The Last Million: How They Invaded France—and England. Ian Hay
were constructed away down in the London clay, where there could be no interference from oozy gravel, or gas mains, or sewers.
The chief trouble about the Tubes is that no one knows where they are. Of course, every one knows where the stations are. For instance, every Londoner knows where Piccadilly Circus Station is—the surface station. But where is the actual subterranean station? Or rather, where are the two stations, because at this point two roads cross, and each has its own subterranean station. Ah! They certainly are not where simple folk, like you and me, would expect them to be—under Piccadilly Circus. If they were, you would find them at the foot of the elevator. But that would be too easy. It would make Londoners fat and lazy, leading the sedentary life they do, to step straight into the train. So they have to walk about a mile. Where to, no one knows. But there is a school of philosophers which believes that a good many of the Tube stations have no subterranean stations at all. One subterranean is shared jointly by several surface stations. A short circular train ride is provided, just to furnish the necessary illusion, and the passenger, having really walked to his destination, steps out of the train well satisfied, and goes up the right elevator under the impression that he has been carried there. That is our Tube system as far as modern research has been able to fathom it. Of course, an Englishman could never have thought out such a good practical joke as these Tubes. The entire system was projected and constructed by an American.
VII. Our National Joke
But we have a sense of humour all the same. Our money system, like our joint system of weights and measures, is, as you very properly observe, a practical joke. It dates back to the time when an Englishman bought his Sunday dinner with a pound of rock. It is bound to go soon, and make way for the decimal system, just as inches and feet and yards are already making way in this country for metres and centimetres. Meanwhile we have got to put up with it.
The main points for an American to remember are—firstly, that a shilling over here, despite war scarcity, will still buy rather more than a quarter will buy in New York; and secondly, the necessity of keeping clearly in mind the difference between a half-crown and a two-shilling piece. Even taxi-drivers do not always know the difference. If you give them half a crown they will frequently hand you change for a two-shilling piece.
VIII. Ourselves
Lastly, ourselves. This chapter is going to be the most difficult.
Last year I met an American soldier in London. He was one of the first who had come over. I asked his impressions. He said:
“I have been in London three days, and not a soul has spoken to me.”
And therein was summed up the fundamental difference between our two nations. In the United States people like to see one another and talk to one another, and meet fresh people. If a stranger comes to town, reporters interview him as he steps off the train. Americans prefer when travelling to do so in open cars. At home their living-room doors are usually left open. Every room stands open to every other. In their clubs and hotels there are few private rooms. In their business houses the head of the firm, the staff, and the clerks, frequently work together in one great hall. If any partitions exist they are only table-high or they are made of glass. Plenty of light, plenty of air, plenty of publicity. That is America.
Now over here, somehow, we are different. I said before that an Englishman’s ambition in life was to get a compartment to himself. That principle, for good or ill prevails through all our habits. On the railroad we travel in separate boxes. At home all our rooms have doors, and we keep them shut. (This by the way, is chiefly in order to get warm, for there is no central heating.) In most of our clubs there are rooms where no one is allowed to speak. They are crowded with Englishmen. Only a few years ago one never thought of dining in a restaurant except when travelling. If he did, he always asked for a private room. If you dine at Simpson’s in the Strand to-day you will still see a relic of the custom in the curious boxed-in compartments which enclose some of the tables. In our business houses the head of the department is concealed in one hutch, the partners in another. The chief clerk has one too. The other clerks may have to work in one room; but each clerk cherishes just one ambition, and that is to rise high enough in the business to secure honourable confinement in a hutch of his own.
For the same reason every Englishman keeps a fence round his garden—be it castle or cottage garden—just to show that it is his garden and no one else’s. And if you look into any old English parish church you will see the same thing. Every family has its own pew; the humblest pew has a door, and when the family gets inside the pew it shuts the door. Some of the pews have curtains around them as well. The occupant can see the minister, and the minister can see him. The rest of the congregation are as invisible to him as he is to them. No one in the congregation resents this at all. They are rather proud of the custom. It represents to them only what is right and proper, the principle of a compartment to one’s self.
And so a nation which has lived for centuries upon this plan is not a nation which enters readily or easily into conversation outside its own particular compartment. But how was I to explain or excuse such a state of mind to my American soldier friend? Let me say right here that this constrained behaviour does not arise from churlishness, or want of good-will. Even the Germans admit that. A German philosopher once said, with considerable truth for a German: “The Englishman is a cold friend, but a good neighbour. He may shut himself up with his property, but he will never dream of invading yours.” This statement is only partially correct. The Englishman is one of the warmest-hearted and most hospitable of men. But he is a bad starter—a bad starter in War, Love, Business, and, above all, Conversation. Once get him started, and he refuses to leave off. But you must start him first. And you are doing it.
The Englishman’s passion for his own compartment goes back a very, very long way, right into the centuries. It goes back to the days when we lived in tribes and every tribe kept to itself, and an Englishman’s house was his castle—especially if the house were a one-room mud hut. That makes us what we are to this day. Also we are cooped up in a small island, and most of us have never left it. No Englishman ever speaks to another Englishman if he can help it. This is partly the old tribal instinct, partly laziness, and partly fear of a rebuff. Also, it may involve explanations, and an Englishman would rather be scalped than explain. So he saves trouble all round by burying himself in a newspaper and saying nothing.
That by the way. But the main object of this little book is to make you welcome to England, whoever you may be, and to show you why it is that in our inarticulate and undemonstrative English way, we love our small country just as you love your big continent.
“This fortress built by Nature by herself
Against infection and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in a silver sea;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
That is how William Shakespeare felt about this “right little tight little island” three hundred years ago, in days when our nation was fighting for its life, neither for the first nor for the last time, against overwhelmingly superior forces. And we hope that when you go back safe and victorious, as we pray God you may, to your own beautiful land, you will carry with you a little of that same feeling, and a real understanding of the passionate sentiment that lies beneath it.
So we bid you welcome. And we ask you, our honoured guests, to do all you can to get into close touch with the habits and point of view of our country, both here and upon that battle-front whither you are bound, to play your own splendid part in the Great Game.
We are never going back to the old days when Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, Canadians, Australians, and Americans sat each in their own compartment, and thanked