RUDYARD KIPLING THE STRENGTH OF ENGLAND England's Day was celebrated by a festival dinner given by the Royal Society of St. George at the Connaught Rooms, London, April 23, 1920. Mr. Kipling presided and delivered the following address. Another speech by Mr. Kipling is printed in Volume XII. FIFTEEN or sixteen hundred years ago, when Rome was mistress of the world, and the Picts and the Scots kept to their own side of the Great Roman wall between Carlisle and Newcastle, the story goes that Rome allowed all these peoples one night in the year when they could say aloud exactly what they thought of Rome, without fear of consequences. On that one night, then, they crept out of the heather in droves, lit their little wandering fires, and criticized the Libyan generals, the Roman pontiffs, and the Eastern camp followers who looked down on them from the top of the huge unbreakable Roman wall 1,600 years ago. To-day, Imperial Rome is dead; the wall is down; the Picts and the Scots are on this side of it, but, thanks to the Royal Society of St. George, there is still one night in the year when the English can creep out of their hiding places and whisper to each other what we think about-ourselves. No! It is safer not to criticize our masters, who tax us, educate us, and try us, and minister so abundantly to what they instruct us our wants ought to be. Since these masters of ours have not quite the old untroubled assurance of power and experience which made Rome so tolerant in the days when the Picts and the Scots lived on the other side of the wall, we will confine ourselves to our own popular and well-recognized defects as a breed. Some of our sternest critics, who of course have always been Reprinted from The Times. M. Vivutá, your visit here in 1917 is so interwoven with things that are done to our hearts that it will always remain in the minds of the American people amongst their heroic memo Your visit now, in 1921, will always be a sweet memory. We had not forgotten, but you have helped us to remember. Your very presence arouses, reinvigorates and revives all the impulses which then gripped and drove us and made us worthy, morally, at least, to stand by the side of the heroes who, on so many battlefields, said, "They Shall Not Pass," and made that saying good at their infinite cost. [Loud applause.] As president of this Chamber, it is my proud privilege to present your distinguished guest: The first War Premier of France, great orator, great patriot, great Frenchman, René Viviani. [Cheering and loud applause.] 9 en, he i by RUDYARD KIPLING THE STRENGTH OF ENGLAN England's Day was celebrated by a jesuvum tide rarely s would But the er, though -vers of reStuart, Hol.democracy, ed on him and teach in turn in turn mistook ir trial, and when ssal. As an addidivided into waterer the water of pub-ould sweep his ship of of all this, the domes, he could always go to e which the Papal Legate, ..gate Chancellor of the Exighter.] FIFTEEN or sixteen hundred years.. tress of the world, and the Picts and the s side of the Great Roman wall bet the story goes that Rome allowed alu the year when they could say agar of Rome, without fear of co then, they crept out of the wandering fires, and critic pontiffs, and the Easter s them from the top of the years ago. To-day, Imperial Roy and the Scots are f Society of St the English to each of not to c and mir ought untro Rome fit of absence of mind-was come of the relaxations of perone cause or another were unfit e life. They did it in search of for summer holidays, and, like nal habits with them. They did harps and rebecks to celebrate their national heroes. When they them both for granted, they gened to impeach the other. But, by mb magic, they did establish and and security among simple folk in and that without overmuch murder, may be that the success of the Eng of our own household, say there never was such a thing as the English race that it is at best the intolerably insolent outcome of ancient invasions and immigrations, freshened with more recent Continental jail-deliveries. Far be it from me to transverse these statements. I give them on no less authority than that of the late Mr. Daniel Defoe,-a liveryman of the City of London, and author of "Robinson Crusoe" and a pamphlet called "The True-born Englishman." He deals with the English very faithfully-so faithfully that, in deference to the susceptibilities of other peoples, I will not give his account of an Englishman's pedigree. But, in his summing up of the trueborn Englishman, he says: A true-born Englishman's a contradiction In speech, an irony, in fact, a fiction, A metaphor intended to express A man akin to all the universe. In that last line Defoe, I think, has slipped into a blessing where he meant to curse; for "a man akin to all the universe" cannot be wholly vile. He must have some points of contact with humanity; and the Englishman has had several. The Phoenicians taught him the elements of shopkeeping; the Romans taught him love of sport by hiring him to fight beasts in their arenas. Under the Heptarchy he studied social reform, which in those unenlightened days consisted in raising a levy on capital to buy off the heathen of the North Sea from taking direct action against English industries. He next took a 300 years' course of colloquial and law French under eminent Norman teachers. He did not learn the language then or since, but it left him with a profound respect based on experience for his neighbors across the Channel, and a conviction, which time has deepened, that they were the only other people in the world who really mattered. For 500 years his domestic and foreign policy was largely controlled by Italian, French, and Spanish, with occasional Austrian politico-ecclesiastical authorities, who tried to teach him that "this realm of England" was but part of a vast international organization embracing, instructing, and protecting all the world. He escaped from these embraces only to be subjected to the full rigor of the Puritan conscience, which was then largely directed by gentlemen from Geneva, Leyden, Amsterdam, and the Low Countries. While thus employed he was, under pretext of union, finally and fatally subjugated by the Scots. A few years later he embarked on the swelling tide of party politics in all their purity, since when he has rarely been allowed to look backward-and never forward. I submit that such a nightmare of national experiences would have driven an unmixed race to the edge of lunacy. But the Englishman, like a built-up gun barrel, is all one temper, though welded of different materials, and he has strong powers of resistance. Roman, Norman, Papist, Cromwellian, Stuart, Hollander, Hanoverian aristocracy, middle-class and democracy, each in turn through a thousand years experimented on him and tried to make him to their own liking. He met each in turn with a large, silent toleration, which they each in turn mistook for native stupidity. He gave them each a fair trial, and when he had quite finished with them, a fair dismissal. As an additional safeguard he built up a social system divided into watertight compartments, so arranged that neither the water of public panic nor the fire of private revenge should sweep his ship of state from end to end. And if, in spite of all this, the domestic situation became too much for him, he could always go to sea and there seek or impose the peace which the Papal Legate, the medieval trade union, or a profligate Chancellor of the Exchequer denied him at home. [Laughter.] And thus, gentlemen-not in a fit of absence of mind-was the Empire born. It was the outcome of the relaxations of persecuted specialists, men who for one cause or another were unfit for the rough and tumble of home life. They did it in search of rest and change, much as we go for summer holidays, and, like ourselves, they took their national habits with them. They did not often gather together with harps and rebecks to celebrate their national glories or hymn their national heroes. When they did not, like ourselves, take them both for granted, they generally denied the one and tried to impeach the other. But, by some mysterious rule of thumb magic, they did establish and maintain a reasonable peace and security among simple folk in many parts of the world, and that without overmuch murder, oppression, or torture. It may be that the success of the Eng |