10 THE GREAT WAR 



become unmanageable. It will be difficult, if 

 not impossible to find employment for such a 

 large number of ex-service men who will be with 

 us at the end of the war, except on work in con- 

 nection with the land. There will be no other 

 adequate outlet. 



The returned soldiers will have been accus- 

 tomed to pick and spade work, digging trenches, 

 etc., and generally to an outdoor life. The in- 

 fluence of these conditions, and the excitement 

 of military life generally, will disincline most of 

 the men to return to their former occupations, 

 even if such occupations were open to them, 

 which is doubtful. This disinclination will apply 

 specially to those who were engaged in sedentary 

 occupations. The shopman will not be inclined 

 to return to the counter, nor the clerk to the 

 desk. 



The writer has held conversations with a con- 

 siderable number of returned wounded soldiers 

 shopmen, clerks, tradesmen and others. In no 

 case has he found them willing to return to their 

 former work. All of them, however, seemed 

 much taken with the idea of working on the 

 land with the alluring prospect of possessing a 

 part of it as a stake in the country for which 



