isolated, cooped within its own narrow circle
of ideas, buoyed up by its own hopes, bent on the attainment of its
own special aims. The first step towards amalgamation was negative in
character, but superlatively politic. It took the form of a covenant
by which it was stipulated that none of the Allies should conclude a
separate peace with the enemy. But beyond that nothing was done, nor
was anything more considered necessary.

In Britain the consciousness that the country was at war spread very
slowly, while the conviction that this was a life-and-death struggle
which would seriously affect the lives and rights and habits of every
individual made no headway. Only a few grasped the fact that a
tremendous upheaval was going forward which marked the rise of a new
era and a complete break with the old. By the bulk of the population
it was treated as a game calling for no extraordinary efforts, no
special methods, no new departures. It was construed as a hateful
parenthesis in a cheerful history of human progress, and the object of
the nation was to have it swiftly and decently closed. Hence the
machinery of the old system was not discarded. Voluntary enlistment
was belauded and agitation against joining the army magnanimously
tolerated. Attacks on the Government were permitted. The manufacture
of munitions was confided to private firms and to the whims of
dissatisfied workmen, and co-operation among the various sections of
the population was left to private initiative.

Most of us are prone to consider this war as a fortuitous event, which
might, indeed, have been staved off, but which, having disturbed for a
time the easy movement of our insular life, will die away and leave us
free to continue our progress on the same lines as before. But this
faith is hardly more than the confluence of hopes and strivings,
habits, traditions, and aspirations untempered by accurate knowledge
of the facts. And the facts, were we cognizant of them, would show us
that the agencies which brought about this tremendous shock of peoples
without blasting our hopes or exploding our pet theories, will not
spend their force in this generation or the next, and that already the
entire fabric--social, political, and economical--of our national life
is undergoing disruption.

The shifting of landmarks, political and social, is going steadily if
stealthily forward; and the nation waking up one day will note with
amazement the vast distance it has im