A ' GOOD WORD FOR ENGLAND
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agrees that "something has gone wrong," but no one seems to have
gone much further than that in the analysis of possible causes and cures.
One important thing that has happened, of course, is that the social
and political ideals to which the lively minds of the '30s were dedicated
have now either been realized or been shattered. The '30s were-or
seem in retrospect to have been--exciting years, in England as in
America. There was so much that needed to be done, and such endless
possibility of debate on how best to do it. Not only was there the social
and economic mess of the depression to be cleared up and its recurrence
prevented, but one had to make up one's mind about Communism
(then a tenable ideal), and take sides on such political questions as
the Spanish Civil War and the Munich Crisis of 1938.
Since the Second World War (in itself, to say the least, an unutter–
ably discouraging event) all this has changed. In international politics
Communism has been thoroughly discredited, and the world has settled
into the slow attrition of the Cold War (which it is hard to feel pas–
sionate about, and almost impossible to disagree with your neighbor
about). While the Labour Party was in power, from 1945 to 1951, the
framework of the Welfare State was erected and largely filled in. And
it has clearly come to stay: although the Conservatives, in the name
of economy, have recently reduced some of the benefits which the
Welfare State provides, they have made no real attempt to question
its basic philosophy. In England today -something like social (or, at
any rate, economic) justice has been achieved; at least, a great step
has been taken toward it. The goals toward which English reformers
worked for over a century have now been more or less reached, and,
at a time of considerable prosperity (however precariously based that
prosperity may sometimes appear to be), there is as yet no general
agreement as to what the next step forward should be-indeed, there
are not even many ideas about this, or much feeling that any more
steps forward are needed just now. Most people seem comfortable
enough as they are, so long as their wages keep up with the rising cost
of living. And so one begins to appreciate the force of Jimmy Porter's
cry in
Look Back in Anger
(a recently successful play which has a great
deal of the current mood in it) that there aren't any good causes to
die for these days.
I am wondering, however, whether English life is
quite
as sterile
as Mr. Green imagines and, in particular, whether the cult of the
gentleman is quite what he takes it to be. He tells us that the English
gentleman, so long a figure of fun, is still to be found in the embassies
abroad and (though here "the absurdities are muted") in the British
