BY C. L. R. SASTRI, B.Sc.

"Human life has become a world-wide thing, but governments remain cramped and partial things. More and more people are coming to realise this. Yet none of us know clearly how to change over to a more comprehensive and securer way of running the world . . . . And it is no good mincing matters when it comes to saying why we have not this universal well-being at the present time. Most of our rulers and directors are, to put it plainly, narrow-minded, self-centred, mentally indolent, pompous and pretentious creatures of the past. They are unwilling to put their minds through the humble and strenuous mental toil needed to raise the standard of their work, and we others are fools enough to tolerate the mismanagement. These ruling and controlling people have got enough for themselves, they stick to the controls like barnacles, they live in relative comfort and immense dignity, chiefly engaged in the defence of their own conceit, and they do not care a rap what happens to the mass of us, and the mass of us lacks the spirit, will and understanding to call them to account. A thousand million human beings are leading lives of want, limitation, humiliation, and toil; scores of millions are in immediate danger of the futile tortures of war, and these dull, self-protective folk, at the head of things and in control of things, do nothing of what they might do, and pose for our respect and admiration with infinite self-complacency."–Mr. H. G. Wells, in his article, "The World Fifty Years Hence," in John O’London’s Weekly of October 17, 1931 (pp. 61-62).

My Dear Friend,

It is only recently that we have come to know of you; that is to say, not of you exactly, for we have not yet located you, but of the conditions of your planet, from which we naturally infer that you also exist. It would be a fine thing if you did: for then we could correspond with one another and compare notes in regard to our different worlds. As it is, we know very little of yours, and you, provided always that you are living entity, and not merely a conjectural phantom, much less of ours; for it stands to reason that if you knew anything of your brethren down here, you would long ago have made known the fact. Taking things as they are, however, it pains me to think that you evince so little interest in our affairs, while we are simply dying to know as much of yours as we possibly can. Whereas you are as mute as a statue, we are literally panting to shed a ray, for your behoof, on matters of this world. Not that we have no business of our own to attend to. But our nature is altruistic, and we wouldn't keep you in utter darkness if, by any chance, we could flood the chambers of your mind with light. We have our own affairs to mind, it is true, but we have just enough time on our hands to cleanse the Augean stables of your ignorance. Of course, we have abundance of fun going on all around us; but we want you to share it with us. Adventure is in our blood; and though we have come into a vast inheritance, we want to explore ‘fresh woods and pastures new.’ We have not yet sat, like the mythological gentleman, so long upon a rock that we have grown to it: our limbs are still capable of movement, and we itch to stir ourselves to some great achievement.

I

Our earth is a curious planet, all things considered; and I advise you strongly to cultivate an interest in it. Your time, I assure you, will not be thrown away. You will find it more instructive than your own paltry world. Excuse my irreverence, but, compared to ours, your world cannot be but paltry. And that in more ways than one. I do not here speak of bulk. There is no virtue in mere bulk. There may be no solidity in bulk at all: it may contain only a half-penny worth of bread to an intolerable deal of sack. I mean that our world is an extremely lively place. Liveliness is its principal feature. We are so constituted that we cannot, for the lives of us, put up with the least dullness: like Falstaff, we forswear thin potations. We abjure dullness, as Christ abjured the devil, to get behind us. We crave for fun, even at the risk of our lives; we thrive in it, as the malarial parasite thrives on human blood. It is all very well for a certain class of men to hold the mirror up to a course of plain living and high thinking. Let them lead such a life that have a taste for it: we have recourse to other ways. Like Sydney Smith's onion in the bowl of salad, excitement forms the chief ingredient in ours lives. We are made of the stuff that deplores the cankers of a calm world and a long peace. "If I had been born a corsair or a pirate," thought Mr. Tappertit, "I should have been alright." Most of us think so, too.

This craving for excitement, indeed, has become almost a disease with us. We want to be in the thick of the crowd: the more we jostle and are jostled, the more we like it. We would not, if we could, miss even the least bit of fun: with us, it is ‘very stuff o’ the conscience.’ The speed with which we are rushed is simply incredible; yet there are those who complain that it is very slow. The truth of the matter is that our nervous organization is in a state of utter derangement. That is why we want to drink in excitement at every pore of our beings.

