Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 4 of 4.—1892-1914

Lord Kitchener's Return

Lord Kitchener had returned in July, and Punch's welcome ends on a prophetic note: —

You're a worker from of old,K. of K.Pomps and pæans leave you cold,K. of K.You would like to land in mufti,You would hurry down the dockNot in trappings, plumed and tufty,But in checks and billycock!And you haven't, now It's over,Come to stay;Nor to lie at length in clover,But to change your train for Dover,K. of K.For, although the work's appallingWhich should have you here at hand,Yet you've heard the East a-callingOut of India's coral strand;And, as soon as time and placeLet our feelings find release,And we've called you, to your face,First in War and first in Peace; —Thither where the Empire needs you,K. of K.,And your own "Ubique" leads you,Lies your way!

Mr. Roosevelt had succeeded to the Presidency of the United States on the assassination of Mr. McKinley, and Punch, after condoling with Columbia, saluted the "Rough-Rider."

Our closer relations with Japan and their effect on Russia are symbolized in the cartoon in which she remarks as a tertia anything but gaudens: "H'm – I don't like these confidences." In Europe the subject that provoked Punch's closest attention was the treatment of the Poles by Germany. There is an amusing story in "Charivaria," probably apocryphal, but not beyond the possibilities of Prussian pedantry: —

Fifty Prussian schoolgirls have been arrested at Gnesen on a charge of high treason, and the police are said to have their eyes on several Kindergartens, where it is reported that the children have been playing "I'm the king of the Castle" and other games suggestive of Majestätsbeleidigung.

But the whole essence of "Prussification" is summed up in the last quatrain of a brilliant adaptation of the "Pied Piper of Hamelin" to the situation in Posen: —

You can take a Pole, as I understand,And play on his nerves with a German Band;But you can't convert his natural temper, orGet him to jig for a German Emperor.

Lord Salisbury had resigned in the summer of 1902, and Mr. Balfour had succeeded to the Premiership. It was not exactly a case of "Amurath to Amurath," but with nephew succeeding to uncle, and the presence of another nephew and a son-in-law in the Cabinet, there was some ground for the once familiar gibes against the "Hotel Cecil." Punch was not unfriendly to the new Premier, and applauded his handling of the negotiations initiated by Germany to secure a British subsidy to the German-controlled Baghdad railway. In "The Trap that Failed," the British Lion "doesn't like the look of it and resolves to go round the other way"; and the verses (after Omar Khayyám) indicate the surprise of "the Potter of Potsdam" at the unexpected firmness of Mr. Balfour. The gradual improvement of our relations with other foreign Powers is symbolized in "The Chain of Friendship," showing King Edward joining in a dance with France, Italy and Portugal; while the strengthening of the Anglo-French Entente is illustrated in the cartoon in which King Edward, presenting the British Lion, says to the French President: "See, M. Loubet, he offers you his paw." An element of reserve, however, is shown in a dialogue in French, mildly satirizing the new Anglomania; and in the burlesque sketch foreshadowing the ludicrous and disastrous influence on both countries of the Entente– e.g. the re-introduction of the duel on the initiative of the Daily Mail; the presentation of Waterloo Station to the French and, as a set-off, the presentation of the Keys of Calais to the Lord Mayor of London by the Paris Municipal Council. To turn from gay to grave, this was the year of the assassination of the King and Queen of Serbia, recorded in the cartoon of "Murder as the King Maker."

Ireland, Army Reform, and India

Home politics fill a larger space in 1903 in Punch's pages than for some years previously. Remedial legislation in Ireland inspires the cartoon of Mr. Balfour as St. Patrick – a saint invaluable to the harassed cartoonist – driving out the snakes of sedition. The basis of Mr. Wyndham's Land Purchase Act is well shown in the cartoon illustrating the financial relations of the two countries. Tenant and landlord both present money-boxes labelled "Land Purchase" to John Bull, asking him to "put a thrifle in them"; John Bull scratches his head, but he pays all the same. The difficulties of Mr. Brodrick in securing national support for Army Reform are set forth in the verses on "The Unhappy Warrior" (after Wordsworth), and the cartoon "Ready, aye unready," with John Bull asleep on sentry duty —à propos of the Report of the Royal Commission on the South African war. A little later, John Bull's short memory is satirized in his protest against the size of his new watch-dog. Forgetting that he had clamoured for increase, he now declares that he cannot afford him.

