| A play of more than ordinary
interest, especially at “a time like this,” is “The Mob,”
by John Galsworthy. The scene is set in the capital city of a Great Power.
War is expected – against a nation of mountain tribesmen. Stephen
More, an Under Secretary for State, with promise of a brilliant career before
him, finds that he cannot justify either the war or the annexation that
is sure to follow it, and decides to speak against it in the House. He does
so, and resigns his Under-Secretaryship. In the sequel he stumps the country
from end to end in the endeavor – as a rule fruitless – to make
his voice heard against the war. Before long his constituents send a deputation
to demand his resignation for the whole country is now “seeing red,”
as a result of a terrible reverse in which the tribesmen annihilated a whole
regiment in a mountain pass. More has almost reduced
the deputation to silence by the force of his logic, and asks in conclusion
“What is a man who holds a faith with all
his heart to do? Please tell me.”
Banning: “I was just thinking of those poor fellows in the Pass.”
More: “I can see them, as well as you, Banning. But, Imagine! Up
in our country – the Black Valley – twelve thousand foreign
devils dead and dying – the crows busy over them – in our
own country, our own valley – ours – ours - violated. Would
you care about “the poor fellows” in that Pass? – Invading
dogs! Kill them – kill them! You would, and I would too!”
This appeal has almost succeeded. The deputation
is about to withdraw, determined to defend their member before his constituents,
when –
“Bagpipes!” “Highlanders!”
They watch them march past and Banning turns on
More, outraged:
“Can you hear that go by man – when
your country’s just been struck?”
Noises from the street” “Give the beggars
hell, boys!” “Wipe your feet on their dirty country!”
“Don’t leave them a gory acre!” (Cheers.)
More: “That’s reality! By Heaven!”
More resigns his seat, and goes on with his campaign.
He is deserted by his friends, his own family. His butler and his private
secretary alone stick to him. Though bitterly assailed everywhere by cowardly
mobs, his courage and pertinacity are only increased. But Galsworthy’s
masterly painting of mob scenes we prefer to leave for first hand reading
– his plays can be obtained in Perth at 2/6 each. One passage, however,
we feel constrained to quote. It is More’s swan song.
“You – Mob – are the most contemptible
thing under the sun. When you walk the street, God goes in...You’re
the thing that pelts the weak; kicks women; howls down free speech. This
today, that tomorrow. Brain – you have none. Spirit – not
a ghost of it! If you’re not meanness, there’s no such thing.
If you’re not cowardice, there is no cowardice. Patriotism –
there are two kinds – that of our soldiers, and this of mine. You
have neither!
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My country is not yours.
Mine is that great country which shall never take toll from the weakness
of others. Ah! You can break my head and my windows, but don’t think
you can break my faith. You could never break or shake it, if you were a
million to one.”
The vagaries of mobs have formed material for the
work of more than one writer of the first water. Shakespeare, in “Julius
Caesar,” shows an intimate and exact knowledge of the principals
of mob oratory. Brutus and Cassius, in carefully reasoned speeches, show
that the murder of Caesar was unavoidable, if the freedom of the State
were to be preserved, and having concluded, left their auditors in thoughtful
mood, with the admonition to remain, and hear what Antony would say. The
latter, under pretence of a funeral oration, appealed subtly to every
passion, and swept away reason in a tide of wrath. Brutus displayed the
injuries wrought by Caesar against the Republic. Antony exposed the gaping
wounds in Caesar’s body, making each a mouth to plead the cause
of Caesar. And that the wily Antony knew well what he was about is proved
by his words, when the crowd rushed off to burn the house of Brutus; -
Mischief, thou are afoot!”
Amongst the great mobs of history those of the French
Revolution hold the front place. Their history has been ably written by
our own Carlyle – the inspired mob of the Bastile, the starving
mob that marched to Versailles, the bloody mob of the September massacres.
But these pages of French history have been discussed
specifically from the point of view of the student of mob psychology by
a French author named Gustave Le Bon. His works “The Crowd”
and the “The Psychology of Revolution” can be obtained (English
translations) at 1/6 in Perth. The former is a scientific study of mob
in the abstract, the latter an attempt to use the conclusion of the author
to explain the French Revolution. In brief, his theory is that men, in
crowds, lose the advantages of reason and civilisation, and sink back
to the primitive. Their actions are then controlled, for better or worse,
by instinct, impulse and emotion. Units of the crowd become capable of
deeds of heroism, or of infamy, from which the individual (apart from
mob influence) would shrink in fear or horror.
Le Bon takes the view that Democracy is a
handing over of the affairs of nations to mobs. He believes that reason
would thereby be replaced by passion, only for the fact that the mob-leaders
are in reality autocrats of the most absolute type. They rule by understanding
the mob. This view is not unfamiliar, but we are inclined to think that
Le Bon misses something, and that something is the fact that the masses
today are becoming more and more leavened with the ferment of studentship.
Their instincts are changing –adapting themselves to the needs of
democracy. Even if we grant, with Le Bon, that they will be swayed by
instinct, were it not better for the State to be run according to the
dictates of an educated instinct, rather than at the behest of selfish
pseudo-rational greed? Meantime, for Labor, the great task is education.
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