Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 4 of 4.—1892-1914. Graves Charles Larcom

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ but while a nation's cries

      Storm against our sullen skies

      'Midst the madness and the mirth

      Flung about your victor's way,

      If behind the brave array

      All the hidden heart were known,

      Save for love of England's name

      Gladly would you yield the prize,

      Glory, triumph, wealth and fame,

      Could you win one grace alone,

      Could you have your boy again

      Home from where he takes his rest

      Lying under alien earth

      By Colenso's dreadful plain,

      With the Cross above his breast.

      That is truly and finely said, and yet how strangely the epithet "dreadful" sounds to those who have found all the vocabulary of horror beggared by the experiences of the Great War! The opening of the New Year was clouded by the passing of Queen Victoria. In all the sixty years of Punch's existence, even in the moods when his comments on Court and Crown had been frank to the verge of audacity, loyalty to the person of the Sovereign had never failed. His adverse criticism was seldom malicious, and was almost always animated by a desire that the Sovereign should never fall below the standard of noblesse oblige. The days of resentment against the Queen's prolonged seclusion had long passed. She had ceased to be "the Royal Recluse," and was unsparing of herself in the discharge of her duties up to within a few weeks of her death. When she spoke in one of her messages of "her beloved people," there could be no question of her sincerity, or of the devotion with which her love was returned.

      As Mr. Balfour said significantly of her: "Even those who loved not England loved her," and in later years those who came to scoff at her memory remained to praise: —

THE QUEENBorn May 24, 1819. Died January 22, 1901

      The tears we disallow to lesser ill

      Here is no shame for English eyes to shed,

      Because the noblest heart of all is still —

      Because the Queen lies dead.

      Grief asks for words, yet silent grief were well;

      Vain is desire, as passionate prayer was vain;

      Not all our love can bring, by any spell,

      Breath to those lips again.

      Ah! had but Death forgone his royal claim,

      Demanding ransom, life for life the price,

      How loyalty had leaped to kiss the flame

      Of such a sacrifice!

      God knows, in many a need this thing has been —

      Light hearts for her have dared the desolate grave;

      From other hurt their blood has saved the Queen,

      From Death it could not save.

      And of the dregs to drink from sorrow's cup

      This is most bitter, that with life's release

      She might not leave her children folded up

      Between the wings of Peace.

      Yet, for a solace in that darkest hour,

      When even Kings have found themselves alone,

      Over a people's love she kept her power

      Firm as her fathers' throne.

      Candid Friends and Hostile Critics

      The "Khaki" election of the previous autumn, at which the Government had appealed to the country to decide the issue of fighting the war to a finish, had resulted in the return of the Unionists by a majority of 134, but did not abate the activities of the "Stop the War" party. They were stimulated to further and more vehement protests by the policy of the Concentration Camps, and the loss of life through epidemics caused by the compulsory herding together of those who were interned. Between the denunciations of British "brutalities" by the German Press and the talk of "hecatombs of slaughtered babes" by British Liberals – between "candid friends" and hostile critics – there was not much to choose. Punch invoked the shade of Bismarck to rebuke the excesses of the German journalists; he ridiculed Miss Emily Hobhouse's descriptions of Concentration Camp horrors by giving a list of the luxuries which were not provided there – hairpins, curling-tongs, etc. – and in a cartoon at the close of the year represented the "Stop the War" group as making such a noise that Peace's voice could not be heard. Cleavage was shown in the ranks of the Opposition, and Punch did not fail to emphasize the divergences between Mr. Asquith and the Imperialist Liberals on the one side, and "C. – B." and Sir William Harcourt on the other. General Baden-Powell arrived in England in July, and Punch's greeting aptly describes his mood and that of the man in the street: —

      Time has flown; but not forgotten is the tale of Mafeking!

      Who that lived that Day in London could forget its echoing ring?

      How the Town broke into bunting, Piccadilly to Mile End!

      How each man for joy saluted every other man as friend!

      How we crowded to the city in an orgy of delight,

      Tumbled out of bed for gladness, waving Union Jacks all night!

      Even if we overdid it after deadening suspense,

      Better this than anti-British Queen's Hall windbags' insolence!

      Though we later coined a playful word, our soberer sense to show,

      I would rather "maffick" daily than abet a treacherous foe!

      In the controversies that arose over the treatment of various British generals, I may note that Punch supported the motion for an inquiry into the circumstances under which General Colvile was deprived of his command, which was negatived in the House by 262 votes to 248. Over the still more thorny question of General Buller's conduct of the Natal campaign he preserved an impartial attitude, while implying that the general would not exploit his grievance for political purposes. Early in the war Punch paid a rather left-handed compliment to the war correspondents; they are represented as welcoming war because it brought them remunerative employment. In the autumn of 1901 we find him pressing their claims for war medals, and observing that the Press had been shut out but not shut up.

      The war, he also notes on the authority of a daily paper, had produced more poets than any similar crisis in English history. A more striking parallel with recent war-products is to be found in Punch's review of the depression, discontent and decline of trade which it had begun to cause before hostilities ceased. This is clearly shown in July, 1901, in the Preface to Vol. cxxi, where Punch rebukes John Bull, no longer in his Mark Tapley vein, for listening to pessimists, and encouraging a seditious and pernicious Press. In the opening stages of the war Punch had been none too friendly to Lord Methuen, but he was righteously indignant at the "Ghoul-like ecstasy" of the Irish Members who cheered the news of the defeat and capture of that gallant soldier in the spring of 1902. The end of the war came in June, and is chronicled in Punch's "Cease Fire" cartoon. The happiest incident of the surrender was the speech made by Lord Kitchener to the Boer delegates at Vereeniging when he said that "if he had been one of them, he would have been proud to have done so well in the field as they had done." Punch did well to record it, for it reflected the national respect felt for a stubborn foe. For confirmation we need only turn to the laconic entry in the National Register for August 16, 1902: "The Boer generals, Botha, De Wet and Delarey … proceeded to London, and had an enthusiastic popular reception." Subsequent events have justified the somewhat complacent remark attributed to John Bull in the cartoon two months later, à propos of the grant of £3,000,000 to the Transvaal, СКАЧАТЬ