Present Conditions in Great Britain

General Mitchell and Gentlemen,--It is always a peculiar pleasure to speak to one's own friends in one's own home, and I appreciate very much the honour that the Club has done me in asking me to say something to you this afternoon on what one saw in Britain during the past summer.

I am always suspicious, Mr. Chairman, of the people who go to a place and stay about three weeks in it, and then come back and give their impressions. (Laughter) They either have a very high opinion of their own pouters of intuition, or they are contented, and think others are contented, with looking a very slight distance below the surface. My only justification in speaking to you today is this: That although, as many here know, I spent two or three months in England during the last summer, I was not visiting England for the first time, and really therefore was in a position, perhaps, to institute comparisons, because as a young man I was six years in Edinburgh, and knew Britain well at that time, and of course have been often back since. Therefore my impressions are not quite those of a man who has simply gone hurriedly into a country and come out of it. You will therefore bear with me, and perhaps pardon me if I seem to speak more dogmatically than might be warranted by the short time that I was there.

Anyone who arrived in England last June was bound to be struck by the thought that England was smokeless. Those cities that on former occasions one had seen covered with a thick pall were lying under the open cloudless sky, and in many a place the people had a chance to realize what the environment of their city really was. For instance, I heard more than one person say that the Glasgow folk were beginning to brag that they had beautiful surroundings; they never knew that they had any before. (Laughter) But there was one phase of this smokeless sky that was very sad, and that was the unemployment, due to the coal strike. Then the cloudless sky, with the sun streaming down on the country for several months, only added to the existing burden, because for many weeks people were becoming anxious about the shortage of crops. And yet one heard very little real complaint, and the general impression one got in going about through various parts of the country was that England was like a very strong man-silent, bearing a burden, but in process of adjusting that burden to his shoulders, not petulant as to its weight, not threatening to throw it off, but trying, as he adjusted his burden, to get his footing here or there; beginning to move, and trying to move in such a way that he would do so with the least effort. There was no threat lest, from revolution within, England would simply toss the burden off its shoulders; nor was there the anticipation, so far as I could judge, that before the end this man would become so weary of his burden that he would sit down by the road-side and throw that burden off simply through weariness, and not complete his journey. As I say, what I saw was resolution-quiet resolution, endeavouring to adjust itself to its extremely heavy burdens. That, in general, was the view that I have come away with-the impression that was made upon me.

On the other hand, while one hears a great deal about the economic situation-and I may have to say a few words about that afterwards-I got the impression that, as in life generally, the problems that are most distressing are not the economic problems. I think that that is so in life. You take money losses, as a rule-we all try to, I suppose-in a calm way. Money losses are trying, very trying, and yet money losses are not those that touch us most deeply. Men lose their fortunes and they go through the rest of their life happy. What touches us is what circles around the personal elements of our life-the losses in our families, the losses of our friends, the antagonisms that we meet with others; the hostile environment in which we have to do our work, the necessity of constant struggle with people with whom we cannot agree; those things, if they are forced upon us from day to day, give us an attitude to life that, if long continued, may embitter us; but I doubt whether men are long embittered over money losses. And so in fact it was the human problems, I believe, that distressed England most; it is Ireland; it is the attitude of labour; it is the terrible losses that have come through the war,--their brightest young men who will never come back.

In addition to these, there is the burden of Empire; not only this Empire, but what is involved in the relations between this Empire and other lands. Europe is now looking to England as the one who, more than any other, seems to be in the position of a judge and an arbitrator between the warring foes. And there is the burden of India. Those are human problems, and it is those problems which I believe in the long run are causing most distress to England.

Take Ireland. No one could be in Ireland, as I was for the first time, in June, when things were at their worst, without recognizing what a thick cloud of depression the people were living under-a cloud so thick and murky that it chilled their hearts to the core, and at that time there was no ray of sunlight breaking through. Great men of Ireland such as the Provost of Trinity, formerly Archbishop of Dublin, with whom I had the privilege of staying for a few days, spoke as though they saw no ray through the darkness. Others whom one met in the same way had nothing to tell one as to any solution of the difficulty. One afternoon we were for a few hours up at the National University of Ireland of which, since we left, De Valera has been made Chancelloreven there the old Irish gayety had disappeared, and there was reticence on all sides; people living surrounded by others from whom they knew not what to expect; the armed force dashing through the finest streets of Dublin. One afternoon there were at least six armed cars rushing, one after another, past my room in Trinity College. From my window I could look out on the lawn of Trinity College where, less than ten days before, a young lady sitting beside her betrothed had been killed at an athletic meeting. On the way to Belfast we saw the smashed railway carriages and dead horses from that disaster that had happened just two or three days before. Belfast, it is true, was more certain of itself, very much more certain of itself, but the Southern Unionist, when you told him that, would grow somewhat irritated and say, "Yes, that conscious rectitude of the north has made our problem all the- more difficult." And so one came away from Dublin with a feeling of relief.

