Part 12

The effect of the upheaval upon the girls who had been presented in 1914, or would in the ordinary course of events have made their _début_ since, has been startling, and it has taught me that not only are the working classes sound at the core--I never doubted this--but the leisured classes are in no whit inferior. Only an insignificant minority pursue pleasure at any price, and find in the horrors of our time a medium for publicity or dissipation. Over the not inconsiderable circle that I have the opportunity of observing there came, in the vast majority of cases, a startling change. The opportunities for frivolity under the rose were accepted only by a few who are constitutionally and irretrievably decadent, or actually vicious. The others passed pleasure by, sought duty wherever it was to be found, and became supremely happy in its pursuit. They taught me to realise that my feminist friends were right, and that environment which could have moulded their plastic natures in one mould, had no trouble in moulding them in another.

To do full justice to the fortunately circumstanced girls of England, for I take it that what is true of London and many country homes will apply elsewhere, it is necessary to remember that they have known less of the horrors of war than their sisters of almost all belligerent countries. Some, very few, have heard one or two bombs dropped from air-ships, the rest have seen no more than the wounded men who are sufficiently well to be brought over to England. They cannot even have visualised the full tragedy of the struggle as French and Belgian girls must have done, and, above all, they are seldom imaginative, but just as they were prepared less than two years ago to enjoy as good a time as life could afford, they are now committed to the hardest tasks within their competence. What they have lost in pleasure, they have gained in self-respect, and a sense of true citizenship; above all, they realise that they are of signal use to the State in the hour of its exceeding great need. Part of the _rôle_ so long denied to them they have assumed, not only without challenge, but with acclamation.

They have one additional advantage in their new sphere: they have never known the pursuits of normal times. While the doors of the ball-room and all that lies beyond were still shut, the doors of the Temple of Janus were torn asunder. They have no regrets, they do not miss the flavour of what they have never tasted. Life is so full for them that if pleasure were within their grasp they would lack the leisure as well as the inclination to grasp it. The example of fathers, brothers, boy friends, is an unending stimulus; all those they love best are looking to them with a gratitude or admiration that no pursuit of pleasure could have evoked. They have realised the high tension of the hour, they have risen silently and unostentatiously to the heights. Such tragedy as has come into their lives--and the mourning that so many wear is eloquent beyond all speech--has increased rather than diminished their labours; it has brought them nearer to the actuality of things. Where one hoped that all would gather roses many have gathered rue, but they have learned to know it by the older name, herb-of-grace. They wear it as they work, and it has become one of the symbols of the bond that binds those who serve with those who suffer.

I have seen the girls of whom I write labouring with deft yet unaccustomed hands in the canteens, undertaking in the hospitals the menial work that falls to those who are yet untrained, giving to pain longer hours than they would have given to pleasure in happy times. They bring to their tasks the subtle indefinite charm that is the gift of their hour and was intended for a setting so different. Is it a part of their reward that their lives should not lack a generous gift of high romance? I cannot recall in any season over which my memory has control so many engagements and marriages as there have been of late. The old huckstering conditions would seem to have passed, the girls are no longer weighing chances, the men are no longer calculating coldly. Each sees the other at best. The girl knows that the lad who has given all and risked all for his country must be sound at heart, and that his scars are honourable; the young man knows that he cannot go wrong in choosing a girl who has left pleasure for duty, who has found high ideals and pursues them. These unions coming about in hours of deepest uncertainty, when the bride of one month may be the widow of the next, are calculated to bring out what is best in both, for the natural affection is leavened by mutual respect. I have heard worldly minded parents grieve, some have brought their tales of woe to my utterly unsympathetic ear; I rejoice in these marriages, and believe they are of happiest augury for the State. Surely those who wed under these conditions may hope to live on the high plane of idealism longer than those whose unions have been dictated by what is mis-called prudence, while the fruits of unions consummated in such solemn hours when the future of Europe trembles in the balances of God, will be a source of strength in the years to come. They will surely not be like the offspring of exaggerated comfort or monstrous luxury.

It seems to me, reviewing the accomplishment of so many girls I know best, that war, for all its tragedy, may well leave the poor remains of our civilisation better than it was in the season of our opulence. Without regard to money or to good looks some of the best elements of the race have mated, each partner to the union understanding in fashion hitherto unimaginable not only that the Empire is worth the best we have to offer, but that one and all, regardless of the world's favours, are bringing their sacrifice. The minorities, noisy or silent, with which we must hereafter deal, the residue of profit-hunters and pleasure-seekers, pass almost out of mind as one sees the extraordinary transformation that war has wrought in a class that was supposed to be utterly deaf to any call save the call of amusement. That there have been larger tributes to the national cause is a commonplace, that there has been a more striking one I, at least, deny.

