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,