The party illusion has been much weakened by the War, and those who
still repeat the old catch-words are very near to lunacy. There is a
deeper and more dangerous illusion which has not been killed--the class
illusion. We are all very much alike; but we live in water-tight
compartments called classes, and the inhabitants of each compartment
tend to believe that they alone are patriotic. This illusion, to be
just, is not fostered chiefly by the press, which wants to sell its work
to all classes; but it has strong hold of the Government office. The
Government does not know the people, except as an actor knows the
audience; and therefore does not trust the people. It is pathetic to
hear officials talking timidly of the people--will they endure hardships
and sacrifices, will they carry through? Yet most of the successes we
have won in the War have to be credited not so much to the skill of the
management as to the amazing high courage of the ordinary soldier and
sailor. Even soldiers are often subject to class illusion. I remember
listening, in the first month of the War, to a retired colonel, who
explained, with some heat, that the territorials could never be of any
use. That illusion has gone. Then it was Kitchener's army--well-meaning
people, no doubt, but impossible for a European war. Kitchener's army
made good. Now it is the civil population, who, though they are the
blood relatives of the soldiers, are distrusted, and believed to be
likely to fail under a strain. Yet all the time, if you want to hear
half-hearted, timid, pusillanimous talk, the place where you are most
likely to hear it is in the public offices. Most of those who talk in
this way would be brave enough in fight, but they are kept at desks, and
worried with detailed business, and harassed by speculative dangers, and
they lose perspective. Soon or late, we are going to win this War; and
it is the people who are going to win it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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