I remember, as one stepped on board the boat to leave Kingstown, one felt somewhat like a man who had left a battle and saw the soldiers coming in, and knew that those who had been left behind had to fight this thing through. One was greatly relieved to get out of the range of the fighting. You know what that would be, General, (turning to President Mitchell); no, you don't, because you stayed in-(laughter)-but I know what it was like; and there was a sense, possibly, of dereliction in not staying in.

Now, England is face to face with that problem; and Ireland at that time was able to give no solution. The solution seems to be somewhere nearer today. They all admit, and I think we must all see, that force is no solution to it. The extermination of the Irish people would in itself be a hideous human disaster, and there is no security that way. There must be some way out, surely, some other way, and yet what that is to be, who can tell. We all hope that this Conference will lead us out.

Now, you may not all agree with me, but many of you do agree with me in believing that when human affairs reach their worst-in fact I do not know why we should wait so long-that when human affairs at least reach their worst, and man has done his best, and the end has not come, there is such a thing in this world as Divine reconciliation, and there is a time when men should take themselves to prayer. There is far more wrought in the universe and among the affairs of men by prayer than ordinary people believe; and I believe myself that now is the time when, if it has never been done before, those of us who do believe in the unseen forces of righteousness that are guiding the world, that we who do believe in those things, should betake ourselves to supplication on behalf of what is going on now in Britain. What other way out there may be I cannot see. (Applause) That was the situation as I saw it in Ireland.

Of what I saw in England, the second feature that I shall dwell upon, concerns education; and as you may expect, I would linger upon that a little longer. There was, Mr. Chairman, as you mentioned, this great Congress of the Universities held in Oxford last July, and all the universities of the Empire were represented. I presume there were 250 delegates and representatives; 57 from India alone, many of them natives; and, I am thankful to say, eight of them from the national universities of Ireland taking their share in the conference. It was a very representative gathering of people, and for four days they discussed all sorts of educational problems.

What those of us who come from overseas endeavoured to say in Britain and at that Congress was this

now is the time for Britain to come forward and take the intellectual leadership of the world. The German universities are closed, and in our time students either from the United States or Britain or overseas will not go in any numbers to Germany; France may get some, but the opportunity is for Britain. Britain has been reticent and modest; has not imposed her laws upon the world or exposed her intellectual wares to the gaze of the world at large; but this Conference was in a certain sense a stock-taking, and Britain told her own relations -because we were her very immediate relations, very few Americans being there-what she could do. There were many discussions as to the state of education in England, and one of our pleasant discoveries was this--to realize that in educational affairs England was quite up-to-date, quite as much so as we are in the Empire at large, or as they are in the United States. Now, we have thought often, that in such matters as courses for commerce, administration, social service, various kinds of technical training, that this continent was far ahead of Britain. I have come back believing that we have very little to teach Britain in those respects (hear, hear) and that the new provincial universities particularly are manning themselves to meet new needs that have not been and probably could never have been taken care of in the older universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Now, that up-to-dateness in ordinary affairs was, as I say, very refreshing, and it shows that Britain is able to take her place alongside of others. Then again, the emphasis that she laid upon research was very comforting. A whole morning was devoted to that, under the presidency of Lord Robert Cecil, who gave a very penetrating and masterful deliverance; and in England one realizes that there is still the old characteristic to be found that gives her a type of education different from that of France or of Germany. Germany had organized her science and her learning through universities sustained by Government. France has organized her science through academies and technical publications, everything being directed from a centre, both in France and in Germany, though in different ways. Britain has always been chary of that central direction; she has relied on individual genius, and the right of the individual scholar or scientist to pursue his own way, very much more than those other countries did. She lost somewhat in the very process; she lost the concentration and the driving force that come from organization, but she always has had individual genius that has put her, if anything, above the others. In addition to that, unlike France and Germany, she pursued the pure idea less than they did, and always had her eye on the practical application; England was a great Empire that had administrative power over the world, and what she won by thought of intellect she always wished to put into practical effect somewhere or other. These qualities are still obvious in English education.

