What Not. A Prophetic Comedy

by Rose Macaulay

  Ministries have a bitter time; their hand is against every man and every man's hand against them. For their good men return them evil and for their evil no good. And—let it not be forgotten—they are really, with all their faults, more intelligent, and fuller of good intentions, than the vast majority of their critics. The critics cry aloud "Get rid of them," without always asking themselves who would do the job any better, always providing it has to be done. In the case of the Ministry of Brains, the majority of the public saw no reason why the job should be done at all, which complicated matters. It was like the Directorate of Recruiting during the war, or the Censor's office, or the Ministry of Food; not merely its method but its function was unwelcome. As most men did not want to be recruited by law, or to have their reading or their diet regulated by law, so they did not want to be made intelligent by law. All these things might be, and doubtless were, for the ultimate good of the nation, but all were inconvenient at the moment, and when ultimate good (especially not necessarily one's own good) and immediate convenience come to blows, it is not usually ultimate good which wins.

  So the Ministry of Brains, even more than other ministries, was fighting against odds. Feverish activity prevailed, in all departments. From morning till night telephones telephoned, clerks wrote, typists typed against time, deputations deputed, committees committeed, officials conferred with each other, messengers ran to and fro with urgent minutes and notes by hand. Instructions and circular letters poured forth, telegrams were despatched in hot haste to the local Ministries and to the Brains Representatives on the local tribunals, the staff arrived early and stayed late, and often came on Sundays as well, and grew thin and dyspeptic and nervy and irritable.

  2

  Even Ivy Delmer grew pale and depressed, not so much from official strain as from private worries. These she confided one day to Kitty, who had got transferred back to headquarters, through a little quiet wire-pulling (it is no use being married to a Minister if little things like that cannot easily be arranged), and was now working in her old branch. They were travelling together one Monday morning up from Little Chantreys.

  "Now I ask you, Miss Grammont, what would you do? I'm B3 and he's C1 (I'm certain they've classified him wrong, because he's not a bit stupid really, not the way some men are, you know, he's jolly clever at some things—ideas, and that), but of course it's against the regulations for us to marry each other. And yet we care for each other, and we both of us feel we always shall. And we neither of us want a bit to marry an A person, besides, I don't suppose an A would ever think of us in that way, you know what I mean, Miss Grammont, don't laugh, and to give each other up would mean spoiling both our lives.... Yet I suppose everyone would think it awfully wrong if we got regularly engaged, and me working at the Ministry too. I suppose I ought to leave it really, feeling the way I do.... The fact is, I've come to feel very differently about the Ministry, now I've thought it more over, and—you'll be horrified, I know—but I'm not at all sure I approve of it."

  "Good gracious no," Kitty said. "I never approve of any Ministries. That isn't what one feels for them. Sympathy; pity; some affection, even; but approval—no."

  "Well, you see what I mean, it's all very well in theory, but I do honestly know so many people whose lives have been upset and spoilt by it—and it does seem hard. Heaps of people in Little Chantreys alone; of course we come across them rather a lot, because they tell father and mother about it.... And all the poor little deserted babies.... Oh I suppose it's all right.... But I'm feeling a bit off it just now.... Now I ask you, feeling as I do about it, and meaning to do what I'm going to do (at least we hope we're going to do it sometime), ought I to go on at the Ministry? Is it honest? Would you, Miss Grammont?"

  Kitty blushed faintly, to her own credit and a little to Ivy's surprise. She did not associate blushing with Miss Grammont, and anyhow there seemed no occasion for it just now.

  "Well, yes, I think I would. I don't see that you're called on to give it up—unless, of course, you hate it, and want to.... After all, one would very seldom stick to any work at all if one felt obliged to approve entirely of it. No, I don't think there's much in that."

