Note 50 — YOUTH AND AGE (continued 7)

Curiously enough, they do not recognize this, but rather pride themselves upon being shrewd, commonsense, practical business-men, “a nation of shopkeepers”—although their entire history shows the contrary. That history is epitomized in such an expression as “England the Unready,” or, in the King’s appeal, “Wake up, England!” That they are idealists and dreamers can be shown by numberless facts. For example, what have they supported in the sacred name of Liberty? The laissez-faire doctrine, that law is an infringement of freedom, and, therefore, that cruelty, abuses, and absurdities must not be interfered with; the theory that England should be the home of freedom, and, therefore, that the scum of Europe shall infect the nation; the “Palladium of English Liberty,” Trial by Jury, which means the appointment of inexperienced, irresponsible, and easily-biassed judges; the economic policy, which, because it is falsely labelled Free Trade, becomes a fetish against which no practical objection must be urged and no lesson learned from the experience of other countries. On the other hand, our experience in the present war is a proof that the imaginative faculties are more powerful than mere intellect: for, when the Englishman bends his energies to the business of war, he soon surpasses the German for all his fifty years’ preparation. See p. 39.