On the other hand, the League idea is understood as a necessity and heartily approved by two powerful sections of public opinion—­(1) the group of public men who have given attention to it, such as Bryce, Lord Robert Cecil, and the like, and (2) some of the best and strongest leaders of Labour.  There is good reason to hope that whenever a fight and an agitation is made for a League these two sections of public opinion will win; but an agitation and a fight must come.  Lord Bryce, in the intervals of his work as chairman of a committee to make a plan for the reorganization of the House of Lords, which, he remarked to me the other day, “involves as much labour as a Government Department,” has fits of impatience about pushing a campaign for a league, and so have a few other men.  They ask me if it be not possible to have good American public speakers come here—­privately, of course, and in no way connected with our Government nor speaking for it—­to explain the American movement for a League in order to arouse a public sentiment on the subject.

     Thus the case stands at present.

Truth and error alike and odd admixtures of them come in waves over this censored land where one can seldom determine what is true, before the event, from the newspapers.  “News” travels by word of mouth, and information that one can depend on is got by personal inquiry from sources that can be trusted.

There is a curious wave of fear just now about what Labour may do, and the common gossip has it that there is grave danger in the situation.  I can find no basis for such a fear.  I have talked with labour leaders and I have talked with members of the government who know most about the subject.  There is not a satisfactory situation—­there has not been since the war began.  There has been a continuous series of labour “crises,” and there have been a good many embarrassing strikes, all of which have first been hushed up and settled—­at least postponed.  One cause of continuous trouble has been the notion held by the Unions, sometimes right and sometimes wrong, that the employers were making abnormal profits and that they were not getting their due share.  There have been and are also other causes of trouble.  It was a continuous quarrel even in peace times.  But I can find no especial cause of fear now.  Many of the Unions have had such advances of wages that the Government has been severely criticized for giving in.  Just lately a large wing of the Labour Party put forth its war aims which—­with relatively unimportant exceptions—­coincide with the best declarations made by the Government’s own spokesmen.

Of course, no prudent man would venture to make dogmatic predictions.  There have been times when for brief intervals any one would have been tempted to fear that these quarrels might cause an unsatisfactory conclusion of the war.  But the undoubted patriotism of the British workman