t, that the territorials could never be of any
use. That illusion has gone. Then it was Kitchener's army--well-meaning
people, no doubt, but impossible for a European war. Kitchener's army
made good. Now it is the civil population, who, though they are the
blood relatives of the soldiers, are distrusted, and believed to be
likely to fail under a strain. Yet all the time, if you want to hear
half-hearted, timid, pusillanimous talk, the place where you are most
likely to hear it is in the public offices. Most of those who talk in
this way would be brave enough in fight, but they are kept at desks, and
worried with detailed business, and harassed by speculative dangers, and
they lose perspective. Soon or late, we are going to win this War; and
it is the people who are going to win it.

If the press (or perhaps the Government, which controls the press) is
not afraid of the people, why does it tell them so little about our
reverses, and the merits of our enemies? For information concerning
these things we have to depend wholly on conversation with returned
soldiers. For instance, the horrible stories that we hear of the brutal
treatment of our prisoners are numerous, and are true, and make a heavy
bill against Germany, which bill we mean to present. But are they fair
examples of the average treatment? We cannot tell; the accounts
published are almost exclusively confined to the worst happenings. Most
of the officers with whom I have talked who had been in several German
military prisons said that they had nothing serious to complain of.
Prison is not a good place, and it is not pleasant to have your
pea-soup and your coffee, one after the other, in the same tin dipper;
but they were soldiers, and they agreed that it would be absurd to make
a grievance of things like that. One private soldier was an even greater
philosopher. 'No', he said, 'I have nothing to complain of. Of course,
they do spit at you a good deal.' That man was unconquerable.

In shipping returns and the like we are given averages; why are we told
nothing at all of the milder experiences of our soldier prisoners? It
would not make us less resolved to do all that we can to better the lot
of those who are suffering insult and torture, and to exact full
retribution from the enemy. And it would bring some hope to those whose
husbands or children or friends are in German military prisons, and who
are racked every day by tales of what, in fact, are exceptional
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