CHAPTER L PREV THE UNITY OF THE ENGLISH REVIOUS chapters contain frequent references to political strife and contention. This is necessitated by the fact that the Constitution to be described and accounted for is apparently based upon political parties. "Political parties," said Mr. Bagehot, "are of the very essence of the Constitution." If we are to account for the origin of political parties, we can find it only in the contentions of the preceding centuries. It is easier to write a history of the wars and strifes of a nation than it is to write a history of its harmonies and concords; yet a knowledge of the harmonies and concords is vastly more important than is a knowledge of the strife. The natural tendency of faction and civil strife is to produce anarchy and to destroy the State. But in the case of England, we have seen that the State has not been destroyed. There has been seen in the midst of the conflict a prevailing tendency to greater unity. When the English desire to condemn a policy which the government seeks to foist upon them, and have exhausted the ordinary arguments against the measure, they have a way of putting forth as the final, conclusive argument the declaration, "It is unEnglish." The assumption is that not a man, woman, or child in the kingdom can be found to approve a thing which is un-English. It is this feeling of unity which is, after all, the impor tant element in the English Constitution. But for it the Constitution would collapse. A history which should make clear the process whereby the sentiment of national unity has been developed would be worth more to the race than all the histories of the English people and their government which have yet been produced. The history of political strife does not account for the national harmony. National harmony has grown in spite of the strife, but not because of it; it has persisted in spite of cruelty and oppression, but not because of them. The history of war and oppression and of political contest of every sort is of use chiefly as it sheds light upon the growth of national unity. It is one thing to say that the present English Constitution is based upon party, but it is quite another thing to say that partisan strife tends to promote the stability of the Constitution. A political meeting held in South London some years ago had been announced by the officers of the Liberal party as a meeting of labouring men to be addressed by a man with a wide reputation as an authority on the industrial history of England. The opening sentence in his address was a startling statement to the effect that the Tory party was a party of rapine and plunder, and the spirit of the entire address was in harmony with that declaration. Now the more intelligent labouring men in the audience knew perfectly that they were not expected to believe such statements, in a partisan speech delivered for partisan purposes. They knew that it is the custom of some party leaders to pretend to believe that the other party is on the point of leading the country to ruin. If the rank and file of the parties accepted as true what is said in partisan debate, the present form of government would be impossible. This war of words has taken the place of the former wars with the sword. It is a more civilized method of warfare suited to the milder age in which we live. As it is a mistake to suppose that the civil wars of the past are a cause of the national unity, so it is now a mistake to suppose that partisan verbal strife is a cause of the stability of the Constitution. The Constitution exists in spite of partisan debate, and not because of it. The present Constitution depends for its stability upon the rational and conservative character of the people. By a study of the history of political strife we may gain a satisfactory view of the origin of the Crown and its present place in the Constitution; of the Cabinet and its present position; of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the Church, the courts, and the voting constituency. The present relations of all these and how they came to be what they are may be learned from the history of political strife. But the most important factor of all, the spirit and temper of the people, are all the time assumed. There is little attempt to account for them. History as generally written may properly be defined as a narration of the more easily observed and less important experiences of social and political life; and English history, even English constitutional history, is no exception to this definition. It is possible to get some suggestions as to the early development and growth of the national spirit among the English people from the character of King Alfred. It matters little whether the life of King Alfred is fact or fiction; he embodies for his countrymen a high ideal of self-sacrifice and service for the good of his fellow-men. It is an important fact that Englishmen of all classes have had such a character held up for their admiration, just as the veneration of Americans for Washington has been to them an untold blessing. Such characters are a constant rebuke to self-seeking; a constant stimulus to self-sacrifice for the common good. With something of the same affectionate feeling with which they regarded their good King Alfred, the early English looked upon the good laws of the past. The laws of Edgar and the laws of Edward the Confessor were a hallowed memory. The alien kings won the affections of their English subjects by manifesting a friendly spirit towards the good laws of former times. These were not regarded as harsh and arbitrary enactments such as the Tudors imposed upon the powerful classes. They were believed to embody the good ways of a more favoured age. And when the barons forced Magna Charta from the unwilling John, the people understood that document to contain a summary of all the good customs of the past. The English may also have learned lessons of brotherly love from the French who came over with the Conqueror, and settled and lived among them. History has, it is true, given emphasis to a very different set of facts. The brutality and the cruelty of the event were much more easily observed than the sympathy and the affection which sprang up between the alien peoples. In his charter to the city of London the Conqueror expressed his will that his English and French subjects should alike enjoy their accustomed privileges. From the beginning, the under-tenantry among the Normans manifested a disposition to unite with the English tenants in like condition to maintain their common rights. This, it may be said, is a mere incident in the strife of the under-tenants against their lords; nevertheless, it is an incident of greater consequence than the fact of the strife. The fusing of French and English into one people having one language and one interest, is the great fact of the period. At the same time it is a fact of such a character that the historian has found in it few incidents. It belongs to that part of history which is too important, too much of the nature of common life, to furnish an extended field for interesting narration. It undoubtedly has tended to unity and to ultimate good government in England that France has so much of the time fulfilled the mission of supplying an example of conditions to be dreaded and avoided. In the fact that the weakness of the French Crown had led to anarchy and confusion the Conqueror found a strong motive for husbanding every element of strength in the English Crown. In more recent centuries, when the Stuarts were striving to fasten upon the English an absolute government, the absolute rule of the Bourbons appeared as an example to be avoided and resisted. Still later, while democracy has run riot in France, the English have by common consent taken on democracy in a restrained, conservative manner. But one of the most important sources of unity and harmony among the English has been the Christian religion. The character of King Alfred had power over the people because it was a Christian character. When we read of the oppressions of barons and bishops, and all who were in places of power, we forget that these same people were Christians. There is no more reason to believe that they were hypocrites than there is to believe that the corresponding classes to-day are hypocrites. To the mind. of the Christian, it is meritorious to suffer a wrong rather than to commit a wrong. Brutal and cruel as the strife often was, it was at all times tempered and mollified by the facts of Christian experience. The innumerable charities and benevolent institutions of the Middle Ages were gifts from the rich ruling classes. We have no right to assume that when the barons sought to win the support of the people, they were wholly devoid of interest in their wellbeing. Much less have we a right to suppose that the clergy were void of interest in the welfare of the people. We reprobate the conduct of the clergy because they failed to act in accordance with the highest ideals of Christian requirement. We do not appreciate, as we ought, |