II

Recently, we had a war on. The peculiarity of it was that, though originating only in the West, it ‘broke,’ as it were, ‘its birth's invidious bar,’ and spread, more suo, to almost all the nooks and corners of the earth. This war, it need hardly be pointed out, was in a class by itself: as Cowley said of Pindar, it formed ‘a vast species alone.’ For folly and for frightfulness it had not its equal in the innumerable wars that preceded it. Indeed, before it, the latter were not wars at all; they were the merest playthings, the veriest trifles. This particular war, on the other hand, was a war all through a war from top to bottom, a war that could not possibly have any ‘damned nonsense’ about it. It allowed of no ‘asides,’ of no interregnum, of no ‘unbending’ whatever, but was one pitiless thing from beginning to end; in the immortal words of old Mrs. Sarah Battle, it consisted entirely of ‘the rigours of the game,’ and of nothing else. Moreover, it was a war that was fought–at least on one side–for righteousness, and for righteousness alone. The ‘mailed fist’ was used, it is true, but it was used for no other purpose than that of mercy. Ferocity there undoubtedly was, but only for the greater enforcement of kindliness and charity among the nations of the world. In short, it was, not to put too fine a point upon it, a war to end war. It was the last of its kind. It was just the black cloud that presaged eternal sunshine. It was, if you will, the storm that, for ever afterwards, foreshadowed the rainbow in the sky. As the politicians phrased it, it was to have made the world ‘safe for democracy’: it was to have brought about the long-expected Millennium, it was to have made possible another Eden on earth.

Those of us that, with any regularity, followed the newspapers during the four years of the war were simply amazed, were literally flabbergasted, at the marvellous moral purpose of England and France. The ‘Entente,’ as they were called, were, truth to tell, overflowing with the milk and cream of human kindness. They were righteous to their fingertips. They wore the white flower of a blameless life. They–especially England–were actuated by no mercenary motives, were prompted by no considerations of empire building. They joined the war–at least England did–just to succour Belgium and the other ‘small’ nationalities, just to prevent the Huns–as the Germans were labeled, no doubt from an excess of, politeness–from overrunning an innocent and peace-loving world. None could be more moral, none more saintly, none more self-abnegating, than England and France seemed. Never, in short, was there such a rage for right-living, for fair-play, and for all the rest of the human virtues: the atmosphere was surcharged with their good qualities. To adapt the words that Emerson used with regard to Burns’ songs,

"the wind whispered them, the birds whistled them, the corn, barley, and bulrushes hoarsely rustled them, nay, the music-boxes at Geneva were framed and toothed to play them; the hand-organs of the Savoyards in all cities repeated them, and the chimes of bells rang them in the spires."

Everything and everybody connived at spreading the gospel according to England and France–the avowed pillars of the world. We were almost persuaded that the angels were on their side, if not actually participating with them on the battlefield; and some, no doubt, could even point to circumstantial evidence in support of it. Cherubim and Seraphim were hovering over their lands closely scanning the daily situation as it unfolded itself; while Jove was ready with his thunderbolts to extinguish, to annihilate, Germany the moment the chances of war seemed to swing to her side. All things, then, in heaven and earth, promised well–for the ‘Entente’; and the actual end, though disappointing in the sense that–for all this extra-vagant display of righteousness–it robbed the saviour nations of a ‘winged’ victory, in the sense that it brought forth no brilliant denouement, was still in favour of them–certainly not in favour of Germany. And one did think that the Millennium which the war was to usher in, would actually dawn sooner or later, sooner rather than later: that, in the poet's words, a new Jerusalem would be built, not only ‘in England's green and pleasant land,’ but in every land–whether ‘green and pleasant,’ or not. The world was led by England and France, and no one had the temerity to doubt their sincerity.

III

The world, in short, was in a fair way of being disappointed: it put itself right in front of deception. Human nature is not metamorphosed suddenly, is not transformed beyond recognition, merely at the listening of a few well-turned phrases, a few rounded periods: it remains itself, no matter what happens, or fails to happen. We should not judge men–or nations, either–as they reveal themselves in a crisis: they obviously rise beyond themselves, but only just for a moment or so: to sink back again, fathoms deep, in the mire of their original, humdrum nature, so soon as the crisis passes, so soon as the great event subsides. As that eminent writer on foreign affairs, especially French affairs, Mr. Sisley Huddleston, puts it:

"We do not judge the sentiments and morals of a community by its behaviour in the evangelical camp; we judge them by its conduct in every-day life" ¹

In Rabelais we have a fine couplet:

"The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be:

The Devil was well, the Devil a monk was be!"