  "You truly don't? Well, I expect I'll carry on for a bit, then. I'd rather, in one way, of course, especially as we shall need all the money we can get if we ever do marry. Not that I'm saving; I spend every penny I get, I'm afraid. But of course it takes me off father's hands.... Don't you feel, Miss Grammont, that all this interference with people's private lives is a mistake? It's come home to me awfully strongly lately. Only when I read the Minister's speeches I change my mind again; he puts it so rippingly, and makes me feel perhaps I'm being simply a selfish little beast. I don't care what anybody says about him, I think he's wonderful."

  "I suppose he is," said Kitty.

  "My word, he jolly well would despise me if he knew, wouldn't he?"

  "Well...." said Kitty. And perhaps it was well that at that moment they reached Marylebone.

  That conversation was typical, even as Ivy Delmer's standpoint was itself typical, of a large body of what, for lack of a better name, we must call thought, all over the country. Laws were all very well in theory, or when they only disarranged the lives of others, but when they touched and disorganised one's own life—hands off. Was the only difference between such as Ivy Delmer and such as Nicholas Chester that Ivy deceived herself ("It's not that I care a bit for myself, but it's the principle of the thing") and that Chester fell with open eyes? Which was perhaps as much as to say that Ivy was classified B3 and Chester A.

  All over the country people were saying, according to their different temperaments, one or another of these things. "Of course I don't care for myself, but I think the system is wrong," or (the other way round) "It may be all right in theory, but I'm jolly well not going to stand being inconvenienced by it," or "I'm not going to stand it and it's all wrong." Of course there were also those more public-spirited persons who said, "It's a splendid system and I'm going to fall in with it," or "Though it's a rotten system I suppose we must put up with it." But these were the minority.

  3

  Up till November the campaign against the Brains Ministry was quite impersonal, merely resentment against a system. It was led, in the Press, by the Labour papers, which objected to compulsion, by the Nation, which objected to what it, rightly or wrongly, called by that much-abused name, Prussianism, by the New Witness, which objected to interference with the happy stupidity of merry Gentiles (making them disagreeably clever like Jews), and by Stop It, which objected to everything. It was supported by the more normal organs of opinion of the kind which used before and during the war to be called conservative and liberal. And, of course, through thick and thin, by the Hidden Hand.

  But in the course of November a new element came into the attack—the personal element. Certain sections of the Press which supported the Ministry began to show discontent with the Minister. The Times began to hint guardedly that new blood might perhaps be desirable in certain quarters. The Daily Mail, in its rounder and directer manner, remarked in large head-lines that "Nicky is played out." Ministers have to bear these intimations about themselves as they walk about London; fleeing from old gentlemen selling the Daily Mail outside Cox's, Chester was confronted in the Strand by the Herald remarking very loudly "CHESTER MUST GO." And then (but this was later) by the Patriot, which was much, much worse.

  The Patriot affair was different from the others. The Patriot was, in fact, a different paper. The Patriot had the personal, homely touch; it dealt faithfully not only with the public misdemeanours of prominent persons, but with the scandals of their private lives. It found things out. It abounded in implications and references, arch and jocose in manner and not usually discreet in matter. The Patriot had been in the law courts many times, but as it remarked, "We are not afraid of prosecution." It had each week a column of open letters addressed to persons of varying degrees of prominence, in which it told them what it thought of them. The weak po
int of these letters was that the Patriot was not a paper which was read by persons of prominence; its readers were the obscure and simple, who no doubt extracted much edification from them. Its editor was a Mr. Percy Jenkins, a gentleman of considerable talents, and, it was said, sufficient personal charm to be useful to him. What he lacked in æsthetic taste he made up in energy and patriotism, and the People hailed him affectionately as the People's friend. Throughout October Mr. Jenkins suffered apparently from a desire to have a personal interview with the Minister of Brains. He addressed private letters to him, intimating this desire, which were answered by his secretary in a chilly negative strain. He telephoned, enquiring when, if at all, he could have the pleasure of seeing the Minister, and was informed that the Minister had, unfortunately, no time for pleasures just now. He called at the Ministry and sent up his card, but was told that, as he had no appointment it was regretted that he could not penetrate further into the Ministry than the waiting-room. He called in the evening at the Minister's private address, but found him engaged.

