BOOKS
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who, for the time being, would have no motive for quarrelling. Germany
would be there to neutralize Russia, Japan would be there to prevent the
development of China. Given such a world system, India could be kept
in subjection almost indefinitely. And more than this, it is doubtful whe–
ther a compromise peace
could
follow any other lines. So it would seem
that Parlour Anarchism is something very innocuous after all. Objectively
it only demands what the worst of the appeasers want, subjectively it is
of a kind to irritate the possible friends of India in this country. And does
not this bear a sort of resemblance to the career of Gandhi, who has
alienated the British public by his extremism and aided the British Gov–
ernment by his moderation? Impossibilism and reaction are usually
i1~
alliance, though not, of course, conscious alliance.
Hypocrisy is a very rare thing, true villainy is perhaps difficult as
virtue. We live in a lunatic world in which opposites are constantly
changing into one another, in which pacifists find themselves worshipping
Hitler, Socialists become nationalists, patriots become quislings, Buddhists
pray for the success of the Japanese army, and the Stock Market takes
an upward turn when the Russians stage an offensive. But though these
people's motives are often obvious enough when seen from the outside,
they are not obvious to themselves. The scenes imagined by Marxists, in
which wicked rich men sit in little secret rooms and hatch schemes for
robbing the workers, don't happen in real life. The robbery takes place,
but it is committed by sleepwalkers. Now, one of the finest weapons that
the rich have ever evolved for use against the poor is 'spirituality.'
If
you
can induce the working-man to believe that his desire for a decent stan–
dard of living it 'materialism,' you have got him where you want him.
Also, if you can induce the Indian to remain 'spiritual' instead of taking
up with vulgar things like trade unions, you can ensure that he will
always remain a coolie. Mr. Fielden is indignant with the 'materialism'
of the Western working class, whom he accuses of being even worse in
this respect than the rich and of wanting not only radios but even motor–
cars and fur coats. The obvious answer is that these sentiments don't
come well from someone who is in a comfortable and privileged position
himself. But that is only an answer, not a diagnosis, for the problem of
the disaffected intelligentsia would be hardly a problem at all if ordinary
dishonesty were involved.
In the last twenty years Western civilization has given the intellec–
tual security without responsibility, and in England, in particular, it has
educated him in scepticism while anchoring him almost immovably in
the privileged class. He has been in the position of a young man living
on an allowance from a father whom he hates. The result is a deep feeling
of guilt and resentment, not combined with any genuine desire to escape.
But some psychological escape, some form of self-justification there must
be, and one of the most satisfactory is transferred nationalism. During
the nineteen-thirties the normal transference was to Soviet Russia, but
there are other alternatives, and it is noticeable that pacifism and An-
