In a second way, the war will bring improvement more complete than a generation of peace could ever have done. On the battlefields of France the British aristocrat and the boy from the slums will have met and become brothers. Class distinctions will break down not a little, and this is a good thing, for the private who came from the estates whereon his ancestors have lived for centuries, and the soldier who came from the foundry or the pit, have found each other of the same flesh and blood, comrades in a common cause. Hitherto the class distinctions have been very definite; they did not merge. After the war those barriers will become far more shadowy. Surely also if there are no more gigantic wars, but a vast curtailment of armaments, millions and millions will be saved, and this money, after settling the war bills, will be available for setting our houses in order. I do not think there will be any great hardships and poverty when the war is over. On the contrary I anticipate a great trade revival, and in this respect the understanding between the present Allies will greatly increase the business done by them. Germany will no doubt be crippled, her military role will end, and her business men--among the best in the world--will find many of the old works closed. It will take Germany many years to rebuild her fortunes, for she will have made her one gigantic throw for world power, and lost. France and England and Russia have between them most of the necessities of life, and this should tend to keep down the cost of those necessities. But I hope that a revival of trade will not mean a return to riotous living and deadening indulgence. To all the Allies the war has brought individual unity within their own boundaries; there was danger of internal trouble in all three a year before the cloud burst. Undoubtedly the fears of civil war in Great Britain had some foundation; France was in a certain sense in a condition of unpreparedness; and Russia was on the edge of a revolution. In a day these questions were laid aside. To-day the French army is as one man; France has behaved with a splendour that cannot be over-extolled, and she will never lose that power of cohesion she gained through the opening stages of this conflict. Indeed, in all the countries of the Allies I fancy the old questions will never recur in the same degree.