iptionist party
has welcomed it as establishing their view, its manifest injustice to
the citizen soldier has actually caused it to be used as an argument the
other way. Moreover, the feeling of insincerity caused by the bias
seriously diminished its acting value in the eyes of the critical. The
fact of its use as an argument by people of almost opposite views does
not prove its impartiality, but rather that its injustice has bred a
reaction.

The next of the four is _The House of Bondage_, which had less success
than it deserved. The piece manifestly was intended to prove that a
woman ought to be entitled at law to a dissolution of marriage on the
single ground of her husband's infidelity; the proposition was put in
the form of a claim to equality of rights in the sexes to divorce. The
question has more than one side, and there is a good deal to be said
against Mr Obermer's contention; unfortunately, the author did not
attempt to put forward the other view, or even to suggest that there is
one. The result was that only those who share the opinion of the author
were in sympathy with the piece; to others it seemed manifestly unfair;
in fact, the author appeared anxious to convince those who favour his
own views, and not those opposed to them.

In _The Head of the Firm_ and _Strife_ one had quite a different state
of things. The dramatist played the _advocatus diaboli_ very cleverly,
and the other side felt that its case had been stated fairly. The best
way to convince people of anything is to present their own views to them
in a fashion which they deem just, and then offer them reasons for
doubting the truth of their opinions. Both works obviously are
anti-capitalist in tendency, and yet, in different degrees and different
ways, the capitalist view was stated so fairly, whilst the evil
consequences of it were shown so vigorously, that many people who were
on the side of the capitalist were forced to think, and therefore to
doubt.

Mr Galsworthy bravely went so far as to hint, without stating the
proposition, that what seems bad in the labour point of view is really
an evil consequence of the capitalist attitude. In this respect he has
followed, legitimately, the treatment of the greatest "problem play" yet
written, _The Doll's House_, a work that in hundreds of thousands of
households has caused something like a revolution in the relations
between husband and wife. Ibsen used the appearance of impartiality so
finely,