第69章 THE CHARTERED LIBERTINE(1)

I find myself in agreement with Mr.Robert Lynd for his most just remark in connection with the Malatesta case,that the police are becoming a peril to society.I have no attraction to that sort of atheist asceticism to which the purer types of Anarchism tend;but both an atheist and an ascetic are better men than a spy;and it is ignominious to see one's country thus losing her special point of honour about asylum and liberty.It will be quite a new departure if we begin to protect and whitewash foreign policemen.I always understood it was only English policemen who were absolutely spotless.A good many of us,however,have begun to feel with Mr.Lynd,and on all sides authorities and officials are being questioned.But there is one most graphic and extraordinary fact,which it did not lie in Mr.Lynd's way to touch upon,but which somebody really must seize and emphasise.It is this:that at the very time when we are all beginning to doubt these authorities,we are letting laws pass to increase their most capricious powers.All our commissions,petitions,and letters to the papers are asking whether these authorities can give an account of their stewardship.And at the same moment all our laws are decreeing that they shall not give any account of their stewardship,but shall become yet more irresponsible stewards.Bills like the Feeble-Minded Bill and the Inebriate Bill (very appropriate names for them)actually arm with scorpions the hand that has chastised the Malatestas and Maleckas with whips.The inspector,the doctor,the police sergeant,the well-paid person who writes certificates and "passes"this,that,or the other;this sort of man is being trusted with more authority,apparently because he is being doubted with more reason.

In one room we are asking why the Government and the great experts between them cannot sail a ship.In another room we are deciding that the Government and experts shah be allowed,without trial or discussion,to immure any one's body,damn any one's soul,and dispose of unborn generations with the levity of a pagan god.We are putting the official on the throne while he is still in the dock.

The mere meaning of words is now strangely forgotten and falsified;as when people talk of an author's "message,"without thinking whom it is from;and I have noted in these connections the strange misuse of another word.It is the excellent mediaeval word "charter."I remember the Act that sought to save gutter-boys from cigarettes was called "The Children's Charter."Similarly the Act which seeks to lock up as lunatics people who are not lunatics was actually called a "charter"of the feeble-minded.Now this terminology is insanely wrong,even if the Bills are right.Even were they right in theory they would be applied only to the poor,like many better rules about education and cruelty.Awoman was lately punished for cruelty because her children were not washed when it was proved that she had no water.From that it will be an easy step in Advanced Thought to punishing a man for wine-bibbing when it is proved that he had no wine.Rifts in right reason widen down the ages.

And when we have begun by shutting up a confessedly kind person for cruelty,we may yet come to shutting up Mr.Tom Mann for feeble-mindedness.

But even if such laws do good to children or idiots,it is wrong to use the word "charter."A charter does not mean a thing that does good to people.It means a thing that grants people more rights and liberties.

It may be a good thing for gutter-boys to be deprived of their cigarettes: