ANOTHER manifestation of the general failure to comprehend the true nature of politics is the persistent and ill-humoured demand that is made for “honesty” in public life.

An ideal sings in the souls of all the poor in spirit, and finds expression in the unmusical prose of their diatribes, their oratory, and their Utopias. They dream of a sort of areopagus, made up of honest men, to whom alone should be entrusted the affairs of State or nation. In this congress we should find chemists, and physicians, and poets, and mathematicians, and doctors, and just plain ordinary citizens, all, however, endowed with two qualities: nobility of intentions along with personal unselfishness; and training or ability in some branch of human activity not directly connected with politics proper. Politics, in the good sense of the term, should result rather from this cross-breeding of honesty with so-called “technical competence.” Just what kind of politics would be produced by this assortment of virtuous technicians there is, fortunately, no way of testing by experiment. History has never tried to realise this particular ideal, and seems to be in no great hurry to do so. It is true that every now and then—episodically, so to speak—groups more or less distantly resembling such elect company find themselves possessed of political power for short periods of time. Men loved and revered for their spotless probity and for their intellect and learning, are occasionally made heads of States. But they are at once put out of office again, with a doctorate in ineptitude added to their other titles. I need refer, in illustration, only to the Trinity, as it was dubbed, of “honest men” who made such botches in their respective countries, of the liberal revolutions of the first half of the nineteenth century: Lafayette in France, Espartero in Spain, and Guglielmo Pepe in the kingdom of Naples.

It is strange—though not so strange when we consider it in the light of the psychological explanations suggested above—that people should think in these terms in connection with politics only. When we are sick, when we must submit to a surgical operation, we never dream of hunting up an “honest man,” or even an honest philosopher or mathematician. What we ask for and do our best to find is a doctor or a surgeon, and we will take him honest or dishonest as he happens to be, provided he is a competent physician with a discerning clinical eye and a surgical hand that does not falter. But in politics we demand not politicians, by which I mean experts in statesmanship, but honest men, trained, if they are trained, in something besides politics.

“But what is political honesty then?” it may be asked. Political honesty is nothing but political capacity; just as the honesty of the physician and the surgeon is their capacity as physician or surgeon, which prevents them from murdering their patients with a fatuity compounded of good intentions and impressive erudition in other fields.

“And is that all? Should not the public official be a man above reproach in every respect, wholly worthy of esteem? Can public affairs be left to persons not in themselves commendable?” The answer is that the shortcomings a statesman of competence or genius may have in spheres other than politics make him unavailable in those spheres but not in politics. In the rest of his life we are free to condemn him and treat him as an ignorant professor, an unfaithful husband, a bad father, a corrupt libertine, or anything else. In the same way we may censure a spendthrift, dissolute or immoral poet as a gambler, a rake, and an adulterer; but we must accept his poetry for what it is as poetry: the pure part of his soul, the aspect of his life with which he progressively redeems himself. After Charles James Fox, a roisterer and roué of the first order, had come into prominence as orator and leader in Parliament, he is said to have tried to set his private life in order, forsaking disreputable places of amusement in an effort to become a respectable gentleman. Straightway he felt his inspiration as a speaker fail him. He lost his zest for the political fray. And he recovered his normal efficiency only when he had gone back to his habitual manner of living. Well, what of it? The most we might do is to deplore an unfortunate physical and psychological constitution in a man that makes him feel the need of unusual excitements and indulgences in order to do his best work. But this would have no bearing on Fox’s achievement as a statesman; and as he was a valuable public servant, England did well in giving him plenty of room in politics; though prudent parents could not be blamed if they kept their daughters out of his way.

“But that isn’t the only thing,” the objection further runs. “If we may ignore the private life of a statesman, how about actual dishonesty? This strikes at the roots of the very service he renders, and makes him a traitor to party or country. That is why we demand that he be privately, which means integrally, honest.” However, we must not overlook the fact that a man blessed with genius or real capacity will take liberties with everything but not with what constitutes his passion, his love, his glory, the fundamental justification and purpose of his being. The poet will be careless of his manners or his morals; but if he is a real poet he will not compromise his art, he will not consent under any circumstances to write verse unworthy of him. And so it is with the politician and the statesman. Mirabeau used to get money from the Royal Court; but though he used the money for himself, he used the Court along with the National Assembly to further his idea of establishing in France a constitutional monarchy of the English type, neither absolutist nor demagogical.

“But supposing he is a political genius, who, despite his passion for his calling, yields to his lower instincts and ruins his work?” On this point there is nothing to be said. Here dishonesty coincides with bad politics, with political incompetence; and incompetence will be incompetence whatever its motives, good or bad, and regardless of the form it may take as innate and fundamental, or as momentary and incidental. So the great poet, for a price or to do a favour, might consent to write uninspired verses of adulation or “of occasion.” In this case, however, he would no longer be a poet.