IV

By the way, have you the breed of politicians among you? Is the soil of Mars congenial to their growth? You see, we are strangely ignorant of the conditions that obtain there. You must have wars, no doubt; just by way of recreation, if for nothing else. We regard Mars as the god of war; ,and you would be lacking in a sense of humour if you were deficient in the chief article of your own produce. But, of course, stranger things have happened. Coming back to my question, have you the race of politicians on your circumambient heights? If you have not, you have missed a rare treat. Down here, they are more or less the staple food upon which we thrive. You may, in case you do not stock the commodity, require some sort of description of them. Well, tasks have to be faced; and though I am not a politician myself, and cannot speak from inside knowledge, I shall try to convey to you as accurate an impression of them as is humanly possible.

Politicians are neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring: they do not come under any exact definition. They are neither black, white, nor chocolate. They are not distinguishable by race, colour, or creed. Several species of men (not much resembling one another) are classed under politicians,-as mongrels, curs, shoughs, water-rugs, and demiwolves are all clept by the name of dogs. Every country possesses them, to a greater or lesser extent. Their essential characteristics are the same everywhere and at all times. "Age cannot wither, nor custom stale" their infinite variety. Without them life would become, in Hamlet's words, "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable." They have some common traits; they are the devil's finger in the cauldron of affairs, stirring up strife between nations. Wars owe their existence mainly to them. Of course, they are full of soft words. In fact, if you are to believe them, they are the very milk and cream of human kindness; and, if they had their way they would transform the whole world into a paradise. The pity of it is that, according to them, the rest of the world is not actuated by the same generous motives. Unfortunately, however, the shores of men's minds are nowadays washed by an unceasing tide of skepticism; and nobody's words, least of all the politician's, are taken at their face-value. Time was when they were regarded as sacred: you doubted them at your own soul's peril. But the well of people's faith has completely dried up. They had given the politicians a very extensive rope. But the politicians failed, and failed most miserably, in the hour of their trial. When they wanted the people's help, they paraded an interminable string of noble sentiments. The moment that help was given, there was an end to their eloquence; something, apparently, had stuck in their throats. It proved, in the end,

to be only a put-up job; and the truth slowly dawned upon the people's minds. The politicians had once again played their immemorial trick–and had succeeded. It was now the people's turn.

The much-boomed war ended–as wars have always ended. It did not, as promised, pave the way to eternal peace. If anything, it paved the way to even greater wars in the future. The wheel had come full circle; and things remained just where they were–much worse than they were. The wound was not healed: it was intensified.

If you want me to sum up, in one word, the exact nature of the world's mind just now, it is this: ‘Disenchantment.’ We have lost all illusions: the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. There is no believing in anything or in anybody. The war has knocked the bottom out of all Utopias. In the shifting sands of men's minds, no structure of the human imagination stands firmly. The centre of gravity has shifted–from intense belief to even more intense disbelief. To the average man of today, things are simply not.

Well, it has ever been so. We always feel that we have done a mighty fine thing, and then, lo! the truth of it flashes upon us just when our exultation is at its height. Something or other pricks the bubble of our vanity—and everything is reduced to mere soap and water. Do you fancy that our world has progressed much, since, first, it was sent rotating on its axis? Of progress in the real sense there has been none. We have been groping in the dark ever since the first man was created, or, as the evolutionists would have it, ever since the first man emerged from an anthropoid ape. Our feet do not rest on any solid bottom. For a few days, a certain ‘epoch-making’ discovery holds its sway, and then, like a fired rocket, falls to the ground in many-coloured particles.

They make a slight sensation, and then disappear altogether. They are like the bird that flies out of the dark void into the lighted banqueting hall and out into the void once more. In fact, most or our so-called discoveries are nothing; sometimes they are even contrary to the truth. Finally, we come back to the point from which we originally started. We are like the revellers in Mr. Chesterton's poem, who "went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head," and in the end did not get to Birmingham.

You will have gathered from all this that we of this earth live in a world of make-believe. Down here, In Longfellow's word, "All things are not what they seem." We are all like masked figures in a pantomime: our real selves are hidden from view. He succeeds most who pretends most: all that is needed is to talk loud and push your goods in front of you in a big enough barrow. Of course, there, are some that loathe this pretence. But they cannot help practising it themselves: else, they would go under. "Were it not better done as others use?" And so, even the still, small band of good fellows amongst us mingle their waters in the broad stream of human vanity.

Such is our world; I can but hope that yours is much better. I hope also that you exist and that all these words have not been addressed to the void. Do not, however, be under the impression that I have exhausted all information relative to our orb.

1 "The Hague Conference and After," by Mr. Sisley Huddleston. The Contemporary Review, October. 1929, p. 418.

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