At the opening of the year Punch had lavishly chronicled the glories of the Delhi Durbar. "The Pilgrims to the East" included three members of his staff, who did justice to the occasion both with pen and pencil, and Sambourne's fine cartoon, "Vivat Imperator," forms an instructive pendant and palinode to Punch's anti-imperialist misgivings of 1876, when he regarded the assumption of the new title as a piece of shoddy Disraelian Orientalism.

Lord Salisbury's death in 1903 removed a great figure, whose prestige has grown with the knowledge available in later years. We have learned to revise the old view of his political stature as compared with that of Lord Beaconsfield, and to reject the often-quoted but quite erroneous saying attributed to Bismarck that he was "a lath painted to resemble iron." Punch's memorial tribute admits that he "nothing common did or mean": —

When Lord Salisbury, resigning the Premiership, practically retired from public life, a gap was made in the House of Lords no living man might fill. Only once has he returned to the scene of memorable labour. He came with the rest of the cloaked Peers to pay homage to King Edward the Seventh when first he seated himself on the throne which he had long regarded from the point of view of the Cross Benches. There was hope that the ex-Premier would, from time to time, still give the House and the country the advantage of his sagacious counsel, the pleasure of listening to his brilliant speech. But, like the other tall man in another chair, "his heart was worn with work." He was sick of the sometimes mean rivalry of political life, and felt he had earned his leisure.

In a manner unique Lord Salisbury had the faculty of standing apart from his fellow men, regarding them and appraising them as if he himself did not belong to the genus. It was as if a man from Mars had visited our planet, studying its pygmy population with amused, on the whole scornful interest. With one exception he was the only statesman who never bent the knee to the Baal known in political chatter as The Man in the Street. The exception is, of course, the Duke of Devonshire, who had further kinship with the Marquis in respect of absolute freedom from desire to get anything for himself out of the game of politics. Intellectually and morally – this latter more precious because more rare – Lord Salisbury uplifted and maintained at high level the standard of English public life. He was a man whom foreigners, equally with his own countrymen, unreservedly trusted, because of a personal quality worth the whole armoury of diplomacy.

With his withdrawal from the stage, the House of Lords as a debating assembly lost its chief attraction. It was worth sitting through a dreary couple of hours for the chance reward of hearing him speak. Whilst others discoursed he sat impassive, taking no note, making no sign of hearing, or caring about, what the noble lord on his legs said or left unspoken. Only a curious rapid movement of the crossed leg betokened cogitation, betrayed closest attention, and the framing of some sentences that would presently play about the adversary's head like forked lightning.

The Fiscal Fray

An event of greater immediate interest which coincided with the passing of Lord Salisbury was the resignation of Mr. Chamberlain. On his return from a strenuous and exhausting tour in South Africa, he had thrown himself with immense energy into the Tariff Reform campaign, and withdrew from the Cabinet in order to devote his entire energies to the prosecution of the cause. Punch's pages throughout the second half of 1903 furnish a lively chronicle of the progress of Mr. Chamberlain's crusade and the wonderful egg-dance of Mr. Balfour. Early in September the situation is portrayed in "The Parting of the Ways." Mr. Balfour, "long troubled by philosophic doubt," is shown on the road with a knapsack labelled "Treasury Returns" and "Board of Trade Returns," looking at a sign-post, one arm pointing to Chatsworth, the other to Highbury, and saying: "Well, now, I suppose I must really make up my mind."

A week later we have the Fiscal Hamlet in "The Unready Reckoner." Prince Arthur remarks: "O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not the art to reckon," while on the wall hangs a portrait of Mr. Chamberlain as Ophelia. In November, under the heading "An Eye for Effect," Punch exhibits "Foreign Competition" as a Guy on a barrow, with Mr. Chamberlain in charge and conversing with Mr. Balfour: —

Arthur: "Ain't you made 'im too 'orrible?"

Joe: "No fear! You can't make 'em too 'orrible!"

Simultaneously, Punch published a burlesque on the Daily Mail's canvass, with expressions of opinion from Henry James, Rudyard Kipling and Mr. A. B. Walkley. The Daily Express, not to be outdone, offered a prize of £25 to the owner of the first parrot taught to speak distinctly the phrase: "Your food will cost you more." The "folly of the fray" was not overlooked, but Punch did not misread its essential significance in his cartoon of Mr. Chamberlain in the guise of the political Ancient Mariner who had slain the albatross of Conservative unity.

