ighteous
end is won.

But the shadows are coming down on the great scene, and with the sound of
the guns still in our ears we speed back through the crowded roads to
G.H.Q., and these wonderful days are over. Now, all that remains for me is
to take you, far away from the armies, into the English homes whence the
men fighting here are drawn, and to show you, if I can, very shortly, by a
few instances, what rich and poor are doing as individuals to feed the
effort of England in this war. What of the _young_, of all classes and
opportunities, who have laid down their lives in this war? What of the
mothers who reared them, the schools and universities which sent them
forth?--the comrades who are making ready to carry on their work? You ask
me as to the _spirit_ of the nation--the foundation of all else. Let us
look into a few lives, a few typical lives and families, and see.

VI

_April 22nd_.

Dear H.

As I begin upon this final letter to you comes the news that the
threatened split in the British Cabinet owing to the proposed introduction
of general military service has been averted, and that at a Secret Session
to be held next Tuesday, April 25th, Ministers will, for the first time,
lay before both Houses of Parliament full and complete information--much
more full and complete at any rate, than has yet been given--of the
"effort" of Great Britain in this world war, what this country is doing in
sea-power, in the provision of Armies, in the lending of money to our
Allies, in our own shipping service to them, and in our supply to them of
munitions, coal, and other war material--including boots and clothing. If,
then, our own British Parliament will be for the first time fully apprised
next Tuesday of what the nation has been doing, it is, perhaps, small
wonder that you on your side of the Atlantic have not rightly understood
the performance of a nation which has, collectively, the same love of
"grousing" as the individual British soldier shows in the trenches.

Let me, however, go back and recapitulate a little.

In the first of these letters, I tried, by a rapid "vision" of the Fleet,
as I personally saw an important section of it amid the snows of February,
to point to the indispensable condition of this "effort," without which it
could never have been made, without which it could not be maintained for a
day, at the present moment. Since that visit of mine, the power of the
Fleet and the effect of the Fle