Certainly the capable people went and
did it; but the incapables would by no means get out of the way:
they fussed and bawled and were only prevented from getting very
seriously into the way by the blessed fact that they never knew
where the way was. Thus whilst all the efficiency of England was
silent and invisible, all its imbecility was deafening the
heavens with its clamor and blotting out the sun with its dust.
It was also unfortunately intimidating the Government by its
blusterings into using the irresistible powers of the State to
intimidate the sensible people, thus enabling a despicable
minority of would-be lynchers to set up a reign of terror which
could at any time have been broken by a single stern word from a
responsible minister. But our ministers had not that sort of
courage: neither Heartbreak House nor Horseback Hall had bred it,
much less the suburbs. When matters at last came to the looting
of shops by criminals under patriotic pretexts, it was the police
force and not the Government that put its foot down. There was
even one deplorable moment, during the submarine scare, in which
the Government yielded to a childish cry for the maltreatment of
naval prisoners of war, and, to our great disgrace, was forced by
the enemy to behave itself.
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