The State of Opinion

It is the method of modern statesmen to talk as much folly as the public demand and to practise no more of it than is compatible with what they have said, trusting that such folly in action as must wait on folly in word will soon disclose itself as such, and furnish an opportunity for slipping back into wisdom,—the Montessori system for the child, the Public. He who contradicts this child will soon give place to other tutors. Praise, therefore, the beauty of the flames he wishes to touch, the music of the breaking toy; even urge him forward; yet waiting with vigilant care, the wise and kindly savior of Society, for the right moment to snatch him back, just singed and now attentive.

I can conceive for this terrifying statesmanship a plausible defense. Mr. Lloyd George took the responsibility for a Treaty of Peace, which was not wise, which was partly impossible, and which endangered the life of Europe. He may defend himself by saying that he knew that it was not wise and was partly impossible and endangered the life of Europe; but that public passions and public ignorance play a part in the world of which he who aspires to lead a democracy must take account; that the Peace of Versailles was the best momentary settlement which the demands of the mob and the characters of the chief actors conjoined to permit; and for the life of Europe, that he has spent his skill and strength for two years in avoiding or moderating the dangers.

Such claims would be partly true and cannot be brushed away. The private history of the Peace Conference, as it has been disclosed by French and American participators, displays Mr. Lloyd George in a partly favorable light, generally striving against the excesses of the Treaty and doing what he could, short of risking a personal defeat. The public history of the two years which have followed it exhibit him as protecting Europe from as many of the evil consequences of his own Treaty, as it lay in his power to prevent, with a craft few could have bettered, preserving the peace, though not the prosperity, of Europe, seldom expressing the truth, yet often acting under its influence. He would claim, therefore, that by devious paths, a faithful servant of the possible, he was serving Man.

He may judge rightly that this is the best of which a democracy is capable,—to be jockeyed, humbugged, cajoled along the right road. A preference for truth or for sincerity as a method may be a prejudice based on some esthetic or personal standard, inconsistent, in politics, with practical good.

We cannot yet tell. Even the public learns by experience. Will the charm work still, when the stock of statesmen's credibility, accumulated before these times, is getting exhausted?

In any event, private individuals are not under the same obligation as Cabinet Ministers to sacrifice veracity to the public weal. It is a permitted self–indulgence for a private person to speak and write freely. Perhaps it may even contribute one ingredient to the congeries of things which the wands of statesmen cause to work together, so marvelously, for our ultimate good.

For these reasons I do not admit error in having based The Economic Consequences of the Peace on a literal interpretation of the Treaty of Versailles, or in having examined the results of actually carrying it out. I argued that much of it was impossible; but I do not agree with many critics, who held that, for this very reason, it was also harmless. Inside opinion accepted from the beginning many of my main conclusions about the Treaty.[1] But it was not therefore unimportant that outside opinion should accept them also.

For there are, in the present times, two opinions; not, as in former ages, the true and the false, but the outside and the inside; the opinion of the public voiced by the politicians and the newspapers, and the opinion of the politicians, the journalists and the civil servants, upstairs and backstairs and behind–stairs, expressed in limited circles. In time of war it became a patriotic duty that the two opinions should be as different as possible; and some seem to think it so still.

This is not entirely new. But there has been a change. Some say that Mr. Gladstone was a hypocrite; yet if so, he dropped no mask in private life. The high tragedians, who once ranted in the Parliaments of the world, continued it at supper afterwards. But appearances can no longer be kept up behind the scenes. The paint of public life, if it is ruddy enough to cross the flaring footlights of to–day, cannot be worn in private,—which makes a great difference to the psychology of the actors themselves. The multitude which lives in the auditorium of the world needs something larger than life and plainer than the truth. Sound itself travels too slowly in this vast theater, and a true word no longer holds when its broken echoes have reached the furthest listener.

Those who live in the limited circles and share the inside opinion pay both too much and too little attention to the outside opinion; too much, because, ready in words and promises to concede to it everything, they regard open opposition as absurdly futile; too little, because they believe that these words and promises are so certainly destined to change in due season, that it is pedantic, tiresome, and inappropriate to analyze their literal meaning and exact consequences. They know all this nearly as well as the critic, who wastes, in their view, his time and his emotions in exciting himself too much over what, on his own showing, cannot possibly happen. Nevertheless, what is said before the world is, still, of deeper consequence than the subterranean breathings and well–informed whisperings, knowledge of which allows inside opinion to feel superior to outside opinion, even at the moment of bowing to it.

But there is a further complication. In England (and perhaps elsewhere also), there are two outside opinions, that which is expressed in the newspapers and that which the mass of ordinary men privately suspect to be true. These two degrees of the outside opinion are much nearer to one another than they are to the inside, and under some aspects they are identical; yet there is under the surface a real difference between the dogmatism and definiteness of the press and the living, indefinite belief of the individual man. I fancy that even in 1919 the average Englishman never really believed in the indemnity; he took it always with a grain of salt, with a measure of intellectual doubt. But it seemed to him that for the time being there could be little practical harm in going on the indemnity tack, and also that, in relation to his feelings at that time, a belief in the possibility of boundless payments by Germany was in better sentiment, even if less true, than the contrary. Thus the recent modification in British outside opinion is only partly intellectual, and is due rather to changed conditions; for it is seen that perseverance with the indemnity does now involve practical harm, whilst the claims of sentiment are no longer so decisive. He is therefore prepared to attend to arguments, of which he had always been aware out of the corner of his eye.

Foreign observers are apt to heed too little these unspoken sensibilities, which the voice of the press is bound to express ultimately. Inside opinion gradually affects them by percolating to wider and wider circles; and they are susceptible in time to argument, common sense, or self–interest. It is the business of the modern politician to be accurately aware of all three degrees; he must have enough intellect to understand the inside opinion, enough sympathy to detect the inner outside opinion, and enough brass to express the outer outside opinion.

Whether this account is true or fanciful, there can be no doubt as to the immense change in public sentiment over the past two years. The desire for a quiet life, for reduced commitments, for comfortable terms with our neighbors is now paramount. The megalomania of war has passed away, and every one wishes to conform himself with the facts. For these reasons the Reparation Chapter of the Treaty of Versailles is crumbling. There is little prospect now of the disastrous consequences of its fulfilment.

I undertake in the following chapters a double task, beginning with a chronicle of events and a statement of the present facts, and concluding with proposals of what we ought to do. I naturally attach primary importance to the latter. But it is not only of historical interest to glance at the recent past. If we look back a little closely on the two years which have just elapsed (and the general memory unaided is now so weak that we know the past little better than the future), we shall be chiefly struck, I think, by the large element of injurious make–believe. My concluding proposals assume that this element of make–believe has ceased to be politically necessary; that outside opinion is now ready for inside opinion to disclose, and act upon, its secret convictions; and that it is no longer an act of futile indiscretion to speak sensibly in public.