Foreign politics once more dominated the scene in 1904, when the legacy of friction, bequeathed by Russia's intervention at the close of the Chino-Japanese war and her Manchurian policy after the "Boxer" outbreak, bore its inevitable fruit in the Russo-Japanese war. The sympathy of England with Japan is reflected in the pages of Punch. He rebuked the hissing of Russian performers at a performance in the provinces; but satirized the indignation generally expressed in Russia that Japan should have begun hostilities without a formal declaration, or, as Punch put it, without consulting Russia as to whether the date was convenient to her. The fervent patriotism of the Japanese army is cordially applauded: John Bull is shown in a mood of envy, thinking he must try to introduce it at home. The unfortunate Dogger Bank incident, when Admiral Rozhdestvensky's fleet, on their way out to the Far East, fired on a fleet of British trawlers, aroused great indignation, mixed with bitter satire of Russian nerves and thrasonical satisfaction. Punch published a scarifying parody of Campbell's "Battle of the Baltic" on this "famous victory" over a "hostile trawling fleet" engaged in "gutting plaice." Later on in "Admirals All" there is an equally sarcastic comment on the Report of the North Sea Court of Inquiry, at which the Russians were exculpated by an Austrian Admiral. Nor was Punch's indignation expressed against Russia alone. The acceptance of Russian orders by British coal exporters is chastised in a cartoon with the legend as under: —

Old King CoalWas a sordid old soul,And a sordid old soul was he:He sold to the Russ,And he didn't care a cuss,And the Baltic fleet crossed the sea.

On the fall of Port Arthur, however, Punch did not forget to acknowledge the heroism of the defence: here, at least, "the honour of the Russian eagle was untarnished." The war ended in May, 1905, but before its close Russian internal unrest had become menacing and hampered the prosecution of hostilities. Punch read the signs of the times truly in his cartoon of Death as the Czar of all the Russias, with a figure holding a "Petition" lying slain at his feet; and again in his rather cruel verses to "The Little Father": —

THE LITTLE FATHERNichol, Nichol, little Czar,How I wonder where you are!You who thought it best to fly,Being so afraid to die.Now the sullen crowds are gone,Now there's nought to fire upon;Sweet your sleigh bells ring afar,Tinkle, tinkle, little Czar.Little Czar, with soul so small,How are you a Czar at all?Yours had been a happier lotIn some peasant's humble cot.Yet to you was given a dayWith a noble part to play,As an Emperor and a Man;When it came – "then Nicky ran."Little Czar, beware the hourWhen the people strikes at Power;Soul and body held in thrall,They are human after all.Thrones that reek of blood and tearsFall before the avenging years.While you watch your sinking star,Tremble, tremble, little Czar!

The contrasted outlook in Russia and Japan is shown in "Peace and After" – gloom and storm in the one country, general rejoicing in the other. The signing of the Peace in October brought mutiny and insurrection in Russia, repressed for the moment by grape-shot and concessions. Punch distrusted the former method, and warned the Tsar through the mouth of Louis XVI: "Side with the people, Sire, while there is yet time. I was too late." The instalment of constitutional government granted was shorn of its grace by the antecedent display of ruthlessness. Punch typified this situation in his cartoon of the Tsar armed with a sword and leaning on a cannon, with corpses strewn around, and saying: "Now I think the way is clear for universal suffrage." But Punch was premature in saluting the first Duma – opened by the Tsar in person in May, 1906 – as the Infant Hercules strangling the twin snakes of Bureaucracy and Despotism. It was the Duma which was strangled by these forces, of which the first was the more potent and malign.

Belgium and Germany

Another foreign monarch who came in for severe criticism in these years was King Leopold II of the Belgians. Quite recently he had been treated by Punch with a benevolence that bordered on fulsomeness. But 1904 was the year of the "Congo Atrocities," and Punch, in a cartoon modelled on the ancient Egyptian lines, compared him with the Pharaoh Rameses II whose scribes counted over the hands cut from his vanquished enemies. This was suggested by the stories of the similar treatment of the natives in the rubber plantations vouched for by the British Consul at Boma. The value of this evidence has since been impaired by the fact that the Consul in question was none other than Roger Casement. From Belgium to Germany the transition is easy. In the last two years of the Unionist administration, German aggressiveness is a constant theme of comment, mainly inspired by misgiving, occasionally enlivened by burlesque belittlement of scaremongers. To the latter category belongs the forecast, at the close of 1904, of the invasion of London, seized during a week-end exodus of its inhabitants. Nor should we fail to note the series of appreciative articles on life in Berlin in 1905, in which "Tom the Tourist" finds the German capital "one of the liveliest, pleasantest and handsomest of cities," and descants on its good beer, pleasant company, genial hospitality, and the absence of any sign of hatred of the British. The writer even goes so far as to compare the Sieges-Allée favourably with some of the statuary of London. But a different note is struck in the lines on the vicarious patriotism of those who objected to conscription; in the references to the inadequacy of our coast defences; in the satisfaction expressed in the appointment of Sir John Fisher as First Sea Lord, and the improvement in naval gunnery; and in the satire directed against the new German Chancellor, Count von Bülow, for his cynical "blague." As "Der Taubadler," he reproves President Roosevelt for Jingoism, and declares: —

