14 
/LAND & WATEP 
August 23, 1917 
each other's merits and each other's claims ; and it must have 
this character not at the start alone, but all through and con- 
tinuously. In the absence of these conditions the physical 
power at the disposal of the League, however great it might 
be, and all the more in proportion to its greatness, would not 
be a guarantee of safety, but a new source of peril. It would 
be exposed to capture by sinister interests ; it would be at 
the mercy and ultimately become the tool of the most astute 
and the most unscrupulous member of the League. If peace 
were to be guaranteed to-morrow by the massed armies of all 
the States in the world I, for one, would sleep no easier in my 
bed — unless I knew that behind the armies this other kind of 
power was at work. On the contrary, my sleep would be 
more uneasy than ever. And so with regard to every one of 
the reconstructions, great and small, now before the public. 
There is not one of them that is worth the paper on which it 
is written unless we are able to count on the moral power which 
is to give it effect. 
Right Social Conditions 
The question of power bemg then the crux and centre of 
the whole problem, can we form any conception of the social 
conditions in which good ideas are least likely to be wasted 
and most likely to succeed ? I think we can. The question 
indeed is much too vast to be adequately answered- with brev- 
ity — it would require a survey of history and a careful study 
of human nature — but enough may be said to start the reader's 
mind on a line of enquiry which, I am convinced, will ulti- 
mately conduct him to the conclusion I shall now state. 
The likelihood that a good idea will take root and fructify 
as a social force is ultimately dependent on the good temper 
of the community to which it is addressed. In human society 
improvement that is worth the name is never effected by one 
set of people forcing their ideas down the throats of another 
set. All improvement takes place by consent, by men seeing 
eye to eye, believing in common and acting together in good 
faith and mutual loyalty for the given end. This loyal and 
continuous consent can never be obtained on a scale large 
enough to be effective except in communities whose members, 
as human beings, are on good terms with one another, respect 
one another, trust one another, believe in each other's good 
intentions, and take a generous view of each other's merits. 
Imagine the opposite conditions — and they are not difficult 
to imagine, for they existed in England before the war and 
are by no means non-existent even now — and I say without 
hesitation that the best idea that ever issued from the mind of 
man, the wisest reform ever projected, will inevitably come to 
grief ; it will split on the rock of mutual dislike, suspicion, 
animosity — in a word on the rock of bad temper. There is no 
power in the State that can prevent this happening, for where 
the spirit of distrust is rampant, the State itself will be dis- 
trusted and its best efforts will be met by the cry that it has 
been captured by villains. This simple consideration 
points us to the one essential condition which will have to be 
fulfilled before any extensive improvement,or "reconstruction" 
after the war can be hoped for. There must be an immense 
increase of social good wUl, of the spirit of good fellowship 
between classes and individuals — an immense increase 
beyond the pre-war level, and even beyond the present 
level. 
With the end of the war we shall enter upon one of the 
difficult periods of human history in which nothing but good 
temper'can save us from confusion such as the world has never 
seen. If we consider the difficulties one by one, instead of 
treating them in general terms, we shall find that most of 
them are of the very kind which is certain, in an evil atmosphpre, 
to give rise to jealousies and suspicions, to set class against 
class and man against man. 
It would be easy to draw a picture of a general mel6e of 
conflicting aims in which every opportunity would be given 
for lilack and evil humours to develop. " Great sacrifices 
will have to be borne. We shall have not only to exert 
ourselves but to exert ourselves' together ; friendly co-opera- 
tion will be the first law, and imperative at every point ; 
the weak not shrinking from so much of the burden as they are 
able to bear and the strong willingly accepting more than 
the share which would fall to them on a mere counting of 
heads. One has only to consider what will be involved in the 
single problem of finding among us year by year the interest 
on a national debt of thousands of millions. It was good to 
hear Mr. Hartley Withers, the financial writer, tell an audience 
in Oxford the other day that the one condition on which we 
could pay our debts after the war is that we keep our tempers, 
get rid of our nastiness to one another, and act like reasonable 
beings. The same advice may be given in regard to e\^erv 
other problem we shall have to meet. Evil is the augury 
which comes in from time to time of classes, groups and parties 
who are only waiting for the end of the war to " go for " their 
old enemies with fresh -vigour and aniraiosity. If that spirit 
prevails the prospects of reconstruction^— no matter on what 
terms — are black indeed. 
