Gladstonian Ghosts (Classic Reprint), Chesterton Cecil

As a philosopher you are able to see what no practical statesman on either side of the House seems likely to perceive - that social and economic politics are the only kind of politics that really matter, and that the chicken in-the-pot ideal of Henri Quatre is after all the primary aim of all states manship. Three centuries of anarchic commercialism have left us a legacy of pauperism, disease, famine, physical degeneracy and Spiritual demoralization, which in another century will infallibly destroy us altogether if we cannot in the mean time destroy them. And I think you share my impatience when our Radical friends insist on discussing Irish Home Rule, Church Disestablishment and the abolition of the House of Lords, as if such frivolities could really satisfythe human conscience faced with the appalling realities of the slums.

When therefore I Speak of your interest in politics I am not thinking of that rather exciting parlour game which they play at Westminster during the Spring months. In this you pro bably take less interest than I for I must confess (not altogether without shame) that the sporting aspect of politics has always fascinated me. You, on the other hand, have Bridge to amuse you and, when you are brought to the bar of the Nonconformist Con science on this count, you may fairly plead that any man who played Bridge with the peculiar mixture of ignorance, stupidity, criminal laziness and flagrant dishonesty with which the Front Benches play the game of politics, would in fallibly be turned out of his club and probably cut by all his acquaintances.

It may seem surprising that, taking this view of contemporary party warfare, I should have troubled to write a book in criticism of it. To which I can only reply that the parliamentary bridge players are unfortunately staking on their pastime not their own money but my countrys interests; so that the incidents of the game become im portant despite the frivolity of the players, and it seems to me that we are on the eve of a turn of luck which may prove not only important but disastrous.

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