Part 7

I do not pretend to be satisfied with the position of women in England: far from it; but here, as in the countries already enumerated, it is better far than in Germany. Women mould public opinion to an appreciable extent; they are able to modify the life of their sex in many important particulars, the best of them exercise sane influence, and all are sufficiently well treated to establish a definite attitude of mind in men. We know that no British or French troops would behave in Germany as Germans behaved in Belgium; we know that the honour of honourable women and of helpless children would be safe in the keeping of the French and British officer, and that he would not be called upon to restrain his men from acts of lust and savagery.

We know that there is a public opinion the wide world over among free women and women struggling to be free that will not submit to the domination of any race that does not hold woman in respect. It is on this account, in my opinion, that the unbridled and tolerated savagery of the worst class of German conscript in Belgium and France has cost Germany more than the loss of half a dozen pitched battles. Whatever the irritation caused by the incidents of the war, the Allies know that women the world over are and will remain on their side, for the hegemony of a nation that treats women in peace with contempt and in war with "frightfulness" cannot be contemplated by our sex. We know that in fighting for the cause of the Allies we are fighting for the most downtrodden of the highly civilised women in Europe. At present they would resent our aid--they are patriotic--they have suffered terribly, and in the hour of their trials they mourn and forgive those who treated them ill.

Later on, when peace returns, when the world is purged of violence and its wounds begin their slow and painful process of healing, the German women will recognise that we have been fighting for a larger cause than our own; that we helped to force the doors that have remained barred so long and to break the chains that bound the women of a great but erring nation. Only the ultimate triumph of the Allies can free the women of Germany, and in time they will realise the truth.

The views of the wisest men are narrow, and few among them will realise or admit even now the truth that woman is now a factor in the world's affairs. When this war is over we shall tell in no uncertain words what is in our hearts. At present we must needs be silent. If those dreamers of world empire had but remembered that women, too, have minds and are learning to use them, the story of the great world tragedy, even if it had to be set down, would have been widely different in many of its incidents.

It was Germany's fatal mistake that, not content with dominating its own womankind and suppressing them whenever and wherever possible, it believed that the rest of the world was equally indifferent to the treatment of its mothers, wives, and daughters.

Every known outrage has raised fresh fighters, has strengthened the Allies with the sure force of moral sympathy and encouragement, has thinned the ranks of those whose sympathies were with a country whose marvellous progress provides so much material for admiration. Who can measure the responsibility of those guides and teachers who taught the German to develop along material lines and to forget that woman is the proper spiritual guide, and that as man loves and reverences her he sees farther and deeper into the heart of things--sees life sanely and sees it whole?

Whatever the limitations of our knowledge we know that the one sex completes the other; that man enlarges the vision of woman and woman enlarges the vision of man, and that it is the peculiar gift of our sex to control man's passions, to stimulate his humanity, to direct his ambitions away from dangerous paths. We do not all strive as we might; we do not always succeed as we deserve, but man is woefully incomplete without us, and the spectacle of a nation that has despised womanhood waging war shows that this contempt corrodes his moral fibre, leaves him at the mercy of his worst instincts and raises up against him all the spiritual forces against which none may strive victoriously.

We women who have never handled weapons, whose only place in the area of strife is among the maimed and helpless, know even better than men that the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong. When history has recorded the story of the world war that darkens our lives to-day, future generations will ask how it was that Germany could find no friends among the neutral nations. Her Ambassadors, official and unofficial, her publicists and those of neutral countries who were not ashamed to accept her subsidies, worked with true German thoroughness. Truth was never allowed to stand in the way of propaganda. No lie that might serve a useful purpose went unsanctioned, for the great end was to sanctify all means, however vile, and yet in the hour when even moral support and silent sympathy would have been of the greatest value, Germany looked for it in vain.

It was easy to declare that the whole world was jealous and misinformed; such an excuse could hardly deceive the responsible people who fathered it. My own view is that the women of Europe and the United States turned against Germany when the manner in which she waged war was first revealed to a disgusted world. Their hostility was not merely sentimental--it was psychological. The German attitude toward women, already questioned, was revealed as in the glare of searchlight, and womanhood from London to Petrograd and from Copenhagen to New York was completely, irrevocably antagonised.

