Post-Prandial Philosophy

7. The Game and the Rules

A sportive friend of mine, a mighty golfer, is fond of saying, "You

Radicals want to play the game without the rules." To which I am

accustomed mildly to retort, "Not at all; but we think the rules unfair,

and so we want to see them altered."

Now life is a very peculiar game, which differs in many important

respects even from compulsory football. The Rugby scrimmage is mere

child's play by the side of it. There's no possibility of shirking it. A

medical certificate won't get you off; whether you like it or not, play

you must in your appointed order. We are all unwilling competitors.

Nobody asks our naked little souls beforehand whether they would prefer

to be born into the game or to remain, unfleshed, in the limbo of

non-existence. Willy nilly, every one of us is thrust into the world by

an irresponsible act of two previous players; and once there, we must

play out the set as best we may to the bitter end, however little we

like it or the rules that order it.

That, it must be admitted, makes a grave distinction from the very

outset between the game of human life and any other game with which we

are commonly acquainted. It also makes it imperative upon the framers of

the rules so to frame them that no one player shall have an unfair or

unjust advantage over any of the others. And since the penalty of bad

play, or bad success in the match, is death, misery, starvation, it

behoves the rule-makers to be more scrupulously particular as to

fairness and equity than in any other game like cricket or tennis. It

behoves them to see that all start fair, and that no hapless beginner is

unduly handicapped. To compel men to take part in a match for dear life,

whether they wish it or not, and then to insist that some of them shall

wield bats and some mere broom-sticks, irrespective of height, weight,

age, or bodily infirmity, is surely not fair. It justifies the committee

in calling for a revision.

But things are far worse than even that in the game as actually played

in Europe. What shall we say of rules which decide dogmatically that one

set of players are hereditarily entitled to be always batting, while

another set, less lucky, have to field for ever, and to be fined or

imprisoned for not catching? What shall we say of rules which give one

group a perpetual right to free lunch in the tent, while the remainder

have to pick up what they can for themselves by gleaning among the

stubble? How justify the principle in accordance with which the captain

on one side has an exclusive claim to the common ground of the club, and

may charge every player exactly what he likes for the right to play upon

it?--especially when the choice lies between playing on such terms, or

being cast into the void, yourself and your family. And then to think

that the ground thus tabooed by one particular member may be all

Sutherlandshire, or, still worse, all Westminster! Decidedly, these

rules call for instant revision; and the unprivileged players must be

submissive indeed who consent to put up with them.

Friends and fellow-members, let us cry with one voice, "The links for

the players!"

Once more, just look at the singular rule in our own All England club,

by which certain assorted members possess a hereditary right to veto all

decisions of the elective committee, merely because they happen to be

their fathers' sons, and the club long ago very foolishly permitted the

like privilege to their ancestors! That is an irrational interference

with the liberty of the players which hardly anybody nowadays ventures

to defend in principle, and which is only upheld in some half-hearted

way (save in the case of that fossil anachronism, the Duke of Argyll) by

supposed arguments of convenience. It won't last long now; there is talk

in the committee of "mending or ending it." It shows the long-suffering

nature of the poor blind players at this compulsory game of national

football that they should ever for one moment permit so monstrous an

assumption--permit the idea that one single player may wield a

substantive voice and vote to outweigh tens of thousands of his

fellow-members!

These questions of procedure, however, are after all small matters. It

is the real hardships of the game that most need to be tackled. Why

should one player be born into the sport with a prescriptive right to

fill some easy place in the field, while another has to fag on from

morning to night in the most uninteresting and fatiguing position? Why

should _p* de foie gras_ and champagne-cup in the tent be so unequally

distributed? Why should those who have made fewest runs and done no

fielding be admitted to partake of these luxuries, free of charge, while

those who have borne the brunt of the fight, those who have suffered

from the heat of the day, those who have contributed most to the honour

of the victory, are turned loose, unfed, to do as they can for

themselves by hook or by crook somehow? These are the questions some of

us players are now beginning to ask ourselves; and we don't find them

efficiently answered by the bald statement that we "want to play the

game without the rules," and that we ought to be precious glad the

legislators of the club haven't made them a hundred times harder against

us.

No, no; the rules themselves must be altered. Time was, indeed, when

people used to think they were made and ordained by divine authority.

"c*m privilegio" was the motto of the captains. But we know very well

now that every club settles its own standing orders, and that it can

alter and modify them as fundamentally as it pleases. Lots of funny old

saws are still uttered upon this subject--"There must always be rich and

poor;" "You can't interfere with economical laws;" "If you were to

divide up everything to-morrow, at the end of a fortnight you'd find the

same differences and inequalities as ever." The last-named argument (I

believe it considers itself by courtesy an argument) is one which no

self-respecting Radical should so much as deign to answer. Nobody that I

ever heard of for one moment proposed to "divide up everything," or, for

that matter, anything: and the imputation that somebody did or does is a

proof either of intentional malevolence or of crass stupidity. Neither

should be encouraged; and you encourage them by pretending to take them

seriously. It is the initial injustices of the game that we Radicals

object to--the injustices which prevent us from all starting fair and

having our even chance of picking up a livelihood. We don't want to

"divide up everything"--a most futile proceeding; but we do want to

untie the legs and release the arms of the handicapped players. To drop

metaphor at last, it is the conditions we complain about. Alter the

conditions, and there would be no need for division, summary or gradual.

The game would work itself out spontaneously without your intervention.

The injustice of the existing set of rules simply appals the Radical.

Yet oddly enough, this injustice itself appeals rather to the

comparative looker-on than to the heavily-handicapped players in person.

They, poor creatures, dragging their log in patience, have grown so

accustomed to regarding the world as another man's oyster, that they put

up uncomplainingly for the most part with the most patent inequalities.

Perhaps 'tis their want of imagination that makes them unable to

conceive any other state of things as even possible--like the dog who

accepts kicking as the natural fate of doghood. At any rate, you will

find, if you look about you, that the chief reformers are not, as a

rule, the ill-used classes themselves, but the sensitive and thinking

souls who hate and loathe the injustice with which others are treated.

Most of the best Radicals I have known were men of gentle birth and

breeding. Not all: others, just as earnest, just as eager, just as

chivalrous, sprang from the masses. Yet the gently-reared preponderate.

It is a common Tory taunt to say that the battle is one between the

Haves and the Have-nots. That is by no means true. It is between the

selfish Haves, on one side, and the unselfish Haves, who wish to see

something done for the Have-nots, on the other. As for the poor

Have-nots themselves, they are mostly inarticulate. Indeed, the Tory

almost admits as much when he alters his tone and describes the

sympathising and active few as "paid agitators."

For myself, however, I am a born Conservative. I hate to see any old

custom or practice changed; unless, indeed, it is either foolish or

wicked--like most existing ones.