The Conflict Between the Generations: In Britain

I

IN a transitional age, an epoch of confusion in standards and principles, the familiar tug of war between old and young is rendered acute. As a result of the Great War, all the trends and tendencies of pre-war Europe were tremendously accelerated. The emancipation of the masses and of women; the solidification of the working classes; the closing of their ranks by men of property of all political views; the onrush of technical progress in production and communications; and, far the most obvious trend, the almost complete apotheosis of the State by both the Right and the Left — these striking innovations, achieved within a decade or so, fixed a great and unbridgeable gulf between the men who finished their education before the war and those who finished it after.

In all European countries where a grain of true individualism and liberalism flourished before the war, — that is, excepting Russia, Prussia, and the Balkans, — the pre-war generations and their mentality were either killed off or stupefied by the sudden emergence of problems whose scope and nature defy the pre-war type of imagination altogether. On the other hand, the post-war generation, now aged between twentyone and thirty-nine, inherited a social and moral flux, an anarchy of principles, a welter of discounted precepts and unrecognized canons, without any equipment of mental or moral discipline with which to reduce that chaos to order and neatness. One world and its values were already dead, its leaders killed or paralyzed. The other, a formless revolt, was powerless to be born. In this welter arose the cry, — the cry of the irresponsibles and the cowards, the cry of the desperate and the frustrated, of all who flee individual responsibility for their own acts and those of their governors, — ‘Give us a king to reign over us! Give us a leader! ’ It is the pæan of the mass, triumphant over its own members.

That cry is as old as the children of Israel. You can read the elucidation of its motives in Plato. You hear it in the racked convulsions heralding the demise of the Roman Republic. It arises again in the abrupt uncertainties and chaos of European feudalism. It always betokens an abnegation by individuals, for various reasons, of their rights and responsibilities in face of an unforeseen social disintegration. After extensive wars within the bosom of great civilizations, the normal struggle for power between the old men and the younger men, between the pre-war and post-war mentalities and interests, becomes intensified; for, quite apart from the elimination of ‘the loveliest and the best,’ the great innovations accelerated by the war threaten and discomfit the pre-war class; those set in authority; those who seek to return to ‘good old days’; those who demand, above all, respect for discipline, traditions, and authority.

The natural revolt from this mentality is always led by the young survivors of the war itself. These men, made intensely cynical, and shielded from madness only by a casehardening of bitter animosity against those who ‘ran things and still run things,’ cast themselves automatically for the rôles of ‘debunkers-in-chief.’ Their hard-boiledness and skepticism debunk the very principles and ideals which prompted them to their own sacrifices; but they also cast a cloak about the shoulders of the still younger men who escaped the searing effects of the actual fighting.

As time goes on and the war atmosphere recedes, Anno Domini softens even the cynics; but their skepticism remains, and withholds them from active participation in constructive social and political endeavors. Consequently the gulf between old and young in politics becomes wider than the span of a single generation. It expands to a generation and a half. And since the actual fighting generation had the direct experience which their younger brothers escaped, the gulf is really far wider than the number of years would suggest. In 1937, it is between European men of sixty to seventy and of twenty-one to thirtynine; the men of forty to sixty are now dead, or missing from politics; and the oldest in power are two generations ahead of the youngest out of power.

Here is material enough for social and political tension, for strains and stresses whose ultimate outcome may change the whole face of European society. Indeed, what has occurred in Europe since the Black Shirts marched on Rome in 1922, and the Nazis marched through the Brandenburg Gate in February 1933, is the first foreshadowing of a struggle between generations which is still undecided; but Anno Domini is now working fast and furiously upon the remnants of the pre-war generation in politics. In Europe’s democracies we have had to swallow many a bitter pill in the last decade; administered by the leaders and spokesmen of a generation outworn and outmoded, our democratic politics have gone from bad to worse; but the decade which we now face will inevitably remove from the political stage every one of these leaders and spokesmen, these voices from a world before the war. The vast and convulsive change wrought by the 1938—1948 decade can only be prophesied in vague terms. But it must come. What will be its broad effects on the chief remnant of European democracy — England?

II

Like those wars which dictatorships undertake, the war between the generations in Britain is undeclared. It is, however, not quite so obviously a war. The principal reason for the nonrecognition of belligerency is the inarticulateness of the men under forty — those who escaped the war, in the main. They have been unable to enter politics, all but the silver-spooned few, because both in the Conservative Party and in the Labor Party ‘the old gangs’ control those purse strings and positions by which alone a political competency can be established. The pre-war personalities have been rapidly disappearing from the Labor and trade-union stage; but in the Labor Party, politics, programmes, and personal advancement are alike decided by trade-union votes, trade-union funds, and the narrow tradeunion mentality.

