Plays Political

by Dan Laurence

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  THE JEW. Do you think anything is really going to happen, Mr Secretary?

  THE SECRETARY. Possibly not. I am here to be able to report from personal knowledge whether any notice has been taken of the summonses issued by the court.

  THE BETROTHED. The judge himself hasnt turned up.

  THE SECRETARY [looking at his watch] He is not due yet: you have all come too early.

  THE BETROTHED. We came early to make sure of getting seats. And theres not a soul in the bally place except ourselves.

  Sir Orpheus comes in.

  SIR ORPHEUS. What! Nobody but ourselves! Dont they admit the public?

  THE SECRETARY. The public is not interested, it seems.

  BEGONIA. One free lance journalist looked in; but she went away when she found there was nothing doing.

  THE BETROTHED. The doors are open all right. All are affectionately invited.

  SIR ORPHEUS [seating himself next Begonia] But what a dreadful fiasco for our friend the judge! I warned him that this might happen. I told him to send special invitations to the press, and cards to all the leading people and foreign visitors. And here! not a soul except ourselves! All Europe will laugh at him.

  THE SECRETARY. Yes, but if the affair is going to be a fiasco the fewer people there are to witness it the better.

  BEGONIA. After all, theres more than half a dozen of us. Quite a distinguished audience I call it. Remember, you are the Foreign Secretary, Nunky. You are an honorable, Billikins. And I’m not exactly a nobody.

  THE BETROTHED [kissing her hand] My ownest and bestest, you are a Dame of the British Empire. The Camberwell Times has celebrated your birthday by a poem hailing you as the Lily of Geneva; but on this occasion only, you are not the centre of European interest. The stupendous and colossal joke of the present proceedings is that this court has summoned all the dictators to appear before it and answer charges brought against them by the Toms, Dicks, Harriets, Susans and Elizas of all nations.

  THE WIDOW. Pardon me, young señor. I am neither Susan nor Eliza.

  THE BETROTHED. Present company excepted, of course, señora. But the point—the staggering paralyzing, jolly bally breath-bereaving point of our assembly today is that the dictators have been summoned and that they wont come. Young Johnny Judge has no more authority over them than his cat.

  THE NEWCOMER. But if they wont come, gentlemen, what are we here for?

  THE BETROTHED. To see the fun when Johnny Judge comes and finds nothing doing, I suppose.

  THE WIDOW. Is he not late? We seem to have been waiting here for ages.

  THE SECRETARY [looking at his watch] He is due now. It is on the stroke of ten.

  The Judge, in his judicial robe, enters. They all rise. He is in high spirits and very genial.

  THE JUDGE [shaking hands with Sir Orpheus] Good morning, Sir Midlander. [He passes on to the judicial chair, greeting them as he goes] Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning, mademoiselle. Good morning, señora. Good morning. Good morning. [Takes his seat] Pray be seated.

  They all sit, having bowed speechlessly to his salutations.

  THE JUDGE. Any defendants yet, Mr Secretary?

  THE SECRETARY. None, your Honor. The parties on your left are all plaintiffs. On your right, Sir Orpheus Midlander has a watching brief for the British Foreign Office. The lady, Dame Begonia Brown, represents the Committee for Intellectual Co-operation. The young gentleman is the public.

  THE JUDGE. An impartial spectator, eh?

  THE BETROTHED. No, my lord. Very partial to the girl. Engaged, in fact.

  THE JUDGE. My best congratulations. May I warn you all that the instruments on the table are microphones and televisors? I have arranged so as to avoid a crowd and make our proceedings as unconstrained and comfortable as possible; but our apparent privacy is quite imaginary.

  General consternation. They all sit up as in church.

  BEGONIA. But they should have told us this when we came in. Billikins has been sitting with his arm round my waist, whispering all sorts of silly things. Theyll be in The Camberwell Times tomorrow.

  THE JUDGE. I’m sorry. You should have been warned. In the International Court no walls can hide you, and no distance deaden your lightest whisper. We are all seen and heard in Rome, in Moscow, in London, wherever the latest type of receiver is installed.

  BEGONIA. Heard! You mean overheard.

  THE WIDOW. And overlooked. Our very clothes are transparent to the newest rays. It is scandalous.

  THE JUDGE. Not at all, señora. The knowledge that we all live in public, and that there are no longer any secret places where evil things can be done and wicked conspiracies discussed, may produce a great improvement in morals.

  THE WIDOW. I protest. All things that are private are not evil; but they may be extremely indecent.

  BEGONIA. We’d better change the subject, I think.

  THE BETROTHED. What about the dictators, my lord? Do you really think any of them will come?

  THE JUDGE. They are not under any physical compulsion to come. But every day of their lives they do things they are not physically compelled to do.

  SIR ORPHEUS. That is a fact, certainly. But it is hardly a parliamentary fact.

  A telephone rings on the Judge’s desk. He holds down a button and listens.

  THE JUDGE. You will not have to wait any longer, Sir Midlander. [Into the telephone] We are waiting for him. Shew him the way. [He releases the button]. The very first dictator to arrive is Signor Bombardone.

  ALL THE REST. Bombardone!!!

