I cannot remember any scene like this in Disraeli’s novels.  The House of Commons used to be called the best club in Europe.  But that, says the Conservative critic, was before the members were paid.

II

But certain changes, like the increased cost of living, are going on everywhere.  The fact seems to be that all over the civilized world there is a noticeable falling-off in good manners in public discussion.  It is useless for one country to point the finger of scorn at another, or to assume an air of injured politeness.  It is more conducive to good understanding to join in a general confession of sin.  We are all miserable offenders, and there is little to choose between us.  The conventionalities which bind society together are like the patent glue we see advertised on the streets.  A plate has been broken and then joined together.  The strength of the adhesive substance is shown by the way it holds up a stone of considerable weight attached to it.  The plate thus mended holds together admirably till it is put in hot water.

I have no doubt but that a conservative Chinese gentleman would tell you that since the Republic came in there has been a sad falling-off in the observance of the rules of propriety as laid down by Confucius.  The Conservative newspapers of England bewail the fact that there has been a lamentable change since the present Government came in.  The arch offender is “that political Mahdi, Lloyd George, whose false prophecies have made deluded dervishes of hosts of British workmen, and who has corrupted the manners of Parliament itself.”

This wicked Mahdi, by his appeals to the passions of the populace, has destroyed the old English reverence for Law.

I do not know what may be the cause, but the American visitor does notice that the English attitude towards the laws of the realm is not so devout as he had been led to expect.  We have from our earliest youth been taught to believe that the law-abidingness of the Englishman was innate and impeccable.  It was not that, like the good man of whom the Psalmist speaks, he meditated on the law day and night.  He didn’t need to.  Decent respect for the law was in his blood.  He simply could not help conforming to it.

And this impression is confirmed by the things which the tourist goes to see.  The stately mansions embowered in green and guarded by immemorial oaks are accepted as symbolic of an ordered life.  The multitudinous rooks suggest security which comes from triumphant legality.  No irresponsible person shoots them.  When one enters a cathedral close he feels that he is in a land that frowns on the crudity of change.  Here everything is a “thousand years the same.”  And how decent is the demeanor of a verger!