Our passion for ruling the brineIs based on a single and pure design —To serve as a sort of Marine Police,Patrons of Universal Peace.

Lord Roberts's warning speech at the London Chamber of Commerce in the late summer of 1902 had prompted the cartoon "The Call to Arms." John Bull, aroused from slumber and only half-awake, asks "What's wrong?" Lord Roberts, the warning warder, replies: "You are absolutely unfitted and unprepared for war!" whereon John Bull rejoins drowsily: "Am I? You do surprise me," and goes to bed again. Growing distrust of the Kaiser is shown in the cartoon in which he figures as "The Sower of Tares" after Millais's picture, while Punch simultaneously manifests his satisfaction at the strengthening of the Anglo-French Entente. The British working man, if Punch is to be believed, disliked all foreigners, but his pet aversion was "them blooming Germans." There was, at any rate, a legitimate grievance in the fact that fifty-nine foreign pilots were employed on our coasts, whereas abroad our ships were compelled to take native pilots; and the Nelson Centenary on October 21, 1905, impelled Punch, in an address to the hero of Trafalgar, to deplore the decay of national patriotism in a vein of pessimism happily falsified ten years later: —

Much you would have to marvel atCould you return this autumn-tide;You'd find the Fleet – thank God for that —Staunch and alert as when you died;But, elsewhere, few to play your part,Ready at need and ripe for action;The rest – in idle ease of heartSmiling an unctuous satisfaction.I doubt if you could well endureThese new ideals (so changed we are),Undreamed, Horatio, in yourPhilosophy of Trafalgar;And, should you still "expect" to seeThe standard reached which you erected,Nothing just now would seem to beSo certain as the unexpected.

John Bull (aroused from slumber and only half awake): "What's wrong?"

Lord Roberts (the warning Warder): "You are absolutely unfitted and unprepared for war!"

John Bull (drowsily): "Am I? You do surprise me!" (Goes to bed again.)

(Vide speech by Lord Roberts at meeting of London Chamber of Commerce, Mansion House.)

The "decline and fall" of the Unionist administration are symbolized and explained in two cartoons in the late summer of 1905. In one Mr. Balfour is seen, a lonely swimmer, wallowing in the sea of Public Opinion. A voice from the Tug (Tory Organization) hails him, urging him to keep afloat and he'll "drift in to the shore" (Session 1906). He replies that he "can't do much against a tide like this." The sources of weakness are even better diagnosed in the cartoon of August 30, "Shelved," showing the group of statesmen who had resigned – the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Ritchie, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Lord George Hamilton and Mr. George Wyndham.

The rout of the Government at the General Election of 1906 was a veritable débâcle. Liberal candidates were returned who never got in before or after: there is a story of one so overwhelmed by his wholly unexpected success that he fainted on the declaration of the poll. Ministers went down like ninepins, and on the meeting of the new Parliament Punch descants on the disappearance of the "old familiar faces" – Mr. Arthur Balfour and his brother Gerald, Alfred Lyttelton and St. John Brodrick, Bonar Law, Sir John Gorst, Sir Albert Rollit, Sir W. Hart Dyke, Gibson Bowles, and, "saddest fate of all and most lamented," Mr. Henry Chaplin. The emergence of a new, formidable, but uncertain factor was at once recognized in the cartoon in which John Bull looks over the wall at a bull labelled Labour Vote. The Trade Disputes Bill, the first and most notable concession to the demands of Trade Unionism, is discussed in the next section.

Britannia: "That's a nasty-looking object, Mr. Boatman!"

Lord Tw-dm-th: "Bless your 'eart, mum, 'e won't 'urt you. I've been here, man an' boy, for the last six months, an' we don't take no account o' them things!"

