ad and set those of little faith asking themselves whether this
lamentable phenomenon was not one of certain ill-boding symptoms which
seemed to reveal the smoothly moving current that bears doomed nations
onward to their fate.

Certainly nothing could put in a clearer light than that strike has
done the peremptory necessity of national discipline, at any rate in
war-time. The State that is unable to command the service of all its
citizens when beset by ruthless foreign enemies has lost its lease of
life and its right to live. It must be recognized that patriotism is
still an unknown sentiment among millions of those who are citizens of
the United Kingdom and Ireland. Patriotism has never been
systematically inculcated among us as in Germany, France and Russia.
Parochial or at most party interests still mark the loftiest heights
to which certain sections of the population can soar above the dead
level of individual egotism. In Germany and Austria strikes during war
are unthinkable. Every railway official, every tram-conductor, every
artisan there is a soldier subject to military discipline and is
expected to give the fullest measure of his productive powers to the
nation. And it is fair to add that they all regard this duty as a
signal honour and a source of pleasure. For to them patriotism is a
religion and their country a divinity.

The depth and fervour of this self-denying spirit among them as
contrasted with the "healthy individual egotism" of the Allies
constitutes one of the most disquieting phenomena of the struggle.
Austria has been scoffed at for her abject submissiveness to Germany.
But there is another way of looking at her attitude. She has
courageously effaced her individuality more completely even than
Turkey for the sake of the common cause. And she has lost nothing by
the painful effort. Her various peoples who were expected to be
tearing each other to pieces have given us a splendid example of
discipline and self-abnegation. In the Skoda works at Pilsen, where
machine guns are made, fifteen thousand workmen are cheerfully toiling
and moiling every day of the week, Sundays and holidays not excepted.
Since the war began Germany has accomplished as great things at home
as on foreign battlefields. She built and launched a Dreadnought of
25,600 tons, a line-of-battle ship of 26,200 tons. And while the
latter vessel was on the stocks, the reports published in the British
press of the splendid results obtai