Back to Methuselah

good evening? Lubin Sitting down resignedly on the settee, but involuntarily making a movement which looks like the stifling of a yawn. With pleasure, Mr. Barnabas. Of course you know that before I can adopt any new plank in the party platform, it will have to reach me through the National Liberal Federation, which you can approach through your local Liberal and Radical Association. Franklyn I could recall to you several instances of the addition to your party program of measures of which no local branch of your Federation had ever dreamt. But I understand that you are not really interested. I will spare you, and drop the subject. Lubin Waking up a little. You quite misunderstand me. Please do not take it in that way. I only⁠— Burge Talking him down. Never mind the Federation: I will answer for the Federation. Go on, Barnabas: go on. Never mind Lubin. He sits down in the chair from which Lubin first displaced him. Franklyn Our program is only that the term of human life shall be extended to three hundred years. Lubin Softly. Eh? Burge Explosively. What! Savvy Our election cry is “Back to Methuselah!” Haslam Priceless! Lubin and Burge look at one another. Conrad No. We are not mad. Savvy They’re not joking either. They mean it. Lubin Cautiously. Assuming that, in some sense which I am for the moment unable to fathom, you are in earnest, Mr. Barnabas, may I ask what this has to do with politics? Franklyn The connection is very evident. You are now, Mr. Lubin, within immediate reach of your seventieth year. Mr. Joyce Burge is your junior by about eleven years. You will go down to posterity as one of a European group of immature statesmen and monarchs who, doing the very best for your respective countries of which you were capable, succeeded in all-but-wrecking the civilization of Europe, and did, in effect, wipe out of existence many millions of its inhabitants. Burge Less than a million. Franklyn That was our loss alone. Burge Oh, if you count foreigners⁠—! Haslam God counts foreigners, you know. Savvy With intense satisfaction. Well said, Bill. Franklyn I am not blaming you. Your task was beyond human capacity. What with our huge armaments, our terrible engines of destruction, our systems of coercion manned by an irresistible police, you were called on to control powers so gigantic that one shudders at the thought of their being entrusted even to an infinitely experienced and benevolent God, much less to mortal men whose whole life does not last a hundred years. Burge We won the war: don’t forget that. Franklyn No: the soldiers and sailors won it, and left you to finish it. And you were so utterly incompetent that the multitudes of children slain by hunger in the first years of peace made us all wish we were at war again. Conrad It’s no use arguing about it. It is now absolutely certain that the political and social problems raised by our civilization cannot be solved by mere human mushrooms who decay and die when they are just beginning to have a glimmer of the wisdom and knowledge needed for their own government. Lubin Quite an interesting idea, Doctor. Extravagant. Fantastic. But quite interesting. When I was young I used to feel my human limitations very acutely. Burge God knows I have often felt that I could not go on if it had not been for the sense that I was only an instrument in the hands of a Power above us. Conrad I’m glad you both agree with us, and with one another. Lubin I have not gone so far as that, I think. After all, we have had many very able political leaders even within your recollection and mine. Franklyn Have you read the recent biographies⁠—Dilke’s, for instance⁠—which revealed the truth about them? Lubin I did not discover any new truth revealed in these books, Mr. Barnabas. Franklyn What! Not the truth that England was governed all that time by a little woman who knew her own mind? Savvy Hear, hear! Lubin That often happens. Which woman do you mean? Franklyn Queen Victoria, to whom your Prime Ministers stood in the relation of naughty children whose heads she knocked together when their tempers and quarrels became intolerable. Within thirteen years of her death Europe became a hell. Burge Quite true. That was because she was piously brought up, and regarded herself as an instrument. If a statesman remembers that he is only an instrument, and feels quite sure that he is rightly interpreting the divine purpose, he will come out all right, you know. Franklyn The Kaiser felt like that. Did he come out all right? Burge Well, let us be fair, even to the Kaiser. Let us be fair. Franklyn Were you fair to him when you won an election on the program of hanging him? Burge Stuff! I am the last man alive to hang anybody; but the people wouldn’t listen to reason. Besides, I knew the Dutch wouldn’t give him up. Savvy Oh, don’t start arguing about poor old Bill. Stick to our point. Let these two gentlemen settle the question for themselves. Mr. Burge: do you think Mr. Lubin is fit to govern England? Burge No. Frankly, I don’t. Lubin Remonstrant. Really! Conrad Why? Burge Because he has no conscience: that’s why. Lubin Shocked and amazed. Oh! Franklyn Mr. Lubin: do you consider Joyce Burge qualified to govern England? Lubin With dignified emotion, wounded, but without bitterness. Excuse me, Mr. Barnabas; but before I answer that question I want to say this. Burge: we have had differences of opinion; and your newspaper friends have said hard things of me. But we worked together for years; and I hope I have done nothing to justify you in the amazing accusation you have just brought against me. Do you realize that you said that I have no conscience? Burge Lubin: I am very accessible to an appeal to my emotions; and you are very cunning in making such appeals. I will meet you to this extent. I don’t mean that you are a bad man. I don’t mean