They are in the stage of
those mediaeval scholars who contentedly alleged separate primary causes
for each phenomenon, instead of seeking, by the investigation of
secondary ones, for the inevitable interdependence of the whole. In
other words, they do not subordinate facts; they co-ordinate them. Your
politicians and all your public men are guided by impulse - by
expediency, as they prefer to call it; they are empirical; they never
attempt to codify their conduct; they despise it as theorizing. What
happens? This old-fashioned hand-to-mouth system of theirs invariably
breaks down here and there. And then f Then they trust to some divine
interposition, some accident, to put things to rights again. The success
of the English is largely built up on such accidents - on the mistakes of
other people. Provi dence has favoured them so far, on the whole; but
one day it may leave them in the lurch, as it did the anti-scientific
Russians in their war with the Japanese. One day other people will
forget to make these pleasant mistakes."
He paused, and I forbore to interrupt his eloquence.
"To come now to the practical application - to this particular instance.
Tell me, does your English system testify to any constructive
forethought? In London, I am assured, the railway companies have built
stations at enormous expense in the very heart of the town. What will be
the consequence of this hand-to-mouth policy? This, that in fifty years
such structures will have become obsolete - stranded in slums at the back
of new quarters yet undreamed of. New depots will have to be built.
Whereas in Italy the now distant city will in fifty years have grown to
reach its station and, in another half-century, will have encircled it.
Thanks to our sagacity, the station will then be in its proper place, in
the centre of the town. Our progeny will be grateful; and that again,
you will admit, is a worthy aim for our politicians. Besides, what would
happen to our coachmen if nobody needed their services on arriving at
his destination? The poor men must not be allowed to starve! Cold head
and warm heart, you know; humanitarian considerations cannot be thrust
aside by a community that prides itself on being truly civilized. I
trust I have made myself intelligible?"
"You always do. But why should I incommode myself to please your
progeny, or even my own? And I don't like the kind of warm heart that
subordinates my concerns to those of a cab-driver. You don't altogether
convince me, dear sir."
"To speak frankly, I sometimes don't convince myself. My own country
station, for example, is curiously remote from the city, and it is
annoying on wintry nights to drive through six miles of level mud when
you are anxious to reach home and dinner; so much so that, in my
egoistical moments, I would have been glad if our administration had
adopted the more specious British method.
