Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/364

"Please will yet do us a bit o' drill, Sir, 'cos it's Bertam's birfday?"

The first question which every one naturally asks his favourite oracle about the present political truce is: How long is it likely to last? Before entering upon this subject, however, let me utter a word of warning. To attempt to estimate the duration of any peace whatever is folly, unless you are the belligerent who puts an end to it. This is a folly into which European countries, with the exception of Germany, very conspicuously fell last year. There is no reason why we should imitate their errors by suggesting any period as the 'end' of this state of peace. No hazardous conclusion at all upon the subject will therefore be attempted.

The doubt that at once occurs is this. If the matter is not susceptible of calculation; if the vaguest attempt at prophecy is gratuitous folly; and if even the wildest guesswork has no finality, is the subject really suitable for discussion in these columns?

Now in the first place there is all the difference in the world between discussing a matter and reaching any conclusion upon it. All I am trying to do in these notes is to indicate a critical moment, round or about or after which period, if hostilities begin again, the end of peace will be in sight, though even after this disaster a state of truce might technically remain. In order to do this, I am compelled to reiterate arguments which I have used so often before that I am almost ashamed to recur to them, but I feel that italicised insistence on the obvious can create an effect when nothing else can.

Moreover I hope to show that, as the end of the winter is now at hand, and as that moment coincides with the beginning of spring, when unexpected accidents might conceivably happen, the days through which we are now passing are exactly the right time to fill in with indeterminate discussions.

Before proceeding to my calculations, however, two really relevant topics must first be eliminated. There is the improbable contingency that the Allies might unexpectedly declare peace, and the only less improbable contingency that the Government, in its desire for efficiency, might take the Opposition to its bosom in a Coalition Ministry. If either of these is admitted, the discussion must at once cease; otherwise it can continue till the point of exhaustion is reached.

If we eliminate those disturbing factors there remain two great alternatives. Either one of the opponents will break the truce, or the truce will continue. I dogmatise upon neither, I merely state them. It is only in the second alternative that any plausible pretext for discussing the duration of the peace can be offered. To resolve the Opposition into its elements is too simple. It leads nowhere. Let us then make, in the fullest possible detail, a broad survey of all even remotely connected side-issues, based upon the widest and vaguest generalizations.

1.—There is first the complete confidence of human nature in the certitude or rather the necessity of its own right judgment; and the presumption that master strokes of strategy and politics will constantly occur to private members which would never cross the minds of our statesmen or generals. I adduce no evidence for this; I have heard it and I believe it.

2.—There is secondly our knowledge of the character of Labour and Capital. Both these are psychological factors which provoke continual, though, alas! restricted discussion.

3.—There is thirdly the element of Geography. This must be expressed in terms of Celt and Cymry. The number of Irish Members who are in the flower of what is generally but very loosely termed their "fighting age" can only be determined by eliminating those who are dead or mad or run over by traction engines. Whatever their mood to-day, or the chance of its changing to-morrow, the only certainty is that something unexpected may be confidently anticipated, but what it may be no one living out of an Irish atmosphere can foresee. Further, there is the question, Will that monument of art and treasure of antiquity, the Eisteddfod, lure the Welsh to sacrifice a cherished plan of campaign, or will it incline them buoyantly to resume the offensive?

With regard to the first let us disabuse our minds of the falsehood that criticism proceeds not from emotion but from reasoned judgment. Manias are the most potent and least doubtful of all the motives which affect us in this country; hence those extraordinary proposals, reiterated for some mystic and incalculable reason, which reappear at regular intervals. The judicial mind may be dismissed as a legal fiction. But Conscriptionists are a reality; so are retired Admirals; so are Whole-Hoggers and Spy-hunters and Aniline-Dyers; and so is the fact that the natural life of this Parliament comes to an end after another six months. Moreover grievances cannot withstand the process of "accretion" for more than a certain time at a certain rate, whatever their original magnitude.

To sum up, then, if we consider only the element of unemployed superiority, and the strain imposed by time, the argument would seem to point to a peace of shorter rather than of longer duration.

But this is only one line of argument. I propose to show that it is entirely stultified by the other two, with which I hope to deal at length next week.

[Messrs. Christie are holding a sale of Art treasures and historical relics in aid of the funds of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John.]