In fact, we had a very remarkable discussion one afternoon which has seemed, the more I have thought about it, to be indicative of an underlying characteristic of the English people. We were listening to papers on the financial support of universities, given by the principal of Edinburgh and the principal of Liverpool chiefly, in both of which papers there was a demand for more government assistance from London; they said the British universities could not survive unless they had more assistance, and Whitehall seemed to be the place from which it should come. However, they repudiated anything like nationalization, and some of us on this side told them about the way in which our state universities worked here, and that we had not found ourselves in difficulties; we had not had undue control from government sources; in fact, that there was a freedom through our organization that allowed large and rapid expansion. They would have none of it; no central control for them; no nationalization for them. Help from the Government, yes; but not such help as would in any way interfere with their individual development. They grew warm over it, so warm that one very well-known man thought that he might have hurt our feelings a bit by the emphasis that he laid upon his point. That illumined to me the attitude of England in many and many a way. She will never have her education so organized and so co-ordinated that it is to be directed by one central board of officials. The individual Englishman will always demand his own rights and the expression of his own individuality, in education or anything else. (Loud applause)

Now, he does need, however, a larger organization, and he does need that his powers shall be focussed; and I think that is the contribution that we from overseas may have made to this conference-that we emphasized to those practical English institutions that now is their opportunity, with their innate power, with their strong individuality, with their research, now is their opportunity to so adjust their old conditions as to open their treasures to us to come from overseas. And they are willing to do so. Those benefits that we will mutually give to one another will, I think, be far-reaching in their effects.

I spoke of England being up-to-date in education. She is up-to-date in education; she is up-to-date as a democracy should be up-to-date; and as you go through the education of individuals that is in itself ideal. Genuine idealism is shown in picking out and in preparing scholars; and here is another form of it. For long it has been known that the universities of Britain supplied a large number of those who go into public life in Britain. At that Conference, presided over by university men, were Curzon, Balfour, Haldane, Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Kenmore, (Balfour of Burleigh, who was to have presided, died the day before) and one or two others-you had an illustration of this. Britain, through her universities, has supplied the leading statesmen, chancellors of universities, leader after leader for the public life of England, ambassadors and so on, all down through history for the last two centuries at least, and who, among us, will say that that has been a failure? (Hear, hear)

But there is another side to it. From the universities there has gone out another movement in the last twenty-five years--idealism--that is, a movement to educate the worker; and the Workers' Educational Association in Britain has reached very large proportions. That was taken up by young men, scholars of the highest ability who also felt that they had a mission. The same kind of a mission that has sent the minister down into the slums, to find his work in raising the people there, and also has sent out the missionary to foreign parts, has sent this educated academic missionary out among the working people of Britain, with an idealistic purpose-a purpose to educate those people, not with theories, but to make them think, and to make them think as they ought to think, not imposing theories on them, nor saying, "This is the right thing to think, therefore think it," but telling them, "Think, think, and find out what is the right thing to think." That was their attitude-the attitude of freedom and of toleration; and so long as that freedom and that toleration exist in the university there is hope. They went out with that sense of freedom and they carried their message out far and wide through England. And what is the result? That if England has, in the near future, a Labour Government, do you imagine that the English people are going to tremble at the result, and expect that there is to be overturning and overturning? Not at all. The English people will watch that result with the greatest calm and confidence. Why? Because they have educated leaders among the working class such as no other country in the world has. (Loud applause) That has come through the Workers' Educational Association. We are trying to work that here somewhat, but again we are away behind them, whatever the reason may be. .

We go to England to learn many things-the idealism of education both for the higher and for the lower, both for the man who is to become Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister of Britain, and for the man who is to work. It is spreading all through the large bodies of men in Sheffield and Manchester and Birmingham and Newcastle and all over the country.

Then, again, England has been watching her health, very carefully watching her health. I had the good fortune of spending four or five days with Sir George Newman, who is the Medical Health Officer of Great Britain. Those of you who have seen the "Times" would have seen a good deal of criticism of Sir George Newman of late. He is a man of Quaker stock, a very high type of man, first cousin to Lord Lister. Sir George Newman carries science into the Ministry of Health, and is raising the standard of the health of England. Now, he could not say things that perhaps we could say, but I do not think there is any doubt that the general standard of public health in England as determined by sanitary conditions is further on in England by a long way than it is on this continent, and therefore, again, the Old World has not to come to the New to get lessons in the matter of sanitary affairs and of public health. That has gone so far that now there is a good deal of criticism because there has been an invasion of the sanctuary of the individual, and there has been a certain amount of trenching upon the prerogatives of the practitioner. These things touch the Englishman sorely, but still, thank God, the general condition in Britain as far as public health goes is well advanced.