It would be a good thing if the plea for good temper, for 
the spirit of good fellowship, -for social good will in every 
form, could be made a tail-piece, or put into the forefront, 
of every scheme for reconstruction after the war. It should 
be clearly, realised that the biggest tax we shall have to pay 
will be the tax on our social temper, which is going to be 
strained to the uttermost. Labour and Capital should give 
the matter their earnest attention. The Trades Unions, 
the Labour Federations, should take it up, and they should 
do so in their own interest as well as in that of the public, 
for it is certain that not one of the objects which Labour 
is now aiming at is even remotely attainable unless supported 
by the goodwill and hearty consent of the whole community. 
The women should take it up —here indeed is a chance for 
them, now that they are to have the vote, to introduce some- 
thing that is both novel and essential into the political life 
of the country. The churches should take it up. The writers 
of leading articles should take it ' up. The financial experts 
should take it up. 
In those and a thousand such ways the mind of the public 
might be concentrated on the one, essential condition for 
dealing with the immeasurable difficulties that lie ahead. 
If these efforts produced their impression! should not despair. 
Otherwise I do not hesitate to predict that the multitude of 
good ideas which the war has called into being wUl share the 
fate of many better ideas with wliich mankind has been 
familiar for centuries. They will not rule the world. They 
will end their career as themes for eloquence, and recon- 
struction will have to be content with the literature it has 
produced. A poor result ! 
This ferment of reconstruction is a wonderful thing, and 
on the whole an admirable thing. But there is one event 
in which it will come to nothing — so far as this country is 
concerned. It will come to nothing if the Germans win. We 
shall have neither the heart, the enthusiasm, the means, 
the money, nor the liberty to carry our schemes into eft'ect. 
Nothing will be left of the ferment but the gas that has been 
given off and a black sediment at the bottom of the tank. 
MeanwhOe the world will unquestionably be reconstructed 
■ — by the Germans — and in a manner that none of us approves 
of. 
In that event the future historian will have some comments 
to make about all this which wUl not be pleasant reading to 
those of us who may live to read them. " These worthy 
people " he will say, " spent too much of their time and energy 
on this business, and too little on bringing the war to the 
only conclusion that would have given them a chance." He 
might even go further and make certain remarks which would 
render lis rather ridiculous in the eyes of posterity. For 
example, he might say, quoting chapter and verse, that a large 
number of Britons during the war fell into an evil habit of 
consohng th«emselves for their losses on land and sea by a kind 
of reconstructive debauch. When they lost an ironclad in the 
North Sea, or a position in Flanders, they proceeded forth- 
with to hold a conference on reconstruction and proposed 
^ new religion. When the casualties were exceptionally 
serious they began talking about eugenics and held a Baby 
Week. When Bucharest was captured they discussed a 
league of Peace ; and so on. 
These remarks were actuaUy made in my hearing the other 
day ; not indeed by a future historian, but by an intelligent 
young officer newJy returned from the trenches. And I 
imagine that after the war these intelligent young officers, 
not to speak of the privates, will have a good deal to say in 
moulding the verdicts of history. If we lose the war they will 
come back in wrath and we, who have made our chief con- 
tribution to the war by reconstructing society during their 
absence, will have to look out for ourselves ! There is only 
one way, so far as I can see, of averting their anger. And it 
is too obvious to be named. 
In her second novel. The Magpie's Nest (John Lane, 6s.), Miss 
Isabel Paterson evinces the quality that was evident in The 
Shadow Riders, that quality of retaining to the full her own interest 
in her characters throughout the story, by which means she 
retains tlie interest of her readers as well. The career of Hope 
Fielding, heroine of the story, is little different from that of 
most girls with a trace of ambition in them, but the author in- 
vests liope, through her own sympathy and understanding, in the 
mantle of romance, albeit romance in a practical setting, and one 
which gives us a very good view of mid-Canada as it was in the 
days before the war — the problems of a new land and 
the ways of its people are faithfully depicted. The main interest 
of the book, however, is the story of Hope and two or three others ; 
their story is wittily and well told, without anv undue straining 
after effect, and the result is wholly commendable work. 
