benefit of the Bradlaugh Affirmation Act of 1888, as the enlisting soldier said simply “I, So and So, do make Oath, &c.”  But recruits are now confronted with another form (E 501, June, 1914) running “I, So and So, swear by Almighty God, &c.”  On September 1st, at Lord Kitchener’s call, a civil servant obtained leave to enlist and had the oath put to him, in this form by the attesting officer.  He offered to swear in the 1912 form.  This was refused; and we accordingly lost a recruit of just that sturdily conscientious temper which has made the most formidable soldiers known to history.  I am bound to add, however, that the attesting officer, on being told that the oath would be a blasphemous farce to the conscience of the recruit, made no difficulty about that, and was quite willing to accept him if he, on his part, would oblige by professing what he did not believe.  Thus a Ghoorka’s religious conscience is respected:  an Englishman’s is insulted and outraged.

But, indeed, all these oaths are obstructive and useless superstitions.  No recruit will hesitate to pledge his word of honour to fight to the death for his country or for a cause with which he sympathizes; and that is all we require.  There is no need to drag in Almighty God and no need to drag in the King.  Many an Irishman, many a colonial Republican, many an American volunteer who would fight against the Prussian monarchy shoulder to shoulder with the French Republicans with a will, would rather not pretend to do it out of devotion to the British throne.  To vanquish Prussia in this war we need the active aid or the sympathy of every Republican in the world.  America, for instance, sympathizes with England, but classes the King with the Kaiser as an obsolete institution.  Besides, even from the courtly point of view the situation is a delicate one.  Why emphasize the fact that, formally speaking, the war is between two grandsons of Albert the Good, that thoroughbred German whose London monument is so much grander than Cromwell’s?

The Labour Party should also set its face firmly against the abandonment of Red Cross work and finance, or the support of soldiers’ families, or the patrolling of the streets, to amateurs who regard the war as a wholesome patriotic exercise, or as the latest amusement in the way of charity bazaars, or as a fountain of self-righteousness.  Civil volunteering is needed urgently enough:  one of the difficulties of war is that it creates in certain departments a demand so abnormal that no peace establishment can cope with it.  But the volunteers should be disciplined and paid:  we are not so poor that we need spunge on anyone.  And in hospital and medical service war ought not at present to cost more than peace would if the victims of our commercial system were properly tended, and our Public Health service adequately extended and manned.  We should therefore treat our Red Cross department as if it were destined to become a permanent service.  No charity and no amateur