oke, threatened Egypt, Riga and Petrograd,
that some rays of light penetrated the atmosphere of ignorance and
prejudice through which the Allies surveyed the European welter. They
had begun by counting upon the breaking up of the Habsburg Monarchy.
They felt sure that the Tsar's armies would capture Budapest and
advance on Berlin. They planned the defeat of Germany by famine. They
built another fabric of hopes on "Kitchener's Great Army" in the
spring of 1915. But one after another these anticipations were belied
by events. And now the nation blithely accepts the further forecasts
of the men who are chargeable with this long sequence of avoidable
errors.

Respect for individual liberty was carried to such a point in Great
Britain that organizations against recruiting were tolerated in
England and Ireland, and strikes, which not only inflicted heavy
pecuniary losses on the nation but actually stopped its supplies of
munitions and brought it within sight of discomfiture, were treated
with soft words and immediate concessions. One cannot read even Mr.
Lloyd George's summary narrative of the preposterous doings of British
slackers without wondering whether salvation is still possible. These
men not only refused to work their best for the community, but forbade
their comrades to work well. At Enfield, we are told, a man was
obliged by trade union regulations so to regulate his work that he did
not earn more than 1_s._ an hour, though he could easily have earned
2_s._ 6_d._[118] Another man was doing two and a half days' work in
two days, and when he refused to carry out the behest of the
Ironfounders' Board to waste the other half day he was fined L1.[119]
A consequence of this anti-national attitude was that "we had to wait
for weeks in Birmingham with machinery lying idle, with our men
without rifles, with our men with a most inadequate supply of machine
guns to attack the enemy and defend themselves."[120] Every one will
re-echo the Minister's comment on the outlook, if this attitude is
persisted in--"we are making straight for disaster."

[118] Mr. Lloyd George's speech at Bristol. Cf. _Daily
Telegraph_, September 10, 1915.

[119] _Ibid._

[120] _Ibid._

Compare this state of things with that which rules in Germany. It is a
British Minister who describes it: "If you want to realize what
organized labour in this war means, read the story of the last twelve
months. By the end of September the German