TO 
LAND & WATER 
October ii, 1917 
part of the abandoned area again under cultivation. It began 
going to pieces in the first lieavv flpod, however, and, through 
tlie great losses suffered bv those who opened up new lancl 
only to be compelled to abandon it as the water in the old 
channel sank back to its former level, was ultimately respon- 
sible for more harm than good. 
At the time of mv visit to Bayblon I found the German 
scientists excavating" there in a terrible state, because the 
raising of the water in the old Euphrates threatened to defeat 
forever their long-cherished plan to delve deep under the 
ruins of Nebuchadnezzar's capital to uncover a prehistoric 
city of equal size which existed on the same site. It was 
feared that tlie increased soakage from the raised water level 
would make it out of the question to carrv on excavations at 
any depth at this point. The spectacled Teutonic savants 
were in a high state of indignation at the prospect, but to the 
average individual half a million live and prosperous farmers 
would weigh rather more heavily in the balance of expediencv 
than a row' of cases filled with the bones and ornaments of 
dead men , and a ponderous tome filled with theories regarding 
life in a dead city. 
The Hindia Barrage was completed some months before tha 
outbreak of the war, and while it is not possible that the 
original scheme of distribuion of the water it made available, 
could have been followed very far, there is no doubt that tha 
Turks and Germans brought a good deal of new land under 
canal to increase the food supply of the armies. As both of 
them undoubtedly counted on a speedy return, it is not pro- 
bable that there was much destruction attempted of works 
of this kind. 
A clear road to the fulfilment of feir William Willcocks' 
magnificent dream of a restoration of the Garden of Eden 
has only been opened since the British hold on the Tigro- 
Euphrates Valley has appeared to be definitedly assured, and 
if the British people will begin to think of Mesopotamia as 
bulwarking the landgate to India just as Egypt does the water- 
gate, it is by no means impossible that this road iiiay be 
followed to its end. 
What is Reconstruction ? 
By Jason 
IN si.Kteen hundred and sixty-six, when, as we were told 
in the nursery the fire went out for want of sticks, London 
had a rare opportunity. For four days the flames had 
been destroying the squalor as well as the splendour of 
the past. It happened that one of the greatest architects 
produced by our nation was alive, and in the full vigour 
of his powers. Sir Christopher Wren seized the moment 
and in a few days he had drawn up a scheme for rebuilding 
I^ndon which would have given to the capital an atmosphere 
of space and design. If his plan had been accepted St. Pauls 
would have not been hidden behind narrow and crooked 
streets. It would have stood out as a Greek temple stands 
out, so that the eye of traveller or citizen, whether on the 
river or on land, would run easily and naturally over its 
great outline with nothing to break the spell of the perspective. 
For the street leading up Ludgate Hill was widened as it 
approached St. Paul's, dividing itself into two great avenues, 
one on either side of the Cathedral. The great features of the 
city, cathedral, public offices, river, were all given a setting 
that would display their beauty and importance. All London 
was to be built with wide streets, smoke was to be banished, 
the churchyards were to be planted and adorned, and the 
imagination of every Briton was to be excited and enriched 
bv the noble dignity of his home. 
"Unhappily for us and for all who have lived since those 
September days. Sir Christopher Wren's dream seemed too 
ambitious for the Government of the day. The rights of 
property, the claims of economy, the urgent need of rehousing 
the population of London before the winter, all these were 
pressed on the Court, and Wren's plan was rejected. So 
though we may love London as well as Mi>rris loved her (he 
used to say that her soot iiad been rubbed into him) , we love 
her in spiteof disfigurements, and the more we cherish her history 
the more we lament that this great scheme still lies at Oxford, 
in the Library of All Souls, a picture of the London that might 
have been. 
In which Spirit ? 
The great fire of London lasted four days, and the great 
fire of Europe has already raged for more than three years. In 
which spirit are we going to reconstruct that part of Europe 
in which we live ? Is it to be the spirit of Sir Christopher Wren 
or the spirit of the Government of Charles II.? Arewe going 
to remake our world in a spirit of faith and hope, or are we 
going to put the bricks of our old world back again and 
restore the conventions of the past ? 
