fice
mind, just as they were "outsiders" to the political clique, one began
to realise the complete unfitness of either government or War Office for
the conduct of so great a national effort as was now needed. These
people "up there" did not know anything of the broad mass of English
life at all, they did not know how or where things were made; when they
wanted things they just went to a shop somewhere and got them. This was
the necessary psychology of a small army under a clique government.
Nothing else was to be expected. But now--somehow--the nation had to
take hold of the government that it had neglected so long....

"You see," said Mr. Britling, repeating a phrase that was becoming more
and more essential to his thoughts, "this is _our_ war....

"Of course," said Mr. Britling, "these things are not going to be done
without a conflict. We aren't going to take hold of our country which we
have neglected so long without a lot of internal friction. But in
England we can make these readjustments without revolution. It is our
strength....

"At present England is confused--but it's a healthy confusion. It's
astir. We have more things to defeat than just Germany....

"These hosts of recruits--weary, uncared for, besieging the recruiting
stations. It's symbolical.... Our tremendous reserves of will and
manhood. Our almost incredible insufficiency of direction....

"Those people up there have no idea of the Will that surges up in
England. They are timid little manoeuvring people, afraid of property,
afraid of newspapers, afraid of trade-unions. They aren't leading us
against the Germans; they are just being shoved against the Germans by
necessity...."

From this Mr. Britling broke away into a fresh addition to his already
large collection of contrasts between England and Germany. Germany was a
nation which has been swallowed up and incorporated by an army and an
administration; the Prussian military system had assimilated to itself
the whole German life. It was a State in a state of repletion, a State
that had swallowed all its people. Britain was not a State. It was an
unincorporated people. The British army, the British War Office, and the
British administration had assimilated nothing; they were little old
partial things; the British nation lay outside them, beyond their
understanding and tradition; a formless new thing, but a great thing;
and now this British nation, this real nation, the "outsiders," had to
take