A Miscellany of MenChesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
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A Miscellany of Men
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
English essays -- 20th century
See this man in your mind as you see him in the street, realise that it
is his open mind we wish to influence or his empty stomach we wish to
cure, and then consider seriously (if you can) the five men, including
two of his own alleged oppressors, who were summoned as a Royal
Commission to consider his claims when he or his sort went out on strike
upon the railways. I knew nothing against, indeed I knew nothing about,
any of the gentlemen then summoned, beyond a bare introduction to
Mr. Henderson, whom I liked, but whose identity I was in no danger of
confusing with that of a railway-porter. I do not think that any old
gentleman, however absent-minded, would be likely on arriving at Euston,
let us say, to hand his Gladstone-bag to Mr. Henderson or to attempt to
reward that politician with twopence. Of the others I can only judge
by the facts about their status as set forth in the public Press. The
Chairman, Sir David Harrell, appeared to be an ex-official distinguished
in (of all things in the world) the Irish Constabulary. I have no
earthly reason to doubt that the Chairman meant to be fair; but I am not
talking about what men mean to be, but about what they are. The police
in Ireland are practically an army of occupation; a man serving in them
or directing them is practically a soldier; and, of course, he must
do his duty as such. But it seems truly extraordinary to select as one
likely to sympathise with the democracy of England a man whose whole
business in life it has been to govern against its will the democracy
of Ireland. What should we say if Russian strikers were offered the
sympathetic arbitration of the head of the Russian Police in Finland
or Poland? And if we do not know that the whole civilised world sees
Ireland with Poland as a typical oppressed nation, it is time we did.
The Chairman, whatever his personal virtues, must be by instinct
and habit akin to the capitalists in the dispute. Two more of the
Commissioners actually were the capitalists in the dispute. Then
came Mr. Henderson (pushing his trolley and cheerily crying, “By your
leave.”), and then another less known gentleman who had “corresponded”
with the Board of Trade, and had thus gained some strange claim to
represent the very poor.
Now people like this might quite possibly produce a rational enough
report, and in this or that respect even improve things. Men of
that kind are tolerably kind, tolerably patriotic, and tolerably
business-like. But if any one supposes that men of that kind can
conceivably quiet any real quarrel with the Man of the Other Kind, the
man whom I first described, it is frantic. The common worker is angry
exactly because he has found out that all these boards consist of the
same well-dressed Kind of Man, whether they are called Governmental or
Capitalist. If any one hopes that he will reconcile the poor, I say, as
I said at the beginning, that such a one has not looked on the light of
day or dwelt in the land of the living.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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