Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley [31]
But forewarned was forearmed; when you saw the bandits approaching, you formed up in battle order and drew your swords. (Webley had a weakness for swords; he wore one when the Freemen paraded, his speeches were full of them, his house bristled with panoplies.) Organization, discipline, force were necessary. The battle could no longer be fought constitutionally. Parliamentary methods were quite adequate when the two parties agreed about fundamentals and disagreed only about trifling details. But where fundamental principles were at stake, you couldn’t allow politics to go on being treated as a Parliamentary game. You had to resort to direct action or the threat of it.
‘I was five years in Parliament,’ said Webley. ‘Long enough to convince myself that there’s nothing to be done in these days by Parliamentarism. You might as well try to talk a fire out. England can only be saved by direct action. When it’s saved we can begin to think about Parliament again. (Something very unlike the present ridiculous collection of mob-elected rich men it’ll have to be.) Meanwhile, there’s nothing for it but to prepare for fighting. And preparing for fighting, we may conquer peacefully. It’s the only hope. Believe me, Lord Edward, it’s the only hope.’
Harassed, like a bear in a pit set upon by dogs, Lord Edward turned uneasily this way and that, pivoting his bent body from the loins. ‘But I’m not interested in pol…’ He was too agitated to be able to finish the word.
‘But even if you’re not interested in politics,’ Webley persuasively continued, ‘you must be interested in your fortune, your position, the future of your family. Remember, all those things will go down in the general destruction.’
‘Yes, but… No….’ Lord Edward was growing desperate
‘I… I’m not interested in money.’
Once, years before, the head of the firm of solicitors to whom he left the entire management of his affairs, had called, in spite of Lord Edward’s express injunction that he was never to be troubled with matters of business, to consult his client about a matter of investments. There were some eighty thousand pounds to be disposed of. Lord Edward was dragged from the fundamental equations of the statics of living systems. When he learned the frivolous cause of the interruption, the ordinarily mild Old Man became unrecognizably angry. Mr. Figgis, whose voice was loud and whose manner confident, had been used, in previous interviews, to having things all his own way. Lord Edward’s fury astonished and appalled him. It was as though, in his rage, the Old Man had suddenly thrown back atavistically to the feudal past, had remembered that he was a Tantamount, talking to a hired servant. He had given orders; they had been disobeyed and his privacy unjustifiably disturbed. It was insufferable. If this sort of thing should ever happen again, he would transfer his affairs to another solicitor. And with that he wished Mr. Figgis a very good afternoon.
‘I’m not interested in money,’ he now repeated.
Illidge, who had approached and was hovering in the neighbourhood, waiting for an opportunity to address the Old Man, overheard the remark and exploded with inward laughter. ‘These rich! ‘ he thought. ‘These bloody rich!’ They were all the same.
‘But if not for your own sake,’ Webley insisted, attacking from another quarter, ‘for the sake of civilization, of progress.’
Lord Edward started at the word. It touched a trigger, it released a flood of energy. ‘Progress! he echoed, and the tone of misery and embarrassment was exchanged for one of confidence. ‘Progress! You politicians are always talking about it. As though it were going to last. Indefinitely. More motors, more babies, more food, more advertising, more money, more everything, for ever. You ought to