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Typos — p. 145: incontrovertable [= incontrovertible]
Back to the jungle by Anthony M. Ludovici The New English Weekly 32, 1947–48, pp. 144–145 - p. 163 - Compared with our own annual figures for deaths, alone, caused by motor-cars, however, 866 looks and is trifling. For with a population one tenth of that of India, these road deaths in this country from 1929 to 1939 inclusive, were never less than 6,500 per annum. The total injured during the same period was never less than 170,900 per annum. Thus, after centuries of civilisation and of increased safety from the dangers that once threatened Man when he ventured abroad, we are, as I wrote in The Daily Express in December 1928, back in the jungle again. The common man, woman and child of civilization, on leaving home, are now much less certain than they were 2000 years ago of surviving the outing. And this is due wholly and solely to the introduction of the internal combustion engine, for road transport, at a moment in history when humanitarianism and the respect for individual freedom and human life and dignity were at their lowest ebb. One benefit the motor-car did bring to the humanitarian. It relieved him of a heart-breaking spectacle which, I confess, harassed me throughout my childhood, adolescence and early manhood. I mean the cruelly hard usage to which horses were subjected in cities like London and Paris by the passenger transport industry. Nor is it without significance, if only as a sign of the times, and despite all our popular girls'-school "historians" may claim about our being a "kindly people," that only with the advent of mechanized passenger transport did it become the rule — at least in this country — for omnibuses and trams to stop only at definite stages. More consideration was evidently found in the hearts of "kindly" modern people for mere machines than for animals. But the one benefit to which I refer, though very real, was the only one which, from the standpoint of humanity, can be ascribed to the motor-car. It swept the wretched, panting, short-lived 'bus and tram horse from the road, Everywhere else it has meant sheer loss — loss in the amenities and pleasures of the countryside, loss in civilized sentiment and sensitiveness, loss in liberty and human dignity and, above all, serious loss in human life. The fact that, in spite of the heavy annual toll in lives and injuries, the root cause of road deaths — the excessive speeds attained by the average motor-driver — shows no sign of voluntary abatement is, in itself, a sufficient indication of the regression car-driving has brought about in civilized feeling. The greater humanity and social sense of our great-grandfathers and grandfathers, convincingly displayed, may be seen by anyone who, before the carefully closed gates of a level railway crossing, watches the passage of a train running at anything from 20 to 60 miles an hour; The fact that thousands of deaths must result from this licence would have been obvious to any Englishman in the fifties of last century. Nor, in spite of the increasing stupidity of modern man, is it really any less obvious now to his grandsons and great-grandsons. The only difference is that whereas he cared his descendants do not. The thrill of speed which, I believe, could be shown to be due largely to sadistic impulses, the feeling of power which speed imparts and, above all, the sense of superiority associated not only with higher speeds of travel but also, through the association of at least owner-driving with the pecuniary prestige of such means of travel — all these factors combine to make the owner-driver deaf to any humanitarian or civilized appeal. Nevertheless, there has been no determined and indignant protest. I should say, no determined and indignant nation-wide protest. For, here as I write, I have by me the most vehement and well-reasoned protest so far expressed by any writer. And he speaks for a large body — The Pedestrians' Association. I refer to a brochure by J. S. Dean, entitled Murder Most Foul. * In it he displays genuine and yet sober indignation, leaves no aspect of the road casualties undealt with, and makes a plea at once so stirring and incontrovertable for the prompt reform of our road laws, that the reader is constantly left wondering how the state of affairs he reveals can have endured as long as it has without a popular uprising. Referring to the slaughter on the roads, Mr. Dean says: "It is indeed surprising and deplorable that this meanest and most callous of crimes should be so prevalent in a country that for so long has prided itself on its fair-mindedness, its record in protecting the weak and its detestation of cruelty." He points out that England and Wales, before World War II, came third (after Italy and Germany) in the number of its road casualties; that it had, in proportion to its population, annual totals almost twice those of France and almost three times those of the U.S.A. "It was the opinion among Dominion and foreign visitors to this country," he says, "that British drivers were among the worst and the worst-mannered in the world," and a French observer is quoted as having described the English driver in a hurry (and when is he not in a hurry?) as "the biggest cad in Europe." When, in conjunction with these statements, we learn that "private cars have the worst accident record," and "the private driver is the least disciplined," when we also recall that Mr. Archibald Henderson, Road Transport Commissioner for Scotland, speaking in Edinburgh on November 2nd, 1945, said that "there does not seem to be any tradition of manners in driving a car. We are still uncivilized and the worst in us is undoubtedly brought out "we cannot help wondering whether we are not entitled to exclaim, in curru veritas! But then what becomes of the popular girls'-school historian's tag? On one point alone I am unable to concur with Mr. Dean's excellent brochure. He expresses surprise at the supine attitude of the Labour Party and the Trade Unions towards the motor slaughter. Because, he says, "the great majority of the victims of it, especially the pedestrians are members of the working classes." — I do not share his surprise. If he had had my twenty-five years of experience in trying to arouse indignation in the working class over the road casualties, he would have felt as I do. Over eight years ago I wrote: "I have tried to stimulate some of them [the working class] to an attitude of indignant protest. But I have found it must difficult." I suggested three major reasons for this. The first was that the workers, like their pecuniary superiors, suffer from the infirmity of judging most things by a cash standard: and, since the private car represents pecuniary superiority, even the indigent squint enviously at it while in the very act of listening to your diatribes. The second was that most working men and women have become infected with the mania for speed, and either themselves hope to possess a motor-cycle or car, or else have close relatives who cherish this hope, or have realized it, and therefore secretly sympathize with the motorist. And, thirdly I submitted that the whole country, including the workers, feel such servile adulation, for what is popularly held to constitute "Progress" or "Civilization," that the idea of protesting against a heavy annual sacrifice, even of sound children, for the Cause, becomes inconceivable. (New Pioneer, Aug. 1939). But this matter of surprise apart, I am in entire agreement with every word of Mr. Dean's valuable and welcome treatise, and would gladly see it find its way as quickly as possible into every home in the British Isles. It has been impossible, here, to call attention to all its many qualities. Its indictment of the so-called "educational" remedies, alone, constitutes it a memorable contribution to a tragic controversy. * George Allen and Unwin. Demy 8vo. pp. 144. Price, 3/- net. |
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