at "sooner than submit to conscription the population of that district
would flee to the mines, and lead a sort of Robin Hood life
underground." An illuminating passage, in more ways than one, by the
way, as contrasted with the present state of things!--since it both
shows the stubbornness of the British temper in defence of "doing as it
likes," when no spark of an ideal motive fires it; and also brings out
its equal stubbornness to-day in support of a cause which it feels to be
supreme over the individual interest and will.

But the stubbornness, the discipline, the sacrifice of the armies in the
field are not all we want. The stubbornness of the nation _at home_, of
the men and the women, is no less necessary to the great end. In these
early days of March every week's news was bringing home to England the
growing peril of the submarine attack. Would the married women, the
elder women of the nation, rise to the demand for personal thought and
saving, for _training_--in the matter of food--with the same eager
goodwill as thousands of the younger women had shown in meeting the
armies' demand for munitions? For the women heads of households have it
largely in their hands.

The answer at the beginning of March was matter for anxiety. It is still
matter for anxiety now--at the beginning of May.

Let us, however, return for a little to the Army. What would the
marvellous organisation which England has produced in three years avail
us, without the spirit in it,--the body, without the soul? All through
these days I have been conscious, in the responsible men I have been
meeting, of ideals of which no one talks, except when, on very rare
occasions, it happens to be in the day's work like anything else to talk
of ideals--but which are, in fact, omnipresent.

I find, for instance, among my War Office Notes, a short address given
in the ordinary course of duty by an unnamed commandant to his
officer-cadets. It appears here, in its natural place, just as part of
the whole; revealing for a moment the thoughts which constantly
underlie it.

"Believe me when I tell you that I have never found an officer who
worked who did not come through. Only ill-health and death stand in your
way. The former you can guard against in a great measure. The latter
comes to us all, and for a soldier, a soldier's death is the finest of
all. Fear of death does not exist for the man who has led a good and
honest life. You must discipline your bodies a