January 6^ 1916. 
L'AND AND WATER 
THE FORUM. 
A Commentary on Present-day Problems. 
A GERMAN phrase-maker has capped the 
Napoleonic appreciation of us as a nation 
of shopkeepers by dubbing us in liis 
spleen a nation of week-enders. At this 
season of the year which is consecrated by a 
venerable tradition to the wholesome practice of 
reviewing our pasts and making resolutions for 
the future, it may be worth while examining our 
national conscience in the light of criticisms by 
disgruntled enemies and candid friends. We may 
profitably give the devil's advocate a free hand and 
reserve our defence. 
A nation of week-enders ! It is a phrase with 
a sting and the sting of it is the measure of truth 
in it. Unquestionably, habits and sports which 
used to be the privilege of a relatively small class 
have been extended to the very large class of the 
substantial or at least well-paid men of business. 
All standards of food, clothing, housing and 
recreation have been raised. There is a very 
much less widespread habit of saving. Our 
fathers tell us, with a greater measure of accuracy 
than often characterises the praisers of departed 
days, that they came to their work earlier and 
left it later than we, nor had they such holidays. 
And if that seems to us rather a matter for com- 
passion than imitation, and we urge, what is indeed 
the fact, that work is of no such particular ^sanctity 
in itself ; and, what is equally true, that -we work 
at a greater pace and pressure than they and need 
more relaxation, then our German friendpokes up 
his square head and reminds us with a sheaf- of 
Board of Trade returns that business goes to the 
keen. . . . We have great responsibilities, 
great estates to keep up. That is why we do 
really need a little closer attention to business. 
A plain trader recently gave as the reason 
for a certain great trade gradually dropping out 
of British into German and American hands, the 
reluctance of the British w-orkman to put in a long 
succession of good days of work, adding that the 
employer largely set the bad example. If he had 
worked for a fortnight he felt he needed a long 
week-end at Brighton. His week-end habit was 
the equivalent of the workman's many ruined 
Mondays. Of course there is a more congenial 
explanation which is to put down all differences 
in our rivals' favour to tariffs and dumpings. 
Elderly men of business complain that in- 
telligent young men from the universities now 
present themseh-es (of course we speak of that 
almost forgotten age before the war) as ready to 
fill any well-paid posts which may be available 
instead of climbing by the hard way of preliminary 
drudgery and experience. They think perhaps 
that such posts have already been won on the 
playing fields of Eton. But the men in authority 
in such businesses are beginning to. ask ■ whether 
school and university should not be expected to 
produce something more than character— narnely 
equipment. Men of mature age with commissions 
in the new armies, men who have been accustomed 
to sustained hard work, note a general disposition 
in the new young officer to look on soldiermg as 
anything from a solemn dedication at the best 
moments to a bore at tho worst. l-"it tint ns n 
tough, compressed job of work against time, 
needing the full stretch of all the energies. Said a 
candid subaltern challenged on the point, " Yes, I 
daresay it's so. I supjiose we rely on our being 
EngHshmento pull us through." "An army 
of week-enders ! " says the sneering German with 
renewed emphasis. 
" You Britishers never finish anything," says 
a Transatlantic critic, illustrating the charge by 
the homely but significant parable of the screw- 
driver — which runs as follows : The English tool- 
maker makes a well finished, exceedingly strong 
implement, with its working end bevelled, whicli 
will in fact put in and take out screws. The 
American proceeds to make the quite obvious 
deduction that a blade-end with all but parallel 
sides will be the most serviceable for use with a 
straight slot and finishes his screw-driver so as 
best to engage and keep the slot. He further notes 
that time and energy can be saved by the addition 
of- a ratchet. He then adds the principle of the 
Archimedan drill and produces still greater power 
and speed ;• and finally overcomes the last remain- 
ing difficulty, namely the holding of the screw in 
position before driving, by attaching a spring 
holder to the blade. . . . The English tool- 
maker still makes a well finished, exceedingly 
strong implement, with bevelled working endi, 
which will in fact put in and take out screw& 
Voila tout ! 
Even if the Americans' weakness is to 
assume that civihsation is too inclusively- a 
matter of steam-heating, express elevators, aiid 
telephones at the bedside, his defence, that; if -he 
is the great benefactor of human-kind who makes 
two blades of grass to grow where one grev/ before, 
he who drives three screws in the time which it 
formerly took to drive one, also deserves con- 
siderable credit. As long as screws have -to be 
driven let them be driven with the greatest 
economy of means. There is no real case against 
finishing the screw-driver. 
Ask a doctor or surgeon in his laboratory 
why he is using the Zeiss microscopes. He will 
tell you that apart from their fine quality 
which is unsurpassed, in contradiction of a 
popular legend which attributes inferior finish, 
the instruments are handier, because, witb 
their shorter tube length contrived without 
loss of power owing to the skilful arrangement 
of the prisms, the hands can get at theit 
work better ; that moreover they are planned for 
the whole range of microsopic work with all parts 
standarised ; while w'ith the English models, a 
new main instrument is often required for new 
branches of work, or clumsy and expensive adapters 
required. The enemy victory in fact is not so 
notably due to the fine Jena glass, which special 
privileges and subsidies denied to our own makers 
helped to produce, as to the mere painstaldng 
development of a plan of absolutely elementary 
simplicit}-. We don't finish things, say the critics, 
with some justice. 
We betray, says another critic, this time of oui 
nwn household, an astonishins lack of imaginntion 
II 
