1+ 
Land & Water 
February 2n, 1910 
not tlie knowle.if.''* that national power exists, but that they, 
the people, have it in their own control. If the jwwer exists, 
but is uncontrolled in its action or subject to control which 
is not in their hands, then its existence will only serve to 
spread the sense of powerlessness in the people who stand 
in its presence. This is the actual state of things at the 
present moment. 
If one were asked to name off-hand the outstanding feature 
of our present political life the answer would probably be " the 
growing power of the masses " ; and there is an obvious sense 
in which the answer might be accepted as true. It correctly 
describes the fact that policy is Ix'coming less dependent on 
the wills of a few and more susce]jtible to forces which originate 
with the masses of the people. But if it were offered as an 
account of our p(^^)litical psychology, as meaning that the 
average citizen is conscious of growing {wwer as a political 
unit, I .should be inclined to question its truth, even to say 
that it is the reverse of true. In the consciousness of the 
citizen, whether working man or any. other, it is the sense 
of powerlessness and not the sense of power which for the 
moment has the ascendancy. 
There is a widespread feeling at work that the human world 
of to-day, the world with wliich high politics is concerned, 
has gro\yn too big to be manageable by any existing methods 
of political control ; that neither representative government 
nor government of any other type is competent to deal with 
the immense and incalculable forces of which modern com- 
munities are the seat. This feeling, which is only just begin- 
ning to reach the stage of an articulate idea, is a consequence, 
unforeseen by early political thinkers, of the enormous increase 
of mass, measured in terms of jxipulation, which has taken 
place in all the great empires of the world. On every hand 
the signs are multiplying that policy, seeking to control the 
destinies of these masses, is unable to cope with its problems. 
In the e.xpressive vernacular of a working man with whom 
I was recently discussing these questions in a Northern town, 
'the Governments of Europe have all bitten off more than 
they can chew " ; and he went on to speak, with much intelli- 
gence, I thought, of the Russian revolution, and of Russia 
Itself as a country whose very bigness rendered it unmanage- 
able. Needless to say the war has given a new vitality to 
these thoughts. 
Whatever the true causes of the war may have been, 
the peoples of Europe know very well that it is none 
of their doing, and this has greatly deepened the feel- 
ing of helplessness, the sense that they are at the mercy 
of elemental powers— and that not in one class alone, but in 
^"- .J.*'^ ^ complicated state of mind and full of strange 
possibilities for the future history of the world. One might 
expect that a man would gain a new sense of power in remem- 
benng that he is an active member of a community of fifty or 
a hundred million souls. Just now it serves rather to remind 
him of his powerlessness. What can he do as a mere unit in 
a totality so enormous ? He seems to himself a scarcely 
noticeable atom, impotent to affect the destinies of the State 
one way or another. What wonder that his patriotism is 
apt to be confused, or to disappear altogether, as it seems to 
have done in Russia. 
Concurrent, then, with the sense of power, expressed in 
our many schemes of " world-dominion," we have to reckon 
with an opposite tendency — a growing lack of faith in tlie 
value of }X)litical action, and in the efficacy of what has hitherto 
been called " government." What the outcome of these 
opposing currents will be it would be dangerous to forecast. 
Much will depend on the precise form in which the war comes 
to an end. A German victory would unquestionably tend 
to perpetuate the e.xisting political system of Europe, a system 
profoundly distrusted, and for good reasons, by the people. 
There would be more centralisation than ever. And that 
not only on the part of Germany ; for the defeated empires 
would do their best to consolidate their vast territories and 
populations with a view to the subsequent overthrow of the 
conqueror. A victory of the Allies, on the other hand, would 
open the way to a drastic revision of the whole structure of 
modern empire. I use the word revision rather than revolu- 
tion, in t]-Lf coming of which I do not believe ; and I hazard 
the guess that it would take the form of decentralisation on a 
principle of world policy. 
It is certain that one of the chief forces which accounts for 
the growth of great empires, and maintains them in their 
enormous unities, has been the necessity, real or supposed, 
of resisting each other's aggression. If the war ends in such 
a way as to ensure the future peace ot the world — and this it 
can only do by the victory of the AllieS— the fear of mutual 
aggression will be removed ; which is as much as to say that 
the military reason for the existence of the present empires 
will be open to revision. What will follow ? What I imagine 
is not a revolutionary attack upon existing Governments but 
a movement working behind them towards a new grouping of 
mankind, which will cut across the present territorial divisions 
of the world, and lead to the creation of many new com- 
munities. Into this movement the Governments themselves 
will be swept sooner or later ; they will, in fact, be called 
upon to direct it, and overthrown only in the event of their 
proving incompetent to the task. The sense of power and 
the sense of powerlessness have both to be reckoned with. 