XII

YOUTH IN THE SHAMBLES

It becomes increasingly difficult to speak one's mind in England to-day, even though one has no peace scheme to propound and no efficient public servant to criticise.

Liberty has vacated her throne, or as much of it as Privilege would ever allow her to occupy, and the Defence of the Realm Act has taken her place.

Consequently it is very hard to express opinions unless they are sufficiently platitudinous to gain universal and immediate acceptance. Roughly speaking we are all of one mind about the conduct of this war; the minority in opposition is so small that it can be disregarded, but we are all at variance as to method, and on the Ship of State that steers such an erratic course through the hurricane of strife there is hardly a passenger who is not convinced that he could reach the goal much more rapidly than the man at the wheel is likely to.

Those who criticise the steering are suspect, for the national temper is a little upset, our situation is without precedent, and an Englishman dislikes novelty. I cannot help my belief that it is the novelty rather than the tragedy of the hour that troubles him most. He is giving, to the best of his capacity, blood, labour, treasure, but he is not thinking as deeply as he should, perhaps because he understands that when you begin to think and believe you see a great truth clearly, you are morally bound to communicate that truth to others. Then the Defence of the Realm comes in and you are likely to be hailed a traitor to all good causes by the first person who--with or without understanding your views--disagrees with them!

Yet for all the prejudices with which the expression of opinion is beset, it is hard to keep silent when something presents itself to the mind in the guise of a vital truth, and now, after more than two years of war have forced reflection and taught us to see the world tragedy as a whole, there are things that must needs be said, protests that must needs be made.

Of all the iniquities that are associated with war, war as distinct from murder I would add, there is nothing quite so horrible as the sacrifice of young life. It is common to all the nations at war. We read of boys of fifteen fighting in the ranks of our enemies, and, at home, of boys who have added a year or two to their proper age to deceive a not too inquisitive recruiting sergeant. To raw lads in their utter ignorance, war is a great joy and adventure; they are proud to help their country and to be redeemed from the charge of being "slackers." So when the cup of life is hardly at their lips they go, some to die, some to be maimed, some to return prematurely old and broken down.

While the plots and counter plots that made for war were being hatched, these young warriors were in the nursery, or at school. Even now they have reached no perception of the real forces for which men strive; until war broke out their lives were still supposed to be under the protection of their parents.

But as soon as the State is beset it calls for aid, not alone upon matured men, who understand and have a sense of responsibility, but upon the lads whom it ought to be protecting as the one irreplaceable asset of the next generation.

Wise old gentlemen with a very tolerable imitation of the spirit of prophecy in their hearts, pens in their hands, and bees in their bonnets, wrote indignant articles in the best read organs of the press that our downfall, if we did not introduce conscription, is merely a matter of months. Sometimes it was weeks. The time given to us varied according to the measure of the writers' chronic dyspepsia.

Yet if these people would only think, they would have little difficulty in admitting that the lads who have been well educated, well trained and prepared with infinite labour for life are just those who should not be surrendered to death under any normal conditions until they have fulfilled their primary function toward the State.

I will go farther and suggest that their elders have no right to rob them of the few years in which they taste the joys of life. I was told recently by a man who knew what he was talking about that under the Mosaic Code the Jews did not allow their married men to go to war until they had spent one year with their wives. A man who was betrothed was instructed to marry, and even if a man married a second time he had to remain for one year at home. In this way the continuity of the race was assured and the Jews, eminently a fighting nation, preserved their virility.

There was no question of sentiment involved--it was hard, common sense applied to war. And, horrible irony, the British Government recognises the simple truth, but has only learned down to the present to apply it to farm stock. I saw last year a printed notice in the country post-offices issued to farmers by the Board of Agriculture, telling them not to kill lamb and veal because whatever the price offered the removal of immature stock is dangerous wastefulness which the country cannot afford.

Here is a copy of the notice:

BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES

SPECIAL NOTICE TO FARMERS

PRESERVE OUR FLOCKS AND HERDS!

MAINTAIN OUR MEAT SUPPLY!

The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries strongly urge all Farmers to RAISE AS MUCH STOCK AS POSSIBLE during the war.

Their advice to you is:

DO NOT send breeding and immature stock to the BUTCHER simply because prices are attractive now.