Punch was more preoccupied with Lord Haldane's new army scheme, and when the War Minister, in introducing it, declared that the country would not be "dragooned into conscription," interpreted his statement "in other and less conventional terms" as indicating a conviction that "it is the inalienable right of the free-born British citizen to decline to lift a finger in his country's defence." Lord Haldane's proposals for retrenchment are symbolized in his efforts to make big toy soldiers fit his box, instead of making the box fit the soldiers. Wasters and loafers who had cheered "Bobs" on his return from South Africa are shown expressing indignation at his wanting to enforce universal military service. Punch's reluctant admission of our national lethargy finds vent in a dialogue emphasizing the predominance of the Panem et Circenses spirit – devotion to the Big Loaf and spectacular games – coupled with a loss of our supremacy in games. The pageant mania became acute in 1907, when Punch satirically asks, "Can you cite any other country where it is impossible to walk out of doors without colliding with an historical pageant?"

Lord Haldane's visit to Germany in 1906 is burlesqued in a diary professing to reveal his paramount interest in German philosophy and literature; and a picture, in which he appears in a Pickelhaube, expresses the misgivings of two British soldiers who had overheard him "talking to himself in German – something horrible." This attitude of critical distrust is maintained throughout the next four years. In March, 1908, the new gun designed for the Territorial Force prompts a dialogue between the War Minister and Field-Marshal Punch: —

Mr. Haldane: "In the event of invasion, I shall depend upon my brave Territorial force to manipulate this magnificent and complicated weapon."

F. – M. Punch: "Going to give them any training?"

Mr. H.: "Oh, perhaps a fortnight or so a year."

F. – M. Punch: "Ah! Then they'll need to be pretty brave, won't they?"

Further satire is expended in August of the same year on "A Skeleton Army; or, The Charge of the Very Light Brigade": —

Haldane (at Cavalry Manoeuvres): "You see those three men? Well, they're pretending to be one hundred. Isn't that imaginative?"

Mr. Punch: "Realistic, you mean. That's about what it will come to with us in real warfare."

Shade of Paul Krüger: "What! Botha Premier? Well, these English do 'stagger humanity'!"

Punch was not happy about our Navy either, and in 1906 he had rallied Lord Tweedmouth, then at the Admiralty, for reassuring Britannia against the German menace. It was no use to say, "We don't take no account of them things"; the monster was there, and could not be belittled. By the end of the year, however, Punch's complacency was restored by the advance in our naval gunnery, and Britannia is seen proudly showing the impressive tabulated results of our big gun practice. The Germans are the only modern people who have a single word to express delight in the misfortunes of others —Schadenfreude. It is not a noble sentiment, but a suspicion of it mingles with Punch's comments on Germany's internal troubles. In 1878 he had shown Bismarck squeezing down the Socialist Jack-in-the-Box, and nearly thirty years later repeats the formula at the expense of Count von Bülow; but the Socialist Jack-in-the-Box was now a much more formidable figure: it was "a bigger task for a smaller man."

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Triple Alliance fell in 1907, and Punch indicated that Italy's allegiance was already wearing thin. In performing the trio "We are a happy Family," Austria's "We are" is marked piano, and that of Italy dubioso.

In the domain of high politics, Imperial and International, 1907 was marked by two notable events. The grant of autonomy to the Transvaal undoubtedly contained an element of risk, but the sequel showed that magnanimity was the best policy. General Botha's Premiership proved a symbol of reconciliation destined in time to bear "rare and refreshing fruit," and Punch was fairly entitled to invoke the reluctant testimony of Krüger's shade: "What! Botha Premier? Well, these English do 'stagger humanity'!" Secondly, there was the Hague Conference, over which Punch maintained his attitude of scepticism, on the ground that each Power was unwilling to lead the way in disarmament. In his cartoon of the various nations at the door of the Conference everybody says, "After you, Sir," to everybody else. The Government's extensive programme of legislation for the following session is shown in the picture of "C. – B." at the piano accompanying the Infant Prodigy, 1908. The programme includes the "Twilight of the Lords," "Etudes Pacifiques"; "Danse anti-Bacchanale" and "Irish Rhapsody" with Campobello, McKenna, Asquith and Birrell as soloists. The campaign against the Lords, opened at Edinburgh by "C. – B." in October, 1907, suggested the cartoon of the "Fiery Cross" with the Premier as a kilted warrior shouting, "Doon wi' the Lords!" while the accompanying verses, in the ballad manner of Scott, describe the passing on of the fiery cross by Lord Crewe, John Morley, Mr. Sinclair (now Lord Pentland), Lord Tweedmouth, Mr. Runciman, and "Lloyd McGeorge."