The special interest in the changes briefly outlined above, and the list might be continued indefinitely, lies in the approximation at home to the conditions in the field of war. There the struggle for mastery is tending, on every front, to the obliteration of class distinctions. Many of these that in the days before August, 1914, were rigid as Hindu caste are now dead as well as damned. Mankind has recognised something of its essential brotherhood out there, and now womankind's sisterhood is recognised too. This is almost the more important change, because so many men who remain in England waging the money war that is ever with us are far too immersed in the pursuit of pelf to care about anything else. Against them even our defenders might fail in times of peace if they were left unaided by the other sex. Women have always been the creators and supporters of extravagance, though the fault rests with the men who have until quite recent times refused to allow them any interests that will vie with money-spending and aimless pleasure-seeking. I do not think that even this war could have brought about the change I recognise so gladly and record with so much pleasure, had it not been for the feminist movement. This taught tens of thousands of women to think and thousands to make their thoughts articulate. War faced them with a sense of the value of the work they had undertaken, the urgent need of its pursuit in the interests of the world at large. I feel it is in no small part due to their influence that so much that is unworthy in the life of the modern woman has been voluntarily laid aside and that so much of infinite value has been chosen to replace it.
Just as men have mingled on the battlefield, women have mingled at home, understanding perhaps for the first time in our social history the view-point of classes other than their own, seeing the best in each other's lives and sharing anxieties and burdens as perhaps only women can. But if the good understanding was to be permanent it was essential that privilege should be laid aside. People can enjoy riches without a thought and suffer poverty without a murmur, but contrasts build barriers. It is the sense of sharp contrast that is the undoing of so many girls, that makes for so much bitterness among women. All too often the rich do not understand, the poor are painfully suspicious or self-conscious. There could not be any common meeting ground until all were rich or all were poor. It is not possible under existing social conditions—soon one hopes to be amended—for all to live in comfort. Thank God, it is at least possible for all to be poor.
Not by what we have, but by what we are, let us be judged, and for those who had great possessions there will be a certain satisfaction in the new conditions that money could not purchase.
Flattery, adulation, jealousy, envy, malice and all uncharitableness could be provoked by wealth even though it was wisely dispensed; gratitude was always hard to gain in the genuine form. Love, affection, simple unaffected candour, these were rarely vouchsafed to those whose material prosperity was considerable. It is intolerable that one should patronise or endure patronage, frank and simple relations cannot endure in an atmosphere of inequalities. In England the infection of snobbery was eating into our national life. A considerable section of the press caters for snobs and thrives in the catering. In the United States and in the British Dominions Overseas the state of the public mind is far healthier. It may be that our plight had come about through our insularity, by reason of our super-abundant national riches, by the force of our habit of despising the creator of national wealth and honouring only those who squander it. Whatever the cause the effect was ugly. War has taken drastic steps to abate the evil by depriving of their locus standi those who stood for great possessions. They are poorer and better. We shall have a certain number of plutocrats in our midst; out of a war expenditure of four or five millions a day somebody must make money. But the money spinners will find that while the hand of the State will weigh heavily upon them, any lavish expenditure will be eyed askance by the moderate-minded men and women of all classes. The eyes of the majority are opened. Above all, English women of the leisured classes have deliberately laid aside many of the habits and indulgences to which their practice gave a sanction. This tendency is still in its infancy, but the tragedy of war has enforced and will continue to enforce it. All, or at least the greater part of Europe, after this war will be a house of mourning. Death leads the van of a procession in which Poverty brings up the rear. As in a flash the world that lived almost without a serious care two years ago sees its own real needs and duties and the terrible inadequacy of the means to fulfil and perform them.
We find to-day that our national needs are greater than we knew, our resources less than they have been for many years. The only true satisfaction to be gathered from the prospect is that we recognise it. For once in our history it is not left to a few courageous men to preach an unpopular gospel in the ears of indifferent wealth and vanity-stricken fashion. The people who are alive to the truth of our national state are not devoting anxious hours to keeping up appearances. Shams that our life seemed full of so recently, are known for what they are. For the first time in the social history of our generation it suffices to be an Englishman or an Englishwoman and to have filled the rôle, however modest, that the fates have assigned in this world crisis. Shall we miss the old luxuries of life? Will those of us who accepted them without thought or comment as part of the natural order of things, forego them without a qualm? I think we shall, because we shall all have a serious and definite occupation. The landowner must develop a good business faculty or go under, the mistress of a large establishment must learn all the domestic arts that her grandmothers practised to perfection or she will not be able to keep it together. The younger sons will not be brought up to look upon loafing as a career, and the girls will be trained to take a part in the world's work, fortified by the knowledge that the State no longer regards them as a negligible quantity. In the near future the British Empire will be demanding more of its sons and daughters and giving them less reward for it, but such a condition encourages the national virtues. We are rather a flint-like people. If we are properly struck we emit light.
Decidedly the world is out of joint, and it is possible to survey the situation and find ample material for pessimism. But we who have made the mistakes or inherited them can set the crooked straight if we recognise the nature of the task. And I see on all sides of me men and women who do. They are preparing the ground on which the virtues engendered by a struggle for national existence may blossom and bear fruit.
XXVII ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS IN PEACE AND WAR
The Anglo-Saxon race is on its trial just now, and, however strenuous the times, they do not deny us a measure of leisure in which to estimate the forces upon which we may rely. With battleships and regiments woman has nothing to do, she does but bring painfully into the world those who serve both. It is her mission to shield them with her love and devotion in the season of their helplessness and wait, watch, and pray while the battles join. Hers too it is to do what may be done to heal the wounds of battle, to comfort and to minister, to know the anxiety without the excitement of conflict, to see much of the horror and little of the glory. Yet, far outside the area of strife, woman plays no negligible part in controlling the destinies of nations, for there is a field of social diplomacy in which she labours persistently and the measure of Anglo-Saxon unity that obtains to-day is in no small measure the fruit of her effort.