Who was the cynic who said that woman was the last animal that man would civilise? I hope and believe he has not lived as long as his libel, and yet I could wish that somewhere in the realms reserved for liars he could be permitted to see a few at least of the sights that have gladdened and stimulated me in the past twelve months, ever since the women workers in the Empire's cause became fully representative of every class in the realm.

XXI

THE SOCIAL HORIZON

Very early in the war, almost before the Expeditionary Force was under arms, the Government was forced by the grave urgency of the national case to apply the principles of socialism to certain outstanding problems. To name only one instance, we may mention the work of the railways. Socialists have always urged that the railroads should be taken over by Government in the national interest, and countless reams of paper have been wasted by individualists to demonstrate the impossibility. But needs grew paramount, and the Government, by a stroke of the pen, took the railroads into its inexpert keeping. Nothing has happened to make the country regret the change. The fashion in which our railways (with a few notable exceptions) are conducted is so utterly bad and so profoundly inefficient, that Government, in giving precedence to Government business, made them very little worse. Fares are a trifle higher, trains rather less frequent, carriages dirtier than heretofore, but Government's proper needs and unpractised handling could do little or nothing to depress the normal standard. As the war progressed, and various common-sense measures were required to deal with war profits, war contracts, and war crises generally, it was recognised with something akin to dismay by the hierarchy that lives behind the times that in many instances socialism had anticipated common-sense. Then a strange thing happened. In a very unguarded moment, Mr. Runciman, that bright young man whose statesmanlike qualities and keen sympathy with our poor shipowners have endeared him to a small minority at least of English-speaking people, was heard to declare before a pained and startled House of Commons that where Socialism was practical and met the needs of the hour, he was prepared to adopt it. In other words, he would not discard a useful measure because it was socialistic in origin or tendencies! What magnanimity; what a sterling recognition of a nation's needs!

Nobody perhaps quite knows what measure of concession to hard truth was here intended, but as a statement made by a President of the Board of Trade, the utterance deserved more attention than it received. Perhaps the Press Bureau asked newspapers to take no marked notice of a hard-worked "statesman's" slip of the tongue. One would wager that it did not pass altogether unrebuked by those descendants of the wise men of Gotham, who would rather see the Empire lost by party politicians than saved by Socialists or Socialism.

It is a curious fact, and one that the historian of the future will surely acknowledge, that Individualism has been discredited by the war, and that the appeal of both our leaders and misleaders, whatever the colour of their party-political opinions, has been to the principles underlying Socialism. Even in Russia, an autocracy, a land in which the Tsar comes in the popular mind very near to God, the appeal to the nation has been an appeal, however unconsciously, to Socialism. The root principle of Socialism lies in a great National Act. The nation must work together for the national good. So far has this idea developed that in the last days of February, a reputed reactionary, M. Markoff, rose in the Duma to implore the Government "to withdraw its shield from the old gang of officials who look upon their country's adversities merely as a favourable opportunity for increasing their perquisites" (_Daily Telegraph_, Feb. 28th). Here, under the pressure of giant circumstance, we find an appeal made for the united action and the national act. In Germany, as all our responsible, and not a little of the irresponsible, Press has frankly admitted, the Socialist party is the only one that has kept its head, and endeavoured in very difficult circumstances to preserve ideals. The _Vorwarts_, leading organ of German Socialism, though it regards the war as an evil for which Germany was not responsible, has courageously opposed all the actions of the governing class that have tended to lower the character of the German people, and I have heard some of the best informed students of European politics declare that, had Social Democracy been allowed another ten years of peaceful development throughout the German Empire, no German ruler would have dared provoke a war for the hegemony of Europe. They cannot deny that Socialism, in its International aspect, was making for the brotherhood of man. No other force in national life was working with any approach to equal strength and sincerity along the same road and in pursuit of the same goal.