DO NOT MARKET half-finished animals; it is wasteful of the country's resources and is against your own interests.

DO NOT KILL CALVES--rear them; it is well worth it.

DO NOT REDUCE your stock; when you cannot buy stores, buy calves.

MAINTAIN your flocks and breed your sows; it will pay you to do so.

The Board of Agriculture and Fisheries make the above recommendations not only for the NATIONAL WELFARE but because they believe them to be for the ultimate benefit of BRITISH AGRICULTURE.

It seems almost too ridiculous to be true that the Government has more concern for lambs or calves than for boys on the threshold of manhood, but the facts convict them.

For myself I would rather see a thousand of the bloodthirsty old gentlemen who preached conscription sent to the front from their club smoke-rooms and editorial chairs, than five hundred lads from whom their country has something to expect!

I do not think I am a sentimentalist, certainly I do not plead for the exemption of mere boys from the battlefield in order that they may have what is called a good time, though I hold that they should not be deprived deliberately of the few halcyon years that are in one fashion or another the reward of one and all. I would work them to the last ounce of their capacity in seasons like these. They should have long hours, Spartan fare, and spells of physical drill, they should put in eight hours of labour for the Government in the factory, in the munition works, wherever their services could be best employed.

They might be under military rule, amenable to the same discipline as the soldier, but they should not go into the firing line, because they belong to the next generation.

They are to sire it; no nation can afford to leave that responsibility to the physically unfit, and to those who have passed fighting age.

This duty done, they would be free to join the fighting forces for which their drill, their labour and their self-denial would have prepared them. My soldier relatives and friends tell me that the lad in his teens is of little value in a prolonged campaign. He may have all the necessary courage, but he lacks the essential stamina. He is fitter to march and endure when he is twenty-five than when he is nineteen, fitter still at thirty.

But, asks my critic, where will you recruit your fighting men? I look round at my men friends, and I find them, up to the age of fifty, taking their chance in the forefront of things. The outcry against the married man as combatant is valid only in so far as his family depends upon him for support. My friends chance for the greater part to belong to the comfortable classes. They have enjoyed the best that England has to offer; they are prepared to pay the price, with their lives if need be. Above all they are articulate, they have the franchise, they can speak their mind. Collectively they support in one form and another the conditions that make war possible. They are conscious of a certain responsibility.

Where, for example, on the other hand, is the responsibility of the midshipman on the torpedoed battleship? I take his bravery for granted. I am quite convinced that could he read my plea he would disavow any shadow of sympathy with it, but I am concerned for the country and not for him. He has a duty toward civilisation, he is well-bred, highly trained, efficient. I say that the State owes him at least a few years of manhood and should see that he is allowed to reach maturity, although he is neither veal nor lamb!

It is false economy that raises the outcry against married men as soldiers. They alone in the community can be spared, they have fulfilled, or partly fulfilled, the function upon which civilisation depends. Potentially, if not always actually, they are fathers. Economists insist that pensions and allowances are an extravagance that the nation cannot afford. I reply that war is a still greater extravagance, the wickedest form of indulgence known to mankind, and that worse than war is the destruction of the fairest hopes of the future, the race to come. Again, if those who light the fire were compelled to feed the flames I believe there would be fewer conflagrations.

I feel that I do but set down facts that are known to thinkers, who, as a rule, prefer to keep silence at times like these lest their patriotism be suspect. After the war they will deplore the ruin; trustees for the generation to come, they will see that they have failed in their trust. They will shift the responsibility on to the nature of things, they will declare that war was inevitable and that destruction of all we hold most dear must follow in its wake.

Here I join issue with them. The world is for all practical purposes ruled by mankind. Nothing but the catastrophes like the tidal wave and the earthquake escape man's control. Famine, disease, and mortality he can arrest; he can increase his stature morally, mentally, physically. If he elect to play the prodigal he does so at his own risk, but he has no right to tamper with the vital resources of the generations that must follow. War is delirium, or he would bear this fundamental truth in mind. I think it has escaped him. He is immersed in the pursuit of the end, and no means are spared. Thus we hear the outcries because the fat money bags are growing thin, but nothing is said of the great asset that no trading, however successful, can restore.

