The Cruise of the Nona

simplicity they believe that these sham battles are of vast moment to the electorate. The public as a whole is now fully acquainted with the nastiness and degradation of public life. It certainly does not appreciate the ultimate consequences of these, but at any rate it is no longer under any illusions. Indeed, my experience is that the ordinary member of the public, the average man in the liberal professions and in commerce, rather exaggerates the evil than otherwise, although he does not recognise its danger. He is ready to believe that pretty well any politician may be found taking money, and he does not distinguish as he should between the two sharply different types of Parliamentarians: those with a dirty record of their own, and those with a clean record who permit and support the dirt in the midst of which they live. For it must be admitted that public life is full of men who would never dream of themselves doing such actions as have come to mark their profession as a whole; but these men do not on that account stand excused. They support the nastiness in the midst of which they live; they refuse to correct it; they even, as a rule, join those who would prevent its exposure. They are accessories to all those acts which they not only personally despise and are disgusted with, but which in private they denounce. For they could put an end to the system if they preferred justice to their own little careers and the general good of England to their personal ease or notoriety.

Sometimes they try to salve their consciences by substituting a general for a particular condemnation⁠—the oldest device known to governing man for shirking the duties of government.

I remember an excellent comedy of this sort in which I myself took part. The Admiralty had given an order for the making of an important part of a man-of-war to a small company (what is called a “one-man” company) run for the profit of a friend of the Prime Minister of the day.

There was nothing excessive about that bit of favouritism. It was natural that a politician should help a friend: someone must have the order, and there was no great harm done to the State. But the next step was of real importance.

It turned out that the part supplied was defective. Those who supplied it might plead that they did not know the defect to exist, nor indeed would it be to their advantage to have allowed such a defect. It was probably an accident, though it did point to the work having been given to people inadequate to its gravity. The part was sent back to be put right. Instead of being put right, as it should have been, an operation was performed with the effect of concealing the defect, instead of remedying it. The part was sent back in such a condition that, had the flaw not been discovered, the great man-of-war itself and its crew might have perished. This was obviously a very serious matter indeed. If there is one thing the politicians must not be allowed to play tricks with, it is the Navy.

Now, the Parliamentarians appointed to look into public accounts issued a fine bombastic denunciation of the awful business, and used such words as would have satisfied Jeremiah. But they were very careful not to mention a single name.

That seemed to me something of a defect. I was in Parliament at the time, and I set out to find out who were the actual human beings responsible for this crime. Unless one got on to them and punished them, one might as well have done nothing in the matter. If things of this sort can be done with impunity, they will certainly be done again.

I found the greatest difficulty in getting any single one of those six hundred-odd men in the Commons to act with me in the matter. I did not, of course, approach more than a few, because there were not more than a few who would even consider the public good; but by one of those few I was told that it was not usual to act in this fashion; that such action was regarded as “personal”; that the thing was now some months concluded and ought to be buried; that it was difficult to arrive at the ultimate responsibility in these affairs⁠—and so on. They all applied to a principal unit of the British Navy, to an English man-of-war and a thousand English lives, the principle that the politician was more important than ship or crew, and that their own Parliamentary skins were more important than the country.

The individual private member of Parliament has no power of action in Parliament except the chance of the ballot or the putting-down of a question. I put down my question. It was answered in the most pathetic manner by the politician directly responsible, who called Heaven to witness that I had traduced by my question an old and valued friend of his own whom he loved as a brother. That the fault was that of “a subordinate.” The House murmured its sympathy. I pointed out that I had traduced no one, that I had only asked for the names of the responsible people and for their prosecution. Whereupon, as another journalistic phrase goes, “the matter was allowed to drop.” But I need hardly add that the person nominally responsible was promoted to a public honour, and that no “subordinate” appeared.

It was only a small episode, though it would not have seemed small to the officers or crew if their ship had struck in the middle of the night owing to a defect in the steering gear⁠—still, honestly, it was a small matter as politics go. There are hosts of much graver instances, but it was a characteristic one.

The argument that this now universal taint covering public life is tolerable because the same thing goes on in every country where there