This mentality aims first at security under a private capitalistic system. From that system come the tradeunion’s funds, via wages, and the trade-union hierarchy’s jobs. The secretarial mind, growing old in routine, grows farther and farther away from Socialism, nearer and nearer to copartnership with those magnates of private industry with whom, indeed, the tradeunion hierarchy negotiates and operates. ‘Direct action’ by extremists means killing the golden goose of the tradeunions; and no one knows better than a wisely aging trade-union secretary in Britain how disastrous it would be for the unions — or their poor relation, the Labor Party — to be put ‘on the spot’ by the electorate and asked to redeem their paper electoral promises: the nationalization of this, that, and the other industry or service.

Hence, Mr. Bevin, the boss of British trade-unionism, kicks out the extremists. Hence, propelled from the rear by the trade-unions, the political Labor Party and its trade-union-subsidized M. P.’s disaffiliate all left-wing organizations. Meanwhile, the trade-union-secretarial hand tightens on Labor as a political movement. And the hand, and the head, have been growing older. There is no room for the young men, as yet, in the trade-union hierarchy. Accordingly, the few able and idealistic young men who did contrive to get into Labor politics now find a master hand behind the party, controlling their policy, programmes, and pronouncements. If you really talk to them, you will find no young men in Britain more cynical and disillusioned than the erstwhile whiteheaded boys of the Labor Party. Distrusted by the trade-union hierarchy as ‘intellectuals,’ — it is apparently as dangerous to be intellectually able in the Labor movement as it is to be a Communist, for to the trade-union mind the terms are treated as synonymous, — hamstrung in national Labor politics by the party’s real subservience to the unions, envied by pettier minds than their own throughout the range of the Labor movement, these young men either drift away to the aloof cynicism of their elder, war-surviving brothers, or make for that haven of irresponsible, intellectual disillusionment—the Communist Party of Great Britain. For any greater significance in British domestic politics in the next ten years, they might as well join the Oxford Group Movement. That could do with a little leaven from the Left.

The Liberal Party, reduced to a small but consistently able and incisive group of two dozen M. P.’s, offers the young Englishman under forty certainly the most congenial political philosophy, and the only practicable programme in British politics which is not an irresponsible shuffle of day-to-day expedients. But that party, despite an electoral strength of still more than three millions, cannot hope within foreseeable time to climb back into its decisive position with the casting vote, as in 1924, let alone into its immediate post-war position as the second party in the State. This is a powerful deterrent to young men in a hurry; and young Englishmen to-day realize that either Anno Domini or a catastrophe is going very soon to call upon them in a great hurry.

This may explain, together with the growing disillusionment about all parties and their aged caucuses, the surprising appeal of Independent candidates at recent elections. To the ill-concealed scandalization of both Labor and the Tories, Oxford University has now both its burgesses (M. P.’s) sitting in the Commons as Independents. One, a humorist, Mr. A. P. Herbert, achieved this year the despaired miracle of reforming the divorce laws. (It is pertinent to note that he could achieve that only because the government supported him by allowing free voting to its constituents in the House.) The other, an economist, Sir Arthur Salter, is already a notable acquisition in an assembly exclusively preoccupied with international and economic affairs. There are also other Independents whose impartiality and acumen in public life shine out in an extremely mediocre legislature. But, like the Liberals with whom they have most in common, they have no funds, no national appeal as an immediate alternative government, no inspiring message or leadership for the men under forty.

Both small groups shine in debates, for they can make the fine points of analytical criticism on the detailed expedients which have too long passed for a coherent government policy. But they cannot ‘sell the big idea’ at the hustings. The only ‘big ideas’ which can readily be sold there are claptrap: promises like piecrust, and emotional appeals for mandates to attain undisclosed objectives — still euphemistically termed ‘doctor’s mandates.’ Time may swell the Liberal and Independent following, but the most that can happen in this ‘middle mist’ of British politics is that an attractive nucleus of responsible-minded, reasoning men and women will coalesce as a focus for the generation still debarred from political power.

So we come to the imposing Conservative Party, once the titular and traditional guardian of imperial security, now more than a little bewildered, chastened, and alarmed. Not all of its alarm is due to a realization of the dangers which its foreign policy during the last six years has so rapidly brought down upon the Empire. Some is due to internal dissension: alarm for the future of its supremacy at home; alarm for the future of its members’ property, in the name of safeguarding which it has lost them much abroad and lost the only real ‘pooled security ’ on which British Conservatives could have relied. This great party, too, is, and has long been, a battlefield for the two generations. Here, however, tradition plays a greater part. The young Tory, following in father’s political footsteps on mother’s father’s cash, has the better political opportunities. But during the last six years he, too, has become restive, irked by the same sense of frustration, and confused by the same contradictions, as plague his Labor and Liberal coevals. He, however, has at least some assurance that the effects of Anno Domini will redound to his own benefit; and, true to traditions, he knuckles under to the yoke of the Tory gerontocracy.

