It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great city of Dublin, under a sky of nine degrees and such partly clouded temper as the heavens allot us in April, to observe the gazettes crowded with prodigies, and to discover that the world, having lately resolved to devour itself, has as suddenly resolved upon peace; and upon peace, moreover, of a sort so perfectly suited to the interests of those who first declared the war, that a philosophical gentleman, were he to descend from his closet merely to read the headlines, might conclude himself transported into one of those antic kingdoms which I once had occasion to describe, where the meaning of words is determined by the convenience of kings.
For behold: the Strait of Hormuz, which but a fortnight past was stopped up as if by Providence itself, is now declared, by the very hand that stopped it, to be open. The Persian minister, with that stately solemnity which all nations borrow from one another as they borrow money, has announced upon the electric gazettes that commerce may proceed "for the remainder of the ceasefire," a phrase which, I confess, enchants me, for it suggests that peace is but a species of hourly tenancy, and that the oil which the merchants crave shall flow only until such time as it is judicious to stop it again. Brent crude, I am told, fell by a tenth upon this news, and the ministers of France, Italy, Germany, and that much-tried island to our east rushed to welcome the opening with such breathless congratulation as one might reserve for the discovery of a new planet. Meanwhile the Persian parliament, lest anyone mistake the arithmetic, has observed that the strait shall remain open only so long as the American fleet retains its civility; which is to say, the door is open, but the key is in the landlord's pocket.
I am pleased to report that the American president, not content with governing, has now sued his own Treasury for ten thousand millions of dollars, and further proposes to settle the matter with himself. Here is a fine novelty in jurisprudence: the plaintiff and defendant sharing a chamber, a stenographer, and a gravy boat. The learned commentators fret that such a man cannot be trusted to negotiate with his own revenue; but I think they are too cautious. A gentleman who has been cheated by himself his whole life is the very person best qualified to forgive himself, and the kingdom is spared the expense of a jury.
In the meantime, the same gentleman has thanked the Gulf princes for their "tremendous" support, and has declared the day "great and brilliant." Upon these adjectives the world's peace is now suspended, as upon a spider's thread.
But why should I travel so far to gather examples of folly, when my own sovereign's ministers supply them in such abundance? The Prime Minister of England, a Mr. Starmer, has discovered – or rather, the newspapers have discovered for him – that his ambassador to Washington, one Mandelson, was known to the authorities as unfit for the post before he was given the post; that the security services, in their quiet way, said so; and that the Prime Minister, in his quiet way, appears not to have heard. A senior civil servant has now been dismissed, as is the custom when a small man must be produced to carry the luggage of a greater man's embarrassment. Mr. Starmer promises to deliver "the relevant facts" on Monday, which is a pretty phrase, for it implies the existence of irrelevant facts, of which no Minister has yet been accused of possessing too few.
I turn with relief to the condition of the common sort. At the approaching World Cup, the patriots who wish to see a football match in New York are to be charged two hundred dollars for a railway journey of fifteen minutes' duration. This comes to a rate of eight hundred dollars the hour; and I have calculated, by the plain rules of proportion, that a man who boarded this train at Dublin and remained aboard for the passage to the moon would be ruined by the time he reached Liverpool. Here is enterprise! Here is the free circulation of peoples which the treaties so warmly celebrate!
Not to be outdone, a Kenyan firm contracted to examine the unwholesome productions uploaded to Mr. Zuckerberg's machines has lately dismissed more than a thousand of its workers, after that gentleman tired of the arrangement. These persons were employed at wages which our own beggars would refuse, and to stare all day at scenes which, I am informed, included the private hours of those who had purchased spectacles that see for them. I propose no remedy. I merely note that the prosperity of a polite empire in one hemisphere is purchased, as always, by the eyesight of the poor in another.
And what of the earth beneath these great matters? The Japanese, I read, have invented a new word, kokushobi, to denote days of forty degrees and worse, "brutally hot," they say, or "cruelly hot." It is a thoughtful courtesy to name a thing before it kills you; a man who is properly introduced to his murderer departs, at least, on terms. Meanwhile the United Nations warns that South Sudan may slide into full-scale famine. Upon this subject I once made a modest proposal, which I shall not repeat, being now too old, and the joke too tired, and the children too real.
Let me end where I began, with the sky over Dublin. It is partly cloudy, and the thermometer reads nine degrees – a climate so moderate in its opinions that it could, with advantage, be appointed to several foreign ministries. The gulls make their small republican noises above the Liffey. The peace holds, for ten days by stated contract. The oil flows, at the pleasure of those who may yet stop it. The ministers promise facts. The trains await their cargo of dupes.
I remain, as ever, a faithful observer of the human menagerie, and your humble servant, who has learned only this in a long life: that nothing so resembles a treaty of peace as the silence between two breaths of the same war.
