If the War is ever finished, surely one of the first things to be insisted on afterwards, with regard to England, must be the settlement of the actual people (not the parasites) on the land.  Else how, after all that they have gone through, can it be expected that they will ever again “fight for their country”?  But that this vast landless population in the villages and country districts—­hungering as it is for some sure tenure and interest in the soil—­should actually, as now, be berated and scolded by superior persons of the “upper” classes, and threatened with conscription if it does not “come forward” more readily, is a spectacle sufficient to gratify the most hardened cynic.

Certainly it is remarkable that such numbers of the great working masses of this country (including villagers) should come forward in connexion with the war, and join the standard and the ranks of fighting men—­as they do—­and it is a thing for which one must honour them.  But in that matter there are not a few considerations to be kept in mind.

In the first place a large number are not really very enthusiastic, but simply join because pressure to do so is put upon them by their “masters.”  The press-gangs of old exist no longer, but substitutes for them revive in subtler form.  Many large landlords, for instance, have given notice to a percentage of their gamekeepers, gardeners, park employees, and the like, to the effect that their services are no longer required, but that if they enlist in the ranks now they will be reinstated in their masters’ service again when the war is over ("if still alive” is, we presume, understood).  Large numbers of manufacturing and other firms have notified their workmen and clerks in similar terms.  This means pretty serious economic pressure.  A man in the prime of life, suddenly ousted from his job, and with no prospect either of finding a similar job elsewhere or of learning any new one, is in a pretty fix.  His only certain refuge lies in the fact that he can be taught to use a rifle in a few weeks; and in a few weeks perhaps it becomes clear to him that to accept that offer and the pay that goes with it—­poor as it is—­is his only chance.

There are others, again—­perhaps a very large number—­who do not care much about the war in itself, and probably have only the vaguest notion of what it is all about, but for them to join the ranks means adventure, comradeship, the open air—­all fascinating things; and they hail the prospect with joy as an escape from intolerable dullness—­from the monotony of the desk and the stuffy office, from the dreary round and mechanical routine of the factory bench, from the depressing environment of “home” and domestic squalor.

I must confess—­though I have no general prejudice in favour of war—­that I have been much struck, since the outbreak of the present one, by the altered look of crowds of young men whom I personally know—­who are now drilling or otherwise preparing for it.  The gay look on their faces, the blood in their cheeks, the upright carriage and quick, elate step—­when compared with the hang-dog, sallow, dull creatures I knew before—­all testify to the working of some magic influence.