The people are the nation, the people whose labour makes the wealth of the country are the worth of the country; and for them the name of Britain should represent all things British. But unless they themselves take good care, their trades will be again swamped by Germany in the future as in the past, especially if they put in less hours of work. It stands to reason that if a British workman will only work for eight hours, and a German will work for fourteen or sixteen, the German will score in every kind of labour. Even now the German is preparing for the relaxing of “restricted” trades. The goods which the British Government declared “unnecessary” in time of war are being “made in Germany,” and at an opportune moment will be “dumped down” on these shores before the Englishman, returned from battle, can so much as set his house in order. We may think, or we may hope, that protection against such unfairness will be guaranteed by Government--but will it? Does it look like it even now?--when Germans are permitted to run the business of absent Englishmen, and to make profit therefrom! Sometimes it would almost seem as if there were a certain numbness or apathy in the minds of the British people here at home, which robs them of “the native hue of resolution,” so that in “Enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action.” There is a general tendency not to take too much personal trouble over any matter, a desire to avoid “being bothered,” and a persistent jog-trot in the same old way, like “dumb, driven cattle,” no matter whether the road lead to prosperity or ruin. This is like the fatal lethargy which overcomes the traveller in heavy snow, when he yields himself to a sleep from which he shall never wake. Half the people in these islands do not yet realise the full meaning or the real horror of the war in which we have been forced, by all the rights of law and liberty, to engage. They do not think--they cannot. Their sense of perception seems stunned as by a heavy blow. All religion, all faith, all hope, have in a great measure failed them. They do not see why they should suffer undeservedly. A poor woman receiving the news that her son was killed, had no tears--her face grew white and stiffened, as with frost--but she had nothing to say except this: “Ah, well! I couldn’t expect anything else, as there’s no God left to us now! Only man, the devil!” She could but realise that the war is man’s work--the result of his miserable ambitions, his delight in destruction, his selfish pride and cruelty. And the church had taught her little more than that the God she was told to worship was “a jealous God,” and out of that saying little comfort can be drawn for the broken heart of a bereaved mother.