On Muddling Through

FROM our vantage ground of three thousand miles’ distance we have discerned with much complacency certain shortcomings in the English temperament. We have, in fact, come to take for granted a measure of sluggishness and a lack of system in it. In English eyes, to be sure, these failings were less plain ; at any rate, they were not taken for granted. But in the searching of heart induced by the Boer war the faults have been made very obvious, and it is with some surprise that we find Englishmen in dismay and humiliation over the little imperfections in their character which we had grown so used to and taken so philosophically.

Given Englishmen once set on a course of humility, and it is natural enough for them to pursue it zealously. Repentance and reform are more than hinted at, and there seems to be a disposition to quarrel with certain deep-laid traits of the national temperament. Lord Rosebery, for example, has been finding fault with the unmethodical ways of Englishmen. He protests against the serene faith expressed in the phrase, “ We shall muddle through somehow.” Now, one cannot help sympathizing with Lord Rosebery in his irritation at the temper which the words reflect. It is, as his lordship insists, an undignified one, but we are by no means sure that it is unEnglish. In fact, it strikes us as being eminently typical of the national temper. Perhaps the advantage of distance on our side enables us to judge the more dispassionately, but it has seemed to us that the homely phrase fits far better than a finer one the practical genius of the English nature. It is a nature without high skill of system or marked precision in performance, and yet one that has been accustomed to arrive, by a sort of instinctive affinity, at substantial power and possession.

Moreover, we are disposed to think it must arrive by its own ways, and may with much discretion be left to follow its natural leadings. Though it partake of presumption for critics three thousand miles away to hint that Lord Rosebery, on his own ground and dealing with his own people, had missed the mark, we are fain to think that Englishmen will do well to spend no great pains in changing their instinctive ways of working, or in grafting upon their native and original excellences the qualities peculiar to other types of men. Their native powers are intertwined with failings and shortcomings among which is a marked tendency to blundering; but on this point, as on others, it is well to recall the remark of Captain Mahan in reviewing the South African war : if Englishmen have blundered into their present place in the world, they have blundered to good purpose. We may think ourselves well warranted to doubt whether Lord Rosebery could revise their ways to much advantage.