Just because the people are aware of their power they will 
not endure a day longer than is necessary the state of power- 
lessness to which the political system of Europe has reduced 
them. So long as the war lasts they will probably endure it 
refusing to follow the abortive and bad example of Russia' 
But afterwards ? 
[N.B— Though this story is based on an actual incident, 
the characters as described here are wholly imaginary.] 
MY DEAR NAP," said the captain of H.M. 
destroyer " Bloodhound " to his First Lieu- 
tenant, "zeal is excellent in its right place. 
In the abstract it is, I suppose, always a 
, desirable trait in either one's own or anyone 
else s character, but in real life it is often a dashed nuisance " 
Lieutenant-Commander Airmach lit another cigarette and 
continued : — ■ ' 
" Take the Gunner." 
At these words Lieutenant Clambos, sometimes caUed 
Napoleon.from the shape of his head, but more often linown 
as iNap stirred uneasily on the settee upon which' he was 
lying and murmured something that seemed to be in the 
nature ot a prayer. 
somewhat "'''^''"^ ^^^^ thinking of the Gunner moved him 
Airmadl" ''^ ^'' ""^"'^ ^^"^ °^''^' '^^^'" gloo^^^y remarked 
"Do you mean the grabby's* dinner-party we eave ? " 
in(juired the recumbent First Lieutenant ^ ^ ^^ ^^^^ ' 
therP f"* ^''°" ', ^\^'^'^ r* ''^'^" anything else since, has 
there .' an.xiousiy demanded Airmach 
Oh, only last night he fired a rifle bullet across a flag- 
officer s barge, which was taking the old boy back from a 
dinner-party in the flagship. The boat had engines that 
oTSursTThe'c' ' '"'•'""^'^^'^ 't^""' ^'"^'^ rag-tim'e band so 
CnrlT coxswain never heard the hail and our Mr. 
Cocker assumed it was a T urkish destroyer or other 'ostile 
* Sailors' nickname for a soldier. 
Zeal : By Etienne 
craft and fired a shot across his bows. The flag-officer was in 
the stern sheets digesting, and- though he was a hundred 
yards off, it was quite easy to see the colour of his face by the 
light of his cigar, they harmonised somewhat," eloquently 
concluded Clambos. ^ 
'' Well it might be worse," remarked the skipper. " He 
didn t hit anyone, did he .? " . 
"We haven't had the Service letter about it yet," said the 
i-irst J^ieutenant, " so he may have done for all I know. Lord ! 
Straits '^" '" ^^'^ ^^''^*'' '^^" '^ '* ""'' *''™ *° ^^^''°^ *^^ 
"To-morrow at dawn my boy, will see you hauling the 
hook up on the fo c'sle. We've got to patrol the West flank 
trom 9 a.m for twenty-four hours. I hope that perishin' 
field gun on Gaba el Wad has been flopped out by the Anzacs. 
Johnnie Turk will catch us bending with it one day I bet 
they ve got some swine of a Hun spotting for them " 
A propos of that gun," remarked Clambos, "Mr. Cocker 
told me he had a scheme for silencing it " 
" No doubt he has," replied Airmach. " Our Mr. Cocker 
has a scheme for most enterprises. I shouldn't object to them if 
they didn t invariably recoil on my head," with which remark 
A^"^ Y ^^"' """"^ ''^^^^'^^ ^f tl^ere was any soda on board. 
Mr. Carlo Bimpero. Maltese steward, second class, answered 
the summons and replied in the negative. 
'I Have we any beer ? " demanded the Captain 
No, Sah ! " briskly replied Carlo 
CanS^ "n'/v"w n"^ K ^"dignantly demanded the 
Captain. Didn t I tell you last Thursday to get some from 
the store ship next time we were in the base ? " 
to fv, ; ^'''' .' • ^""^ \^?\ ^''^ ^ ^°- ^ tell you Signer I go myself 
to the store ship and I bring the beer. It was Monday, Signor. 
I remember the day, Sah, because I getta a lettah from my wifa 