  After that, however, the Minister apparently relented, for Mr. Jenkins received a letter from his secretary informing him that, if he wished to see the Minister, he might call at his house at 9.30 p.m. on the following Monday. Mr. Jenkins did so. He was shown into the Minister's study. Chester was sitting by the fire, reading Tales of my Grandfather. He was never found writing letters, as one might expect a public man to be found; his secretary wrote all his official letters, and his unofficial letters were not written at all, Chester being of the opinion that if you leave the letters you receive long enough they answer themselves.

  Mr. Jenkins, having been invited to sit down, did so, and said, "Very kind of you to give me this interview, sir."

  Chester did not commit himself, however, to any further kindness, but said stiffly, "I have very little time. I am, as you see, occupied"—he indicated Tales of my Grandfather—"and I shall be glad if you will state your business at once, sir, and as plainly as you can."

  Mr. Jenkins murmured pleasantly, "Well, we needn't be blunt, exactly.... But you are quite right, sir; I have business. As you are no doubt aware, I edit a paper—the Patriot—it is possible that you are acquainted with it."

  "On the contrary," said Chester, "such an acquaintance would be quite impossible. But I have heard of it. I know to what paper you refer. Please go on."

  "Everybody," retorted Mr. Jenkins, a little nettled, "does not find close acquaintance with the Patriot at all impossible. Its circulation...."

  "We need not, I think, have that, Mr. Jenkins. Will you kindly go on with your business?"

  Mr. Jenkins shrugged his shoulders.

  "Your time appears to be extremely limited, sir."

  "All time," returned the Minister, relapsing, as was often his habit, into metaphysics, "is limited. Limits are, in fact, what constitute time. What 'extremely limited' may mean, I cannot say. But if you mean that I desire this interview to be short, you are correct."

  Mr. Jenkins hurried on.

  "The Patriot, as you may have heard, sir, deals with truth. Its aim is to disseminate correct information with regard to all matters, public and private. This, I may say, it is remarkably successful in doing. Well, Mr. Chester, as of course you are aware, the public are very much interested in yourself. There is no one at the present moment who is more to the fore, or if I may say so, more discussed. Naturally, therefore, I should be glad if I could provide some items of public interest on this subject, and I should be very grateful for any assistance you could give me.... Now, Mr. Chester, I have heard lately a very interesting piece of news about you. People are saying that you are being seen a great deal in the company of a certain lady." He paused.

  "Go on," said Chester.

  "It has even been said," continued Mr. Jenkins, "that you have been seen staying in the country together ... alone together, that is ... for week-ends...."

  "Go on," said Chester.

  Mr. Jenkins went on. "Other things are said; but I daresay they are mere rumour. Queer things get said about public men. I met someone the other day who lives in Buckinghamshire, somewhere in the Chilterns, and who has a curious and no doubt entirely erroneous idea about you.... Well, in the interests of the country, Mr. Chester (I have the welfare of the Ministry of Brains very much at heart, I may say; I am entirely with you in regarding intelligence as the Coming Force), I should like to be in a position to discredit these rumours. If you won't mind my saying so, they tell against you very seriously. You see, it is generally known that you are uncertificated for matrimony and parentage, if I may mention it. And once people get into their heads the idea that, while forcing these laws on others, you are evading them yourself ... well, you may imagine it might damage your work considerably. You and I, Mr. Chester, know what the public are.... I should be glad to have your authority to contradict these rumours, therefore."

  Chester said, "Certainly. You may contradict anything you please. I shall raise no objection. Is that all?"

  Mr. Jenkins hesitated. "I cannot, of course, contradict the rumours without some assurance that they are false...."

  They had an interesting conversation on this topic for ten minutes more, which I do not intend to record in these pages.

