Women and War Work

by Helen Miller Moyes

The sub-conscious mind of Germany, filled with these dominating ideas of power and Weltmacht and militarism, goes on, once set free, to its logical end, and it seems clearer and clearer that there is no real end to this struggle till we make the mind and soul of Germany realize its crimes and mistakes, till they are sane again and talk the A, B, C of civilization. The real reconstruction of the world begins there.

That end reached and settlements justly done, we may consider schemes for a League of Nations and practical possibilities of work in international organizations to prevent disputes leading to war.

The work of reconstruction must be international, as well as national, but the people who do, and will do, the best international work are the people who do the best national work. The individuals who are not prepared to spend time and service and effort to make their own country better and nobler, are going to do nothing for internationalism that is worth doing. The heart that finds nothing to love and work for in its neighbour is the heart that has nothing to bring to the whole world.

Again, there must be reparation by the enemy. We cannot reconstruct this world rightly if we do not enforce justice. A nation that has broken every international and human law is a nation that must be made to pay for its crimes as far as human justice can secure it.

Our six thousand murdered merchant seamen, the thousands of passengers they have killed, the civilians they have bombed, are marshalled against them, and the horrors of their frightfulness, deliberately planned and carried out against the peoples they have held in bondage, their refusal to even feed properly their prisoners and captive people—are we to be told to reconstruct a world without reparation for these and their other crimes?

We shall have a reconstructed world with right foundations, only when the nations know that justice is throned internationally, and that every crime is to be judged and punished. There can be no new world without living faith, without real religion. A cheap and sentimental humanitarism is no substitute for real faith—philosophies that seem adequate in ordinary times are poor things when the soul of man stands stripped of all its trappings and faces death and suffering and watches agonies. Then the abiding eternal soul knows its own reality and its oneness with the Divine and eternal, and the sacrifice of Christ is a real living thing—and in the men's sacrifice they are very near to Him.

So the Churches are being tested, too, in this great crisis, and in a reconstructed world we shall want Churches that carry the message of Christianity with a clearer and firmer voice, but that is the task of all believers. We cannot cast the duty of making the Church a living witness on our priests alone—it is our work, and unless our faith goes into everything we do, it is no use. People who profess a faith, and carefully shut it up in a compartment of their lives, so that it has no real connection with their work, are worse than honest doubters—because they betray what they profess.

So reconstruction rests upon great spiritual tasks and values, and upon the willingness and ability of the nations to carry these out.

In our country, our political parties are going to be changed and reconstructed. The Labour Party has already made a big appeal to "brain and hand workers," and has announced its scheme of re-organization.

One definite result of the war in the minds of the people of our country is the definite mental discarding of state socialism of the bureaucratic kind as a conceivable system of government. We have seen bureaucracy at work to a great extent, and shall undoubtedly have to continue control in many ways after peace comes, but we do not like it. Socialism will have to go on to new lines of thought and development if it wishes to achieve anything—and the most interesting thought and schemes are on the lines of Guild Socialism.