Chapter II: Passive Resistance as Rebellion

The essential preliminary to any useful discussion of passive resistance is the clear recognition of the fact that it is rebellion, and nothing less. To say, or admit, this is not necessarily to condemn it; for there are few persons to-day, I suppose, who would contend that rebellion is never justifiable. All it asserts is that passive resistance has to be judged by the same measures and according to the same standards as any other kind of revolt against constituted political authority. It is all the more needful to make this plain because some of the milder but more muddled among the resisters try to shut their eyes to the fact that they are rebels. They claim to be sheep and not goats. They call themselves Socialists; they profess an abnormal loyalty to the idea of the State; they protest their devotion to the Great Society; they ask to be allowed to make all sorts of sacrifices to the community; they announce their willingness to do anything--except the one thing which the Government requires them to do. The exception is fatal to their claim. "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." The State does not and cannot submit the validity of its enactments to the private judgment of its subjects. It expresses and enforces the general will, and it dare not leave to the choice, or even to the conscience, of the individual an option as to which of its commands shall be obeyed, and which not. To do so would be to loose the bands of society, to bring to an end the reign of law, and to plunge the community once again into that primal chaos of anarchy from which in the beginning it painfully emerged. The State demands, and must necessarily demand, implicit obedience. From the loyal it receives it. Those from whom it does not receive it are rebels, no matter how conscientious they may be, how lofty their moral elevation, how sublimely passive their resistance. So far as their disobedience extends they are the enemies of organized society, disrupters of the commonwealth, subverters of government, the allies and confederates of criminals and anarchists. It is worth noting, moreover, how easily their passive resistance develops into more active forms of rebellion. Not for long was the Suffragist content to remain merely defensive in revolt; soon she emerged with whips for Cabinet Ministers, hammers for windows, and bombs for churches. Resistant Trade Unionists rapidly and generally slide into sabotage and personal violence. The No-Conscriptionists of Ireland threaten through Mr. Byrne, M.P., for Dublin, that "if Conscription is forced on Ireland, it will be resisted by drilled and armed forces"[43]--a delightfully Hibernian type of anti-militarism, which, nevertheless, throws a lurid light on the real meaning of the movement. It is seen to be rebellion, open, naked and unashamed.

FOOTNOTE:

[43] See _Times_, November 22nd, 1915.