  So many conversations are, for various reasons, not recorded. Conversations, for instance, at Versailles, when the allied powers of the world sit together there behind impenetrable curtains, through the rifts of which only murmurs of the unbroken harmony which always prevails between allies steal through to a waiting world. Conversations between M. Trotzky and representatives of the German Government before the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Conversations between the President of the Board of Trade and the Railway Companies when the price of travel is being increased; between governments and capitalists when elections are to be fought or newspapers to be bought; between Jane Austen's heroes and heroines in the hour when their passion is declared.

  For quite different reasons, all these conversations are left to the imagination, and I propose to leave to the same department of the reader's mind the interview between Mr. Percy Jenkins and the Minister of Brains. I will merely mention that the talking was, for the most part, done by Mr. Jenkins. The reasons for this were two. One was that Mr. Jenkins was a fluent talker, and the Minister capable of a taciturnity not invariably to be found in our statesmen. Both have their uses in the vicissitudes of public life. Both can be, if used effectively, singularly baffling to those who would probe the statesman's mind and purposes. But fluency is, to most (it would seem) the easier course.

  * * *

  Anyhow this was how the Patriot campaign started. It began with an Open Letter.

  "To the Minister of Brains.

  "Dear Mr. Nicholas Chester,

  "There is a saying 'Physician, heal thyself.' There is also, in the same book (a book which, coming of clerical, even episcopal, parentage, you should be acquainted with), 'Cast out the beam which is in thine own eye, and then thou shalt see more plainly to pull out the mote which is in thy brother's eye.' We will on this occasion say no more than that we advise you to take heed to these sayings before you issue many more orders relating to matrimony and such domestic affairs. And yet a third saying, 'Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch?' you would do well to ponder in your heart."

  That was all, that week. But it was enough to start speculation and talk among the Patriot's readers. Next week and other weeks there were further innuendoes, and more talk. One week there was a picture of Chester with several unmistakable, but also unmistakably deficient, little Chesters clinging to his coat. This picture was called "Following the dear old dad. What we may expect to see in the near future."

  Mr. Percy Jenkins knew his business. And, during his interview with the Minister of Brains, he had conceived an extreme dislike towards him.

  4

  "He'll feel worse before I've done with him," Chester said to Kitty. They were sitting together on Kitty's sofa, with a copy of th
e Patriot between them. Kitty was now alone in her flat, her cousin having suddenly taken it into her head to get married.

  "I always said it would come out," was Kitty's reply. "And now you see."

  "Of course I knew it would come out," Chester said calmly. "It was bound to. However, it hasn't yet. All this is mere talk. It's more offensive, but not really so serious, as the Labour attacks on the Ministry, and the Stop It campaign, and the cry for a Business Government. Business Government, indeed! The last word in inept futility...."

  "All the same," Kitty said, rather gravely, "you and I have got to be rather more careful, Nicky. We've been careful, I think, but not enough, it seems."

  "There's no such thing," said Chester, who was tired, "as being careful enough, in this observant world, when one is doing wrong. You can be too careful (don't let's, by the way) but you can't be careful enough."

  5

  But Chester did not really see Kitty very often in these days, because he had to see and confer with so many others—the Employers' Federation, and the Doctors, and the Timber Cutters, and the Worsted Industries, and the Farmers, and the Cotton Spinners, and the Newspaper Staffs, and the Church, and the Parents, and the Ministerial Council, and the Admiralty, and the Board of Education, and the War Office, and the Ministry of Reconstruction, and the Directorate of Propaganda. And the A.S.E.

  It is much to be hoped that conferences are useful; if they are not, it cannot, surely, be from lack of practice.

  Prideaux also, and the other heads of sections, on their humbler scale received deputations and conferred. Whether or not it was true to say of the Ministry (and to do Ministries justice, these statements are usually not true) that it did not try to enter sympathetically into the difficulties and grievances of the public, it is anyhow certain that the difficulties and grievances entered into the Ministry, from 9.30 a.m. until 7 p.m. After 7 no more difficulties were permitted to enter, but the higher staff remained often till late into the night to grapple with those already there.