We can find in some barbarous land wealth only comparable to that which Sindbad discovered in the Valley of Diamonds, but what will that profit a race that must depend upon old and exhausted stock to renew its vitality? The desire for wealth is at least one of the contributory causes of war, the thought of wealth wasted makes men forget they are wasting what no wealth can replace.

I am sure that women feel this eternal truth in their hearts, but all too many fear to be thought afraid. They fear their own mankind, those for whom they would gladly sacrifice all that life holds for them of good. They fear to be thought jealous for their own boys, while if the truth be told their fear is all for the young sons of all women quite irrespective of nationality. At least this is how the situation appeals to me, and I dare not keep silent if there be any medium of appeal to those who think with me that will set my thoughts down. There is a slumbering conscience of humanity only waiting the call that will break through its dreams. I am not so bold as to believe that I can utter it, but I may perchance stimulate some more gifted pen.

In any case, I cannot hide my thoughts merely because they may meet no response, for after all there is not in all the world a single great belief that was not once the unregarded possession of a single mind.

XIII

THOUGHTS ON COMPULSION

While I am firmly opposed to conscription in any form that does not embrace national wealth and resources as well as men, or that singles out one class of men to the exclusion of others, while I believe that, even subject to this view of national obligation, conscription should be treated as a war measure and blotted out of the statute book in the month that sees the restoration of peace, I am not writing to protest or to complain. We are told that every cloud has its silver lining, and when the Government decided to demand the services of those unmarried men who, far more by reason of apathy than cowardice, had remained to be taken, I could not help thinking that much good might come of it. Against the hideous doctrine that the end justifies the means we may set the equally old saying that necessity knows no law, and against the compulsory making of soldiers which is an evil, I set the waking of the national consciousness, and that is a gain.

For centuries England led the vanguard of the workers for freedom. Against the will of the people the power of the great barons and of their Kings bent and broke. There were generations in which the people as a people were articulate, they stood up for their rights and privileges and were a force that few dared defy. The discovery of steam, the growth of factories, the increase of population and the struggle for life combined to make a large section of the working classes helpless. The hideous poverty and ugliness of life in the great centres of wealth drove men, and women too, to shut out the ugliness of their lives with the aid of brief spells of dissipation. Strong drink became alike a source of revenue to the country, a source of "honours"--generally paid for in hard cash--to the prosperous brewer and distiller, and the source of brief forgetfulness, misery, disease, crime and savage punishment to those who sought its dangerous solace. National expenditure and party funds alike clamoured for the maintenance of the evil, and those who are most concerned with what is euphemistically called "keeping the working classes in their places" turned a deaf ear to schemes that sought to make the places of leisure for the worker more attractive and less dangerous. Pure Beer Bills and legislation to restrict the sale of spirits to such spirit as is matured, met with no effective support. Give the worker the nineteenth and twentieth century substitutes for his old time _panem et circenses_ and he would continue until strength failed him to sow that others might reap and to earn the opprobrium and contempt of those he enriched.

Parliament, immersed in politics to the exclusion of government, cared little for the real welfare of the people. It contrived by skilful electioneering to stimulate their interests in things that do not matter, and when they were not wanted at the polls their representatives--save the mark--left them severely alone. So it happened, as time passed, that the old interest in vital questions was passing from a large section of the proletariat. Powerful through the medium of their Unions they supported these great organisations for little better than the right to live. It was so hard to improve the conditions of a trade or a group of allied industries that the effort to this end left them with no energies to enter into larger fields. Those leaders of the people who have the gift of clear vision could meet with no adequate response, they alone could see the wood, their followers had their gaze riveted on one particular tree. England tended more and more to become the paradise of the capitalist and the purgatory of the working man, and because he was always protesting against conditions that will fill future generations with wonder and shame, conditions improved beyond recognition by the country with which we are now engaged in a life-and-death struggle, it became the practice of the comfortable classes to denounce the workman and all his ambitions. He was, in their view, sent into this world to create wealth, not to enjoy what it creates; that was the privilege of his betters. The Englishman's natural sense of fair play has been obscured by the newspapers that pander to him and give him all his thoughts ready made; if anybody thinks this is an extreme statement, let him turn to the files of the reactionary press from the time when John Burns led the Dockers' Strike down to the outbreak of war (and since) and see whether he can find anywhere a solitary favourable verdict for the worker as against the employer. He will search in vain.