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.