ENGLAND AND THE DISINHERITED
The present war may prove a blessing in disguise to England if it leads to social reorganization on a more rational and effective basis. The weakness of England, as developed during the past year, has been in lack of unity and organization. There has been not only too much political, but too much class division. The remark has frequently been made, “Why doesn’t England wake up?” There has not been the same effective coöperation among all classes that has been apparent in Germany and in France. The English government has been in times past careless or neglectful in allowing the developement of slums and of a “submerged tenth,” while what are called the upper classes have been too intent on the pursuit of pleasure to give due heed to the privation and suffering of those occupying a lower social scale. This is measurably true of society in all countries, but it is notorious that the “upper classes” in England have been zealously devoted to sports, week-end holidays, social functions and the pursuit of gain, while the operative classes have antagonized them in labor organizations, and the lower working classes have been neglected and thrown upon the poor rates. This has bred social divisions which even the pressure of war finds difficult to heal. If this war is fought through to success by the working people of England, as it must be if England is successful, because the working people furnish the bulk of the army and navy and the toilers in the factories, they will undoubtedly demand a rearrangement of social forces which will give them a more equitable participation in the prosperity of the country. German efficiency teaches the world that no nation can permit the growth within its boundaries of a proletariat that feels itself disinherited.