That is about all that I have to say on education, and, if you will allow me, I shall just say a word or two about the other problems, chiefly of an economic nature, and how they affect the life of England. I am not competent to speak upon the economic situation of England; many here know that far better than I do; but generally, as one thought of the situation and heard people talk, the impression was that England will work her way through before long. There may be a great deal of suffering, and there probably will be, this winter. The belt will be buckled in more tightly, and there will be a good deal of shivering, but they will come through. The serious problem in England, to my mind, is not this winter, but it is as follows: Can the English workmen be still given a wage comparable to what he got recently? I must say that personally I hope he can, because if the English workman is not given a higher wage, and a good deal higher wage than he ever had before, then the conditions are such that I do not see how there can be the high degree of vitality maintained in the average English workman that is necessary for England if it is to remain where it is in the lead of the world; and highwages-reasonably high wages-are in my judgment of immense benefit to the country as a whole, that the home should be full of comfort, that the children should be given a chance, that the man, in his non-working hours, should also have the opportunity of developing himself, and that the general tone and type of the artisan should be so raised that he can regard himself with self-respect, that self-respect which in the long run is the root of contentment. (Applause) The Englishmen know that, and the problem is, can England do it? That is the real problem. Can she compete with the rest of the world, and do it? As I say, it would be impertinent for me to answer this question, but Lord Haldane tells us that she can. He is constantly impressing the value of education in order to do this; he says that if the workmen will only be educated far enough, the country can produce immense quantities of first-class material at such low prices that the markets will become hers and the wages may remain high. (Hear, hear)

The solution of the future, therefore, lies in education and intelligence; and if there is an educated artisan class, a highly intelligent artisan class, fewer and fewer unskilled, then not only will their whole tone of life be higher but they will settle their difficulties in a spirit, as he says, sensibly, amicably and without any talk of revolution. I have the authority, therefore, of a great thinker, to my mind one of the great men of England, who was misjudged in the past-Lord Haldane; he gave one of the greatest addresses at the Conference this last summer on Adult Education. His view is that the English workmen can be so raised by education that he will become a better producer, and by the use of machinery and other devices it will be possible for England to compete with the rest of the world, and to provide for her workmen a fine wage which will give him the opportunity that otherwise he would not have. (Applause)

That, then, is one side. But has not England too many people for her size? I think so; and that is what the Englishman thinks; and therefore surely we overseas must relieve Britain positively by receiving a larger immigration into Canada than we have ever had before. (Applause) Why should not five millions of Englishmen be taken away from their forty-five, and put into our country? (Hear, hear) Now, I do not say that it is possible to do that this winter, with all our troubles, but there is such a thing as setting your face in the right direction, and saying at the earliest possible moment we will see that this immigration comes, and comes under such direction that it is not all dumped in one place. Let us cut the channels for it, so that the stream, like good irrigation, is taken where it should go-a real policy of immigration looking over a period of years, to create in this land of ours another great centre for the English-speaking world. (Loud applause) That is the ilea; and if we do not do that we cannot long keen our rich lands unfilled. Neither justice nor humanity will allow it. We cannot keep those to ourselves; the rest of the world will press in. Now, the rest of the world has many people that we would welcome, and it would be very narrow of us to say that we will have nothing to do with the rest of the world; but we who know the virtues of our own stock do believe that those vacant lands should be taken up by the people whom we know and whom we can assimilate best. That is really what we should do. (Hear, hear)

