The strict repression of all feeling carries with it very strong psychological reactions; prevented from having his say, the most foolish young enthusiast who could be laughed out of his views in a week or so if he were granted the privilege of free discussion, begins to harden, like metal poured into a mould; he becomes a potential martyr, and no danger is too great for him so long as he can strike a blow at the monstrous thing that is oppressing him. On the other hand persons who delight in cool reason and abhor fanaticism, who tend towards the comic view of life have a contempt for the absurd panics and the clumsy preposterous methods of such governments. Their weapon against the army of police and its masters is their bland baffling irony. By temperament they are usually inclined to support law and order, and, unlike the born rebels and enthusiasts they prefer a tolerable state in the hand to two topias in the bush; but a stupid policy of repression and persecution on the part of their rulers soon puts an end to their loyalty. And as they are generally men with uncommon qualities of mind who often take to writing, they are very dangerous opponents, for no government, for all its host of bayonets, can extinguish the sly laughter they invoke.
Every persecuting power that endeavours to crush liberty of thought, that will not allow free speech, raises up these two enemies and is eventually, by them destroyed. It is good natured government that tolerates its cranks and temperamental rebels and takes care to keep the wits to its own side which survives. Walpole was never so great a stateman as when he refused to persecute, thereby maintaining his own easy superiority, winning moderate sensible men everywhere and maddening his more determined opponents. An increasing intolerance among governments is one and not the least, of the evils brought about by the war. We in England too, have fallen, we have hardened our hearts (and softened our heads) with the rest. When we held out our hands to everybody and were unsuspecting, and tolerant, no doubt we were sometimes the easy prey of rascality, and it may have been foolishness on our part; but it was the kind of foolishness that brought us a host of friends. England became the home of great exiles. The new and very different kind of foolishness into which we are falling will not bring us any friends.
It is not pleasant to read, as I did the other day, a description by an intelligent and witty foreigner, a woman, of a stupid and high handed action on the part of our military authorities abroad, who treated a harmless authoress as if she were a desperate criminal ready at any moment to wade in blood instead of ink. It is not pleasant to see our fellow countrymen being turned into the police of melodrama and comic opera who see spies in every bush and bombs in every hand-bag.
Yet with us, free speech, regarding purely as a safe political policy, has been very successful. If a man can express himself in violent words he is usually in no great hurry to accomplish violent deeds. The Sunday afternoon performance in Hyde Park where everyone from the Creator to the chairman of a local committee, is steadily denounced by somebody has saved us from a great deal. We might have heard machine-gun bullets rattling down our streets now, had it not been for these popular forums.
If I were a despot even though I knew my territory was crammed with fanatical revolutionaries, I would not repress freedom of speech. Indeed, I would encourage it. I do not mean that I would do it simply out of deference to the principle of free speech; but, as safe policy in order to keep myself in power. I would have little forums specially constructed in public places, where any man could go and say what he wanted. Special policemen would be detailed to show the audience to their places, to assist the speakers in any way, and even to lead the applause. The lank-haired young men who denounced me as a tyrant would do so on my specially constructed platforms, before the courteous smiling officers of my forces. When they had become thirsty denouncing the government they would find at their elbows a glass of distilled water placed there for their convenience by that very government. But I would go further than that. I would have a certain number of officials from my Department of Education, bland, polite, faintly superior persons (specially imported from Oxford, if necessary) told off for the duty of attending such meetings and helping the speakers by giving them a criticism of their manner and style. Any revolutionary orator able to pass a fairly elementary examination would be coached free of charge by my Education Department so that a man at the very climax of his speech when he was prophecying disaster to the bloated tyrant, might often find himself looking into the face of his old tutor from the State Department nodding approval from the front row. No man would be punished for his political opinions or rather for openly expressing these opinions – but an orator who persistently mixed his metaphors or never tried to furbish up his rhetorical finery from one end to the other, might be told to report on one of the Educational Offices, where he might be gently chided.
Though I myself, the Benevolent Despot, would not go so far as to write revolutionary letters to the newspapers, I would certainly pay occasional visits to my little forums, beam upon the orators and graciously acknowledge the salute of their audiences. And instead of keeping up an enormous army of secret police I would spend the money pensioning off the wits in the country. Instead of subsidising a solemn newspaper, which everybody would know to be simply a government organ a thing to be laughed at, I would subsidise the chief of comic papers in the country for people would not care whether it was a government organ or not, so long as they could laugh with it. The political significance of a good comic paper is hardly realized even yet, except by the journalists themselves and one or two of the leading politicians. Punch, whatever its editors may declare, has always had a side (though not always in the same one: it began its career with Radical prejudices) and has always been worth innumerable votes to that side. Were I a despot as I say I would take care that my country's Punch was on my side and although free speech would be everywhere encouraged and no man arrested for expressing violent opinions, what with the comic journalists and artists the government forums with their polite uniformed attendants, visiting officials from the Education Department and tutors of oratory. I am certain that no revolution would ever dislodge me from my throne. The ordeal by laughter would be too much for my visionaries, who would cry for solemn martyrdom – but never get it.
(I.A.S., 1962)