  The Dictator enters, dominant, brusque, every inch a man of destiny.

  BOMBARDONE. Is this the so-called International Court?

  THE JUDGE. It is.

  BBDE. My name is Bombardone. [He mounts the dais; takes the nearest chair with a powerful hand and places it on the Judge’s left; then flings himself massively into it] Do not let my presence embarrass you. Proceed.

  THE JUDGE. I have to thank you, Signor Bombardone, for so promptly obeying the summons of the court.

  BBDE. I obey nothing. I am here because it is my will to be here. My will is part of the world’s will. A large part, as it happens. The world moves towards internationalism. Without this movement to nerve you you would have never have had the audacity to summon me. Your action is therefore a symptom of the movement of civilization. Wherever such a symptom can be detected I have a place: a leading place.

  SIR ORPHEUS. But pardon me, Signor: I understand that you are a great nationalist: How can you be at once a nationalist and an internationalist?

  BBDE. How can I be anything else? How do you build a house? By first making good sound bricks. You cant build it of mud. The nations are the bricks out of which the future world State must be built. I consolidated my country as a nation: a white nation. I then added a black nation to it and made it an empire. When the empires federate, its leaders will govern the world; and these leaders will have a superleader who will be the ablest man in the world: that is my vision. I leave you to imagine what I think of the mob of bagmen from fifty potty little foreign States that calls itself a League of Nations.

  JUDGE. Your country is a member of that League, Signor.

  BBDE. My country has to keep an eye on fools. The scripture tells us that it is better to meet a bear in our path than a fool. Fools are dangerous; and the so-called League of Nations is a League of Fools; therefore the wise must join it to watch them. That is why all the effective Powers are in the League, as well as the little toy republics we shall swallow up in due time.

  THE ÇI-DEVANT NEWCOMER. Steady on, mister. I dont understand.

  BBDE. [contemptuously to the Judge] Tell him that this is a court of people who understand, and that the place of those who do not understand is in the ranks of silent and blindly obedient labor.

  NEWCOMER. Oh, thats your game, is it? Who are you that I should obey you? What about democracy?

  BBDE. I am what I am: you are what you are; and in virtue of these
two facts I am where I am and you are where you are. Try to change places with me: you may as well try to change the path of the sun through the heavens.

  THE NEWCOMER. You think a lot of yourself, dont you? I ask you again: what about democracy?

  An unsmiling middle aged gentleman with slim figure, erect carriage, and resolutely dissatisfied expression, wanders in.

  THE DISSATISFIED GENTLEMAN. Is this the sitting of the department of international justice?

  BBDE. [springing up] Battler, by all thats unexpected!

  BATTLER [equally surprised] Bombardone, by all thats underhand!

  BBDE. You thought you could steal a march on me, eh?

  BATTLER. You have ambushed me. Fox!

  BBDE. [sitting down] Undignified, Ernest. Undignified.

  BATTLER. True, Bardo. I apologize. [He takes a chair from behind Sir Orpheus, and mounts the dais to the right of the Judge, who now has a dictator on each side of him] By your leave, sir. [He sits].

  JUDGE. I thank you, Mr Battler, for obeying the summons of the court.

  BATTLER. Obedience is hardly the word, sir.

  JUDGE. You have obeyed. You are here. Why?

  BATTLER. That is just what I have come to find out. Why are you here, Bardo?

  BBDE. I am everywhere.

  THE BETROTHED [boisterously] Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Dam funny, that.

  THE JUDGE. I must ask the public not to smile.

  NEWCOMER [who has no sense of humor] Smile! He was not smiling: he laughed right out. With all respect to your worship we are wasting our time talking nonsense. How can a man be everywhere? The other gentleman says he came here to find out why he came here. It isnt sense. These two gents are balmy.

  BBDE. Pardon me. What does balmy mean?

  NEWCOMER. Balmy. Off your chumps. If you want it straight, mad.

  BBDE. You belong to the lower orders, I see.

  NEWCOMER. Who are you calling lower orders? Dont you know that democracy has put an end to all that?

  BBDE. On the contrary, my friend, democracy has given a real meaning to it for the first time. Democracy has thrown us both into the same pair of scales. Your pan has gone up: mine has gone down; and nothing will bring down your pan while I am sitting in the other. Democracy has delivered you from the law of priest and king, of landlord and capitalist, only to bring you under the law of personal gravitation. Personal gravitation is a law of nature. You cannot cut its head off.

  NEWCOMER. Democracy can cut your head off. British democracy has cut off thicker heads before.

  BBDE. Never. Plutocracy has cut off the heads of kings and archbishops to make itself supreme and rob the people without interference from king or priest; but the people always follow their born leader. When there is no leader, no king, no priest, nor any body of law established by dead kings and priests, you have mob law, lynching law, gangster law: in short, American democracy. Thank your stars you have never known democracy in England. I have rescued my country from all that by my leadership. I am a democratic institution.

  NEWCOMER. Gosh. You democratic! Youve abolished democracy, you have.

  BBDE. Put my leadership to the vote. Take a plebiscite. If I poll less than 95 per cent of the adult nation I will resign. If that is not democracy what is democracy?