Not all of the young Tories knuckle under, however; and those least inclined to do so have long rallied round Mr. Winston Churchill and — until his untimely death this past year — Sir Austen Chamberlain. Mr. Anthony Eden, to his great disadvantage, found himself bounced into the Cabinet at the end of 1935. This was the result of the country’s exasperation with Mr. Baldwin’s inconsistent advocacy of the HoareLaval Plan, so soon after the Tory electoral victory on the pledge to uphold collective security and League sanctions. Poor Mr. Eden had identified himself genuinely and sincerely — an unkind critic might even say ingenuously — with collective security and the League. He had thus automatically become the British electorate’s white-headed boy; and the six or seven million who voted in the 1935 Peace Ballot for sanctions against aggressors voted mainly for Mr. Baldwin in November of that year because Mr. Eden was Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. They knew that in his famous and inspiring speech of September 1935 at Geneva (before the General Election was called) the Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, had proclaimed British foreign policy as ‘steady and collective resistance to all acts of unprovoked aggression.’ Mr. Eden’s elevation in place of Sir Samuel Hoare was logical once the electorate had risen (led by the journal which often fashions high British policy, The Times) against the HoareLaval Plan.

But no one — probably not even the small group of Tory personalities who fashion The Times’s editorial views at week-ends in the English countryside, and certainly not poor Mr. Eden — could have expected in the first critical weeks of 1936 that Mr. Baldwin would not only put up Mr. Eden within a few months to call off sanctions without any consultation with the fifty-odd nations which Britain had jockeyed into them, but would also fetch back Sir Samuel Hoare into the Cabinet as (ironically enough) First Lord of the Admiralty! Mr. Eden was persuaded by good Tory doctrine not to seem like a young man in a hurry; to preserve what was described to him as the constitutional convention of ’collective responsibility of the Cabinet’; in short, to give up to party what was meant for mankind. He did not resign; he justified in the Commons the abrogation of sanctions; and he has remained ever since in the invidious role of Government’s advocate in foreign affairs. His hopes have waned with his popularity; and to-day, whether he resigns or not, he can neither inspire nor lead those millions who, two or three years ago, were his for the asking. He may never have wanted to do so; but many more than the young Conservatives looked eagerly and expectantly to him, and they are now once more confused and disappointed.

The crowning confusion in Conservative circles was caused this year by Mr. Baldwin’s resignation as ‘an old man’ (his own words) at the age of seventy, in favor of Mr. Neville Chamberlain, aged sixty-eight. None could dispute Mr. Chamberlain’s merit for his high office; but it has become doubtful if his health can stand a strain daily growing greater in that highest and most responsible of British offices; and he does not enjoy Mr. Baldwin’s uncanny ability to inspire his colleagues with a sense of collective confidence and loyalty. Accordingly, the coulisse of Conservative politics has become a whispering corridor; and the Cabinet, held together under Mr. Baldwin’s avuncular hands, is showing signs of fissiparity. Some such signs may be due to a struggle between rival caucuses and personalities, hoping for the reversion of the prophet’s mantle. Moreover, if this struggle — reminiscent of the famous struggle within both Coalition and Conservative Parties in 1921 and 1922, ending in Mr. Bonar Law’s and Mr. Baldwin’s elevation to the leadership of Conservatism — becomes an open struggle, the resultant jockeying for positions and power may paralyze British policy for a critical transitional period.

It is said, with growing frequency, that Sir John Simon, Sir Samuel Hoare, Lord Hailsham, and Lord Swinton are one group, bent on compromise at all costs with Germany and Italy; that Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Eden, Mr. HoreBelisha, and Mr. Oliver Stanley are in a different galley; that Mr. Walter Elliot, Mr. Morrison, and others are ‘wanderers in the middle mist.’ Nothing but conjecture underlies these persistent stories; but there is a spark of truth discernible behind all the smoke; and even the smoke is an unhealthy symptom. Whatever may be the truth and the outcome, the symptom is more than one of mere Cabinet dissension. Alike, the British Cabinet, British politics, and British society are progressively becoming torn by the struggle between age groups and the widely disparate mentalities that characterize them.

III

* Intercensal estimate

The war of the generations can be best foreseen in these figures. First, the entire population of England and Wales has grown more aged in composition in one generation. Owing to the mere halt in the expansion of the population after 1904, less and less of the total population fall into the two categories which cover the fifteen years before a boy’s or girl’s majority. In 1911, a group 10,530,000 strong (out of a total population of only 32 millions, as contrasted with 38 millions in 1936) were aged between 5 and 19; they were due to take active parts in politics within fifteen or twenty years as a reserve force. Many of these men were killed in the war. The survivors went out of politics. In 1936 we had a reserve force of the same ages, only 10 per cent less, in a population 15 per cent larger, than a generation before.