Unfortunately, under the conditions that beset and damn all Europe, the people have no voice in the supreme decision of war. Their privilege is to fight those with whom they have no quarrel. Theirs, too, to sacrifice in appalling numbers their fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, to give up their homes and savings, to acquiesce blindly in every evil that marches in the wake of strife. Just as the men ordered from the trenches to be mown down by shot and shell are given or offered some form of raw spirit to stimulate and even intoxicate them, so before war is declared, Governments, through the medium of a docile Press, circulate the lies best calculated to make the imminent enormity appear inevitable and just. As soon as the declaration of war is made, the common patriotism of nations obscures every other issue. Men must fight for hearth and home, for fatherland and all that it implies. Primal necessity is speaking, and on every banner of every nation the ominous words "Væ victis" are inscribed. The people who make war and, somewhere out of Death's ample range direct it, understand the psychology of nations; their skill in all the arts of deception is unrivalled. Yet of all the lessons enforced by the war there is none that has come with greater force to all whose minds are not hermetically sealed than the lesson that Individualism has failed completely in the hour of the world's extremist need. The price we have paid for it within the compass of two brief years is the total loss of millions of lives, the future ineffectiveness of still more, the sheer, brutal waste of wealth more than sufficient to have solved all the economic troubles of Europe. Countless thinkers in all belligerent countries have been forced to the conclusion that Socialism is the only force capable of rendering what is left of Europe capable and adequate to the demands upon it. Great Britain, insular by act of God and the general tendency of the population, is fully prepared to accept Socialism as long as it is not called by that name, for such is the state of our mental development that we judge all political goods by their labels. In other countries, where social, political, and economic conditions are not merely discussed, but understood, where the people's representatives are required to have some minimum of knowledge in addition to birth, money, and influence, these concessions to popular ignorance and prejudice have been swept aside. The recognition of the necessity for sweeping changes is made without fear. Even in Germany, when Dr. Frank, the eminent Socialist, was reported killed, a statement was published to the effect that the Kaiser had expressed his regrets at the death of a man whose gifts would have helped the country in the days when schemes of reconstruction are under consideration.

This may have been no more than a sop to the social Democrats, of whom upwards of two millions have been called to the colours, but even if this be so, the sop is a significant one, and could not have been lightly given.

In stricken Belgium, the man who comes next to King Albert in sheer patriotic endeavour and in the gift of inspiring the nation to hold up its head under conditions hard for any of us to realise, is the famous Socialist leader, Emile Vandervelde. He is not only at the head of the Belgian Ministry of War, but is King Albert's most trusted adviser; his gifts overshadow those of his equally devoted and patriotic colleagues. The thrill of horror and shame that ran through France when Jean Jaurés fell to the assassin's bullet in the opening days of war, was felt far beyond the French borders. Even in the tense excitement of that unhappy season, the French Government, after voting the murdered patriot a public funeral, posted in every Commune throughout the country its expression of horror and regret. To-day, a Socialist Prime Minister directs with rare skill and courage the fortunes of the Republic; the French National Council has not hesitated to summon to its ranks such an uncompromising foe of Individualism in whatever form as Jules Guesde. None, having eyes to see, ears to hear with, and even a modest gift of comprehension, can fail to gather from this the tendency of the great Power with which we are now so closely allied. Of all the European nations there is none in which the gift of political sagacity is so strongly marked as it is in France, none to which the gifts of political foresight and courage have been granted in equal measure. What Paris thinks to-day, London must be at least prepared to discuss in the very near future.

There is no secret about the cause of the action that France and Belgium have taken of set purpose. The whole essence of a successful struggle is unity--unity of purpose, of feeling and of thought. The working classes, now as ever, are bearing in every country the bulk of the burden of war. Sane Governments must needs endeavour to secure for labour an adequate representation in their midst. Knowing that their proper interests are being subordinated, if at all, to the national cause, and not for private profit or exploitation, labour feels that it is secure, and will give all it has to give with a generosity that may be rivalled, but can never be excelled. The white flame of patriotism is only kept glowing if it is fed by the efforts of a whole community. This result will never be quite realised here in England until all interests are united in a Cabinet that stands just now for very little more than the propertied classes. I admit, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Brace, and Mr. Wardle, have all been given some office to placate the great Trade Unions from which so much is demanded to-day. But this is not enough. Our Cabinet of aged ostriches still hides its head in the bushes of precedent and prejudice, content to believe that what it does not wish to see can have no existence, and fortified in this strange method, that would be comic if it were not tragic, by all sections of the capitalistic Press. International Socialism is gathering its forces throughout Europe, and in the United States as well, to impose permanent peace on kings and other anachronisms. Thinking people in all the centres of civilisation agree that this war is sounding the knell of privilege. But England remains content to be ruled by lawyers, professional politicians, mid-Victorian relics, and doctrinaires. Socialism, the master force of the immediate future, is deliberately ignored. Well might Father Adderley (Canon the Honourable James Adderley, so beloved in the slums of Plaistow and Birmingham) deplore in his recently published memoirs, the absence from Parliament or from the Government itself, of H. M. Hyndman, the Nestor of English Socialism. The astonishing part of our national attitude towards this crisis is that the men who really guide and influence our public opinion, the live men of letters, are for the most part Socialists, and make no secret of their principles, nor have they ever hesitated to voice their suspicion of what Matthew Arnold called "the unelastic pedantry of theorising Liberalism." Does this Government think that all this teaching has fallen or is falling on deaf ears? Does it forget that it was the French Encyclopædists who made the French Revolution? They taught a discontented and unhappy people to think and the people did the rest. Our rulers have always moved respectfully behind the times, but, to do them what justice we may, be it remembered that they never expected to live through seasons that impel the times to move with giant and sudden strides.

