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The Mob, by John Galsworthy.
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That Galsworthy was revolutionary in his thinking for his times, at least, is known to anyone who read his most famous Forsyte Saga, and is acquainted with the strictures against women then; but that he was so ahead of his times as to see through blinkers of colonial prejudices that most so called progressive and liberal intellectuals of West failed to do, is astounding.
The finale here is strongly reminiscent of the scene in All Roads Lead to Calvary, by Jerome K. Jerome, where a soldier turned conscientious objector after having fought in the war halfway through and wounded, his change of mind due to the carnagè rather than personal injury, is torn to shreds by a civilian mob in his hometown in a frenzy.
Galsworthy portrays effectively the turning of a supposedly civilised country into a mob when attempting to put down another, small nation, even more so when it's another culture, another race. This play could be about any of the wars fought in such an endeavour, or even about the massacre at Amritsar by Dyer, which was not approved by the then British government of India - Dyer was sent home in disgrace for massacre of unarmed civilians who had no chance to escape from the enclosed garden as he blocked the one gate with a tank, ordering soldiers to open fire till everyone died, every child and woman and old person as well - but his fellow officers, especially their wives, sympathised with Dyer, had a grand farewell organised for him, and as for the British government back in Britain, they promoted him!
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"SIR JOHN. We didn't begin this business.
"MORE. What! With our missionaries and our trading?
"THE DEAN. It is news indeed that the work of civilization may be justifiably met by murder. Have you forgotten Glaive and Morlinson?
"SIR JOHN. Yes. And that poor fellow Groome and his wife?
"MORE. They went into a wild country, against the feeling of the tribes, on their own business. What has the nation to do with the mishaps of gamblers?"
"THE DEAN. Does our rule bring blessing—or does it not, Stephen?
"MORE. Sometimes; but with all my soul I deny the fantastic superstition that our rule can benefit a people like this, a nation of one race, as different from ourselves as dark from light—in colour, religion, every mortal thing. We can only pervert their natural instincts."
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"SHELDER. There are very excellent reasons for the Government's policy.
MORE. There are always excellent reasons for having your way with the weak.
"SHELDER. My dear More, how can you get up any enthusiasm for those cattle-lifting ruffians?
"MORE. Better lift cattle than lift freedom.
"SHELDER. Well, all we'll ask is that you shouldn't go about the country, saying so.
"MORE. But that is just what I must do.
"[Again they all look at MORE in consternation.]
"HOME. Not down our way, you'll pardon me.
"WACE. Really—really, sir——
"SHELDER. The time of crusades is past, More.
"MORE. Is it?
"BANNING. Ah! no, but we don't want to part with you, Mr. More. It's a bitter thing, this, after three elections. Look at the 'uman side of it! To speak ill of your country when there's been a disaster like this terrible business in the Pass. There's your own wife. I see her brother's regiment's to start this very afternoon. Come now—how must she feel?"
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"MORE. [Turning on him] Mr. Home a great country such as ours—is trustee for the highest sentiments of mankind. Do these few outrages justify us in stealing the freedom of this little people?
"BANNING. Steal—their freedom! That's rather running before the hounds.
"MORE. Ah, Banning! now we come to it. In your hearts you're none of you for that—neither by force nor fraud. And yet you all know that we've gone in there to stay, as we've gone into other lands—as all we big Powers go into other lands, when they're little and weak. The Prime Minister's words the other night were these: "If we are forced to spend this blood and money now, we must never again be forced." What does that mean but swallowing this country?
"SHELDER. Well, and quite frankly, it'd be no bad thing.
"HOME. We don't want their wretched country—we're forced.
"MORE. We are not forced.
"SHELDER. My dear More, what is civilization but the logical, inevitable swallowing up of the lower by the higher types of man? And what else will it be here?"
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"MORE. [Above the murmurs] My fine friends, I'm not afraid of you. You've forced your way into my house, and you've asked me to speak. Put up with the truth for once! [His words rush out] You are the thing that pelts the weak; kicks women; howls down free speech. This to-day, and that to-morrow. Brain—you have none. Spirit—not the ghost of it! If you're not meanness, there's no such thing. If you're not cowardice, there is no cowardice [Above the growing fierceness of the hubbub] Patriotism—there are two kinds—that of our soldiers, and this of mine. You have neither!"
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June 08, 2021 - June 09, 2021.
Purchased June 08, 2021.
Kindle Edition, 81 pages
Published May 17th 2012
(first published June 1914)
Original Title:-
The Mob : a Play in Four Acts
ASIN:- B0084B3XR4
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