Secondly, however, this decline in the relative strength of the young and dynamic, vigorous, resourceful constituents of the nation is progressing at an alarming rate. Already in 1936, children of 5 to 9 are one fifth fewer than in 1911; those now 10 to 19 are only 4 per cent fewer; and this though the total population is bound still to increase — until 1951 or thereabouts. The decline is a still larger percentage in the 0-5 age group than in the 5-9 and 10-19 groups.

But these groups are still the infants, children, and minors. We come to the core of the current, but masked, war between the generations when we compare the rate of growth of the 20-39 generation with that of the generation and a half over 40. Despite the inroad of the Great War upon the men who would now be between 40 and 59, the most active and constructive (not purely administratively able) group — that between 20 and 39 — has only grown by 15.5 per cent, and, if we include the women, by 12 per cent.

On the other hand, all those over 40 have streaked ahead by 55 per cent: men of 40-59 by 42.6 per cent (as opposed to the women, unscathed by warfare, who increased by 53 per cent); men of 60 and over by almost 75 per cent; and all those over 60 by no less than 76 per cent. As both men and women over 40 seldom enjoy resilience of political opinions and resourcefulness, enjoying instead the contemplative maturity which comes with a comfortable establishment in life, one explanation of Britain’s gradually extending Conservatism, throughout all parties, is evident.

Consider these changes between 1911 and 1936: only twenty-five years ago, men between 20 and 39 outnumbered all men over 40 in the ratio 5,600,000 to 4,670,000; but in 1936 the men over 40 outnumbered those between 20-39 in the ratio 7,070,000 to 6,470,000! If you take the entire population of the country the picture is as follows: twentyfive years ago men and women aged 20-39 numbered 11,750,000 in contrast to 9,940,000 for all over 40; but to-day all those aged 20-39 number 13,340,000 as against 15,510,000 for all over 40! Thus, since Mr. Baldwin gave all women complete electoral equality with men at 21, England and Wales has rapidly become not only a country with about 15¼ million women voters to 13½ million men, but also a country in which both men and women aged 20-39 — especially the men — are in an absolute minority as compared with those of 40 and over. And this has happened for the first time in 150 years, owing to two factors, neither of which is the Great War; first, the fall in the birth rate; secondly, the increased expectancy of life at the other end of the scale.

IV

The tension, unease, and sense of frustration in British politics, evident only during the last decade, have been growing as fast as that dead weight of the population which is over 50 and 60. British politics have been since the war, and are still being, run by the same men, the same mentalities, as ruled in 1914; only in 1914 they were twenty-three years younger. The result can be gauged by Sir John Simon’s political metamorphosis in those twenty-three years — in a young man’s Liberal Cabinet before the Great War, in an old men’s Tory Cabinet twenty-live years later, with more power and less opposition. These are the dangerous symptoms in British politics; and the danger is not really lessened by the utter bankruptcy and hopelessness of the Fascist and Communist causes in Britain. It becomes greater simply because it affects, it divides, the two established parties in the State — Tories and Labor.

Prophecy is easy, and perilous. One thing is, however, patent. From now onwards, and certainly within the next decade, Death’s sickle is going to strike right and left: in the Cabinet, in the aged caucuses of both Government and Opposition, and in the population as a whole. This, however, is not going to ’promote’ the 40-59 group as much as the younger, incalculable, post-war generation, the 20-39 group. Then Greek will meet Greek. No one can gauge the duration or outcome of this struggle; for no one can say what the blocked, frustrated 20-39’ers want, or are thinking. But it is certain that the most intense part of the struggle will come when the less numerous (and ever-dwindling) 20-39’ers actively challenge or revolt against the last pre-war group in British politics: the 40-59’ers, who are just getting into power and who apparently can do nothing else but follow their leaders who are over 60.

It may be that this war between the generations in Britain, now on, will be settled amicably in habitual English fashion. It may be that the extensive apparatus, administrative and economic, of the British Conservative Corporate State, erected during the last six years, will prove capable of defeating any assaults by any group. It may be that, if peace (of a sort) endures, Britain will once again strike out a new way to solve a new problem: a problem, in any case, which will face every European country in this century, and which Germany and Italy have been the first violently to solve.

What is alone certain is that the struggle between the generations and their utterly sundered mentalities has already begun, and must become — at least during the immediate future — more intense. It is a struggle unknown in Western Europe for nearly two centuries; and Britain has already refused the totalitarian way out. Her problem is still to find, and employ, an alternative.