
MR. GEORGE ORWELL is a stimulating writer. It is not only that his opinions are sensible and sharp: it is also that he suggests a train of ideas. He handles the English language with a directness which is welcome in this contorted age, and he cleans the cobwebs front many forgotten, but still valid, conceptions. I have been reading this week the essay upon " The English People " which he haS contributed recently to the " Britain in Pictures " series. It is a simple statement of many memorable truths, and the clarity of his exposition is in no way blurred by the absurd illustrations with which his publishers have chosen to deface his text. Mr. Or Nell contends that the picture of the typical Englishman which Continental or American critics have evolved during the last two hundred years is a caricature of the rich and therefore travelled bourgeois, and bears little relation to the forty million Englishmen who have never been seen abroad. He therefore proceeds to consider whether, taking the English people as a whole, it is possible to isolate and define certain common characteristics which differentiate us from the ordinary citizens of other countries. He discovers that there do, in fact, exist eight " salient characteristics of the English common people " which he enumerates as follows :—Artistic insensibility, gentleness, respect for legality, suspicion of foreigners, sentimentality about animals, hypocrisy, exaggerated class distinctions and an obsession with sport. It might be contended that the love of sport, which in the nineteenth century was scarcely apparent on the Continent, has since infected most European countries. It might be suggested that our suspicion of foreigners is caused less by active distrust than by a temperamental fear of the unfamiliar. But in general Mr. Orwell's catalogue of merits and defects would meet with assent. How far can one also agree with his particular definitions?
As an example of our artistic insensibility, Mr. Orwell cites the public indifference to the ruin of our countryside by planless build- ing. This accusation seems to me exaggerated. The French and the American peoples are far more indifferent than we are to the deface- ment of rural amenities. Without one word of protest they allow hoardings to be erected in their fields and on their roads, nor do they even take notice when sites of scenic beauty are deliberately exploited for commercial purposes. I should have said that the ordinary English citizen was more conscious than is the citizen of France or the United States of the loss occasioned to him personally by the defacement or destruction of rural amenities. It is true that the Englishman, in spite of much devoted propaganda, is not yet litter-conscious, and that he will leave newspapers and cigarette cartons in places where such urban waste should not appear. But the little scraps which our own picnic parties leave behind them are as nothing compared with the vast dumps of tins and cardboard which mark the passage of Americans on holiday. It is not so much that we are indifferent to the country ; it is rather that we do not notice towns. The architectural sense of the English public was extinguished suddenly from 185o onwards. Few inhabitants of our industrial cities are even aware of the buildings by which they are surrounded, and it is a strange commentary upon our powers of observation that the only statue known generally to Londoners is that which surmounts the art-nouveau fountain in Piccadilly Circus, the name of which they mispronounce. It would be truer to say that we are so rurally minded that we have lost all municipal sense.
* * * * As a further instance of our intellectual apathy, Mr. Orwell cites the general indifference to poetry. "Poetry," he writes, " the art in which above all others England has excelled, has for more than a century had no appeal whatever for the common people. . . . Indeed, the very word ' poetry ' arouses either derision or embarrass- ment in ninety-eight people out of a hundred." This is a hard
saying ; I regret to admit that it is true. The excellent poetry read- ings which we are from time to time accorded by the B.B.C. attract an audience which, according to Listener Research, is almost as small as that which attends to chamber music. This is indeed a sad change from the days when Londoners would weep at the lyrical passages in the Merchant of Venice, or be swept away by the music of Marlowe's mighty line. In Scotland and in Wales the tradition of popular poetry is both wider and deeper ; but even there one does not find that strong tide of tradition which even today will impel the gondolier to burst into passages from Ariosto or enable the Persian herdsman .to intone long lines of Firdousi as he stroll.; behind his flock. Mr. Orwell goes so far even as to attribute our far-famed tolerance to some suspension of intellectual curiosity. " The English," he writes, " are not sufficiently interested in intel- lectual matters to be intolerant about them." He even accuses the English people of being politically ignorant. " If," he writes, " you ask a random group of people, from any stratum of the population, to define capitalism, communism, anarchism, Trotskyism, fascism, you would get mostly vague answers, and some of them would be surprisingly stupid ones." No one who has taken part in a parlia- mentary election would contend that this cruel commentary is lacking in force.
* * * * Of what, therefore, is out renowned " political instinct " com- posed? Of tolerance, of a mistrust of extremes, of patience, of a gift for compromise, of an inveterate dislike of " killing one another.' " The English," writes Mr. Orwell, " are probably more capable than most peoples of making revolutionary changes without bloodshed. In England, if anywhere, it would be possible to abolish poverty without destroying liberty. If the English took the trouble to make their own democracy work, they would become the political leaders of Western Europe, and probably of some other parts of the world as well. They would provide the much-needed alternative to Russian authoritarianism on the one hand and American materialism on the other." The same estimate of our capacity was made, almost a hundred years ago, by Karl Marx. I believe with profound con- viction in the truth of this hopeful pronouncement. I believe that, even as in the nineteenth century we achieved political liberty with- out revolution, so also in the twentieth century shall we achieve social justice without destroying the rights and liberties of the individual. I believe that in this, in spite of present disappointments, we can once again make a major contribution to the peace and progress of the world. My one fear is that, in the Babel of tongues which surrounds us, the political instinct of the English people may lose its sense of direction. The old conflicts of freedom and tyranny could instinctively be understood ; but no instinct, however acute, will help a man to comprehend the convertibility of sterling.
* * * Even, therefore, if we admit the general validity of Mr. Orw :11's diagnosis, we must face the fact that national character is subject to change. The German character altered perceptibly from 1848 onwards, even as the Italian character shifted after union was achieved. The moral and religious sanctions which were operative in the nineteenth century are today losing much of their force ; it may be even that our old respect for legality will suffer change. A new class of technicians is arising which will be impervious to the traditions, and immune to the " instincts," both of the bourgeoisie and of the old working classes. Apathetic scepticism may develop into active distrust. But if we can retain the virtues and moderat: the defects which Mr. Orwell has catalogued, we may well be able to surmount our present material and spiritual impoverishment, and succeed by our energies and our example in rescuing the world from the chaos which is sweeping towards it with the speed and darkness of a typhoon.
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