England, by its process of education, is seriously considering how it can raise the standard of the working class, but what about the upper class? Last week in the United States I was spoken to by an American who said, "Surely there is a great social revolution in England, and the rich people are losing their lands, and they will be tremendously upset." I replied, "Don't believe it; no upset; the rich people do not make England; the people at the top who have immense estates do not make England; they have their share, but it is not a very big share. Anyway, all I can see is a curtailment not a disappearance, and possibly a little curtailing would be good for them and somebody else." "What about the nouveaux riches?" "There may be a few of them, but the few who have money have not a great deal of influence. However, the nouveaux riches who are talked about are like the old families of England who were talked about as nouveaux riches not very long ago; so don't talk about the nouveaux riches, there will be no revolution there." England does not depend on them. But there is a great class that is feeling the economic pressure, and that is the middle class and the upper middle class; they are feeling it very much, and they are the ones who have in the past been the security of British civilization with their education, their refinement, their character, and their idealism; and if that class should suffer, then surely England would suffer. But if that class can be maintained-not that they should live in the comfort they enjoyed before and possibly send their boys to the schools that they themselves went to, but that they should be in a position to maintain their idealistic standards-if that class is maintained, and the working class is brought back, there is no fear about Britain. As you know, times come in every man's life when he realizes that life does not consist in the things that a man possesses. It comes to everyone who thinks, to realize that culture does not thrive so much upon opulence as it does upon moderation. Vulgarity--or display, rather--is a thing that does not know how to express itself otherwise, but the spirit of art, of science, of literature, of religion, can only find expression in a spiritual knowledge that is understood by those who are spiritually minded; and the spiritual forces do not attract to themselves power through vulgar display or through being decked out by the things that wealth gives; not at all. The charm of culture is in the mind; it is in the tone of speech, it is in the temper, it is in the bearing; it is not in the outward trappings; and the outward trappings of that middle class in England, such as they have had in the days of their comparative ease, may be less than they have been before, but provided that the things of the spirit remain as they were-and I have seen no sign that they are diminished-then the power of those people will remain also. (Loud applause)

And finally, there is this: England in the past has never shown to such advantage as when she had her back to the wall, and now when that class, and the working class too-I do not know so much about the other classes-but when those two great classes have their backs to the wall, I believe that England will face her problems as never before. Necessity will drive her to do things that she never did before. Ingenuity will awake. Dormant geniuses will be called out by the need for them. The will will be addressed; things will be tackled; and there will be a moral result that, I believe will astonish us. In fact, as I see it, the danger is not in Britain; the danger is on this continent more, caused by the very ease with which we make our wealth, and take our material standards to guide us, not only here but across the line. If we think of comfort as producing the highest type of manhood, so sure as we do, our spiritual power will lessen, our spiritual faculty will be atrophied, our spiritual speech will be degraded, and we shall talk in materialistic language which will really be a sign of decay rather than of power.

We should go to England to learn many things today, and certainly we should not return, if you come back as I did, in any way pessimistic. (Loud applause)

PRESIDENT MITCHELL requested Mr. Hopkins to express the thanks of the Club to the speaker.

MR. J. CASTELL HOPKINS

My. Chairman and Gentlemen,--It is always a privilege to express the thanks of this Club to anyone of the distinguished gentlemen who from time to time address us. It is one of the greatest and deepest values of this and similar clubs in Canada that it presents opportunity for men of light and leading to give to the people of their city, and through the press to the people of the country, messages which may help the people in their lines of development, in their thoughts and aspirations. No man is more capable of giving such a message to the people of Canada than Sir Robert Falconer. (Hear, hear and applause) The interesting, illuminative and eloquent address to which we have listened is a confirmation of that fact. Sir Robert has described present conditions in England most accurately. I was in England myself about a year ago. I had the privilege of meeting many of our public men in that country. Their thoughts were not pessimistic; their feelings were appreciative of the intense and many difficulties which they had to meet, but they were optimistic as to the absolute characteristics and qualities of the English people. Mr. Bonar Law, that great Canadian who has made a stamp in English life much more important, much more impressive than our Canadian people realize, told me in a long conversation which I had the privilege of having with him that the most vital fact of that particular time, and of today indeed, except perhaps the Irish problem, was that the workman of England is sound at heart. He is often misled; the men who appear on the checkerboard of the world's dispatches and cable news, the men whose names thus appear to us as representative of the views of the masses of English workmen, are not truly representative, according to this leader, who knows the public life of England. The extremists in labour, the extremists in socialism, the extremists in other lines, are the only danger to the peaceful and harmonious working of our constitution; and we have developed in England the men who really, in the final analysis, represent the working people of England. This was Mr. Bonar Law's principal thought expressed to me, and a thought which it is worth while repeating on this occasion. As to education, I cannot of course say more than what we know-that the men who lead the educational life of England are the men who also embody the intellectual thought of the English-speaking world; and if, in meeting them, Sir Robert comes back to us laden with a message of optimism, laden with a profound belief in the broadness of view of the English people, I say that is a message of importance to our people and a message of intense interest to ourselves. In these days of deep degradation of the intellectual life of whole countries such as Russia it is pleasant to know that in the country which, after all, dominates the thought of the world, the people are educationally capable of rising to the level of their great possibilities and of their great necessities. I am glad indeed to have the privilege of moving this vote of thanks to Sir Robert. (Loud applause)