LIBERALISM - A SAMPLE

Utopia of Userers, et al

by Gilbert K. Chesterton

LIBERALISM - A SAMPLE, UTOPIA OF USERERS, ET AL by Gilbert K. Chesterton
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There is a certain daily paper in England towards which I feel very much
as Tom Pinch felt towards Mr. Pecksniff immediately after he had found him
out. The war upon Dickens was part of the general war on all democrats,
about the eighties and nineties, which ushered in the brazen plutocracy of
to-day. And one of the things that it was fashionable to say of Dickens
in drawing-rooms was that he had no subtlety, and could not describe a
complex frame of mind. Like most other things that are said in
drawing-rooms, it was a lie. Dickens was a very unequal writer, and his
successes alternate with his failures; but his successes are subtle quite
as often as they are simple. Thus, to take "Martin Chuzzlewit" alone, I
should call the joke about the Lord No-zoo a simple joke: but I should
call the joke about Mrs. Todgers's vision of a wooden leg a subtle joke.
And no frame of mind was ever so selfcontradictory and yet so realistic as
that which Dickens describes when he says, in effect, that, though Pinch
knew now that there had never been such a person as Pecksniff, in his
ideal sense, he could not bring himself to insult the very face and form
that had contained the legend. The parallel with Liberal journalism is
not perfect; because it was once honest; and Pecksniff presumably never
was. And even when I come to feel a final incompatibility of temper,
Pecksniff was not so Pecksniffian as he has since become. But the
comparison is complete in so far as I share all the reluctance of Mr.
Pinch. Some old heathen king was advised by one of the Celtic saints, I
think, to burn what he had adored and adore what he had burnt. I am quite
ready, if anyone will prove I was wrong, to adore what I have burnt; but I
do really feel an unwillingness verging upon weakness to burning what I
have adored. I think it is a weakness to be overcome in times as bad as
these, when (as Mr. Orage wrote with something like splendid common sense
the other day) there is such a lot to do and so few people who will do it.
So I will devote this article to considering one case of the astounding
baseness to which Liberal journalism has sunk.


Mental Breakdown in Fleet Street

One of the two or three streaks of light on our horizon can be perceived
in this: that the moral breakdown of these papers has been accompanied by
a mental breakdown also. The contemporary official paper, like the "Daily
News" or the "Daily Chronicle" (I mean in so far as it deals with
politics), simply cannot argue; and simply does not pretend to argue. It
considers the solution which it imagines that wealthy people want, and it
signifies the same in the usual manner; which is not by holding up its
hand, but by falling on its face. But there is no more curious quality in
its degradation than a sort of carelessness, at once of hurry and fatigue,
with which it flings down its argument--or rather its refusal to argue.
It does not even write sophistry: it writes anything. It does not so much
poison the reader's mind as simply assume that the reader hasn't got one.
For instance, one of these papers printed an article on Sir Stuart Samuel,
who, having broken the great Liberal statute against corruption, will
actually, perhaps, be asked to pay his own fine--in spite of the fact that
he can well afford to do so. The article says, if I remember aright, that
the decision will cause general surprise and some indignation. That any
modern Government making a very rich capitalist obey the law will cause
general surprise, may be true. Whether it will cause general indignation
rather depends on whether our social intercourse is entirely confined to
Park Lane, or any such pigsties built of gold. But the journalist
proceeds to say, his neck rising higher and higher out of his collar, and
his hair rising higher and higher on his head, in short, his resemblance
to the Dickens' original increasing every instant, that he does not mean
that the law against corruption should be less stringent, but that the
burden should be borne by the whole community. This may mean that
whenever a rich man breaks the law, all the poor men ought to be made to
pay his fine. But I will suppose a slightly less insane meaning. I will
suppose it means that the whole power of the commonwealth should be used
to prosecute an offender of this kind. That, of course, can only mean
that the matter will be decided by that instrument which still pretends to
represent the whole power of the commonwealth. In other words, the
Government will judge the Government.

Now this is a perfectly plain piece of brute logic. We need not go into
the other delicious things in the article, as when it says that "in old
times Parliament had to be protected against Royal invasion by the man in
the street." Parliament has to be protected now against the man in the
street. Parliament is simply the most detested and the most detestable of
all our national institutions: all that is evident enough. What is
interesting is the blank and staring fallacy of the attempted reply.


When the Journalist Is Ruined

A long while ago, before all the Liberals died, a Liberal introduced a
Bill to prevent Parliament being merely packed with the slaves of
financial interests. For that purpose he established the excellent
democratic principle that the private citizen, as such, might protest
against public corruption. He was called the Common Informer. I believe
the miserable party papers are really reduced to playing on the
degradation of the two words in modern language. Now the word "comnon" in
"Common Informer" means exactly what it means in "common sense" or "Book
of Common Prayer," or (above all) in "House of Commons." It does not mean
anything low or vulgar; any more than they do. The only difference is
that the House of Commons really is low and vulgar; and the Common
Informer isn't. It is just the same with the word "Informer." It does
not mean spy or sneak. It means one who gives information. It means what
"journalist" ought to mean. The only difference is that the Common
Informer may be paid if he tells the truth. The common journalist will be
ruined if he does.

Now the quite plain point before the party journalist is this: If he
really means that a corrupt bargain between a Government and a contractor
ought to be judged by public opinion, he must (nowadays) mean Parliament;
that is, the caucus that controls Parliament. And he must decide between
one of two views. Either he means that there Can be no such thing as a
corrupt Government. Or he means that it is one of the characteristic
qualities of a corrupt Government to denounce its own corruption. I laugh;
and I leave him his choice.