  NEWCOMER. It isnt British democracy.

  BATTLER. British democracy is a lie. I have said it.

  NEWCOMER. Oh, dont talk nonsense, you ignorant foreigner. Plebiscites are unEnglish, thoroughly unEnglish.

  BEGONIA. Hear hear!

  SIR O. May I venture to make an observation?

  BATTLER. Who are you?

  SIR O. Only a humble Englishman, listening most respectfully to your clever and entertaining conversation. Officially, I am the British Foreign Secretary.

  Both Leaders rise and give Fascist salute. Sir Orpheus remains seated, but waves his hand graciously.

  BBDE. I must explain to the court that England is no longer of any consequence apart from me. I have dictated her policy for years [he sits].

  BATTLER. I have snapped my fingers in England’s face on every issue that has risen between us. Europe looks to me, not to England. [He also resumes his seat].

  SIR O. You attract attention, Mr Battler: you certainly do attract attention. And you, Signor Bombardone, are quite welcome to dictate our policy as long as it is favorable to us. But the fact is, we are mostly unconscious of these triumphs of yours in England. I listen to your account of them with perfect complacency and—I hope you will not mind my saying so—with some amusement. But I must warn you that if your triumphs ever lead you to any steps contrary to the interests of the British Empire we shall have to come down rather abruptly from triumphs to facts; and the facts may not work so smoothly as the triumphs.

  BATTLER. What could you do, facts or no facts?

  SIR O. I dont know.

  BATTLER.

  You dont know!!!

  BBDE.

  SIR O. I dont know. Nor do you, Mr Battler. Nor you, signor.

  BBDE. Do you mean that I do not know what you could do, or that I do not know what I should do.

  SIR O. Both, signor.

  BBDE. What have you to say to that, Ernest?

  BATTLER. I should know what to do: have no doubt about that.

  SIR O. You mean that you would know what to do when you knew what England was going to do?

  BATTLER. I know already what you could do. Nothing. I tore up your peace treaty and threw the pieces in your face. You did nothing. I took your last Locarno pact and marched 18,000 soldiers through it. I threw down a frontier and doubled the size and power of my realm in spite of your teeth. What did you do? Nothing.

  SIR O. Of course we did nothing. It did not suit us to do anything. A child of six could have foreseen that we should do nothing; so you shook your fist at us and cried “Do anything if you dare.” Your countrymen thought you a hero. But as you knew you were quite safe, we were not impressed.

  BBDE. You are quite right, Excellency. It was your folly and France’s that blew Ernest up the greasy pole of political ambition. Still, he has a flair for power; and he has my example to encourage him. Do not despise Ernest.

  BATTLER. I have never concealed my admiration for you, Bardo. But you have a failing that may ruin you unless you learn to keep it in check.

  BBDE. And what is that, pray?

  BATTLER. Selfconceit. You think yourself the only great man in the world.

  BBDE. [calm] Can you name a greater?

  BATTLER. There are rivals in Russia, Arabia, and Iran.

  BBDE. And there is Ernest the Great. Why omit him?

  BATTLER. We shall see. History, not I, must award the palm.

  JUDGE. Let us omit all personalities, gentlemen. Allow me to recall you to the important point reached by Sir Midlander.

  SIR O. What was that, my lord?

  JUDGE. When you were challenged as to what your country would do in the event of a conflict of interest, you said frankly you did not know.

  SIR O. Well, I dont.

  BATTLER. And you call yourself a statesman!

  SIR O. I assure you I do not. The word is hardly in use in England. I am a member of the Cabinet, and in my modest amateur way a diplomatist. When you ask me what will happen if British interests are seriously menaced you ask me to ford the stream before we come to it. We never do that in England. But when we come to the stream we ford it or bridge it or dry it up. And when we have done that it is too late to think about it. We have found that we can get on without thinking. You see, thinking is very little use unless you know the facts. And we never do know the political facts until twenty years after. Sometimes a hundred and fifty.

  JUDGE. Still, Sir Midlander, you know that such an activity as thought exists.

  SIR O. You alarm me, my lord. I am intensely reluctant to lose my grip of the realities of the moment and sit down to think. It is dangerous. It is unEnglish. It leads to theories, to speculative policies, to dreams and visions. If I may say so, I thi
nk my position is a more comfortable one than that of the two eminent leaders who are gracing these proceedings by their presence here today. Their remarks are most entertaining: every sentence is an epigram: I, who am only a stupid Englishman, feel quite abashed by my commonplaceness. But if you ask me what their intentions are I must frankly say that I dont know. Where do they stand with us? I dont know. But they know what England intends. They know what to expect from us. We have no speculative plans. We shall simply stick to our beloved British Empire, and undertake any larger cares that Providence may impose on us. Meanwhile we should feel very uneasy if any other Power or combinations of Powers were to place us in a position of military of naval inferiority, especially naval inferiority. I warn you—I beg you—do not frighten us. We are a simple wellmeaning folk, easily frightened. And when we are frightened we are capable of anything, even of things we hardly care to remember afterwards. Do not drive us in that direction. Take us as we are; and let be. Pardon my dull little speech. I must not take more of your time.