A crisis so tremendous as this drives even the least re- 
flective mind to question those conventions, to penetrate 
beneath that surface where his questioning used to stop dead, 
to ask what purpose is served by this or that institution, this 
or that kind of life. This is itself an immense event in any 
society. For the custom of accepting the world as we find it 
is perhaps the most powerful force in our nature. We see 
millions of people toiling for long hours, we see conditions of 
life that arc revolting and painful, we see all round us an 
ugly and distressing civilisation, and for the most part we 
take all this for granted. It is not what we should wish, 
but there it is, and we say in a tired way to ourselves that it 
is not likely to be altered very radically in our lifetime. The 
mind soon ceases to be distressed by anything that seehis to be 
inevitable, especially if the body that actually suffers belongs 
to someone else. Hence it needs a great shock to awaken 
a society to some fundamental change of outlook. Such a 
shock has come to England and to the world, and the defeat of 
Germany is not more important for mankind than the nature 
and the scale of the change of spirit that will result from it. 
The Greek Conception 
It has been said that after every great crisis the human 
mind goes back to the Greek spirit, the Greek conception of 
the serene and equable life, the disentangling of purpose and 
motive. This is another way of saying that there is some 
saving and sovereign quality in the imagination of the race to 
which we fly for peace and hope from the distracting tumult 
of conflict and violence. That tumult brings with it a new 
and simplifying sense of reality. In the act of over- 
whelming the race by some stupefying calamity, it 
frees the race from the burden that has kept half 
its mind captive. Such a burden has weighed upon 
us for a century in the material standard we set 
for our civilisation. For a hundred years we have been 
living under the tyranny of a particular economic creed. 
Our political economy has deserved the name of dismal, 
because the circumstances of its birth have given it an un- 
reality that is melancholy and morose. An analysis of one 
set of forces, it was accepted by the age of the Industrial 
Revolution as an analysis of all life, tiie key to all the 
mysteries of the world. So it came to be the universal arbiter 
and instead of seeking to control their surroundings men came 
to think of all nature as governed finally and unalterably by 
some strange and dreaded law. The Incas, who worship|ied 
the sun, were freer than the men who made a god of the law 
of supply and demand, for even in Peru the sun^s sometimes 
veiled, but the law of supply and demand seemed ubiquitous 
and all powerful. 
After the great war with Napoleon we reconstructed our 
society under the spell of this power. Our ancestors thought 
that society existed for the creation of wealth in a material 
sense, and that the difference between a civilized and an un- 
civilized people was in the main a difference in the capacity 
for the production of wealth. The life of a nation was to be 
subordinated to this imp)erious demand. If anyone looks 
at the early discussions of factory reform, he will find that they 
turn almost entirely on the danger of letting France or 
Germany steal our trade. Consequently, the most terrible 
conditions were tolerated as the alternative to the loss of trade. 
Children became hereditary factory slaves, towns grew up in 
hideous form, men and women were reduced to the utmost 
degradation, and the triumphs of our industry all over the globe 
left the great mass of our working population less free than 
the inhabitants of a Red Indian village. This conception of 
value and purpose in national life did not satisfy everybody, 
but it satisfied the ruling class as a whole, though of course 
there were distinguished exceptions. Its victims rebelled, but 
they were too weak for eftective rebellion. Waterloo settled 
the" fate of Europe, but it was Peterloo that symbolised the 
fate of England. 
We have lived ever since in this atmosphere in greater or 
less degree. True, we have taken a more enlightened view of 
the conditions that arc favourable to jiroduction. We are 
revolted by the more extreme form in which our ancestors 
sacrificed life to profit, but our gods have been much the 
same. W^e see an example in the spirit in wliich even so modest 
a demand as that which Mr. Fisher is making on behalf of the 