Now, even in the latter days, all these things have come upon them. Will they, can they, rise to the height of the occasion?

XXII

HOW SHALL WE MINISTER TO WORLD DISEASED?

It is not without a certain significance that, while French and German soldiery were sacrificing themselves by their thousands to the Gods of War in and around the blood-stained village street of Douaumont, while our soldiers were holding on to the line of the Tigris, near whose source Russian forces were marching southward to the rescue, the Royal Commission appointed to investigate what is euphemistically called "Social Disease," issued its report. The coincidence from certain view-points is startling.

The report, definitely limited as to its scope, sober in its statement, and appalling in its revelation, is a solemn reminder to the world of civilised men that there are enemies equally deadly and more insidious than those with whom any belligerent is concerned. The victims of the diseases discussed probably outnumber, in Great Britain alone, all her defenders on sea and land. Four millions of our population, with power to add to their number, are at grips with a deadly enemy in various stages of its virulence; an enemy who will "visit the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation." Nay more, the Commissioners whose trained minds lend solid value to their every utterance, assure us that after a war an excessive incidence of disease is certain to occur, even in districts previously free. There are other significant comments. "Our evidence," they tell us, "tends to show that the communication of disease is frequently due to intoxicants, and there is no doubt that the growth of temperance among the population would help to bring about an amelioration. We are also conscious of the fact that overcrowded and insanitary dwellings contribute to the spread of disease, and from improvements in this direction we should expect some diminution of its prevalence."

Let us consider the full meaning of these vivid comments. When war is over, we shall celebrate the coming of peace throughout the length and breadth of these islands. Countless offerings will be laid before the altar of the brewer and the distiller; it will be almost dangerous to be an abstainer. For a time, at least, the barriers of restraint will be torn down. Something known as "good fellowship" will at once dictate and excuse an orgie. The discipline that weak minds require will be honoured in the breach rather than the observance, and "an excessive incidence of disease is certain to occur, even in districts previously free."

When a town is successfully invaded, and a soldiery, grown reckless after lying cheek by jowl with death flings his self-discipline, mercy, and restraint to the winds, the world that has not lost its reason is sick at heart. When peace is proclaimed, and the return to civil life is associated with a licence that outrages the living and damns the unborn, there is apparently no authority that can intervene, no public opinion capable of making itself felt. The living, and those upon whom the heaviest burden of life is to be imposed, are alike unprotected. Not only is this so, but the conditions that must make for their undoing are cultivated in the interests of those who flood the land with spirits and malt liquors. What if our slums help infection to spread? Are not slum-owners often men of repute, some of whom sit in the high seats of judgment and help to administer a world they are willing to degrade still further in the sacred name of rent? Do we not make a man a Peer if he can brew sufficient beer? The Commissioners know better than to plead for an England sober or an England adequately housed. Theirs not to presume to attack vested interests. They have dared greatly in pointing out what the slum and the gin palaces contribute to the spread of most loathsome diseases under heaven. There they must stop. They know their public. "Improvement in the social conditions and in the moral standard may be slow." They have realised what our modern political conditions stand for throughout Great Britain. They even admit that there may be no money for improvement; European civilisation, however inadequate to human needs, however imperfect and incomplete, can only be destroyed at heavy expense. The destruction demands the best life-blood of every belligerent nation and all available financial resources. What can be left to combat "social disease," cancer, consumption, drink, slums, and the other evils that destroy even more than war, but have nothing arresting or spectacular in their methods? The Commissioners plead, it would seem, with more of earnestness than hope.