The Discipline of War | Page 7

sense of proportion. There are some to whom it
causes no moral shock to wear a dress costing a hundred guineas, while
a vast number of seamstresses, shirtmakers, artificial flower makers,
boot-closers, and the like, are working seventy hours for 5s. to 8s. a
week. One mantle-presser, in Dalston, receives 1/2_d._ per mantle; she
is most respectable, has four children, and earns from 5_s._ 6_d._ to
7_s._ a week!
We do not grumble at the hundred guineas being spent upon the dress,
or a thousand guineas even, if the money went in due proportion all
round to supply the _full living wage to each one engaged in its
production_: and if the wearer interested herself keenly in social
problems, and used her means wisely and well to afford relief where it
was needed. This, alas! does not happen when the sense of proportion
is lacking.
Take another case--alas! a fearfully common one. Men and women will
gamble recklessly at Bridge, lose heavily, pay up, at whatever cost,
because it is a debt of honour. All the while a hard-pressed tailor, a
famished dressmaker and her children are kept out of their money,
because it is only a debt of commerce. Could there be a more ghastly
parody on the word honour?
Yet once more--the lack of seriousness. By seriousness we do not mean
gloominess, nor withdrawal from society, or anything of the kind. We
mean the flippant attitude towards life, the lack of serious, sustained

interest in literature, in music, in art, in the legitimate drama; witness
the theatres being turned into cinema shows, and the terrible paucity of
sound, strong plays. Everything must be scrappy, light, and if a little (or
more than a little) risky, so much the better.
We do not for a moment say that these evils are universal, God forbid,
but none can deny that they have eaten deep into a large part of society,
using the word in its broadest, not in its technical sense.
The soul of the nation needed discipline, and it has come suddenly,
sharply, but, who shall dare to say, not mercifully?
And even in its very coming it brought a tremendous opportunity, for
we were not compelled to make war, notice that!
We had an option. The temptation was subtle. You have no concern
with Servia, throw over Belgium, let France take care of itself.
For a time, probably a very short time, we should have avoided war and
its horrors. The bait was held out by some peddling politicians that we
should have stood in a magnificent position to obtain trade, to control
markets, to dictate prices to the rest of the world. Magnificent prospect!
We went to war, and, by a strange paradox, secured peace with honour:
peace of the national conscience. Had we forsaken Belgium we could
never again have held up our heads among civilised honourable nations.
Thus the very circumstances under which the War came about formed
an appeal to the soul of the nation as embodied in its legislature; the
Government rang true, and the nation, as one man, endorsed its
decision.
And now the discipline has commenced.
Who can be flippant and careless with our coast towns liable to
bombardment, and over a hundred lives already sacrificed in this little
island, which we have always deemed to be the one absolutely secure
spot in the whole world? Five months ago an earthquake in London
would have seemed a far more likely event than the bombardment of
Hartlepool, Scarborough, Whitby, and the dropping of shells on

Yarmouth foreshore, or of bombs at Dover and Southend.
Who can be unconcerned when our ships are liable at any moment, and
apparently in almost any place, to be sent headlong to the bottom of the
sea by torpedoes or mines; possibly sometimes by those very mines we
have been compelled to lay, and which happen to have broken loose?
This is one of the unavoidable hazards of war under modern conditions.
It does not make us ignore the magnificent work of our Fleet, nor
tremble for the ultimate issue.
Who can be giddy and careless with darkened streets, trains, trams, all
telling of the awful possibilities of the new development of aerial
warfare?
Who, even among those not directly touched by anxiety or bereavement,
can go on just as usual in luxury, self-indulgence, and ease amid the
crushing mass of suffering around them on all sides?
Thank God that, though we may have erred very grievously through
softness of living, we are not a callous people, but we needed a strong,
stern discipline of the national soul; some stirring and trumpet-tongued
appeal to the national life, and in the righteous mercy of God it has
come.
Some of the immediate effects are obvious; but what are the lasting